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It would be fair to say that a genre of games that isn’t in the spotlight often is the humble tower defense. In a world of AAA shooters and expansive open-world options, they are easy to overlook as they lack that hook that grips you. This is about to change, however, as Krafton is reinventing the category with Defense Derby.

Don’t just throw money at the problem

One of the most integral features of Defense Derby is the betting system, which you will encounter in the eponymous Derby Mode. Four players will be quasi-battling against each other to see whose tower can be the last one standing. So, how do you defend a castle? With troops, lots of them, but these fickle fighters only go to those who win at auction.

Barring your hero, two initial fighters, and one after each boss wave who will join you from your deck, your ranks will only swell through some good old betting. After each round, one unit will be drawn from a player's deck, and everyone will need to put up Derby Chips to try and buy them. The highest wins as you would imagine. Sounds simple, but this generates some of the most intense mental battles.

Just before Christmas, Odyssey Interactive brough their fast and fun 3v3 knockout striker title, Omega Strikers, to mobile in the form of an open beta. The game had previously been available to play in beta on Steam since September, but when the game was announced the developers were very clear about their intent to bring the game to smaller screens.

I had been previously dabbling with Omega Strikers on PC, but only truly dove in head-first once I could get my hands on it in mobile form. Since release, I've poured a ton of time into it and can shed some insight on future plans for the game in addition to some tips to help you get started if you want to pick it up yourself and try it out.

Diablo Immortal only came out a little over a month ago, but it's not the only splashy action rpg making big promises on mobile. Torchlight is a series that has always been an interesting offshoot of Diablo in that it was originally co-designed by the same people who worked on the first two Diablo games, and now it seems to be making its way to smaller screens courtesy of XD Network in the form of Torchlight: Infinite.

I finally got some advance access to the game in its current, early stages and have to say I'm pretty impressed with what I've seen so far. You can check out almost an hour of gameplay in the video above and read on below for some more detailed analysis.

The announcement that Dungeon of the Endless is making a return to the App Store via Playdigious as Dungeon of the Endless: Apogee is probably the most exciting mobile news to come out this month. Why? Because Dungeon of the Endless rules, it's perfect for mobile, and it's a shame that it ever got removed from the App Store to begin with.

Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic II just released on the App Store, and it's not exactly pretty. To be fair, this is over 15 years old, so bringing it to mobile likely has its challenges. That said, the second installment in the Knights of the Old Republic series comes to iOS with a janky control scheme and some bugs that disrupt combat.

Check out the video above where I get through the first real challenge of the game: fighting the mining droids on Peragus. In it, you'll see some struggles with movement, collision issues with combat maneuvering, and even a strange bug that locks your character in place after combat.

From there, you can pass over shelling out $9.99 for this game and pick something else up. This is not the port you're looking for.

Feral Interactive has been bringing a lot of PC games over to iOS over the years, and their latest port job is of Relic Entertainment’s Company of Heroes. The game is slated to release on later this week, but you can take a look at the game in action right here ahead of launch day.

Marvel Super War is the latest MOBA from Netease, but it’s not something you can just go and download on the App Store now. The game is in a closed beta, meaning you have to download it from a special link here and the developers are still ironing out some kinks before officially releasing the game to mobile players everywhere.

I’ve spent a decent amount of time with Marvel Super War over the past week, and I let me say, it’s not half bad. This is to say that it’s really neat to play as heroes and villains like Thor and Magneto, but this game feels a little too... familiar.

I have a hat that makes me look quite a lot like a bear. This is pleasing to me. I also run around waving my axe about like I've gone a little bit bonkers. This is also pleasing. In fact, there's a lot of things about the soft-launched version of The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot that are going to please people, as you're going to find out in this preview.

It's a little more interactive than your usual midcore dungeon crawler, but it still manages to be wonderfully accessible. And then there are the little touches that set the game apart, and the polish and care that's clearly been lavished on the game. TLDR: this one's looking awesome.

Asphalt 9: Legends is stupid. But I don't want you to think that's a bad thing, because it's really, really not. This is the polar opposite of a hardcore racing sim, and it wears its arcade heart on its ridiculously pimped-up sleeve. Oh, and it looks amazing as well.

The game is currently out in soft launch in the Philippines, so we thought we should grab some time with it before its worldwide release to give you some idea of what to expect when the game lands in the coming month. And most of what we've seen has left us far from disappointed.

You sort of know exactly what DC Unchained is going to be from a glance at the App Store icon. It'll either be a squad-focused, turn-based RPG, or an all-but-on-rails ARPG. It's the latter, by the way, and it features a whole host of DC superheroes and villains who are battling to try and save the world.

But there's more going on here than in your average mobile ARPG, especially if you're a massive DC comics fan. And even if you're not, this soft launch build shows that there's promise in the meaty fighting and epic upgrading that the game has to offer.

Last month, Platinum Games, the developers behind celebrated games like Nier: Automata, Bayonetta, and Vanquish announced they were going to make a mobile game called World of Demons. While the trailer didn't show a whole lot of gameplay, it seemed to promise some super stylish character action-style gameplay.

In the time since the game's been announced, World of Demons actually entered soft launch in select regions, which has allowed us to get some hands-on impressions of the game. If you want to know what the game is like, check out the video above for some unedited early gameplay, and look below some key take-aways:

In just over a week, Epic Games has made a flurry of announcements. First, they revealed that Fortnite—their ultra-popular PUBG competitor—is coming to mobile. This was followed by brief sign-up period for interested beta testers before sending out their first round of invites yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, we were able to get our hands on one of these early invites, so we can clear the air on exactly what Fortnite on mobile is like.

Due for release on October 22, Dead Effect 2 is a first person shooter that’s clearly been influenced by the likes of BioShock and System Shock 2. Somewhat predictably for anyone who’s spent some time with those games, that means that Dead Effect 2 is at its strongest when it’s taxing your brain rather than your reactions.

It’s clearly still a work in progress, given that thetutorial is littered with references pertaining to keyboard controls, but it’s still looking rather delightful. As you’d expect with any sci-fi horror game, Dead Effect 2 is pretty dark and moody as you navigate your way around a spaceship full of puzzles to complete and zombies to annihilate.

A virtual joypad dictates your direction while the right hand side of the screen is littered with buttons for your weaponry, as well as interacting with objects. That’s one of the main issues for Dead Effect 2: on the iPhone 5’s screen, it can be too easy to tap on the wrong button, activating the wrong ability at the worst time. By default, auto-fire is switched on, meaning you can just hover the reticule over an enemy to shoot at it, but that ends up feeling a little weightless.

This becomes an issue when up against numerous zombies at once, meaning you feel like you’re fighting against the controls as much as the enemies. That’s in harsh juxtaposition to the slow but measured approach taken to figuring things out while away from combat. During those moments you’re expected to crack codes and use a bit of lateral thinking, which is immensely more satisfying and much easier to deal with on a smaller phone screen.

There’s time yet to see how this manifests in the full release and whether compensations are made for those with small screens and large fingers. In its current form, Dead Effect 2 is shaping up to be an appealing - but flawed- game.

Invoking the memories of classic LucasArts and Sierra games, I’ve got a good feeling about the once PC-only adventure game,Deponia. It’s not out until next month so it’s early days in terms of my time with it, but it offers an appealing return to adventures of old; warts and all.

Set for release soon, Rebellion’s motorbike racing game, Raceline CC certainly looks stylish. But how does it play? I got my hands on a preview build to answer exactly that.

More like a drag racer than a conventional racing game, Raceline CC is going to be quite familiar to some. You play your way through various races, using up fuel before eventually having to wait for it to regenerate. Where Raceline CC grabs you a bit more noticeably is with its sense of speed.

Each race only takes around 30 seconds to complete. A quick and steady tap on the revs counter, and the rest is a matter of dodging around traffic. The key to reaching high speeds is to draft behind vehicles. There’s a visual indicator telling you when is best to pull around them, and there’s a real sense of satisfaction when you repeatedly dodge around cars. Do it just right and the race can be constantly frantic but ultimately very fast. Do it wrong, and you get stuck behind a vehicle and all the rhythm immediately vanishes.

One thing that stood out as a little different from the norm is a grid-based challenge, whereby you partake in a series of challenges for an ultimately good prize at the end. It at least feels more organized than some races.

It could turn tedious, though. All the areas I’ve seen so far look very similar, with the level of competition being the only thing really that distinguishes stages. There’s a plentiful supply of races to compete in with the usual bevy of daily challenges in there too, plus plenty of upgrades to pursue, but time will tell how enticing that will be after extended play.

We’ll be sure to let you know more about it when Raceline CC released on the App Store, later this summer.