Note that we omitted Windows 8 tablets with Intel Atom processors in this comparison; although the Atom is fine for email and chatting on the go, it’s not suitable for anyone looking at Windows 8 tablets as their new primary computers. Customer ratings are out of 5.0 points. In the specs for each Windows 8 hybrid or tablet, we’ve highlighted noteworthy positives in green and negatives in red.

Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13

Among the best Windows 8 hybrids, the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 is a standout because its price is about $100 lower than competing machines with similar specs. This could, however, have something to do with the fact that the Yoga 13 is heavier and has a lower display resolution than most Windows 8 tablets currently available. Unlike most of the products on this list, the screen of the Yoga 13 doesn’t support 1080p video. If you’re hard on your computers, you should be pleased with the Yoga 13′s display hinge; it’s a standard reinforced laptop hinge that allows the screen to swing all the back  until it’s flush with the bottom of the computer — no complicated twisting or sliding mechanisms to worry about breaking.

Lenovo ThinkPad Twist

Although the Lenovo ThinkPad Twist is the least expensive Windows 8 tablet on this list, it must be said that it’s the only one with an Intel Core i3 as its entry-level processor. If you’re using an older Core 2 Duo machine, though, you’ll find that the Core i3 is a comparative screamer. Thanks to the Core i3, the ThinkPad Twist is a budget tablet that doesn’t run like one. Like the IdeaPad Yoga 13, though, the ThinkPad Twist suffers from its relatively heavy weight and low screen resolution. Customers have praised the keyboard for its solid feel and commented that the twisting hinge seems unlikely to wear down quickly with regular use.

Acer Iconia W700P

The Acer Iconia W700P is incredibly small and light while boasting the best stated battery life of any Windows 8 tablet in this comparison. However, like Microsoft’s Surface Pro, it lacks any form of laptop configuration and requires a desk for typing. To do serious work with the Iconia W700P, you’ll need to connect it to the included dock — which adds some additional USB ports — and use the included Bluetooth keyboard. If you’re comfortable using a tablet that doesn’t have a laptop configuration, the Iconia W700P may be a good choice. Sadly, however, this one isn’t available with a Core i7 processor.

Dell XPS 12

The Dell XPS 12 is the only product on this list with a flipping screen. This allows you to open it as you would a standard notebook, turn the screen completely around and close it again to use the computer in a tablet configuration. It’s also the only computer on this list with an eSATA port, which might be important if you use high-speed external storage devices. At well over three pounds, though, you might find it difficult to use in a tablet configuration for any length of time. In addition, the built-in 1.3 MP webcam is a few years out of date.

Microsoft Surface Pro

The Surface Pro is an incredibly important product for Microsoft, as it’s both the company’s first computer and its statement about the continued viability of the Windows operating system on future generations of touch-enabled devices. It was a bit of a rocky start for Microsoft, with early customers noting that the smaller 64 GB model came almost completely filled with bundled software and that the Surface Pro only comes close to achieving the stated 4 hours of battery life under very ideal conditions. Nevertheless, the Surface Pro has some of the highest customer satisfaction ratings of any Windows 8 tablet on the market — the high build quality and sensitive screen have been particularly praised. The Surface Pro has a kickstand and keyboard for use on a desktop. It does not have a laptop configuration.

Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T

Weighing less than two pounds and measuring under half an inch thick, the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T is among the smallest and most portable Windows 8 tablets in this comparison. Note that the weights and measurements of all Windows 8 hybrids are taken with their keyboards detached; it will be slightly thicker and heavier in clamshell mode. While the 700T isn’t available with anything faster than a Core i5 processor, its flexibility and slick design make it a winner for anyone looking for a Windows 8 hybrid that can be used as either a tablet or an Ultrabook.

ASUS TAICHI 21

The ASUS TAICHI 21 is a unique Windows 8 hybrid in a very new product category, having two screens. Open the clamshell and use the TAICHI 21 in Ultrabook mode, or close the clamshell and use the external screen as a Windows 8 tablet. You can even have the second display mirror the primary display or allow someone sitting opposite you to work on his or her own activities while you use the primary display. Using both displays simultaneously does tend to cut the battery life a bit, but we believe the TAICHI 21 can fill some rather interesting roles that no other computer would be quite appropriate for.

Razer Edge Pro

If you’ll only consider a Windows 8 tablet with the ability to play top-quality games on the go, the Razer Edge Pro is your only real choice. It’s the only product in this comparison with discrete graphics, allowing you to play popular games such as Civilization V, Diablo III and Starcraft II at acceptable framerates. However, this comes with some significant tradeoffs; although you can game on the go, you can expect less than two hours of battery life while gaming with the Razer Edge Pro. So, the only way to get significant playing time is to plug the tablet into an outlet. In addition, the Razer Edge Pro has no laptop mode; you’ll need to connect it to a dock and use a Bluetooth keyboard for typing.

Sony VAIO Duo 11

Although the specs of the Sony VAIO Duo 11 are top notch, you’ll pay for that power; the VAIO Duo 11 costs about $100 more than competing Windows 8 tablets with similar configurations. Like the Microsoft Surface Pro, however, the VAIO Duo 11 has some of the highest customer satisfaction ratings in this product category. In particular, owners praise its relative lack of bloatware, crisp performance and responsive screen.

Upcoming Products

The products in this section show great promise and appear likely to be some of the best Windows 8 tablets of 2013. However, at the time of writing they are not yet available to purchase. We will update this article when more information is available.

Lenovo ThinkPad Helix

The Lenovo ThinkPad Helix is in very limited availability at the time of writing, although Mobile Advance has a few in stock for $1,739 each. This price gets you a unit with an Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB RAM and a 180 GB SSD. The Helix is a Windows 8 tablet hybrid with a detachable keyboard/trackpad dock. With its starting price of $1,700, it’s difficult to tell what makes the Lenovo Helix so expensive; maybe it’s the famous ThinkPad-style keyboard or the sturdy Gorilla Glass screen. When connected to the keyboard/trackpad, the Helix should get up to ten hours of battery life. In addition, since the screen is reversible you can still take advantage of the extended battery while using the Helix in tablet mode. However, we believe the ASUS Transformer Book TX300 (below) might present a better value.

ASUS Transformer Book TX300

The ASUS Transformer book is one of the devices we’re awaiting most anxiously. We’re told it’s currently available in Japan, but it remains unknown whether it will be released in the United States. In addition to the 5 MP camera and numerous connectivity options, the ASUS Transformer book sports an extended battery and an extra conventional hard drive in the detachable keyboard/trackpad dock. Use it like an Ultrabook for a combined 628 GB of storage and nine hours of battery life, or carry the tablet alone and enjoy using a real Windows 8 computer that’s less than half an inch thick and weighs about two pounds. We’re also huge fans of the ASUS Transformer Book’s MacBook Air-like appearance. If it’s released Stateside, expect the starting price to be about $1,500.

Price: $3.99

Genre: Board Game

Publisher: Playdek

Board game fans with iPads and iPhones have greatly enjoyed the recent push to get some of the most popular board games ported to the iOS platform. Thanks to companies such as Playdek, iOS gamers can now play such famous titles as Fluxx, Forbidden Island and Ticket to Ride. Food Fight is our latest iPad gaming obsession; it plays quickly enough that it’s the perfect choice when you only have 20-30 minutes to spare, but it also has an addictive “just one more round” quality that also makes it great for all-night gaming.

Food Fight iOS Gameplay

Food Fight is a relatively simple card game with a drafting mechanic that will be familiar to many tabletop gamers. The game’s setting is a meal — breakfast, lunch or dinner — and up to four players compete to see whose dishes are the yummiest. Each player peruses a selection of cards, takes one and passes the rest to the next player. The first card you take is the only one the other players won’t know about, so you have to make it count; to be successful in Food Fight, you’ll need to draft as good a “secret” card as possible while rounding out your deck with cards that interact well with each other and remembering the cards that other players choose.

After the draft ends, each player selects the meal in which he or she will compete. The winner of the meal receives the number of victory points in the corner of the meal’s “Battlefield Card,” and the first player with ten victory points wins Food Fight. Meal selection is one of the most important strategic aspects of Food Fight. There are a few cards that have very high yumminess scores, but only during specific meals. In addition, if players select different meals, each plays against “The Dog” — a small deck of numbered cards. The Dog is usually easier to beat than a human player. However, some Instants and one food card — Bacon — are useless against it. Plus, if all players beat The Dog, all receive victory points. So, the only way to prevent a human player from winning Food Fight is to play against him or her.

If players select the same meal, the cards in their armies are shuffled and compared against each other, one at a time. The card with the higher yumminess score wins a breath mint, and the player with the most breath mints at the end of the meal wins the round. The trick is the order in which the cards are drawn; many cards give bonuses to subsequent cards, giving you some very high yumminess scores if your cards come out in the right order. Unless you’re lucky enough to draft a certain Instant, though, you won’t know how things are going to go until the meal plays out.

Food Fight Instants

Part of the genius of Food Fight’s design is the inclusion of “Instant” cards; these cards can be played at any time and have various effects such as increasing the yumminess of a dish or allowing you to add the next troop in your army to the current serving. Some of these cards are powerful enough that they have a significant chance of altering the outcome of a meal. The “Punchy” card, for example, allows you to discard six of the cards that you selected during the draft and draw ten random cards from the main deck. This allows you to play with more cards than you’d ordinarily receive in a draft, giving you an excellent chance of victory. However, the random nature of the card means it doesn’t always work in your favor. This means that you’ll get to enjoy the excitement when you manage to draft a rare card, but none of the best Instants are powerful enough to unbalance the game entirely.

Food Fight Drafting Bug

Unfortunately, Food Fight does suffer from one rather serious bug. The app has the ability to save a game and resume it later in the event of an interruption, but if you switch apps or bump the Home button during a draft, you’ll find yourself unable to complete the draft when you resume the game — none of the cards will highlight as being selectable. Your only choice at this point is to quit the game and start a new one. We hope that Playdek will correct this issue in the future. We’d also love to see an iOS version of Snack Attack, the expansion for the physical card game.

Food Fight iOS: The Bottom Line

Food Fight has a heavy dose of randomness that some tabletop gamers will dislike. The cards that you select from when drafting, the order in which your dishes are played, the effects of the most powerful Instants and the scores you’ll need to beat when playing against The Dog are all random. This means that sometimes, sound strategies won’t work. However, this can also contribute to the game’s fun factor because you never know exactly how a game will play out and every card can be useful given the right circumstances. Playing an opponent in person using the Pass and Play feature is also a joy, as Food Fight is full of opportunities for smack talk and attempts to mislead your opponent. At $3.99, Food Fight is a great value and a must-have for anyone who enjoys fast-moving card games that are quick to learn and can never truly be mastered.

Price: $4.99

Genre: Racing

Publisher: Electronic Arts

If you don’t want to buy a specialized controller, the iPad is arguably the ideal device on which to play racing games thanks to its ability to sense motion. Since you can rotate the iPad to simulate the action of a steering wheel, your interaction with the game feels much more direct and immediate than it would with a standard analog stick. However, the iPad’s lack of buttons can be a detriment; a true racing simulation would allow you to accelerate, brake and shift, but there’s a limit to how much interaction is possible when you’re using the iPad to steer. As a result, iPad racing games tend to be arcade affairs with limited control over the action.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted is no different; acceleration and shifting are automatic, so you’ll never get the feeling that you’re taking part in a real race. In addition, you might be a bit disappointed if you played the original Most Wanted on a computer or console back in 2005, as the iOS conversion lacks the original’s large world and ability to roam freely. Nevertheless, Need for Speed: Most Wanted is an action-packed racing game with better graphics and a better feeling of speed than its top competitor, Real Racing 2.

The game essentially follows the formula established by the Gran Turismo series; a map essentially serves as a placeholder for a list of races, most of which require specific types of cars that you can purchase with the winnings from previous races. Since there’s no story or need to travel from one race to the next, it’s simply a case of race, buy, repeat.

The tilt-based steering in Need for Speed: Most Wanted is incredibly responsive. If you don’t want to tilt, touch-based steering is also available. While driving, tapping the screen with the left thumb brakes and holding the right thumb while steering causes the car to drift, which recharges your car’s supply of nitrous more quickly. Swiping up with the right thumb activates the nitrous, giving your car a temporary speed boost. Quite frequently during the review process, we activated the nitrous when we had intended to drift into a turn. Races are rather easy to win, however, so this was seldom a serious issue.

While the iOS version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted may lack a story, exploration or a realistic driving simulation, it has so much style that you may not care. The graphics are among the best we’ve seen in any iOS title and the animation remains fluid at all times on our third-generation iPad. If you’re looking for an approachable iOS racing game with a great feeling of speed and not too much challenge, this may be the one for you.

Price: $.99

Genre: Board Game

Publisher: HYLMES

It’s likely that most gamers enjoy the idea of slaying monsters and collecting loot — at least in theory. Many stop short of playing tabletop role-playing games to get this experience, though. Maybe they don’t like playing a game with rules that someone can change at will, or maybe they don’t want to go through the lengthy character creation process. Or, maybe RPGs are just too geeky. For those people, many publishers have attempted to create hybrids that attempt to combine the excitement of RPGs with the more rigid and faster-playing nature of board games. An iOS device is the ideal platform for such a game because it allows the developer to forgo the board entirely and present the game in a manner more like that of a traditional console RPG.

Unfortunately, Hroogar With Friends ultimately fails to achieve the ideal balance between the strengths of RPGs and traditional board games. Although it begins with great promise, you’ll soon learn that the game lacks variety and continues to drag on far past the point where your interest has begun to wane. While you’ll likely find it fun at first, the extreme length will make it difficult for you to finish even a single game without getting bored and quitting.

The premise of Hroogar With Friends is simple; the first player to defeat the Red Dragon or satisfy an alternate winning condition — such as rescuing and romancing a princess — is the victor. Before you can win, however, you’ll need to progress through the “story,” which unfolds in nine chapters. Each chapter has nine story sections, so you’ll need to get 81 story sections in all before you can complete Hroogar.

Hroogar With Friends has no actual story; instead, the “story sections” simply serve as markers that track your progress through the game. You can get a story section by completing a quest, which requires you to accomplish a task such as collecting an item or defeating several of a certain type of monster. A few quests allow you to advance a full chapter instantly, but collecting all 81 story sections will still take five hours or more in a two-player game as you can only move a few spaces and fight one monster per turn. During this time, Hroogar’s single piece of music will begin to grate on your nerves and the map will feel increasingly small.

Because Hroogar is such a long game and a player can only win after collecting every section of every chapter, there’s every possibility that with several chapters remaining, one player will get so far ahead that the other has little chance of catching up. At this point, the player who is behind will lose all desire to continue playing. Although you can slow a player down by defeating him in battle, a player who is ahead most likely has better equipment and stats, making this a difficult proposition.

Ultimately, Hroogar With Friends is a monotonous grind. It’s far too long to play in a single sitting, and there’s little incentive to play a full game because you’ve seen and heard everything it has to offer after just a chapter or two. If you do complete the game, the “ending” is nothing but a one-page summary of your stats before you’re booted back to the main menu. With some shortening and additional content, it might be worth considering. In its current state, however, Hroogar With Friends is extremely difficult to recommend even for 99 cents.

Price: $4.99

Genre: Board Game

Publisher: Button Mash Games

To find any two-player cooperative board game on the iPad is rare, and it’s a real treat when such a game manages to be compelling and challenging for casual gamers as well as experienced board game fans. Forbidden Island is a co-op iPad board game that has both of these qualities. Although it’s priced a bit higher than some board games on the App Store, Forbidden Island has so much going for it that it’s easy to recommend to almost any iPad owner who enjoys tabletop gaming.

Forbidden Island is a digital conversion of an award-winning 2010 board game. The rules are simple enough that children can easily understand them, and adults will find the game equally enjoyable when the difficulty level is ramped up.

Forbidden Island iPad Review

The premise of Forbidden Island on the iPad is simple; you and at least one partner are treasure hunters, and your goal is to pilfer four fabulous artifacts from an island that’s slowly sinking under your feet. The longer you take to find the treasures, the more quickly the island sinks until you — and the treasures — are lost beneath the waves.

At the end of each turn, you’ll collect two treasure cards. You can claim a treasure when you have four of the cards associated with it, but you can hold a maximum of just five cards. This means that you’ll need to discard wisely or hand cards off to your partner. However, you can’t concentrate solely on collecting treasures; each turn, some of the island’s tiles will flood. If a tile floods and is drawn from the flood deck again, it sinks permanently.

To prevent a tile from disappearing, you have the ability to use any number of your three action points per turn to “shore up” flooded tiles. Shoring up a tile returns it to its normal state until it is drawn from the flood deck again — but this is only a temporary fix. Hidden within the treasure deck are three “Waters Rise” cards. When one of these cards is drawn, more tiles are flooded at the end of each turn. In addition, the flood cards previously drawn are shuffled and returned to the top of the deck, which means they’ll be flooded again soon. At higher difficulty levels, Forbidden Island begins with the water level set to a higher number, forcing your team to act more quickly.

You can perform just three actions per turn in Forbidden Island; possible actions include giving a treasure card to a partner, moving to a new tile, shoring up a tile and collecting a treasure. You’ll constantly be forced to make difficult decisions. However, there are a few tricks that can help turn the tide in your favor. In addition to the treasure and Waters Rise cards, the treasure deck holds a few helicopter and sandbag cards. These allow you to move or shore up tiles without using action points. In addition, each player has one special ability depending on the role he or she selects before the game begins; the Pilot, for example, can move any number of tiles for one action point once per turn. The Engineer can use one action point to shore up two tiles. These roles add greatly to Forbidden Island’s variety and replay value.

Forbidden Island iPad: The Bottom Line

Forbidden Island is a perfect digital adaptation of a challenging and highly entertaining board game. During the review process, we found that the game responded crisply to taps and gestures and did not slow down or crash. You can read the rules quickly and be up and running within minutes, and games take no longer than about a half hour. The game also comes with an alternate map, and a set of additional maps is available via a $.99 in-app purchase. With all of its challenge and variety, Forbidden Island is certain to keep you coming back often, making it a great value even at the $4.99 price point.

Price: $3.99

Genre: Puzzle

Publisher: Brick Singularity

With the recent success of the iPad puzzler The Room — recently named the iOS Game of the Year by Apple — it was inevitable that clones would begin to pop up. It certainly didn’t take long; The Icarus Box is a puzzle game like The Room in which your goal is to unlock the secrets of an intricate box with 95 devious puzzles. The puzzles include no hints or instructions and may respond to any of the different input types the iPad can detect including touch, motion and more.

If this premise sounds intriguing to you, you certainly aren’t alone; it closely follows that of The Room, an iPad puzzle game that was downloaded and enjoyed by millions this year. However, The Icarus Box takes place on a smaller scale. The iPad’s screen essentially becomes the top of the puzzle box. Sliding a panel reveals a puzzle that is either random or part of a series. Most puzzles consist of simple objects such as buttons or touch panels; solving a puzzle allows you to advance, while failing sounds a buzzer and boots you back to the box’s top panel.

The puzzle above is a typical example of what you’ll find in The Icarus Box; the two buttons at the bottom of the screen move the brass rings from the left to the right. Your goal is to have both rings reach the ends of their tracks at the same time, but they move at different speeds. However, other puzzles are far more devious, requiring you to change the iPad’s orientation, interact with unfamiliar items or wait for conditions to change.

As you advance, you’ll occasionally see letters from one character to another that explain part of the back story in The Icarus Box. The story is largely irrelevant, but these screens sometimes present clues for future puzzles. You’ll also hear the occasional creepy sound effect or see short video clips designed to make you jump out of your chair if you’re playing in a dark room with headphones as the game recommends. Unfortunately, these additions attempt to make The Icarus Box feel creepy in a rather artificial way compared to The Room, which felt genuinely suspenseful without trying to scare the player at all.

Weighing in at nearly 1 GB, The Icarus Box feels somewhat amateurish compared to the game it attempts to emulate. With its simple two-dimensional graphics, it’s difficult to tell what’s consuming so much space. However, the size of the game clearly affects its load times and time can drag while you wait for puzzles to load.

Overall, although The Icarus Box has some intriguing puzzles and will definitely be of interest to fans of The Room waiting impatiently for a sequel, the game has a serious design flaw that will limit enjoyment for many. A puzzle game without instructions is largely a matter of trial and error. When faced with a panel consisting of a large white touch pad, for example, you might experiment by tapping the pad with one finger followed by two. You might then try drawing symbols and lines. Eventually, you’ll get some feedback that will clue you in to the solution. In The Icarus Box, however, feedback is often nonexistent; making a wrong move simply boots you out of the puzzle and forces you to endure yet another long loading screen.

To make matters worse, the buzzer that sounds when you fail a puzzle is much louder than the rest of the game’s audio — and some of the puzzles in The Icarus Box are impossible to solve if you turn the volume on your iPad down.

Future revisions of The Icarus Box may make it a game that’s truly worth recommending. However, the frequent punishments you’ll have to endure when you fail puzzles strip the game of its potential fun and make it a tedious exercise in frustration.

Price: $2.99

Genre: Card

Publisher: Playdek

Every few years in the tabletop gaming world, a product is released that becomes so successful that it seems to transcend the usual boundaries of geekiness that separate gamers and non-gamers. Magic: The Gathering did it in the 1990s, the Catan series spent plenty of time in the spotlight in the 2000s, and Fluxx seems to be shaping up as the game of the 2010s. Although the gameplay in Fluxx is extremely simple, the ever-changing rules make it difficult to achieve victory except by luck and encourage plenty of good-natured griefing.

If you’ve looked online for Fluxx reviews, you may have seen descriptions essentially stating that Fluxx is a completely different game every time you play. On the first turn, you draw one card and play one. From there, you simply do what the cards say — and you never know what is going to happen. From these reviews, you might get the impression that Fluxx is a wildly random and varied game unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. In fact, many Fluxx reviews seem to exaggerate the ever-changing nature of the game, which may initially cause disappointment when you play it.

In fact, while the peripheral rules are constantly changing, the goal in Fluxx is always the same; to win, you need to collect a pair of two cards called “Keepers.” The Keepers are various items from everyday life, such as pizza, bread and a television. The two Keepers needed to win the game are specified on a card called the “Goal,” which any player can change during his turn. Since there is only one of each Keeper — with the exception of the “Friend” card, of which there are two — having a pair of Keepers while their matching goal is on the table can sometimes take a while.

In the meantime, you’ll be using Fluxx’s “Action” and “New Rule” cards to alter the environment in ways that help you as much as possible while hindering your opponent. Some cards allow you to steal your opponent’s hand or Keepers, while others allow both players to draw or play more cards per turn. Some cards limit the size of players’ hands and others reduce the number of Keepers that can be in play.

It’s not uncommon to start each turn with a vastly different Goal and set of rules than were in play the previous turn, which gives Fluxx an enormous sense of variety. In one game, both players will have a glut of cards and it’ll be a quest to slow the other player down as much as possible while you try to get the Keepers needed to win. In the next game, a Keeper limit will be in place and you’ll have to decide which cards to send to the discard pile each turn. Although it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that Fluxx is a completely different game each time you play, the random and fast-playing nature of Fluxx gives it an addictive quality that’ll keep you coming back.

Fluxx supports up to four human and/or AI players and has online and offline play modes.

Price: $.99

Genre: Strategy

Publisher: Ndemic Creations

Since the portrayal of the fictional game “Global Thermonuclear War” in the film Wargames — and perhaps even longer than that — gamers everywhere have been fascinated by the virtual destruction of the human race. However, we would be hard-pressed to think of another game with as many options for doing so as Plague Inc. In the game, your goal is to infect and kill every member of the human race using a pathogen of your choice such as a bacteria, virus, fungus or parasite. Along the way, humans will band together and attempt to stop the plague by closing land, sea and air borders, exterminating animals, placing the infected into quarantine and researching the cure.

Plague Inc. plays like a basic real time strategy game. Infecting and killing people gives you “DNA points,” which you can spend on upgrades for your disease such as new transmission vectors, more lethal symptoms and roadblocks that delay discovery of the cure. Your disease may also occasionally mutate on its own, causing it to present more symptoms without DNA points being spent.

In general, you stand the best chance of winning Plague Inc. if you can manage to infect the majority of the world’s population without the disease being discovered. This becomes more difficult as the disease begins to mutate, but you can slow the process down by removing certain symptoms if desired. Once you have infected the entire human race, you can concentrate on making your disease more lethal while hampering research efforts. The trick is deciding how best to spend your DNA points because you won’t get enough to purchase every upgrade.

Plague Inc. includes a myriad of disease types. In addition to the ones mentioned above, you can also destroy the world with a prion, nano-virus, bio-weapon. Super-diseases are also available if you’re willing to spend additional money on in-app purchases or manage to beat the game with every basic disease type at the hardest difficulty level. Ndemic has continued to make improvements to the game and plans to add a zombie apocalypse in the near future.

Although the game plays basically the same regardless of the disease type you select, there are slight differences that will force you to make changes to your strategy. The fungus lacks the ability to travel long distances, requiring you to spend DNA points to infect new countries. The parasite can become symbiotic with its host, making it extremely difficult to detect. The nano-virus is quite powerful, but the game begins with the human race already aware of its existence and researching the cure.

While Plague Inc. may be a simple, inexpensive game, it has an exceptional level of polish and enough variety to keep you coming back until you’ve unlocked everything. There’s also something incredibly satisfying about watching the map of the world slowly turn red as you infect one nation after another. Millions of people have already had a go at infecting the world with Plague Inc., and it’s a game that definitely deserves a place on your iOS device as well.

Price: $1.99 (Normally $3.99)

Genre: Adventure/Puzzle

Publisher: Fireproof Games

The 1993 game Myst was a major step forward for the adventure game genre. Before Myst, first-person adventure games were largely static affairs; you’d be presented with a scene and would need to either type a command or click an object to progress. Myst introduced puzzles that the gamer could interact with directly and solve through physical manipulation rather than by combining inventory items. It was a major hit and spawned a multitude of clones.

The Future of Adventure Games

Unfortunately, the adventure genre has advanced little since Myst. By the end of the ’90s, adventure gamers had grown tired of Myst clones and the third-person style of adventure gaming popularized by Sierra and LucasArts suffered from a similar lack of originality. Although there were several moderately successful attempts to resurrect the adventure genre in the 2000s — Capcom’s Phoenix Wright being one example — none were able to bring modern technology into the equation and create something completely different from what had come before.

None, that is, until the Fireproof Games debut release, The Room. Although The Room may be achingly short and will certainly leave you wishing there were a few more puzzles to solve, the few hours you spend with it will be some of the most entertaining you’ve ever had on the iPad. The Room represents the next great leap forward in adventure game design, and if Fireproof Games takes this idea and really runs with it, the result will set a new high water mark for the entire mobile game industry.

The Room iPad Gameplay

As The Room begins, the short tutorial makes it clear that this is a game that uses 3-D graphics and touch controls as no other game has before. You find yourself in a room with nothing but a table and a few objects. The Room quickly introduces all of the controls you’ll need for exploration and puzzle solving; touch and drag to move the room or interact with objects, double-tap to focus on an object and pinch to zoom out. Then, you’re off and running. Apparently, you’re on the trail of a scientist who made an incredible discovery and then disappeared, leaving clues hidden inside elaborate puzzle tables and boxes.

The Room consists of four chapters in all. Although you’ll certainly be left wishing for more after you finish the game, the four chapters are quite substantial and will take around 4-5 hours to complete. If you get stuck, a built-in hint system is available to gently nudge you in the right direction. The puzzles are difficult enough that you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment when you advance, but not so difficult that you’ll ever truly get stuck. The solutions never feel overly obscure or contrived. To say more would spoil the experience, but suffice it to say that adventure games have never before used 3-D cameras and direct input to such great effect.

What’s Next for Fireproof Games?

The Room definitely isn’t a game that overstays its welcome. At the game’s current price of $1.99 — apparently reduced by half for Halloween — you’ll finish the game feeling you got your money’s worth but wishing there could have been more. The game’s ending makes it clear that you have only scratched the surface of The Room and that many more rooms will follow.

For future chapters of The Room, though, Fireproof Games will have a bit of a challenge. People who enjoyed the first game will be looking for a sequel with a lot more content, but future puzzles will have to be sufficiently different that people won’t be able to simply breeze through them once they have a feel for the game. The Room is an incredible game on its own, and it’s one that we feel virtually every iPad owner would love. However, it could also mark the beginning of a new and exciting style of game design in which the player feels more than ever like an active participant in the experience. If Fireproof Games manages to follow The Room up with a full-length sequel that keeps the challenge level high without compromising on variety, the result could easily be the best iPad game released to date.

Price: $.99

Genre: RPG/Action

Publisher: Ayopa Games

When Ayopa Games announced the imminent availability of its new app Arranger this week, there seemed to be cause for excitement; the chiptune music, pixelated graphics and WarioWare-esque mini-games seemed right up the alley of any retro game aficionado. When we actually purchased Arranger, though, it was quite a different story. Although the retro graphics and catchy synthesized music are certainly strong selling points for this 99 cent game, Arranger ultimately suffers from serious gameplay flaws and mini-games that aren’t actually fun to play.

Arranger iPhone Game

At its core, Arranger plays like an RPG. Your character walks around a zany pixelated world obtaining items and delivering them to various characters in exchange for musical instruments and other items. To collect items, you’ll need to complete mini-games involving tasks ranging from flicking vegetable peels into a bucket to shooting burgers into the mouths of hungry restaurant customers.

Ultimately, your goal in Arranger’s fetch quests is to collect musical instruments, which you’ll use for an action sequence that’s essentially a musical space shooter. Before the sequence begins, you select three instruments that “shoot” in time with a song, and you’ll need to “hit” the “opponent’s” brain with the music enough times to fill three meters before the song loops three times. Because each instrument “shoots” a different type of “beam,” some are better suited for “fighting” certain opponents than others.

Full of Problems

Unfortunately, Arranger suffers from rather poor control. You have two ways to control your character; you can either tap and drag him across the screen or you can use a directional pad that appears wherever you drop your finger. Neither method works well; you’ll frequently find yourself moving in the wrong direction during the main game and seeing your character at all during the “space shooter” sequence can be difficult.

You’ll collect many items while playing Arranger, but inexplicably you can only carry one at a time. The remaining items are left on the floor of your house, requiring you to backtrack whenever you need one of them. The fact that movement is so difficult only serves to make this limitation more annoying; you’ll groan each time you have to make the trek back to your house to fetch something.

Although the mini-games in Arranger have plenty of variety, most suffer from control issues and few are particularly fun. The space shooter portion of the game can be quite infuriating; by picking three instruments your “opponent” likes, you receive small bonuses to the three meters you have to fill to complete the sequence successfully. Since the controls in the sequence are so poor, you really need those bonuses to have any chance of succeeding. However, the opponent’s feelings about the three instruments change randomly each time you play the sequence, which seems like an artificial way of making sure players hear all of the different possible variations of each song. However, most of the music isn’t good enough for this process to actually be enjoyable. If your opponent doesn’t like the three instruments you’ve selected, you’ll still have to play the sequence through — and most likely lose — before you can try again.

Wait for Updates

All in all, Arranger is a problematic game that probably could have used a bit more play testing. The retro graphics are cute, and while some of the music is nice, most of it fails to live up to the high standard set by the video trailer that appeared on YouTube ahead of the game’s release. Although future updates to the game probably won’t improve the low quality of most of the mini-games, they may at least alleviate the control issues and frequent backtracking. We’d advise waiting until then before buying Arranger. In its current state, the game suffers from a major lack of fun.