Balloon Boy
The premise: a young boy runs away from his parents in a balloon, and you have to make sure he doesn’t get into trouble. It’s fun to float along with him and check out the scenery, from shrubs to dark thunderclouds to helicopters! There’s even a live news crawler to keep you entertained.
Snake Death
How fun can a game that was originally developed for a scientific calculator be? You will be surprised just how fun it is, once you’ve gotten into the ‘snake’ mindset. There’s a whole bunch of mongooses after your hide, and you’ve got to run through nine increasingly whacked out levels to get away from them. It’ll get your heart pounding! The graphics are super minimal, but once you get into it that aspect makes it kind of cool.
Avatar Orbitroid
Great graphics make you feel like you are fighting in deep space. Basically, you’re battling bad guys—but what makes this game stand out is the incredible collisions and explosions! The game designers knocked themselves out with beautiful renderings.
Bloop!
The creatures in Bloop! are in a bad mood, based on how many flying obstacles they keep hurling at each other. You’re supposed to crack your opponent’s rock by matching bloops, but you’re also encouraged to spit when you fire. No matter who you are in this game, you have bad manners!
The Endless Abyss
So if you like battle scenes, maps, and fighting wizards and beasts, the Endless Abyss is totally for you. I like playing it because you get to explore this entire continent that has all kinds of different scenes, from winter villages to summer forests. You never know what is going to attack you, or when! You can reference the warrior’s journal to help you when the situation gets a little out of control. Luckily, you get pretty good at fighting, ‘cuz there’s plenty of action in this game.
Drag Impact
Who doesn’t love drag racing? You get to spin around these crazy roads and highways, dodging stretch limos and taxi cabs and even airplanes! You can pick what kind of car you want to drive in, so go aerodynamic!
StormGate
This is the best game if you like putting stuff together. Basically, you have to defend your village from invaders. You have to design and build the town and the defenses yourself. Like, where do you put the gold? You don’t want that front and center, obviously. I like it because it totally tunes up your brain, and makes you really good at plotting infrastructure.
Magnetic Wars
This is one of the best looking games, basically because the graphics are nice and smooth. You can tell they spent some time on getting the colors right. You have to destroy all of these different bad guys with the magnetic power of your ship, which is like the best way I’ve ever heard of using a magnet. Iron filings were never so lethal.
Bigger And/Or Better
Okay, so this game is kind of mean-spirited, but it’s awesome all the same. The idea is you have to push boxes around as fast as you can for your boss. It’s like a simulation of the ‘real-world’ with real-world jobs, where you’re never told how you’re doing until your manager randomly fires you one day. You don’t have to feel silo, though—know there’s always other people working just as hard and as in the dark as you are.
Extreme Ball
For totally awesome galactic warfare, Extreme Ball is best combination of graphics and sound I’ve seen in a while. You have to get really good at knocking over pins and hitting goals while floating in space. The platforms will shift on you, or these weird black hole things will morph and get in your way. My favorite part is trying to jump my ball from platform to platform without falling off into deep space. You have to be sharp to make it through the levels, but it’s worth it for sure.