If anyone is ever in the mood for running a city under the auspices of organized crime they have plenty of options to get their fix in a family-friendly way via the App Store. Freemium mafia games are pretty much their own subgenre at this point. While Crime Connection isn’t without its own set of problems, it manages to stand up quite well against its peers.

Bottle Cap Blitz is a specific kind of game. It's fast, friendly, and free of the bells and whistles and constraints seen in a glut of App Store releases. And without a gorgeous exterior or extraneous additions, it still manages to reel you in and hook you with simplistic, addictive gameplay that channels the likes of Paper Toss, while combining the nature of the hit Fruit Ninja.

War of the Fallen, Zynga's latest entry into the free-to-play collectible card game milieu, is precisely what you would, or at least should, expect from a Zynga game: it's accessible, very highly polished and has one hand on your shoulder while the other slowly reaches for your wallet.

What’s better than a cute baseball semi-sim  (look ma, I coined my own genre) for iOS devices? That same game with real MLB players and uniforms, that’s what. Hothead Games has its first fully licensed sports title on its hands with Big Win MLB, which is just like Big Win Baseball, except… realer.

I knew from a pretty early age that I wasn’t meant to be a golfer. Nothing against the sport or anything: I just seemed to be much better at finding all the sand traps and water hazards than getting holes in one. But now I may have finally found a way to enjoy the game without all of that constant walking around to retrieve my ball, as GolfStar by Com2uS is the closest I’ll ever come to playing a real live game of golf right from my living room sofa.

No sense beating around the bush about it: Epic Pirates Story, the first game from indie studio Epic Devs LLC, borrows heavily from the popular Kairosoft model, with colorful pixel art graphics, cute, chatty characters and simplified combat and city management mechanics. In fact, the game's description on Google Play specifically mentions that it will remind you of Kairosoft's work and if you're familiar with that particular oeuvre, it will.

On paper, a lead character named Mr. Bulb and gameplay that isn’t far removed from Angry Birds doesn’t scream automatic purchase, but underneath familiar objectives is a challenging and aesthetically arresting game. Despite its miniaturized world, Stay Alight! stands tall among the best iPhone titles, refusing to skimp on polish, creativity, or style. The trickiest bank shots may give many a player pause, but few games demand continued dedication just to see their next stage.

Endless runners have a tendency to be rather same-y, even despite aesthetics. Sure, a few twists may be integrated, but they tend to run into the same general problems. And while Ninja Slash may not successfully evade all of them, at least it makes an honest effort to keep things fresh.

If there’s one thing that should be added to life’s list of certainties alongside death and taxes, it’s the fact that dungeons are going to have monsters that need slaying. Three Dungeon Hunter games didn’t get rid of them, so Gameloft is giving it another go with Dungeon Hunter 4, a free-to-playaction-RPG that takes the series back to its roots while attempting with mixed success to add some new ingredients to the monster-fighting stew.

Fruit Blast Mania from TeamLava combines two of gamer’s biggest interests to make for quite the juicy equation: block-matching games, and tons of delicious fruit. But while the game’s gleaming presentation and fun core mechanics could have made this one an easy App Store favorite, a ridiculous freemium model transforms the game from that shiny red apple displayed on the kitchen counter, to the old bruised banana that fell behind my desk over a week ago.

The name “Pocket Village” evokes an image of a peaceful hamlet with sunny mornings, rolling hills, and close neighbors (and closer cousins, cough cough). A nice place to visit, perhaps, even if you’re just rolling through to grab a hamburger before hitting the Interstate and gunning it to Disneyland. However, wooga’s Pocket Village is actually an iOS town-building game that demands some pretty hardcore labor from its adorable population. It’s easy to feel bad for the little guys, but don’t worry; Pocket Village moves so slowly that it won’t be long before you abandon its population, anyway.

Have you ever been hypnotized before? It seems a little scary at first, but it’s also a proven psychiatric method of bringing all those inner demons to light, and working through any hidden issues you may have. Well Maya, the psychiatrist heroine of Hypnosis, swears by this method, and she’s prepared to use it every chance that she gets to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her colleague and ex-boyfriend, Dr. Blanche, in this dreamy and hypnotic point-and-click adventure.

Thanks to the first James Bond novel and the Hamburger Royale (not actually the Royale with Cheese, sorry Vincent), the word “Royale” has a nice pop culture tradition going for it. Developer Three of a Kind is trying to add to it with Poker Royale, a free iOS poker app designed to get you playing poker, preferably with friends, with as little hassle as possible. It does that admirably, but not a whole lot else.

I've played a lot of CCG battle games, so you can trust me when I say that most are the same old, same old - collect virtual cards, upgrade them and then "battle" other players by comparing yours to theirs to see who has the bigger number. It's a genre that has lizard-brain appeal to the obsessive-compulsive collector gene in all of us, but as far as actual gameplay goes it tends to be less than impressive. Tekken Card Tournament takes the opposite approach: The collecting part isn't great, but there's some real gaming to be found inside and it's not too bad at all.

The App Store is rife with games belonging to nearly every genre out there. Chances are good no matter what you're into, there's a game for you - that's the beauty of it! But have you ever stumbled across a game where scaring the wits out of your targets is the goal? We're willing to bet you haven't. But thanks to the bizarre gem The Spookening, you can be on your way to terrorizing villagers and grinning smugly with little more than an app purchase. The Spookening is a silly but satisfying exercise in creeping out the living, the only way a ghost knows how.

If there is one thing that the rise of iOS gaming has proven, it’s that the world is full of dedicated independent developers who finally have a platform to easily showcase their works of passion. We’re talkin’ clever artistic types who might otherwise have a tough time breaking into the industry. These are developers who’ve honed their game-crafting skills for little reason beyond the love of the medium, and Pixel Licker is one such developer.

NetherRealm’s DC superhero fighting game has been turning a lot of heads lately. It looks great, and by most accounts is a fun and competent brawler. As is customary, this also means a watered-down iOS release. Although that’s not entirely accurate. Injustice: Gods Among Us certainly isn’t as robust or complex as its console counterpart, but it’s a solid hybrid of RGP, CCG, and fighting game that caters specifically to the mobile market.

Contrary to my initial beliefs, Mittens is not a game about keeping your hands warm during those cold winter months. But that’s probably a good thing, because the actual premise of this cutesy casual game is a lot more fun and appealing. Coming hot on the heels of the colossal success of Where’s My Water? and Where’s My Perry?, Disney’s latest take on the physics-based puzzler is all about love, cats, and disgruntled city dwellers.

When The Rock isn't playing the role of part-time WWE Champion on Monday Night Raw, he can often be found playing other parts on various movie sets. But something strange is happening in Studio 51, and it seems everyone around has either gone missing or wants The Rock dead (or at least beaten severely). Are they rabid John Cena fans? Movie critics who think five Fast & Furious movies was enough?

Badland is the debut game from Frogmind, a small studio comprised of two developers who cut their chops over at Redlynx on the deviously challenging Trials series. With a history in precision motocross, it's somewhat surprising to see the studio's first game take on a floatier style of side-scroller, more akin to Jetpack Joyride's tap to fly gameplay. But once you dive into Badland's lushly-drawn world, it's clear that Frogmind knew exactly what it was getting itself into.