World of Western is the kind of social strategy game that you'd expect a guy like me to love. I might be fat and chained to a computer during most of my waking hours these days, but once upon a time I was a cowboy on the ranches of Texas – spurs, chaps, and even a slightly bowlegged walk. Alas, this is no Red Dead Redemption. World of Western's heart is in the right place, what with its rifle toting buckaroos and friendly Native Americans patrolling digital Tombstones, but in execution it bears far too many resemblances to the many other city-building-meets-combat games that have been popping up on Facebook lately.

FBI agent Erica Reed is back again for another exciting Cognition adventure! This time, her quest to find her brother's killer puts her on the trail of the murderer known only as The Oracle. But is she really the hunter – or has she become the prey?

As far as treasure-themed Facebook games go, Atlas Raider is certainly not a looker, and there was a lot about the initial gameplay that underwhelmed me right off the bat. But as I got ready to simply write the game off and do some backyard raiding of my own, I suddenly realized that several hours had gone by: and that I was actually having fun and didn’t want to stop playing. And that’s exactly the kind of game that Atlas Raider turns out to be.

The North American west in the 1800s was a rough time: settlers striking out across vast expanses of land to create new homes, resources always at a minimum, and some bossy person with a cursor always telling you what to do. Ok, so that last bit is exclusive to Big Bang West, a light-hearted simulation game that lets you build in the frontier one small town at a time. But the rest holds true!

“Bigfoot teaching psychology to boars!” “A kitten in a racecar!” “A pony giving a lap dance!” If you’ve ever played Charades or Pictionary, then you’re already familiar with some of the crazy guesses that your friends and family typically belt out when they’re trying to guess the person, place, or thing you’re drawing or acting out. Heads Up!, a party game promoted by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, works on the same principle of acting like a fool for laughs. It delivers nicely, though some issues keep it from being a top-notch party game.

Striking a balance between depth and accessibility has often been a hassle in strategy RPGs. Some games aren’t deep enough and others are too difficult. A select few games take the Goldilocks route and are just right. Rebirth of Fortune 2 comes close to finding that balance, but slow-paced battles and imbalanced multiplayer take away from what is otherwise a fun experience.

Legacy Tales: Mercy of the Gallows is an instantly striking hidden object puzzle game that has everything it takes to pull players in. Great voice acting in the initial cutscene speaks of a lifelong romance that actually wasn’t: as the wife of a noble captain vanishes, and the captain is found dead on the coast of the ocean. While the game starts off with a bang, it quickly fizzles into a slow moving and ultimately disappointing experience.

The squad-based tactical shooter is a familiar face on the PC, but iOS evangelists don’t often get to savor it on their platform of choice.  The recent release of the uniquely challenging Frozen Synapse on iPad proves that not only can tactics games exist on the portable platform, but they can also thrive there.

Sanctum 2 blends the action-packed first-person shooter genre with the strategic elements of tower defense games, and as a "Jack of all trades, master of none," it isn't particularly strong as either. But to employ yet another overused cliché – the whole being greater than the sum of its parts – it nonetheless manages to be an intense and surprisingly fun multiplayer blast-fest.

Anomaly 2 is a well-polished and intense addition to the unusual "tower offense" sub-genre, but while its new "convoy-versus-towers" multiplayer twist is an interesting idea, in execution it leaves a little bit to be desired.

Like the song says, sometimes it’s prudent to “Run Like Hell.” Running is particularly advised when you have a passel of mad bulls chasing you, like in Running With Friends. Zynga’s entry into the endless runner genre gives you great motivation to tear through the narrow streets of Spain (these are some angry bulls), but there are few original ideas to speak of. To be fair, you’ll be too busy hopping across bulls’ backs to really notice.

Have you ever played a racing game that handled so poorly that it actually went full circle, with the controls suddenly becoming a sort of unique difficulty curve to the game? No, of course you haven't – such a thing can't possibly exist. Well, until now that is. Imagine having to race using the Warthog from Halo. Then crank up the drift-o meter just that little bit extra, and you've got Mini Motor Racing EVO. Although it initially feels sloppy, this Micro Machines-inspired racer slowly begins to win your trust as you plug away at its mental controls.

Let’s just call Boom! what it is—a slightly different take on the Angry Birds formula. In the newest game from developer Happy Sprites, you play as some sort of green alien-like dude who must save his caged pal Pinky from the evil wizard Belzaar by riding his monocycle (yeah, monocycle) through various physics-based/platforming levels. 

What do you get when you cross Geometry Wars with one of those simple "fit-the-ball-through-the-hole" games? You get FallDown! 2, of course, a sequel to the wildly popular FallDown!Using tilt controls to guide your ball down the maze, you avoid a nefarious laser as you make your way through the nooks and crannies of each level. Collecting stars, avoiding bombs, and zipping through each stage is what makes FallDown! 2 so addictive, though we surmise the neon overhaul has something to do with it as well. 

When it comes to endless runners, players are often made to feel afraid; after all, you're typically being chased by something or someone, and your objective is often to keep away from it for as long as you possibly can. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rooftop Run breaks away from this dynamic, however, and is all the better for it.

It's difficult to get excited about licensed games, even when they belong to a proven genre. Not being familiar with the source material doesn't help, either. Yet, despite my lack of I am MT knowledge, I've found myself enjoying I am MT: Card Battle quite a bit.

When it comes to the video game realm, digging may be an oft-recreated theme, but that doesn't mean there's no room left for some awesome newcomers to enter the fold. Games like Digging and Glean are enough to pique your interest when it comes to the genre, but Dig! is a retro-flavored take on mashing through the ground and searching for treasure. Reminiscent of Qix and all the 80s-tinged adventures out there, Dig! is an arcade hit that's sure to please.

Gameloft is doing that thing again. This time it’s by bringing Blitz Brigade, the equivalent of a certain super-popular, cartoony, team-based PC first-person shooter to iOS devices. I made my peace with the developer’s methods a while ago and have since learned to love their games for what they are: high quality approximations we’d probably never see on iPhones otherwise. However, when making an online shooter, it’s extremely important to get the “online” part right.

If you've ever wondered why we've yet to see our battlefields dominated by soldiers in hulking two-legged tanks, the answer might lie in the gameplay of this new multiplayer arena battler for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Put simply, they're a royal pain to control. Moving forward and backwards isn't so bad, but when you find your big guns simply shooting off in the direction of Alpha Centauri when you're trying to blast the guy who's barbecuring you from behind with a flamethrower, you might find yourself realizing why the military's devoted its resources to less fantastical projects.

In Her Interactive’s latest Nancy Drew mystery, we find our master sleuth challenged with one of the scariest storylines in the franchise to date, and also one of the best. Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall contains two interweaving storylines, as Nancy must confront her skepticism of the supernatural head-on in order to save a missing girl just days before her wedding.