Dead Trigger
Dead Trigger is a cracking first-person shoot ’em up from the folks at Madfinger who brought us Shadowgun. But while Shadowgun sags under the weight of a derivative storyline Dead Trigger simply invites you to shoot zombies in the head after a global undead apocalypse. This is easy in the two training levels as you have an M60 assault rifle. However, things get harder when all you have is a Colt 45 and your thumbs to gouge out eyes. The shambling flesh-eaters come at you in wave after wave – thankfully, there's a radar – as you try to defend positions, gather supplies or carry out sundry other missions.
The control layout is carried over from Shadowgun, which is no bad thing and the adventures can sometimes get genuinely panic-filled and scary. A week after I paid 75p for the game, it became a freebie: bad for me but good for you. The game does feature in-app purchase for faster access to bigger guns but you can ignore these with no real loss of enjoyment.
Elastic World
It’s the simple ideas that often are the best, Angry Birds being a case in point. Elastic World is, if anything, even simpler. What you have to do is tap the screen to make the various shapes expand or contract – one tap equals one fixed and screen-wide action – and so bounce a ball or balls to hit a star or stars. That’s it. The fun comes courtesy of a physics model that is a work of near genius.
If it was just a tad too sloppy or too tight the game would be dull and unplayable, but it’s just right. Bouncing the ball up and down, back and forth until you achieve the just the right speed, angle and height is surprisingly absorbing. This is the very essence of casual gaming and made all the more enjoyable by the bouncy-bouncy sound effects.