Written by Matt Swider  on December 05, 2008

Holiday Buyer's Guide 2008: iPhone and iPod Touch are emerging as serious handheld gaming devices, so for the first time, we dedicated a holiday buyers guide to the game apps you should buy and gift to other Apple-loving friends.

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The iPhone and iPod Touch are full of on-the-go video game apps thanks to Apple's brilliant plan to open up the SDK to developers. But, that also means that there are a lot of games to choose from. To make your task of sorting through the iTunes Store even easier as you buy games for yourself and gift them to others, we've created a list of our top seven most-wanted iPhone games for the holidays.


Cro-Mag Rally
This game is so entertaining a Caveman could enjoy it! Cro-Mag Rally involves steering 11 primitive vehicles through 9 Stone, Bronze and Iron Age courses, all while tilting the iPhone to simulate turning. You've probably seen this kart racing game on a recent iPhone commercial in which the game's star, Brog, races through an arid desert level. Developed by Pangea Software, which is the creator of another great title on our list called Enigmo, Cro-Mag Rally sells for $1.99. It's an excellent diversionary game that's fast-paced enough to pick-up and put down whenever your day is as a slow as a Caveman's. Just be sure to appreciate the irony that the best game on the world's most sophisticated cell phone involves the most primitive of themes.



Super Monkey Ball
When Sega first showed this game at WWDC 2008, it perfectly demonstrated why the iPhone was a serious handheld gaming device. The use of the accelerometer to navigate as Super Monkey Ball star AiAi through complicated puzzle courses made this type of gameplay and this phone a perfect match. We all know that rolling your monkey ball to the goal and cautiously avoiding the edge of platforms is a perilous task, but it's also one that's extremely addictive. Now, you don't have to carry around a bulky Nintendo DS since this $9.99 game is always available as an app on your phone.




Spore: Origins
When Will Wright, mastermind of The Sims, launched the evolutionary creature creator game Spore on PCs and Macs, an iPhone edition released at the same time. Spore: Origins involves your tadpole-sized organism collecting DNA from smaller creatures while avoiding the larger ones by floating around using the accelerometer for navigation. As your undeveloped spore amasses DNA and evolves through the game's stages, you can begin to take on those larger creatures and evolve your organism with things like eyes, which aren't just cosmetic changes. They also add to the gameplay by allowing your spore to see further. According to a video interview we conducted with EA Mobile Producer Mike Pagano, there are about a million different customizations to this simple, but evolutionary iPhone game.



Tetris
No handheld launch is complete without a Tetris game and iPhone doesn't break the trend. EA Mobile's port of the classic puzzler puts your fingers at the center of the action thanks to the iPhone's touch-screen capabilities. Rotating puzzle pieces and hard-dropping them into place took time to get used to using the touch screen when we first tested it at E3. However, by the time we moved on to demoing the next iPhone game, we successful got past the first two levels. So, Tetris fans rest assured; this is a safe game app to download if you want to get your fingertips (literally) on the classic puzzler.






Pac-Man Lite
Pac-Man is the perfect time-wasting game for life's idle moments and since you're always carrying your cell phone, Pac-Man Lite for iPhone is a must-have game app. It includes an on-screen D-Pad using the touch screen and features the classic Pac-Man gameplay we know and love. Not much else has changed and that's a good thing in this case. The best part is that Pac-Man Lite is FREE. You can't pass up a free download pf one of the finest retro game ever created.










Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
Crash is the first big video game mascot to be recruited for an iPhone game app, racing with his Wumpa Island pals in Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D. You may remember a console edition a couple of years back, and now this kart racing game has been slimmed down for the iPhone. The game plays a lot like Cro-Mag Rally, so you may want to buy one or the other, depending on your love for the Crash Bandicoot character; although they're cheap enough to consider both if kart racing games get your motor going.





Enigmo
There's nothing else like Enigmo on the iPhone despite the plethora of game apps, so this one is a must-download from Pangea Software. It features cascading liquids (beginning with water in the first level) that must be redirected using tools that are implemented by the touch-screen. The goal is to reroute the leak to fill up the level's tanks. The gameplay is simple, but the thinking process becomes complicated as you progress through levels, making this game ideal for people who want a smart puzzler.