Titles like Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, and Jetpack Joyride have proven that popular smartphone games are big business for developers. But why are we so addicted to gaming on our mobile devices? Well, according to a new survey from MocoSpace, a third of us do it just to kill time and cure boredom, while 10% of us do it to meet new people.
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![This Week’s Must-Have iOS Games: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Hambo, Shark Dash & More [Roundup]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Screen-Shot-2012-04-26-at-17.35.03-2.jpg "Screen Shot 2012-04-26 at 17.35.03 2")
This week's pick of must-have apps features a classic arcade fighter, puzzle games galore, and an awesome retro platformer.
Following a short hiatus, Cult of Mac’s weekly must-have apps and games features are back! Here we’ll roundup our pick of the week’s best iOS titles, including our favorite new releases and updates worth writing home about.
This week’s picks feature what is quite possibly the best arcade fighter yet to hit the App Store, awesome updates to Angry Birds Space and Jetpack Joyride, plus a fantastic platformer that I just can’t put down.
Six months after its initial debut on iOS, Jetpack Joyride is still receiving some terrific updates. In fact, its latest promises to be “the biggest and most anticipated update” yet. In addition to new achievements and new stats, version 1.3 brings 15 (yes, 15!) new gadgets, including the Gravity Belt, the Freeze-O-Matic, and the Missile Jammer.
Counterintuitively, for the fourth year running, the winners of 148Apps annual “Best App Ever” contest have just been announced at Macworld / iWorld 12012. And my girlfriend’s going to be positively giddy, because the app that she’s spent most of the last year grinding her fingers down to the bone playing has won: Halfbrick Studio’s Jetpack Joyride!
Halfbrick Studios’ Jetpack Ride is already just a stupidly good bargain at $0.99. It was my personal vote for best game of 2011, and it’s essentially reduced my girlfriend to a shaking, caffeine-fused creature who can’t stop babbling about flying robot chickens and fruit-blasting jetpacks.
If you haven’t bought Jetpack Joyride yet, you’re absolutely mad. But if you don’t snag it now that it’s free, you’re not just crazy, you’re stupid. Do it! Do it now!
Holy cow, this is an awesome deal. The latest game from Halfbrick Studios — the guys behind Fruit Ninja — is called Jetpack Joyride, and between me and my girlfriend, I’ve probably put more time into it in the last couple of weeks than I did into my senior year thesis.
It usually costs ninety-nine cents, but Halfbrick Studios has teamed up with Apple to offer Jetpack Joyride for free to people who sign up for the official Apple App Store Facebook page.
That’s a heck of a deal. Too bad I already own Jetpack Joyride! Let’s hope the next freebie is this good.
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