Best Games for windows and mobile

The 30 Best Windows Phone Games

Windows Phone is coming into its own as a gaming platform—here are the games you must play now.

 

Contents

• The 30 Best Windows Phone Games
• Adventure
• Arcade
• Arcade (cont.)
• Strategy
• Puzzle
• Racing and Simulation

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: While virtually no one was looking, Windows Phone 7.5 has fast become a great gaming platform. A few key developers—notably Zynga and OMGPOP, among others—aren't on board yet, but many of the big ones are. Windows Phone is even racking up some exclusives you can't get on Android or iOS. The best part: All the games listed here look great and play smoothly. Don't let Windows Phone's current lack of support for dual-core CPUs get to you.
It's only going to get better from here as well. Thanks in large part to Nokia's buy-in with Windows Phone, both EA and Angry Birds-developer Rovio have committed to accelerated Windows Phone releases that will closely match those of Android and iOS phones. Upcoming titles from EA include Madden NFL, NBA Jam, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, FIFA, and Mirror's Edge, among others.
Then there's the Xbox Live connection, which you can only get on Windows Phone devices. If you've already got an Xbox 360, don't miss Xbox Companion, a free app that lets you search for games, music, TV shows, and movies, and then cue them up on your Xbox from your phone. Several of the games below include the ability to link up the Windows Phone version to the comparable Xbox 360 title in order to unlock additional gameplay options. And recently, Windows Phone Marketplace hit 100,000 total apps. Not all of those are games, but that's a significant milestone, and yet more proof that this platform has legs.

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But all of that is aside from the main point: Gaming. Here are the best 30 games we've found for Windows Phone 7.5 devices. At this point, including Angry Birds ($0.99) is almost like cheating, so we won't. (It's great; just get it if you don't have it.) I tested every game on a Samsung Focus 2 ($79.99, 3 stars), which has a 4-inch screen and a 1.4GHz processor, and runs Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango). Most Windows Phones cluster right around these specs, so yours should be just fine.
Note that you can navigate the story either by clicking through the slideshow, or by reading it as a multipage story, via the Next links or the above table of contents. And feel free to make suggestions in the comments section—we really want to know what you think.—Next: Adventure >