App of the Week

You can't escape the IRS even in death and those who do try should be expecting a visit from the "semi-organic autonomous skull" agents of Skullduggery. In the game you play as an upstart collection agent for the Infernal Revenue Service who must seize assets from "deadbeats" who tried to beat the system by taking their riches with them to the afterlife. You do this by stretching your brain to snap your skull around various levels in the underworld.

The premise may be zany, but Skullduggery's gameplay is a lot like Angry Birds, or any other physics-based games available on the App Store. Unlike Angry Birds or Crush the Castle, the goal of the game is not to just knock stuff over, but it's more of a platform title where you pull back on your skull to slingshot yourself forward and through obstacles. Skullduggery offers a very easy one-touch playing experience, and its "Bullet Time" feature gives it a more fluid Matrix-like control where you can slow things down midair and change your trajectory. The controls are simple to master, and once you do, you will feel like you are playing any other platform game.

Zombie Highway 2 is now available for free on the App Store. The Zombie Highway trilogy is a series of survival / endless runner-like games, including the spin-off Zombie Highway: Driver's Ed, where players must survive a drive on zombie infested highways.

What makes Zombie Highway unique is while most racing games discourage hitting obstacles, players are encouraged to sideswipe overturned cars and barricades to scrape off zombies clinging to the sides of their car. Players can also run over slower zombies and use various weapons to blow them away, but ammo is limited and the best defense is smashing into things. However, you can only sideswipe obstacles, hitting them head-on will end the game. Only grazing obstacles isn't that easy when you have two to three zombies rocking your vehicle back and forth making it harder to control.

When I first saw customer reviews that said things like, Five Nights at Freddy's "is officially the scariest game I have ever played," I was skeptical. I thought there is no way an iPhone game, or really any video game, could be scary, but I was wrong. Five Nights at Freddy's has actually made me jump while playing it, and even if it doesn't scare you, it is still an intense game that is perfect for Halloween.

Like any cheesy horror movie the plot of Five Nights at Freddy's requires some suspension of disbelief, but its over-the-top premise is what gives it its charm. You're the new night watchman at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a Chuck E. Cheese's-like restaurant and arcade. Your job is to watch Freddy Fazbear and his animatronic pals from the safety of your office, which turns out not to be so safe. Freddy and his pals like to wonder around at night and awful things happen to humans who accidentally bump into them. Luckily you have two security doors to keep you safe, but due to corporate budget cuts you only have a limited amount of power to run your lights, security cameras and doors.

Mobile devices have changed our lives in many ways but their most important contribution to humanity is eliminating the need for paper cheat sheets at Fantasy Football drafts. Fantasy Football apps have made drafts so much simpler now that you can just download them to your iPhone or iPad. The only question that remains is which Fantasy Football app is the most useful. I really haven't come across a Fantasy Football app that was useless, but the one I keep finding myself downloading every year is the NFL Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet and Draft Kit.

The official NFL FF app allows you to customize and keep track of multiple leagues. For example, you can set the type of draft for each of your leagues (auction or serpentine) the amount of rounds, teams and players per team. The app also allows you to fill in your competitors' teams and rosters and keep track of what each owner spent per player in an auction draft.

Adult Swim has made many popular games like Robot Unicorn Attack and Five Minutes to Kill Yourself, but their best game released this year has to be Castle Doombad. The reverse tower defense game is absolutely worth $2.99, but now anyone can download it for free thanks to the newly released Castle Doombad: Free to Slay edition.

The Free to Slay edition is the same as the premium edition except it is supported by ads and has in-app purchases such as Doom Shekel packs. In the game, you must stop various heroes from rescuing the princess from your evil lair. You do this by equipping your castle with traps like floor spikes and even "overactive air conditioners". You also have a small army of cute minions at your disposal to help defend your castle.