Kingdom Rush Vengeance TD+

Fans of tower defense games should not hesitate to download and play this highly polished Apple Arcade exclusive. It's a near perfect game, but multiplayer support would have made Kingdom Rush Vengeance TD+ that much better. As the core gameplay goes, it doesn't veer away from what made this decade-old franchise so sought-after. You'll be presented with a map, often with winding roads the enemies will travel down. You're also tasked with choosing which tower to build (now with a total of 19 to choose from), which ones to upgrade, and dropping in troops to attack the enemy, with melee or ranged weapons (including magic). Kingdom Rush Vengeance TD+ offers 30 different upgrades to train your army, along with bonus reinforcements you can use in a pinch. Like any good strategy game, executing any of these moves uses up resources, which are limited, so you need to choose carefully and select the right towers, troops, and upgrades to do the job across the half-dozen realms.

Again, the goal is to prevent the onslaught of rival soldiers from reaching your base. Bosses and Challenging Stages add even more breadth and depth to the overall package. But as much as fun as this game is -- especially with no ads or microtransactions to be concerned with -- many may feel the lack of multiplayer limits the replayability. Sure, you can play these levels on one of the harder difficulty options, but it would have been great to host or join a 1v1 game against a human to test your skill, and perhaps chat at the same time. Still, there's a lot to love about Kingdom Rush Vengeance TD+. From the outstanding production (high-resolution graphics, and great music and sound effects) to a variety in levels and an abundance of enemies and towers to master, this is a game you no doubt will play for a long while.