Christmas Day is just around the corner, and that means one thing for iOS gamers: lots of new iOS owners. Why is that good news? Because companies are crawling over themselves to get a piece of this massive new influx of gamers. So while you might not see a ton of new games releasing this week, all the best older ones are on sale. Set aside some money this year and stock up on games for the next couple months.

Mega-sales Galore

It’s that time of year again! But we don’t mean the “giving season”. It’s the season when Apple takes a break from tabulating the highest app sales. So whoever ends up on top this week will stay there for an extra week, which is critical during that first week after Christmas when millions of people have new iOS devices. As a result, nearly everybody puts all their best apps on sale to try to get on top of the most popular lists. There are hundreds of games on sale, far too many to list here, but type EA, Gameloft, Telltale or Square Enix into the App Store search bar and revel in the savings.

PopCap Releases Plants vs Zombie Rap for Charity

To calculate the number of times PopCap has started a charity drive we’d need to be either barefoot or wearing sandals. But this new venture caused us to take notice again. They’re releasing a PvZ rap called Wabby Wabbo sung by PvZ’s lunatic babbler Crazy Dave. It’s available for $0.99 on iTunes and all profits go to Concern Worldwide which, appropriately, helps developing nations grow crops.

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Games to Watch

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  Dungeon Hunter 3

  Gameloft started the Dungeon Hunter series back in the early days of the App Store as a way to rip off the compelling concept behind the Diablo series of PC games. It wasn’t always a great rip off, but for many people that mix of slicing and looting was a compelling mobile option.

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  Fast forward a few years, and the latest incarnation has come a long way. To begin with, they’ve ignored any story at all, choosing instead to focus on the gameplay challenges. The second big change is that it’s free! Supported by microtransactions (it’s what all the hip kids are doing these days) Dungeon Hunter 3 won’t cost you a dime.

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  Santa’s Giftshop

  Remember Zombie Gunship, the tower defense game that place you in the gunner’s seat of a heavy weapon airplane overhead? Well, now we’ve got a Santa version to complement it this Christmas. Because zombies just don’t have the same Christmas vibe, and it just seems sickly sarcastic when you play Christmas music to a zombie invasion.

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  This truly, wondrously absurd title pits Santa against protestors of the Occupy North Pole movement who are trying to shut down Christmas. The game even features Christmas-themed weaponry such as the Peppermint Chain-Gun, 130mm Snowball SAW, and the Coal Cannon.

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  LostWinds

  In the latest example of console-quality games hitting mobile phones, LostWinds has released on iOS. Lost Winds was a highly lauded Nintendo Wii game back in 2008 (it even landed some magazine covers despite being a downloadable game.)

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  It’s a gorgeous little platformer that features one-touch controls. Though some have said the controls aren’t very well transferred from Wii to iOS. Nonetheless, we’ll take any excuse to give this beautiful game another spin. It also spawned a sequel, Lost Winds: Winter of the Melodias, which we’re hoping gets an iOS release as well.

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