This week, we've got the lowdown on one of the best Nintendo DS games of 2011 hitting iOS, as well as an equally interesting game about a gorilla jumping up and down on a ski lift. See, this is exactly why we love iOS gaming.

Official Magic App Launches

Perhaps 99.9% of iOS won't care about this in the slightest, but here at Mac|Life, we are the 0.1%. For years, overpriced imitation Magic: The Gathering apps have ruled the roost, but now Wizards of the Coast finally has its own official app. It's pretty nifty too! The free app contains the entire database of Magic cards, and you can even experiment with different deck styles.

Ticket to Ride Gets Asynchronous Multiplayer

Words With Friends became an unparalleled success in the iOS board gaming space in part due to its great asynchronous multiplayer, which allowed players to take their time in a game and juggle multiple matches at the same time. Now that same kind of functionality is available in the wonderful Ticket to Ride Pocket for iPhone, and we couldn't be more excited. We can't wait for asynchronous multiplayer to make its way into every last iOS board game release.

NetherRealm May Make More iOS Games

The studio behind Arkham City: Lockdown has declared unequivocally that it is very interested in continuing to develop games for iOS. NetherRealm recently said that they want to continue to diversify their games, rather than relying on their highly popular reboot of the Mortal Kombat series. While we're thrilled to play just about anything this highly talented developer puts out, we're definitely most excited for them to continue classing up iOS gaming with well-produced efforts like Arkham City: Lockdown.

1 of 6

Games to Watch

• View the full image

  Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

  The iOS version (Free, iPhone) of this game kind of came out of nowhere in the past few days, but the original version wowed gamers all of last year. Though it was an under-the-radar hit, it still managed to make several game of the year lists in 2011.

• View the full image

  The game stars a character named Sissel who can move between the land of the living where time progresses as normal, and the land of the dead where time stands still. The titular ghost tricks are actions Sissel can take to interact with the living world in small ways (like moving a tray of donuts). The goal, in many cases, is to change the fate of a recently deceased victim.

• View the full image

  Gorilla Gondola

  This is one game in which the title really says it all: it stars a gorilla... on a gondola. Not the type of gondola you'd find in a canal in Venice though. It's like a big ski-lift. Our apish hero can jump up and down on the gondola to flex the wires and move through the level.

• View the full image

  The concept alone makes this game worth mentioning in this column, but we're curious if the gameplay will impress to the same extent once we dive in. It still looks a little rough around the edges, but there are few concepts in all of iOS gaming that we're more excited to investigate.

• View the full image

  Spice Invaders

  Few games we've ever seen have as many sci-fi references packed into a single trailer as Spice Invaders does. There's the obvious riff on Space Invaders, but the "spice" part is also a reference to cult classic Dune. There's also subtle nods to Alien and StarCraft.

• View the full image

  It's been a while since we covered a tower defense game in this space, so we thought Spice Invaders would be a good one to get us started again. Apart from its self-aware humor, it also looks like a very capable and expansive tower defense game in the same vein as Fieldrunners.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•