Whilst Chillingo's Cut the Rope deservedly gobbled up a gazillion sales - and candy - and Chair's epic Infinity Blade sent Apple's hype machine into overdrive, which were the best-reviewed games?
To answer that very question (spookily enough), here's the Quality Index (Qi) round-up for 2010.
Aggregating the collective wisdom of the reviewers from websites such as 148Apps, Pocket Gamer, Gamezebo, and many more, these are collated together in a magical way to output a single definitive Qi score for each iPhone title.
High octane
Ignoring the old cliché about marathons and sprints, Firemint's boundary-breaking Real Racing 2 only motored onto the Qi chart in December, yet maintained its impressive start and nerve around the last bend to cross the finishing line first on the year-end rundown.
In the phenomenal racer's slipstream rolled Dark Nebula - Episode 2, an accelerometer-driven platform title from 1337 Game Design that confounded and astonished in equal measure.
Meanwhile, French publisher Gameloft scored a brilliant double in 2010, as both its twin-stick shooters Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus and N.O.V.A. 2 secured coveted spots on Qi's best-of-year battlefield.
Qi's Top 10 iPhone games of 2010
Pos. | Game | Qi rating | Reviews |
1. | Real Racing 2 | 9.5 | 11 |
2. | Dark Nebula - Episode Two | 9.3 | 7 |
3. | Infinity Blade | 9.2 | 16 |
4. | Cut the Rope | 9.1 | 20 |
5. | Modern Combat 2 | 9.1 | 15 |
6. | Space Miner: Space Ore Bust | 9.1 | 11 |
7. | N.O.V.A. 2 | 9.1 | 11 |
8. | Sentinel 3: Homeworld | 9.1 | 8 |
9. | Plants vs. Zombies | 9.0 | 19 |
10. | Chaos Rings | 9.0 | 14 |
N.B. While we only display the average score to one decimal place, the list is generated to further significant figures. We just don't show them all.
And, naturally, this is a static graph based on live listings which are subject to constant change as new releases and reviews emerge.
In order to provide a regular marker of the critical zeitgeist, however, we will continue to round up the best of the iPhone games released each month to provide definitive Qi top tens throughout 2011.
[source: Quality Index]