Asphalt 7: Heat
£0.69 Buy it here
This stunning-looking racer, which sees gamers speed around beautifully rendered real-life cities in real-world cars, is one of 13 games optimised especially for the GALAXY S4 smartphone by publisher Gameloft. The hook here is the awesome Group Play feature, which enables S4 owners to quickly and easily challenge friends to multi-player games over a Wi-Fi network.
"What's nice about Group Play is that it lets gamers access quick real-time multiplayer sessions," says Baudouin Corman, vice-president of publishing for the Americas. "It also opens up great features for gaming such as trading items, instant challenges, or even ghost races, as we have done with Asphalt 7."
The Simpsons: Tapped Out
Free Get it here
Well before the GALAXY S4 hit the shelves, console kingpin turned mobile-gaming mogul Electronic Arts announced it was optimising 16 games especially for the handset. One of which was the incredibly popular real-time strategy game, The Simpsons: Tapped Out. In this title, it's up to you to enlist Springfield's finest to rebuild the town in your own image after a Homer-induced nuclear mishap.
Thanks to EA's tweaks you can bask in the glory of your new world in full HD. "The device's higher resolution, larger screen and increased processing power will give our games an opportunity to look even more beautiful for Samsung consumers," says EA's vice-president of new platforms, Glenn Roland.
Need For Speed: Most Wanted
£3.27 Buy it here
Mobile game developers continually wow us by providing new and innovative ways to play games using a touchscreen, but every now and then we yearn to bust out the control pad and just bash some buttons. And with Samsung's forthcoming Game Pad accessory for the GALAXY S4, you'll be able to do just that.
Among the 80-odd titles to be optimised for the battery-powered Pad is EA's Need for Speed: Most Wanted. You'll be able to simply connect your S4 via Bluetooth, slide it into the clamp and get racing. From there, instead of tilting to turn and tapping the screen, you can set about destroying cops and opponents with the D Pad and traditional physical buttons.
Contre Jour
£1.28 Buy it here
Question: How do you make one of the most beautiful, soothing and downright gorgeous mobile games ever even prettier? Well, optimise it for a 5-inch Full HD Super AMOLED screen of course! That's exactly what Maksym Hryniv, the head of Mokus Games, did for iconic physics/puzzle/platform game Contre Jour.
He told us: "From the beginning, Contre Jour was designed for bigger screen sizes, looking particularly good on tablets. The S4, with its 5-inch, 1080p screen, offers the best game experience without any compromises. Optimising Contre Jour for the S4 was something I wanted to do as soon as the device was announced."
The monochromatic adventure requires you to guide 'Petit' to safety by manipulating the environment around him and allowing gravity to do the rest; nudging and pushing the one-eyed protagonist towards the blue lights at the end of the level. There are 100 levels to complete, so off you go and don't come back until you've earned three stars for every one.
Sonic 4: Episode II
£3.94 Buy it here
In the list of things we missed most from the '90s, 2D Sonic The Hedgehog platform games narrowly lost out to Baywatch, Pat Sharp and Hanson, but that doesn't mean we weren't happy see the spinny little guy arrive on our mobile devices in Sonic 4. The only problem was that Sonic and touchscreens were about as friendly as Dr Eggman was with cute furry bunnies.
We really missed the control pad, so when Samsung revealed its Bluetooth-enabled wireless Game Pad alongside the GALAXY S4, we were pleased to hear the comeback of SEGA's finest hero was one of the first games to be optimised for the forthcoming device. Once the Game Pad hits stores you'll be able to hold Down, and furiously tap 'Spin' until you are blue in the face – a bit like Sonic himself, really.
