Don’t Starve beta and Vertigo Racing: this week’s top mobile games

Welcome to Gearburn’s Mobile Game Picks of the Week, a weekly series in which Hadlee takes a look at the latest, most entertaining, or time-consuming mobile games on portable screens.

Itching for a new mobile game to play? We’ve got the goods, featuring four titles this week.

Our favourite titles in this edition are Vertigo Racing and the Don’t Starve Beta on Android. Scroll down for the entire roundup!

Batman – The Telltale Series Episode 1 (R100 – iOS)

Telltale has become one of the industry’s most prolific developers, churning out oodles of episodic adventure games over the years.

Now, it’s Batman’s time to get a game, as the company brings the first episode of Batman – The Telltale Series to Apple’s platforms (the game is coming to Android later).

Being a Telltale game, it emphasises your choices and consequences thereof to encourage replayability. Unfortunately, you’ll need to splash out about US$15 for the full season though.

Vertigo Racing (free – Android, iOS)

Prominent studio Chillingo is back with a new title, being an arcade-style racing game that features classic cars.

Vertigo Racing features an isometric perspective and has you simply hitting the gas pedal or brakes through winding mountain passes. Get far enough and you unlock the next course. However, you’ll need to contend with a constantly dropping fuel level and dangerous mountain sweeps.

Vertigo Racing is available for free, but the game does offer video ads for more currency. It also seems like it’ll become pay to win after a while (the cost of upgrades escalates quite quickly).

Don’t Starve beta (R59 – Android)

It’s already been available on iOS for a while now, but Don’t Starve is officially available on Google devices this month as well.

For the uninitiated, Don’t Starve is a survival game that sees you having to collect items, build tools and more in order to survive for as long as possible. The game also features randomly generated maps, adding a level of unpredictability to proceedings.

Of course, the game is still in beta (the above trailer is for the iPad version), so expect some bugs here and there, but initial impressions seem to be favourable.

Orbt – Gravity Defying Action (free – Android, iOS)

First seen on reddit, Orbt has a similar focus on orbital mechanics to Orbit, albeit with a less relaxed focus.

While Orbit saw you trying to place planets in a successful orbit, Orbt has you directly controlling a planet’s orbit to dodge planet-destroying asteroids. The closer you are to the black hole at the centre of your orbit, the more points you score.

The game isn’t really deep or anything, but it definitely makes for a fun two minute distraction.