Given the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad’s unique design and notable features, it is expected to have popular gaming genres different from those of other common handheld gaming devices. These genres offer a somewhat iDevice-exclusive gameplay, which is why they are bound to have a bigger share of the App Store market. For all of you iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad owners and would-be owners, here is a list of the best suited genres for gaming:

Best Suited Gaming Genres: TOWER DEFENSE

Other than anything related to Zombies, Tower Defense games have steadily overwhelmed the App Store over the past 2 years. Generally, the Tower Defense genre is one where you strategically place towers along the paths of enemies to stop them before getting to your base. It’s quite a popular genre, and has spawned different themes and interesting add-on gameplay. The touch screen mechanic and the iDevice’s screen size (especially the iPad) are what make this genre well suited for iDevice gaming. Without those, quick tower placement and upgrading, which are keys to success, would be very difficult. Highly recommended Tower Defense titles for the iDevice are geoDefense and Fieldrunners.

Best Suited Gaming Genres: HIDDEN OBJECT

The iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad’s touch control has strong similarities with a mouse-click. As such, it is no surprise that several of the genres mentioned here are also popular genres for the PC. Hidden Object games are one of them. And I think it deserves little explanation why these games are among the best suited genres for the iDevice. Can you imagine playing these games and having fun on a PSP, with a pointer controlled by the analog stick? Guess not.

Titanic: Hidden Expedition

Best Suited Gaming Genres: RACING

As you’ve read from my article on the best accelerometer games, the racing genre is among the best genres to maximize your iDevice’s accelerometer. With the iDevice and its well-suited controls, racing has become easy to learn (but hard to master) and a one of a kind experience for anyone.

Best Suited Gaming Genres: MATCH-3

This is another popular gaming genre for the PC which expectedly made its way to the iDevice App Store with huge success. With easy swapping of blocks or gems or whatever to match 3 identical items given the touch screen, it's so easy have fun in going for the highest score while going against the clock. On a PSP or Nintendo DS though, this genre will hardly be worth playing.

Bejeweled 2 + Blitz

Best Suited Gaming Genres: TIME MANAGEMENT

As with the Match-3 genre, you now use your finger instead of a mouse. With that, it really goes without saying that the iDevice is very much optimized for the best controls for Time Management games. Although there are already dozens of games for this genre ranging from managing a supermarket to supervising a wedding, this genre has the potential to be as diverse as what Tower Defense gaming has become in the App Store.

Star Wars: Cantina

Best Suited Gaming Genres: LINE-DRAWING

This is one of the more innovative gaming genres that has found a solid place in iDevice gaming. This genre involves tracing lines on the screen in order to achieve all sorts of functions and objectives depending on what game you’re playing. Whether it’s landing planes on airstrips, or parking numerous cars at once, or even directing people away from zombies, this gameplay truly stands out among the best suited gaming genres. The best recommended game is Flight Control.

It is quite safe to say that if none of these suit you, then you are probably not going to enjoy gaming so much on your iDevice. If you’ve noticed, the general trend of the genres mentioned above, excluding racing, is that they mostly offer casual rather than hardcore gameplay. And if you are more of a hardcore gamer then you are better off owning the other handheld devices from Sony and Nintendo. Be aware though that this list only highlights genres that are best suited for the iDevice. Over the past year, hardcore or serious long-term games have been increasing in the App Store. Despite that fact, it still can’t be ignored that these mentioned above are what best make iDevice gaming unique and innovative.