I'm going to lead in to my top 5 list with some incredibly unsettling news - I was without a mobile device between June - November 2014.

Unfortunately, my Nexus 7 2013 popped its clogs a little earlier than expected and the morale to the story is that I should have got warranty.

Always. Get. Warranty.

Without further ado, here's my Top 5 finest mobile games of the year (that I got a chance to play).

Rival Knights

I'm not even going to lie, Rival Knights would have featured in my list regardless. Why? Because it's the very perfect example of a 2014 mobile game - and it allows me to finally live out my dream of being Heath Ledger in that movie about knights with big sticks.

It looks fantastic, it's perfect for jump-in, jump-out play, and the fact that you can remain competitive in the tournaments despite not paying a penny proves it got its free-to-play model pretty spot on.

Sonic Racing Transformed

There are a surprising amount of decent kart racers on mobile but both Sonic Racing games have been the pick of the bunch for me.

They evoke the same spirit that the Mario Kart games do and harken back to the days of yore, sitting huddled around your N64 with a few friends shooting rockets out of some invisible bazooka on your tiny kart.

RETRY

There was a time, AppSpies, where I was a flapper. There. I said it.

When I got over that, however, I turned to RETRY which was much more than just a shameless clone. It basically does what Flappy Bird did but as an actual game and a rather pretty pixelated one at that. I particularly enjoy the retro music feels.

Roller Polar

The first game I just had to play when I got my new Nexus 5, Roller Polar is a warmingly-cold mix of fun and frustration.

It's addictive in all of the right places and feels completely fair at all times - which makes things more upsetting when you realise that you're totally at fault for not just jumping over that snowman's head.

 The Sleeping Prince

When I first started playing The Sleeping Prince I didn't expect to be playing for too long. Dragging your sleepy prince around the screen was fun at first but started to bore me relatively quickly.

It's a good thing that so many clever and interesting mechanics are introduced at a regular interval, then, because The Sleeping Prince turns into quite the mobile extravaganza.

It has a similar humour and art-style to Trine, a series I'm very fond of, and I'm not entirely sure why but the gameplay reminded me a bit of the NiGHTS games. That certainly helped.