Ok, you’ve got your shinyshiny new iPad and you’re looking for things to play on it? Well I’ve touched and tapped and fondled my way through most of the games worth playing on the App Store and here’s what I’ve come up with that’s worth your money in this launch week.

Plants vs. Zombies [$9.99]

I resisted grabbing Plants vs. Zombies for iPhone for some reason, even though PopCap has a history of producing games that I love for the platform. Well, I’m glad I waited because the iPad is the platform that this was meant for. It’s not quite classic tower defense but the graphics and gameplay are simple and charming and offer a great quick play to eat up a few minutes of time at a go. The visuals are also very kid friendly, much less violent than a lot of other tower defense style games. Tons of fun and a great ambassador for the iPad as a gaming platform.

Scrabble for iPad [$9.99]

It’s Scrabble, just bigger, check out our review here. The one new addition is the ability to play scrabble on the iPad using up to four additional iPhones as letter racks for each of the players using the free letter rack app for iPhone. So now you can pay $1,700 to play a $10 game on your iPad .

Words With Friends HD [$4.99]

Exactly like the Words With Friends that I recommended, but with a nice increase in resolution and a sharper graphical style. Modal popups are used very well to allow you control over the game.

Mirrors Edge [$12.99]

Probably the slickest presentation of a “console port” I’ve seen on the iPad yet. I put that in quotes because it’s not quite the standard Mirror’s Edge and in fact owes more to Canabalt than it does to it’s predecessor, but it does manage to maintain the spirit and feeling of freeness you got from the console game. Speed and agility are the key here and not shooting or fighting, although there is a little taste of that as well. The game encourages you to maintain a free run across the space of a level. Stopping is discouraged and even punished by various enemies in the game. The levels are expansive enough to make you feel the openness of the world but easily finishable in 20 minutes or so for the most part.

Real Racing HD [$9.99]

Really well designed racer that actually fares a bit better on the iPad especially in the graphics and controls departments. the larger surface area and mass of the iPad make it easier to use the turning controls and the boost in processing power allows it to push more polygons, giving this the look of a Playstation 2 title, rather than a mobile game. If you’re going to buy a racer for the iPad, you can’t go wrong here. Picking it up and holding it like a wheel feels natural and I was playing it and well within just a few seconds of picking it up.

Flight Control HD [$4.99]

It was good on iPhone and it’s better on the iPad. More area means more complex flight patterns and way more planes on the screen. You basically draw a flight path to land an airplane on a runway with your finger. Then you have to draw a couple as more planes show up. Soon you’re frantically re-routing planes to prevent them crashing into others or slow moving helicopters and the relaxing music has become the score to a frantic time management frenzy. It’s pretty darn fun.

WeRule [Free]

If you like Facebook building games like Farmville, you’ll like WeRule. Has some RPG elements but probably not enough to lure in hardcore gamers. If you like games as a way to idly fill time without any real sense of urgency then it’s worth a look and it’s free. It is beautiful however.

Command & conquer: Red Alert [$12.99]

Command & Conquer doesn’t really need an introduction does it? The same game we played back in the 90’s on our computers, but really really well ported to an interface that actually feels like you’re commanding forces rather than just pointing and clicking.

Fieldrunners for iPad [$7.99]

Still my favorite tower defense game, Fieldrunners sports clean, crisp hand drawn graphics and a simple tower upgrade scheme with several levels to play with. The iPad gives you more working room and the resolution of all of the graphics have been boosted significantly. Good stuff.

X-Plane [$9.99]

A flight simulator, X-Plane is more about flying and less about goals, but it’s really well detailed and shows off the graphics of the iPad very well. It’s literally like holding a window into the sky in your hands. Lots of wow-factor to show off your iPad, but don’t buy it unless you like flight sims, you won’t be doing any dogfighting or ring flying or anything. If you want to fly an accurately rendered Cessna according to aviation guidelines however, X-Plane is your bag, baby.