Despite health warnings urging you to step away from the screen every now and then, publishers don't want you to go far, and they certainly don't want you to leave their game. They want your attention everywhere. They want you on sofa or at a desk playing their game, and if you can't do that then they want you engaging with it elsewhere. Soon there will be a host of apps that will connect you to a larger game wherever you are, using a tablet or smartphone. Instead of flinging birds at pigs with suspect housing conditions, you'll be ordering guild members around in Guild Wars 2, or unlocking accessories in Far Cry 3.

With the Wii U and Smartglass officially rubber-stamping it, second screen gaming is probably 2013's biggest battleground. Here are eight of the best reasons for gamers to engage.

Watch Dogs

Ubisoft's mysterious hacker action game will use the iPad to support what's happening on the screen, whatever that turns out to be. At E3 they showed off their hackable version of Chicago on the tablet, enabling players to check out floor plans for buildings they'll later infiltrate, and shops where they can buy weapons. You'll even be able to follow friends in real-time as they attempt a mission. You'll also be able to interact with those friends, if they're comfortable allowing you into their game, asking you to use your city-wide view to reroute traffic and cause a pile-up as cover for their misadventures, much as the player does in the E3 demo.

PlanetSide 2

Sony's MMOFPS  is so big that a companion app that acts as a game-guide just makes a lot of sense, which is what the Mobile Uplink App will be. But on top of accessing your stats and showing off handy hints, it'll present a live view of the game that you can use to assist your team-mates. You'll have a dynamic view of the server's map, that you can use to pin-point sections that are vulnerable and in need of defence or attack. That's good, but it goes one step further and enables the person watching the map to dial into the game's VOIP, meaning you can hop on and tell your team what's going on. Or just chat to them while you're on the toilet*.

*Never do this.

Guild Wars 2

The Guild Wars 2 extended experience has a lot in common with Planetside 2's app. It will take the high-level approach, allowing you access to your character and stats. That is expected, but like Planetside 2 you'll be able to use your Android or iOS device to follow the in-game goings on. You'll be able to spot the dynamic events as they begin, and you can communicate that to people on your friends list. Or, if you fancy a touch of cyber-stalking, you can simply follow a player's progress on the gorgeous in-game map, just like God or the American military. Arenanet has been working on this in conjunction with the MMO itself, and on release it hopes to deliver "everything but the game".

Far Cry 3

This is the app most clearly designed for toilet time, giving players a way of unlocking items and swapping weapons in Far Cry 3's multiplayer. Bizarrely there's social network being built for Ubi's shooter that the app will hook into. You'll open packages that are dropped in the game in the hope that you'll unlock a good weapon. It takes time, asking you to track progress through the day, which doesn't sound all that much fun. But maybe another friend will have an unlock that speeds up the progress? Or maybe they'll just have the gun that you want and can send it to you using the app?

World of Warcraft

This is the old guard of second screen gaming. The WoW Armory on iPhone and Android makes so much sense for an all-consuming game like World of Warcraft. It's skewed towards guild members, enabling access to guild events and officer chat, but it also allows you to browse and bid in the auction house, check out your achievements, view game models, and calculate where best to spend your talent points. Picture the scene: the rain is beating down on the bus window, people are pressing in at you on all sides. Are you bothered, or are you too busy drooling over the Warglaive of Azzinoth?

Frozen Synapse

The holy grail of second-screen gaming is to enable the player to pick up on the tablet or phone where they left off on the console or PC. Unless the system has been built for it this is a tricky thing to pull off, but it can be done. Frozen Synapse is a top-down, turn-based strategy game, where all the moves can be pulled off using just the mouse and multiplayer games are saved on an external server and sent between players. As you'll see from the video below, it's the same game on both platforms, so the developers will allow you to pick up where you left off.

Roccat Power Grid

Peripheral makers Roccat are releasing their Power Grid App for all mobile OSes soon. Power Grid is a free app that will bridge the gap between your PC and your phone, giving you access to your PC's settings, allowing you to reply to application messages from the likes of Teamspeak and Skype, or control a media player without alt-tabbing out of the game. But it'll also give you a second screen to directly control in-game commands: you could strip WoW's buff bar from your screen and have it sat on your iPhone 5. An upcoming keyboard from Roccat will have a slot for your phone to sit in.

Xbox SmartGlass

Surprisingly Microsoft wants you to use a tablet or phone while you're engaged with your Xbox 360, and it doesn't matter if it's one of its own devices or a rival’s. Smart Glass has been released for Android, iOS and Windows devices, letting them hook into what your Xbox is up to, and enabling you to control your console from your device's screen. And while swiping through the menus from your phone is pretty cool, when it's connected to Windows 8 it does a lot more. Loading up Forza Horizon on the console and logging into the app will allow you to see a map on your PC or tablet. It acts as a GPS, updating live as the racing progresses, and showing you the world's more interesting elements. This is just the start: movies and TV can be passed back and forth between an MS tablet and the Xbox, and we’re promised that more and more games will have additional content.

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