Android gaming - the best of the best - name 'em!

[skaar]

I'm looking for opinions and titles of what you consider to be among the best (and most popular) Android titles as well as the underground and unappreciated ones. I'm going to play the hell out of my Android for the next week and I need content ideas!

[maxlords]

There are good games on the Android platform? I haven't found any yet....

[fluid_matrix]

Cut the Rope

[skaar]

There are good games on the Android platform? I haven't found any yet....

Don't ruin my hopes here ;)

[Baloo]

Grab an emulator for Android.

[skaar]

Grab an emulator for Android.

Yeah that's kinda where I'm leaning.

Bluetooth Wiimote ftw!

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I'm not sure if all of Yongzh's emulators have been nuked from the marketplace, but if they have I'm sure you can easily find them on the web and manually install them.

Classic gaming emulation on Andriod is tops. NES, SNES, Genesis, GameBoy, Game Gear, SMS, etc.

[otaku]

android is pretty horrible for gaming (like linux!) great for everything else though. Next phone for me will be a return to apple I miss my 3gs :(

there are some decent games but only a few (basically just angry birds and that seems over rated to me)

[Damaniel]

There are good games on the Android platform? I haven't found any yet....

For the longest time there weren't, especially for the Motorola CLIQ that I owned about a year ago (stupid Android 1.6)! If you have a newer phone (something from the Samsung Galaxy S series or any of the newer dual core devices), then your options open up. Gameloft has actually ported over 20 of their games to the newer Android devices -- both of the Dungeon Hunter games, Sacred Odyssey, Eternal Legacy HD, and so on. They've also done a port of their MMO, Order & Chaos. Most of these are decent once you get used to the touchscreen controls, but I wish that Gameloft would use the Android Market instead of making you buy all the games directly from them.

Of course, you can also get Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Words with Friends (good if you like Scrabble), Fieldrunners HD (a great tower defense game), Zenonia I/II/III, and many others. Gaming on Android is in much better shape than it was even six months ago, especially if you own one of the newer devices. Admittedly, Android has a long way to go before it even begins to catch up to iOS...

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

For the longest time there weren't, especially for the Motorola CLIQ that I owned about a year ago (stupid Android 1.6)!

That was the Android phone that got me out of Android ownership and opened my eyes to just how segmented the market is in terms of Android build variations, hardware iterations and favoritism from hardware developers between carriers.

Motorola can go suck a fat one for the way that they treated their userbase on that model. iOS is a much much better fit for me in terms of my phone and gaming needs. (1 or 2 phone models at any given time and near universal functionality between them for all apps.)

Still, on topic, there are some good games out there on Android, you just need to poke around for them.

Off the top of my head I recall that Abduction was a decent Doodle Jump clone.

[Damaniel]

That was the Android phone that got me out of Android ownership and opened my eyes to just how segmented the market is in terms of Android build variations, hardware iterations and favoritism from hardware developers between carriers.

Motorola can go suck a fat one for the way that they treated their userbase on that model. iOS is a much much better fit for me in terms of my phone and gaming needs. (1 or 2 phone models at any given time and near universal functionality between them for all apps.)

Still, on topic, there are some good games out there on Android, you just need to poke around for them.

Off the top of my head I recall that Abduction was a decent Doodle Jump clone.

You can also get Doodle Jump itself now (not my kind of game, but it's there).

Motorola really dropped the ball with the CLIQ, and since my Android experience was limited to that one device, I was convinced that things weren't ever going to get better. Fragmentation is still a problem, but a relatively small number of similar devices make up the majority of the market, and so Android devs at least have a core group of devices that collectively cover the majority of users.

I'm going to be switching providers to Verizon later this year, and I hope that they'll eventually carry some version of the Galaxy S II. I'm a big fan of the Galaxy S -- it's the first phone I've owned that I didn't want to throw across the room in frustration after owning it for a few weeks. I could go with the iPhone (I used a first gen one on T-Mobile for a while), but Android has some advantages (including Flash!) that make iOS a non-starter for me.

[geezuzkhrist119]

If you are a fan of Minecraft, download minecraft pocket edition.

[Damaniel]

If you are a fan of Minecraft, download minecraft pocket edition.

This is only for the Xperia Play for now, correct? Stupid exclusives...

[DKTheArcadeRat]

xConstruct, Friction Mobile, Impossible Game, Fruit Ninja, Farkle Dice.

[dairugger]

heres what i have on my htc evo

EMUS:
cps2 hd emu
nesoid
snesoid
n64oid
genoid
pce16
scummvm

ORIGINAL GAMES:
transformers g1 game
caligo chaser
silpheed alternative
symphony of eternity
illusia
xmen arcade game
zenonia 1/2/3
age of zombies
devilslayer
game dev story
pacmen champion ed

i hope this helps!

[geezuzkhrist119]

This is only for the Xperia Play for now, correct? Stupid exclusives...

I believe so.

[Patney]

Cut the Rope is an excellent time waster. Dungeon Scrolls is pretty fun if you like Scrabble types of games - you basically fight monsters with words. YooNinja is free and pretty addicting. Zenonia 1/2/3 are all free and they are all huge games filled with quests and grinding, if that's your thing. They are reminiscent of Zelda, except with a bad story and level up. Legends of Yore is a pretty charming and surprisingly fleshed out rogue like, check it out.

[maxlords]

I flat out ignore all the "time waster" games. HATE that shit. I have a Play and I don't even game with it :( The only things I'm currently running on it are emulators:

Tiger SNES (works GREAT)
Tiger Genesis (works GREAT)
Tiger NES (works GREAT)
Tiger MAME (which runs like SHIT)

I also have:
Star Battalion (came free with the Play...meh)
Crash Bandicoot (free too)
Tetris (free too, haven't bothered to try it)
Bruce Lee (haven't even tried it...free)
Madden NFL 11 and FIFA 10 (haven't tried em...free)
Asphalt 6 (free as well...haven't tried it either...seeing a pattern?)
Gem Miner (thought it'd be decent but meh)

Looks like i'll have to check these out now:
caligo chaser
silpheed alternative
symphony of eternity
illusia
zenonia 1/2/3
devilslayer
game dev story
pacmen champion ed
Legends of Yore
Minecraft pocket

I can't believe no one is really making games on Android other than throwaway crap. I mean...I bought the Play expecting there'd be a LOT more on the marketplace than there is :( Everything goes to iOS and that's it though. Pisses me off because I hate fucking Apple and would NEVER buy one of their products.

Course everything else works great on it and I'm happy with my phone...

[ScourDX]

Monster Ate my Homework (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.geekbeach.amonsteratemyhomework)

[Patney]

I flat out ignore all the "time waster" games. HATE that shit.

I think it's nice to play on the bus/waiting for something/whatever, but if I'm going to really play some decent games I wouldn't do it on a phone anyway. Xperia Play is a nice concept, but it's never going to receive the support DS or PSP got. It seems like you're basically getting Minecraft Lite anyways, like most "big" titles on a smartphone.

[skaar]

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

[Hawksmoor]

Here are some of my favorites:

9 Innings: Pro Baseball 2011
Age of Zombies
Blast Monkeys
Doodle Bowling
Inotia 3
Speedx 3D
Star Blitz
Pew Pew
Pew Pew 2
Slimeball
Collapse
Dragon, Fly!

[Gapporin]

My girlfriend is really into a game called Jewel Battle. It's basically competitive Bejeweled in which you face off one-on-one against another Android (or iOS!) user. You earn gems, which can then be used to buy powerups, enroll in battles, etc. etc. Execution isn't the greatest, but hey, it's a free game and heads and shoulders above the rest of the free pile.

P.S. Apparently the game is Korean developed, and the players who populate it are...Korean. I don't think I've ever been matched against another American so far. Mot that it really matters, there's no chatting and each match takes about 1-2 minutes anyways.

P.P.S. Apparently the same company has also released a free action RPG called Demon Hunter that looks pretty nifty. Haven't played it myself, though, so YMMV.

[Damaramu]

If you like sim management games, I would recommend anything from Kairosoft.

Definitely the most popular, and my personal favorite, from them is Game Dev Story. If you haven't heard of this by now, you should really try it out!

[portnoyd]

Words with Friends (good if you like Scrabble)

Highly recommend Wordfeud over WWF. WWF is buggy and bloated. WF is very streamlined and fast. It can also connect to players using it on iOS as well.

[Oldskool]

I have been enjoying Star Dunk and Words with friends as of late. I also payed for Zenonia 2 which is a pretty great game.

[chrisballer]

I have the droid X, and the emulation for the classics on it are great. If you go the way of emulation make sure to check out the settings to move the buttons around and resize them. I have the lite versions of the emulators that are free. The only difference with the free versions are that you can't use save states.

A few others I have enjoyed are:

Drag Racing by Creative Mobile.
Reckless Racing
Moto X Mayhem
Back Breaker (if you like football)
Alchemy is a great free game.

[skaar]

I just got a cheap xperia play and my god... The emulation is fantastic.

[Nightowljrm]

Highly recommend Wordfeud over WWF. WWF is buggy and bloated. WF is very streamlined and fast. It can also connect to players using it on iOS as well.

So true, so true...

The emulators are also great, but the multitouch is iffy. You can set the "keys" to keys on your slideout keyboard (depending on what phone you have), but that still is a little difficult to get used to on SNES games on your phone.

The Impossible Game is a fun, timing/memorization type game that's only about $0.99. Or so it was when I purchased it.

PewPew is spectacular. I love it.

There's a BladeQuest Demo. It's supposedly a retro-style RPG. I have not played it yet, but it looks promising enough.

There's Death Worm Free, which is... well, the name speaks for itself. It's free with a "demo version" but you can unlock the full version by downloading apps, then uninstalling them whenever you have the full version.