Good games for Android?

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bluegate

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Dec 28, 2010
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Tl:Dr Any good Android games out there ? :D

So, I recently bought an Android tablet and am looking for some games to kill some time with when I am not using it as an e-book reader and what not.

I tried a few games but most of these weren't real games to begin with; they were schemes to get the user to spend money rather than provide them with a good time. ( Talking farmville-esque "pay to speed up a building that takes 2 hours to build otherwise" game mechanics ).

I scrolled through lots of pages on the market and done several Google searches but I can't seem to find any nice games so I wondered if there are people on here that know where to find these little gems.
 

Gatx

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Jul 7, 2011
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There's only two games on my phone:
Magic Alchemist - most addictive puzzle game since Tetris. There's also a browser version you can try out. It's completely free, which doesn't seem like a big deal since it's so simple, but it actually costs money on iOS.

Nimble Quest - it's a cross between an RPG and Snake, pure genius. It's also another game that's strangely free on Android but requires a purchase on iOS.
 

Sp3ratus

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Apr 11, 2009
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Well, I have a few suggestions, but some of them aren't specific to Android, I don't know if that matters or not, but here goes:

Eufloria: An RTS-lite so to speak. There's no real base management in the game and the strategic depth is nowhere near a fully fledged RTS. However, it's a great game, very laidback and not really on the hard side in terms of difficulty. There is one type of unit, but the stats of the units vary depending on which asteroid they spawn from. Asteroids can be planted with trees that come in different shapes, like offense(which spawns seedlings, the attack units) and defense(which spawns defense mines, when you get invaded). I've had a lot of fun with it, both on my phone and on my PC, with the latter being where I've spent the most amount of times, due to the modding community.

Next up is Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP(not a typo). It's an adventure game with a very cute art style. It's done entirely in pixel art, yet I never felt you couldn't see what was going on, on the screen. The soundtrack is also really excellent and fits the mood of the game perfectly.

Machinarium. Another adventure game with a sweet story about a robot boy getting lost, trying to find his way back into the city. Some of the puzzles might be a bit obscure, but there's a hint system built into the game, so there's no reason to ever quit the game, because you're stuck. It's a great solution, since it can keep some of the old-school style puzzles, but still help more inexperienced players get further in the game.

Splice. I'm not really sure to how to describe this game, honestly. The goal of the game is to splice(hence the name) cells to specific forms given by the game. I guess it's a puzzler in that regard, but it's not really like something I've played before. It's quite rewarding when you actually solve some of the later levels, because they can be pretty hard.

ScummVM. The engine for running the classic point-and-click adventures, like Monkey Island and the like, that you can get on places like GoG if you don't have them on CD or something similar. If you've never gotten around to playing those, this is the perfect opportunity for that.

NetHack. NetHack is the legendary roguelike that have been around for many, many years and is available for play on Android, which is great. It's not for everyone, but I'm still going to throw it out there, in case you want to check it out.

FreeCiv. Civ on the go! It's basically Civ2 for the Android. It's a little hard to control on my phone, since the interface is quite small with such a small screen, but I can imagine it working a lot better on a tablet if you want to check it out. If you don't know what Civ is(which you probably do), it's the empire building game, starting with a puny settler but eventually building your a globe spanning empire so that you can crush your enemies to death!

Anyway, I hope you can use some of my suggestions. I know it's very adventure-centric, but the platform really lends itself well to turn-based and/or slower based games, which all of the above really are.

EDIT:
Quoting so you'll get a notice:
bluegate said:
EDIT 2:
You're in luck, there's a new Humble Bundle for Android on sale right now.
 

bluegate

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Thanks for the replies guys!

Sp3ratus said:
Thanks for all the great games and the heads up about the Humble Bundle! I especially liked the ScummVM app, I can't wait to relive those old point and click adventures from back in the day. Well actually, I enjoyed all of the apps and can't decide which to play, those little icons just sit there mocking me.

Tom_green_day said:
Angry Birds?
Please don't give me a warning for this being too short.
I won't tell if you won't :D
Angry birds is indeed a fun game, although I already played it on my computer a while ago.

Gatx said:
Lucky I got myself an Android device because those two games are quite addicting, especially NumbleQuest, so simple yet so addictive...

And this combined with the apps mentioned by Sp3ratus, I now have more apps to play than I know what to do with, haha.
 

Nuxxy

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You can also play Heroes of Might and Magic 2, via Free Heroes 2. Despite it being made in 1996, the interface works pretty well. It was probably the best of the entire series. You can find the PC version around too, and design new maps.
 

fenrizz

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Ports of Call (Buy ships and ship cargo around the world)

Carmageddon (classic PC game)

Plague Inc (make disease, wipe out humanity)
 

Teoes

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Jun 1, 2010
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Anomaly Warzone Earth and the pseudo-sequel / standalone expansion Anomaly Korea are fanastic games. Reverse Tower Defence (or rather, Tower Offence). You guide a column of various units through enemy territory, picking the route and deploying power-ups, to keep them alive against the enemy towers. Interesting spin on the genre, lovely graphics, hilarious(-ly bad) voice acting.

Spelltower is a fun puzzle game - think Boggle-Tetris. Find big words, feel smart.

Cogs is a pretty and fun little puzzler, shifting the sliding tile mechanic into three dimensions, with a charming steampunk-esque aesthetic.
 

Chimpzy_v1legacy

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Jun 21, 2009
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These are some of the games I bought and liked:

Knights of Pen & Paper [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=br.com.beholdstudios.knightspp&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDMsImJyLmNvbS5iZWhvbGRzdHVkaW9zLmtuaWdodHNwcCJd]: a fun little rpg that's essentially about people playing dungeons & dragons. It's also available for pc.

Osmos [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hemispheregames.osmos]: a weird little action puzzler where you're a galactic amoeba that has you try to become the largest by absorbing other, smaller blobs.

Penny Arcade's On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness 3 [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinkerhousegames.paa3]: A jrpg in old school style featuring the guys from Penny Arcade. A pretty good satire of the genre and a solid game overall.

Cthulhu Saves The World [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinkerhousegames.cstw&feature=more_from_developer#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEwMiwiY29tLnRpbmtlcmhvdXNlZ2FtZXMuY3N0dyJd]: From the same dev as Rain-Slick 3, it's another old school jrpg, except you're the infamous, maddening, terrible, many-tentacled eldritch abomination, the great old one Cthulhu.

Also, a small tip for when you purchase games: try and see if there is a HD version of the game you want. You have a tablet, so that way you'll get more out of it. It can make a pretty big difference sometimes. But, maybe you already know this.
 

iseko

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Dec 4, 2008
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ff vii and ff iii and probably a few others are for sale for android. most of the games that i know off are allready mentioned
 

SnowyGamester

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Oct 18, 2009
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There is a lot of crap on the Android Market and App Store and it takes plenty of searching and sifting to find the best of the best. There are of course plenty of emulators that will give you access to pretty much everything up to the PSX and N64 (and slowly creeping into PSP, NDS and Dreamcast territory, with PS2 probably not far off) but aside from that there are a few I've enjoyed and continue to enjoy.

First off a few of the shooters I like (mostly for the multiplayer)
- Critical Strike Portable: Simply a really good Counter Strike clone. This one is free.
- QIII4A: Source port for the Quake 3 Arena engine. Free but requires your own files from Quake 3, though can alternatively work with the free OpenArena which is basically a Quake 3 clone in the Quake 3 engine.
- N.O.V.A. 3: Third in the series of Halo clones, taking a few cues from Crisis in this instalment. Costs a few bucks but it's pretty good if you can run it properly (draw distance and frame rate are fucked on underpowered devices).
There's also the Modern Combat series if you're into Modern Warfare type stuff...solid enough gameplay but not a personal favourite. Also Blitz Brigade if you like Team Fortress (yes there are a lot of clones on Android, not all of them good). SHADOWGUN: DeadZone (a Gears of War looking game) also might be good but last I checked it just crashes on my phone, as does Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard which I used to enjoy before I got a Galaxy SIII.

I've also played a bit of Asphalt 7 which is a free Burnout type racing game. It's pretty good but I have a horrid time trying to get into multiplayer matches which is a shame. Worms Armageddon also just came out and it seems to work a lot better than the previous Worms game that EA released on Android...haven't tried getting online but it has offline multiplayer which means I'll probably get some use out of it on the plane ride to PAX next month. Max Payne, GTA III and Vice City are also available but I've played those far too much already to get back into any of them myself. There are a few Metal Slug games on the market too now but again I played the hell out of all of them when I was a kid and don't think there's much more they can do for me. Also there's MineCraft but I found it a lot harder to get into than the PC version.

If you're looking for emulators I recommend Mupen64 Plus AE (N64), FPse (PSX) and the ones by Robert Broglia (a bunch of older consoles). Regardless, if you want to play anything effectively other than simple touchscreen games you might want to get a Bluetooth controller. PS3 and Wii ones work though mapping buttons and nubs is usually difficult for any controller (usually owing to games only being designed for touch screens) however I haven't found any case where it's really advantageous to use one but isn't possible to do so. A mouse and keyboard could also be used if you've got room to lug those around in whatever you keep your tablet in.
 

AuronFtw

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Nov 29, 2010
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Several square enix ports, if you're into the early JRPGs. Final Fantasy 3 is probably the best port they did, with Chrono Trigger coming in a close second (wins points for being a better game, loses points for having shittier input). FF4 is also great.

Final Fantasy 1 and 2 also have ports, but the bad semitransparent dpad for movement control is the worst idea since putting QTEs in action games.

In other genres... Flow (free) is a pretty addictive connect-the-colored-dots kind of game, and there are a number of sudoku, solitaire, mahjong etc apps.
 

Alcaste

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Mar 2, 2011
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I've been playing Puzzle and Dragons lately. It's got the collecting of pokemon, the gem-matching mechanic, and dungeon crawling. its fun if you like seeing big combo chains rewarding you with big numbers, and if you like cutesie monsters.
 

Jaeger_CDN

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Aug 9, 2010
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One of the first ones I bought for my tablet was Air Control HD [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.logisoft.aircontrolhdfull&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImRrLmxvZ2lzb2Z0LmFpcmNvbnRyb2xoZGZ1bGwiXQ..] - control incoming aircraft to land, starts easy but gets progressively harder

Another one no one has mentioned is Bard's Tale [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inxile.BardTale&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5pbnhpbGUuQmFyZFRhbGUiXQ..] which is made by the same people doing the new Wasteland 2 game

I've tried some of the FPS games on my tablet but never really got the hang of the control systems on them. I must be too used to KBM or controllers as opposed to the tablet face systems