Android Games Catch-All

Just picked up a Nexus 7 and am trying to wade through the Android catalog. What sites do you folks use for staying on top of releases? The Google Play store is pretty lousy for browsing.

Trashie wrote:

Just picked up a Nexus 7 and am trying to wade through the Android catalog. What sites do you folks use for staying on top of releases? The Google Play store is pretty lousy for browsing.

I get most of my games through Android Police.

CannibalCrowley wrote:

I get most of my games through Android Police.

Me too. Every couple of weeks they do roundups of all the new apps/games that have come to their attention - quite handy.

Spectral Souls, Blazing Souls Accelate, and Generation of Chaos are all 50% at the moment. I gather these are rarely if ever on sale, and the reviews look great.

$7 is 50% off? Jeez.

Which one is the best? Maybe I could spring for one...

Stele wrote:

$7 is 50% off? Jeez.

Which one is the best? Maybe I could spring for one...

Apparently these are on the order of 'full console experience' games. I think they may be ports/HD remakes of PS1 titles. Anyway, the site I saw the news on said 'Spectral Souls and two others'. I picked up Spectal Souls myself.

So I wound up with an Android tablet after Christmas (Asus Transformer Infinity) and went to pick up a few games for it. Problem is, a surprising number of them show "This item is not compatible with your device". The Dead Space app mentioned a few posts back is one of them. So is Mass Effect: Infiltrator which I had previously bought on my phone. Come on someone, what's the deal here?

Avadon: The Black Fortress (which I have on PC) works, but $10? Really?

Thanks!

I had maybe half of them from previous free days. But definitely some new things to try.

tanstaafl wrote:

So I wound up with an Android tablet after Christmas (Asus Transformer Infinity) and went to pick up a few games for it. Problem is, a surprising number of them show "This item is not compatible with your device". The Dead Space app mentioned a few posts back is one of them. So is Mass Effect: Infiltrator which I had previously bought on my phone. Come on someone, what's the deal here?

Avadon: The Black Fortress (which I have on PC) works, but $10? Really?

It's the same game as on the pc, which costs more... They've done a couple humble indie bundles for Android games, so I'd hold out hope for another one of those.

Also, the problem is that tablet support for Android isn't really that popular and you have a less popular model (ie. not a Nexus), or so I think.

Check out Spacechem. Not sure the price. Or compatability.

Yeah, I have Avadon on PC but I think I only paid $5 for it. I bought it again for the tablet anyway.

And the tablet is a definite upgrade from my Kindle Fire, I'm just venting on how incompatible the Android platform is with itself.

Thanks so much for the heads up!

mateofalcone wrote:

Spectral Souls, Blazing Souls Accelate, and Generation of Chaos are all 50% at the moment. I gather these are rarely if ever on sale, and the reviews look great.

I took the plunge on Generation of Chaos (Described as a Strategy RPG, rather than the other two as Tactical RPGs) because I really liked one of the older Tactics Ogre games and would love something similar on my Android. I'll try to give it a try this weekend so if I like it I have time to buy one of the others before the sale ends the end of 2012, I forget the time zone.)

If I do get to it I'll post comments here as well.

Thanks for the pointer to Android Police! I've been searching for a decent android news site.

Once there, I found that they'd also posted about the Spectral Souls (etc) sale.

tanstaafl wrote:

Yeah, I have Avadon on PC but I think I only paid $5 for it. I bought it again for the tablet anyway.

And the tablet is a definite upgrade from my Kindle Fire, I'm just venting on how incompatible the Android platform is with itself.

There is a way to get the Play Store to see your device as something more compatible, so you can download some of those apps. I'm sure it requires root though. Another option would be downloading APK's from the internet. I don't mean to sound a like a proponent for piracy but if that is the only way you can get the games on your device, then I don't think it's a problem.

mortalgroove wrote:

Thanks so much for the heads up!

Me too!

I haven't gamed in forever because I've been backpacking, but I finally tried a few games on my tablet. It's been a lot of fun, although discovery in the market is horrendous. The lack of successive filters (like, say, nothing below 4 stars) means the signal to noise ratio is frustrating.

Sword and Sworcery EP is a point-and-click 8-bit style adventure. The puzzles are distracting enough, but can almost always be solved through random trial and error, but clues are audio and visual based and pretty helpful. The dialogue is funny and self-referential, and the music and sound effects are fantastic (they recommend playing with headphones, and I concur).

Part of the gameplay is connected to the moon phases though, which I find extremely frustrating. I just want to finish games and move on to the next, it almost forces you to wait upwards of a few days to a couple weeks. You can cheat, but, well. It's cheating.

Worth the $2 asking price, but not for the impatient.

Great Big War Game is a turn-based hex cartoonish strategy game. The AI is pretty dumb, but there's quite a few unit types and a lot of missions (they tend to get repetitive towards the end). The humor is a bit juvenile, but pretty low-key. If you upgrade your units carefully, the game becomes pretty simple further on.

Still, definitely worth the 99 cents.

Whatever happened to the peggle version on the android? I can't find it in the game anymore.

checkm-8 wrote:

Whatever happened to the peggle version on the android? I can't find it in the game anymore.

Weird, it's not on Amazon any more, either. I have it installed still, but the amazon page from my inventory gives an error.

I've been playing around with the Android market and have been disappointed that I can't find anything in the grand strategy or 4x genres. It seems like the tablets would be good fits for a Civ-type game but nothing is available absent some Risk clones.

Any suggestions?

Trashie wrote:

I've been playing around with the Android market and have been disappointed that I can't find anything in the grand strategy or 4x genres. It seems like the tablets would be good fits for a Civ-type game but nothing is available absent some Risk clones.

Any suggestions?

It's not just you. There is a MASSIVE dearth of 4X games for Android. I think there's a Freeciv port that's supposed to be terrible, but not much more. If you come across anything, please share. I'd sure love to see Civ, CivRev, MOO2, etc. in a form I can stick in my pocket and take with me.

Anyone have any thoughts on The Bard's Tale? I played the classic decades ago but don't know if the new one has anything in common other than the name. It's on sale atm.

D-Man777 wrote:

I'd sure love to see Civ, CivRev, MOO2, etc. in a form I can stick in my pocket and take with me.

Ok.

IMAGE(http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x340/clever_id/2012-12-02095648_zpsd92f5337.jpg)

While not a phone, I got MoO and MoO2 to run on our ASUS TF101 using aDOSBOX, pretty easily. Just copied it from my GOG directory to a folder on the tablet. I suppose I should test it on my phone...

clever id wrote:
D-Man777 wrote:

I'd sure love to see Civ, CivRev, MOO2, etc. in a form I can stick in my pocket and take with me.

Ok.

IMAGE(http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x340/clever_id/2012-12-02095648_zpsd92f5337.jpg)

While not a phone, I got MoO and MoO2 to run on our ASUS TF101 using aDOSBOX, pretty easily. Just copied it from my GOG directory to a folder on the tablet. I suppose I should test it on my phone...

And thus I was once more reminded why I switched to Android.

Trashie wrote:

I've been playing around with the Android market and have been disappointed that I can't find anything in the grand strategy or 4x genres. It seems like the tablets would be good fits for a Civ-type game but nothing is available absent some Risk clones.

Any suggestions?

Get an iPad. Seriously. It sucks, I know, but Android is missing out on this stuff big time.

garion333 wrote:

Get an iPad. Seriously. It sucks, I know, but Android is missing out on this stuff big time.

Better then that buy apps on Android. I have spoken with a few iOS developers and the main reason I hear for them to not make android programs is that "No one spends money on android apps" which I believe is total crap, I do and so do many others. If developers see there is money to be made they will get over here and make it.

clever id wrote:
D-Man777 wrote:

I'd sure love to see Civ, CivRev, MOO2, etc. in a form I can stick in my pocket and take with me.

Ok.

IMAGE(http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x340/clever_id/2012-12-02095648_zpsd92f5337.jpg)

While not a phone, I got MoO and MoO2 to run on our ASUS TF101 using aDOSBOX, pretty easily. Just copied it from my GOG directory to a folder on the tablet. I suppose I should test it on my phone...

Oh damn. Now I have to look into this. I would think there would be only a small set of DOS games which would work well with a touch interface though.

D-Man777 wrote:

Oh damn. Now I have to look into this. I would think there would be only a small set of DOS games which would work well with a touch interface though.

Yeah, it's a little awkward, but it works well enough that it's playable. I cranked up the cycles from the default, which was set pretty low IIRC (4k up to 20k perhaps but YMMV turns out the default 3k works best for me...).

Oh, and I tested it on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S1) and it worked. Things were a little small but it ran. It's easiest if you turn off the joystick and remember you don't have to be on top of the mouse to control it.

As I mentioned, I've also had success with MOO1 and SC2K on the tablet. I've been meaning to test more games from my GOG catalog but haven't gotten around to it.

clever id wrote:
D-Man777 wrote:

Oh damn. Now I have to look into this. I would think there would be only a small set of DOS games which would work well with a touch interface though.

Yeah, it's a little awkward, but it works well enough that it's playable. I cranked up the cycles from the default, which was set pretty low IIRC (4k up to 20k perhaps but YMMV turns out the default 3k works best for me...).

Oh, and I tested it on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S1) and it worked. Things were a little small but it ran. It's easiest if you turn off the joystick and remember you don't have to be on top of the mouse to control it.

As I mentioned, I've also had success with MOO1 and SC2K on the tablet. I've been meaning to test more games from my GOG catalog but haven't gotten around to it.

Xcom? Eh? Eh?

Tried out Dead Trigger. I'm a bit underwhelmed. The reviews all praise the controls, but they're pretty terrible, especially the defaults.

You can move around the touch button areas... But only while in a mission. You know, while you're constantly being attacked. Great idea! I died constantly while I was figuring out what distance to space the buttons. Which meant repeatedly watching loading screens. Hooray!

I'm a run and gunner, and sometimes the game seems to get confused if you're touching the screen at too many points. As in more than two simple touches. The worst part of the controls is definitely the movement.

The occasional weird clipping issue, where you get stuck on scenery or enemies or just invisible who the hell knows what.

Considering the lack of preciseness in the controls, a way to automatically center your view again would be ideal.

Also, what the f*ck with no way to 180? Just trying to turn around takes so many swipes you're basically f*cked. Unless you super crank the sensitivity, which brings its own issues.

In every mission I've played so far, there's anywhere from 2 to 5 rooms. So you'll quickly memorize the levels, even as it mixes it up by starting you in different locations.

Your goals are always: fetch this and bring it back, kill X zombies, protect static location, or survive X minutes.

It's got a decent free to play model. The first gun isn't very good, but you technically don't have to buy anything with real money. You just won't get the better guns quickly, or at all.

The graphics are pretty decent, but I couldn't tell whether I was experiencing jerkiness due to the terrible controls or the framerate, so I lowered the detail. Still good at medium though.

The writing/story is pretty bad. In my head I invent more plausible and compelling scenarios. Such as "Let's face it. You just want to shoot like 60 zombies in the face. Have fun!"

All in all, not bad for free and if you have a few minutes to kill. But with how repetitive and shallow the gameplay is, I can't imagine any more commitment than that.

MonoCheli wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Get an iPad. Seriously. It sucks, I know, but Android is missing out on this stuff big time.

Better then that buy apps on Android. I have spoken with a few iOS developers and the main reason I hear for them to not make android programs is that "No one spends money on android apps" which I believe is total crap, I do and so do many others. If developers see there is money to be made they will get over here and make it.

I was being a bit more specific in re what he's looking for. There's a dearth of war gaming, tbs and 4x games. Can't exactly spend money on games that don't exist.