Ice Breaker
Maybe it is just me, but I can't find this one in the Android Market place and the link on the article also errors!
Reg Hardware Mobile Week Traditionally, if you wanted your phone or media player to double up as a gaming platform, you bought an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. But the last 12 months have seen a veritable revolution in the number and quality of games available for Android. Some of the games here had me giggling like a fool, …
If you own a samsung phone then using the "Samsung Apps" app you can download Sprinkle for free. I'm also a bit surprised Dead Space (also free on samsung apps) or GTA 3 aren't on this list.
Only downside to Samsung Apps is that the downloaded apps can get into a bit of a conflict with android market.
... try Ceramic Destroyer. Same principle, possibly even the exact same bomb types. Lots more levels for free and the ads are not very intrusive, either. Can't think of a better 0p I've spend - tops Angry Birds, in my book.
Also, look for "3D Space Game" - aka "Elite". Controls are a bit difficult to work, but it's a fun bit of nostalgia (and also free)
I played that on a couple of Tegra 3 demos yesterday and I thought it was bloody awful! Another middling 3rd person cover shooter in the 360 style, with a contextual cover system that barely works, the most boring multiplayer maps I've seen in a long time - in fact, that's the right word for it: boring. Boring, boring, boring, all over. If the word "generic" were given form....well, I suppose it was, and they called it Halo, but Shadowrun comes close.
Dull.
So. Very. Dull.
I wish Android app developers were more careful with permissions. I get that ad-supported games need to access the network (although I'd like a "only access the network to get ads" permission). But exactly why does Dead On Arrival need to know what other applications are running, or who I am calling on my phone?
In the scribbler game it is necessary to pretend that advertising is simply sunshine rendered into little pictures and films to bring joy to us all. The scribbler must maintain this fiction in order to keep his whisky-vouchers coming. You will not see a journalist criticising advertising - hand that feeds and all that.
The proof that it is a fiction is the use of the word "free" to denote content slathered with intrusive and unwelcome lies. These lies use bandwidth and screen real estate and frequently obscure the content that they are "supporting". These are costs that I must meet. This is plainly not "free", so to tell me that it is is contemptuous.
Please developers: take my money. I am happy to pay you. Just let me know what your software costs. Don't soil your efforts by grovelling to the takers.
Please scribblers: enough with the grotesque, gratuitous and offensive untruths. Denote "ad-supported" software as such, so that I can make an informed decision. Don't deliberately mislead me.
I put my phone into flight mode if I need to run an ad-poisoned app anyway, so the notion that advertising "supports" the software is a non-starter with me, and I suspect that I am far from alone in this.
"Denote "ad-supported" software as such, so that I can make an informed decision. Don't deliberately mislead me."
If you download an app and you find that it has adverts you are perfectly free to uninstall it at a total financial loss to you of 0 pounds and 0 pence. It's not fucking rocket science.
To the best of my knowledge Ice Breaker is a complete rip-off of Amazing Breaker, which is an IPhone game. Ice Breaker was on the Android Market a few weeks ago, I managed to get a copy while my tablet was being repaired. By the time I got my tablet back the game was gone and in my purchase history I have a completely blank line.
Oh and I know exactly who contacted the developers of Amazing Breaker to let them know an almost identical copy of their game was free on the android market.
If 18 months ago - even 12 months ago - someone had asked me if should they should buy an Android PMP/smartphone or an iOS PMP/smartphone but that the key determining factor was that they wanted a wide selection of games, I would have had to say iOS was the way to go.
Now there is far less - if anything - in it.
That was my point.
I'm not talking about a Tron game, but rather how I feel about *any* app that wants to get hold of my device's ID. So many of the games and apps listed by El Reg as "top" require this permission which stops me downloading and using them.
It would be really great if this was taken into consideration when creating these top 10 lists - even if that is just to mention this need in the summary of the app...
It's not "one game", but emulators can run potentially hundreds of games (though the legality of ROMs/downloads of the actual games is another issue altogether). Can I suggest MAMEdroid with some classic 80's arcade ROMs (Mr. Do!, Phoenix, Galaxians etc.) or perhaps Beebdroid with all those BBC Micro classics?
How could you omit the greatest game ever on the PS3, now ported to Android? (Or at least, Tegra-based android)
It plays great, and is every bit as fun as the original game on the PS3. It has a couple downsides..I can't get the game to work with a real controller or even a keyboard...you have to use the touch screen. Hopefully they'll fix that. And the tables...well, there are a couple decent tables...the free Sorcerer one is fun. Excaliber is about as fun as it is on the PS3, which at best is only middle-of-the-road. I cannot at all justify buying the Marvel comic based ones. I hope they port over some of the awesome PS3 ones like Mars, or especially Tesla.
Ever since I was a young boy, I played the silver ball...
The only ones of these games that are decent are Osmos HD (On a tablet sucks on a phone).
and Apparatus.
Best Android Game I have played is Sonic CD. (Perfect on my Xperia Play).
Toki Tori is alright as well.
GTA3 is ok with a pad and on a dual core tablet (sucks on the Xperia Play - Xoom it is ok with a 360 pad).
Modern games generally have no depth compared to the 16 bit era ports.
(When Android gets Chrono Trigger in English that will be better than all the junk new age RPG's)
Adware should be moved to its own section. (As it stands I just don't install anything that needs full internet access from the market).
People saying it has no cost to you it does wasted time. It is only free if you value your time as worth nothing. (I value it as the most valuable thing I have as it is the only thing I cannot get more of).