Droid Life

Category: Games

Only the best Android games make our daily Android apps lists, because you don’t need to sift through the garbage – you just need to know what you should be playing and spending that cash on.

Whether its Crossy Road, Monument Valley, HQ Trivia, the latest Star Wars game, or an indie title, there is a good chance our gaming expert(s) have taken a look at it.

Have Android games recommendations? Send them on over and we’ll do our best to dive in, test it, and let you know if it will be worth purchasing. We have a good eye for games at Droid Life an consider ourselves a trusted voice.

  • Shazam Encore is FREE from Amazon, Ad-free Angry Birds Also Available

    We’re still trying to decide if the Amazon Appstore is necessary or not, but if they keep pumping out free apps each day that normally cost $5, we aren’t about to start complaining about it.  They have already featured Angry Birds Rio and Doodle Jump, but today’s offer of Shazam Encore is something to note.  The app runs for around $5 on both the Android Market and Amazon store, giving you unlimited tags of songs along with LastFM and Pandora support.  We might have to start featuring each app of the day in the sidebar or something – wouldn’t want anyone to miss out.

    And on a semi-related note, you can find ad-free versions Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons over at the Amazon Appstore for $.99 a piece.  One of the major complaints about the free versions of these games has been the amount of lag experienced when ads appear.  Well, it looks like you can now defeat that problem with a dollar or two.

    Shazam Encore | Angry Birds | Angry Birds Seasons

    Cheers Tim, Mike and 4n1m4l!

  • Gameloft Opens Arms to Amazon Appstore for HD Game Distribution

    Gameloft CEO Michel Guillemot said recently in an interview that they plan to embrace the new Amazon Appstore rather than the official Android Market, and will use it as an outlet to release their suite of HD mobile games.  In the past, Gameloft has chosen to sell games on their own, basically showing that they don’t trust the official market with the amount of piracy that takes place.  Clearly they feel like Amazon will protect their apps much better…

    Gameloft Chief Executive Michel Guillemot said Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, where consumers are comfortable using their credit cards to pay for everything from toasters to online movies, provides the perfect platform for mobile games.

    “The Amazon ecosystem is controlled where we don’t find too many pirated version of our games or malware games, so for the consumers, it will be a safer place to come and get applications,” Guillemot said in an interview.

    It’s at least a step in the right direction.  Amazon’s Appstore appears to at least work, so this should provide a lot less frustration to those that have had the unfortunate pleasure of dealing with Gameloft’s purchasing process.  We’re still not sure if they’ll force you to re-buy games for each of your phones or not, but we’re thinking they will.  I was able to download Angry Birds Rio to multiple devices without paying though, and it’s technically a paid app.  I guess we’ll soon find out.

    Via:  Reuters, Droid Gamers

  • Angry Birds Rio Unplayable if Amazon AppStore is Uninstalled

    If you installed the new Amazon AppStore this morning to grab Angry Birds Rio, you might not want to uninstall it any time soon.  If you do, and then try to play AB Rio, you’ll see the following message on your screen.

    It looks like the Amazon Appstore was uninstalled from your device.  Please install the Amazon Appstore and sign in with your username and password to use this app.

    Smart move by Amazon, but frustrating to those of you out there that don’t want an extra appstore app taking up space on your phone’s internal memory and in your app drawer.  Kids got to make money somehow, right?  Hopefully this isn’t a trend with all of their apps.

    Cheers @davekover and everyone else!

  • Review: Hextacy on Android

    Ah, it seems like it’s been awhile since my last game review. I got knocked on my ass by a pretty serious case of the flu last week, so I apologize that my reviews have been sparse.

    This week I bring you Hextacy, an oft-discussed game that’s hit the Android market and making quite a splash. At its core, Hextacy is a very simple tile-matching game; you match hexagons of three or more together in order to eliminate them from the playing field and score points.

    Matching is done by dragging your finger along strings of tiles in a row, and the elimination is completed when you release contact. This presents an interesting game mechanic: you can’t go over the same tiles twice. It emphasizes a decision to be made: which tile decision will lead to further combos?

    As move options deplete, tiles are replaced until there are literally no moves left; rinse, repeat. It’s puzzling action in a very bite-sized format that I’ve found works best when played in short bursts. Unlike previously-reviewed puzzler Runik, there aren’t many powerups to extend game life; they don’t appear often, and are usually a last resort to get some more tiles to work with.

    This forces the player to be strategic, which I enjoy; not only are players rewarded for thinking ahead, that action is needed for their continued survival. I think Runik coddled me a little bit in expecting more ways “out” of bad decisions. With Hextacy, bad choices are just met with a simple “Game over. Try again, sucker.”

    I threw together a quick gameplay demo, to those who want to see how the game works.   (more…)

  • ESPN Bracket Bound 2011 Lets You Track Your Picks, and the DL Tourney Challenge

    If you joined the Droid Life Tourney Challenge, then you’ll want to grab the ESPN Bracket Bound app to keep track of my dominance over the 1000+ that decided to battle it out this year.  The app is free in the market, allows you to track your bracket, your standings in any of your groups, and even view the overall leaders in the entire country.  It’s actually a pretty solid attempt here by ESPN.   (more…)

  • Regular Angry Birds Receives 15 New Levels for Ham ‘Em High Stage

    The original Angry Birds (not Seasons or Rio) received an update today that includes 15 new levels for it’s Ham ‘Em High stage.  As you can see from the screenshot below, I’m no where near being able to play them, so I’ll rely on all of you let the world know just how awesome they are.  The update is free as usual and weighs in at 16MB or so.  Grab it now!

    Cheers @vbads13 and Elwin!

  • Video: Gaming on the Motorola XOOM

    We’re finally putting together our full review of the Motorola XOOM, and with that comes a quick video demo of a bunch of games that run as smoothly as you would expect.  A big beautiful screen, Tegra 2 and 1GB of RAM sure make a difference when you are slicing up samurai and blowing away robots.  This truly is a great device for playing your favorite mobile games on.  The good news is, that it will start to become more than just a mobile gaming device once Honeycomb really learns to take advance of this dual-core processor.   (more…)

  • Playstation Games Headed to Tegra 2 Devices this Year

    The new Tegra Zone app is so awesome that it even breaks news.  Through the news reader section of it, we were introduced to word out of Sony’s camp that PlayStation games are indeed headed to Android devices (both phones and tablets) running  Tegra 2 processors.  The plan is to have the first set of games out some time this year through their PlayStation Suite which would include Wild Arms, Cool Boarders 2 and Syphon Filter.  Sony is obviously realizing that mobile gaming is making portable gaming devices a lot less attractive these days and has decided to make their massive library available for the first time.  Licensing to manufacturers has already begun, which means that developers will be cracking away on your favorite games in no time.

    Via:  Android and Me