Features 6

The 10 best PC and console games on Android

max payne

Chinatown Wars

chinatown wars

Chinatown Wars isn’t the only GTA game available on Android, and it lacks the swinging polygons and 3D worlds of its Google Play stablemates: GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas.

However, Chinatown Wars – which was originally released on Nintendo DS – is the perfect touchscreen iteration of the franchise. It has bite-size missions and an addictive (in both senses) drug-dealing meta-game that’s perfect for mobile. Get it here.

Limbo

Playdead’s creepy puzzle-platformer became an instant classic when it arrived on consoles in 2010. It earned rave reviews thanks to its stylish monochrome graphical style, intelligent puzzle design, and – most of all – its many horrible deaths, which came courtesy of such horrors as a giant spider and circular saw. 

Limbo has simple controls and undemanding visuals, making it a perfect fit for touchscreen devices. Get it here.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

brothers

In some ways Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a slightly odd choice for the touchscreen treatment. Its showpiece input mechanic is built around the two analogue sticks of a modern controller, with you controlling one brother with each stick.

However, everything else Brothers has to offer – its clever puzzles, polished visuals, and absolutely heartbreaking story – more than makes up for its slight controller deficiency. Get it here.

Don’t Starve: Pocket Edition

dont starve

Roguelikes can be a bit of a niche genre, but Don’t Starve makes the futile task of surviving for as long as you can in a hostile environment a surprisingly enjoyable one.

This is down to the charming, gothic 2.5D visuals, the simple controls, and the enormous richness and variety of the world you’re exploring. It just keeps on throwing up new monsters and situations. Get it here

Cook, Serve, Delicious!

Time-management games were traditionally the preserve of casual gamers, with titles like Diner Dash and Sally’s Spa pitching them as far away from the core gaming world as humanly possible.

Somehow, Cook, Serve, Delicious! straddles the casual/core gaming divide. We suspect it’s because Vertigo Gaming has absolutely perfected the time-management formula, to the extent that nobody can escape the pull of its addictive, panic-inducing action. Get it here.

Half-Life 2

half life 2

This is sort of a trick entry, because you need to have an Nvidia Shield device to play it, and statistically speaking you probably don’t. But we thought we’d treat ourselves to one game from the impressive Shield line-up, and this is about the best of them.

Half-Life 2 is a stone cold classic of the first-person shooter genre. Set in the years after the inter-dimensional alien invasion of the first Half-Life, it combines a dark dystopian setting with zombies, aliens, and flawless level design to create one of the finest games ever made. Get it here.

Downwell

Downwell may look like a relic of the Atari 2600 age, when games were barely games at all, but it’s about as modern, innovative, and challenging as they come.

As the name suggests, it sees you falling ‘down’ a ‘well’. Shooting downwards gives you little boosts, as well as killing anything below, and collecting gems from dead monsters lets you buy upgrades at shops. You’ll also earn permanent upgrades between attempts. Downwell is fast, stylish, and it works great on Android. Get it here

XCOM: Enemy Within

xcom enemy within

Building on the original and highly acclaimed Enemy Unknown, Enemy Within is a peerless slice of turn-based tactics perfection. The game sees you manoeuvring in squads to deal with an alien invasion, before zooming out to handle big picture things like research.

Enemy Within’s main contribution to the franchise, which goes all the way back to 1994, is its new MEC suits. These allow you to stomp around and cause untold suffering in battle and give you a whole new strand of research and construction to consider. Get it here

Lara Croft: Guardian of Light

The original Tomb Raider games are playable on mobile, but they’re also, in another sense, unplayable. Years of progress has rendered them unwieldy, ugly, and tedious.

That’s why we’re glad Lara Croft: Guardian of Light is on mobile too. This bold, modern take on the Tomb Raider franchise for the XBLA generation is a 2.5D puzzler in which you guide a super-nimble Lara Croft through an underground world of traps, puzzles, and horrible baddies. Get it here.

Max Payne

max payne

Max Payne is one of the darkest shooters we’ve ever played, with scenes that will make even the most hard-hearted gamer squirm. It’s a grown-up action experience that isn’t afraid to plumb the depths of human depravity.

And it’s also one of the most innovative shooters we’ve ever played, introducing the concept of ‘bullet-time’, which adds texture, cinematic flair, and tactical depth to firefights and has been used in many games since. All this, plus it’s still highly playable on a touchscreen despite being 16 years old. Get it here.

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