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Now that Ahsoka has wrapped up and Grand Admiral Thrawn has been reintroduced to the live-action Star Wars universe, you may be a little hungry for more Star Wars content on your smartphone or tablet. This is especially true since we likely won't be getting any new Star Wars content until 2024. In order to help you pass the time, we've assembled a collection of the best Star Wars games you can play on your favorite tablet right now to help get you through the dearth.
Even a casual fan of nostalgic gaming experiences will be familiar with Lego apps, popularized by the classic Travelers Tales games for their inventive gameplay and hilarious mime retellings of movies that traumatized us as kids. But the Play Store's additions to the Lego gaming library cannot be understated, engaging with alternate gameplay styles and themes; although usually sticking with quality co-op coded experiences. Pulse-pounding racing games, very young kids' playgrounds, and even some classic building simulators for getting creative without remortgaging the house. AP keeps an eye out for the latest and greatest creativity toys on Androids' most reasonable phones, so here's our roundup of the best Lego games on the Play Store. Trust me, we're building up to something.
For some reason, LEGO has been busy this year lending out its brand to nefarious developers. Last week LEGO Star Wars Battles was announced, and it appears to be a free-to-play Clash Royale clone from Warner Bros. Today Gameloft's LEGO Legacy: Heroes Unboxed arrived on the Play Store for pre-registration, and it looks like a MARVEL Strike Force clone. Before this year, LEGO usually concentrated its efforts on quality games offered for free to advertise its brand, but now it would seem that the company is perfectly comfortable sullying its namesake to earn a quick buck off of the children that enjoy its toyline.
The latest Star Wars movie should arrive in theaters at the tail end of 2019, and so it makes sense that Warner Bros, LEGO, and Lucasfilm would want to capitalize on the film with a new mobile strategy game slated to arrive on the Play Store sometime in 2020. This title is called LEGO Star Wars Battles, and it's specifically designed for mobile devices to blend LEGO Star Wars characters, vehicles, and locations with real-time 1v1 multiplayer battles.
NimbleBit has found a good bit of success in the mobile gaming marketplace with its hit Tiny Tower series, so it's no surprise to see that the developer has teamed up with LEGO to create the ultimate tower-building business sim. Early this morning, LEGO Tower arrived on the Play Store as a pre-registration release, and word is the official launch should take place sometime this summer.
LEGO must be one of the most ubiquitous toys in the world. It's hard to imagine growing up without it. Somehow, the company has managed to remain relevant all these years, finding new ways to engage with kids as the world around them changes. One of the most highly anticipated LEGO releases for some time is the Boost Creative Toolbox, which tasks you with building a robot named Vernie, among others, and programming them to perform certain actions using "drag-n'-drop coding." It's due to ship from August 1st, and in preparation, the Android app has just been made available.There are more than 60 activities to keep the kids entertained, as well as videos and digital instructions to help them through the process. Vernie is joined by other programmable models, such as a cat called Frankie and a guitar. The app is necessary to control the robots, which it connects to via Bluetooth. The set is intended for children aged between 7-12, and it's hoped that the rudimentary "coding" experience will pique their interest in robotics and technology going forward.
Motorola is making a big push for modular phones, with the company promising at least 12 Moto Mods a year and showing off several upcoming ones earlier today. The success of Moto Mods relies on convincing customers that they are actually useful, and to that end, Motorola shared some concepts for future mods at Mobile World Congress today.
We cover a lot of app and game sales here on Android Police. We actually have a really complex system we use to find new sales and check the previous prices before presenting them to you (it's called "checking Appbrain"). But soon you might not need to take our word for it: one of our readers spotted a new visual element on the mobile version of the Play Store highlighting apps on sale directly to users. A similar feature has been in place for movies, TV shows, and books for some time.
As virtual reality becomes more and more mainstream, brands are slowly realizing its potential to market to consumers. LEGO is the latest company to do this, releasing Brickheadz, a VR app for Google's Daydream platform and accompanying headset, to the Play Store in 'unreleased' beta state. If you're unaware, as I was, Brickheadz is a LEGO range released earlier this year with blocky characters, using Marvel and DC super heroes.
In many parts of the world, we are preparing for the most magical time of the year. What's better to go with the holiday season than a little bit of wizardry? Well, we've got you covered. The Lego Harry Potter games, both Years 1-4 and 5-7, are on sale for $0.49 each in several countries including the U.S.
Many years ago, my first game console was a Nintendo DS Lite. And one of the first games I got for it was LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga. It still remains one of my favorite games of all time, mostly because of nostalgia to that red and black handheld, but also because the LEGO video games are incredibly fun and engaging (for all ages).
The LEGO games are great - a little repetitive, maybe, but very good, especially for mobile devices. For the Star Wars fans out there (and boy are there a lot of you), your time has come: LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens has hit the Play Store, almost a month after release on consoles and PC.
LEGO has gained a well-earned reputation for releasing solid mobile games that eschew the usual advertising and in-app purchases, making them great choices for kids. (Okay, technically every LEGO game is an advertisement for those super-expensive toys, but there are worse ways to advertise to children.) LEGO City My City 2 - that's My City 2, using the long-running My City toy line brand, if you're wondering - is one of the company's most elaborate mobile games to date.
Far be it from me to criticize a multi-billion-dollar company for falling behind in its release schedule but... really, Warner Bros? The LEGO Movie came out more than two years ago, and you're just now getting around to releasing an Android version? Even back when video games ran on machines with the power of a calculator, they generally got around to releasing the movie tie-in within a month or so of the theatrical release.
Okay, so Jurassic World didn't exactly live up to the groundbreaking standards of the original movie. That probably doesn't matter to the herds of kids who went to see it just to watch some dinosaurs scaring the crap out of a bunch of puny humans. That being the case, a tie-in with LEGO for toys and games is pretty brilliant. After a substantial delay, you can now play the LEGO video game version of Jurassic World, which also includes bits from the original Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park: The Lost World, and that other one with Téa Leoni.
Later this month, DC will release its next gigantic tentpole movie into theaters, in which Super-Cavill and Batfleck will (presumably) grimace at each other for 150 minutes while Wonder Woman begs them for some screen time. If you prefer your superheroes to have a little fun and self-awareness (and you can't wait for the next Marvel movie to come out), LEGO just released another Batman game in the Play Store. Batman: DC Super Heroes can be yours for $5.
LEGO's relentless acquisition of licenses with which to make building sets is matched in fervor only by its media partner Warner Bros' frenzy to turn them into video games. So it is with Lord of the Rings, which has been a staple of the toys for years, but was made into a full-fledged video game for home and portable consoles in late 2012. As has been done with Star Wars, Batman, and a few other LEGO properties, the portable versions of that game (Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable) have been adapted into a mobile version. You can get it from the Play Store right now.
The biggest trend in the toy world at the moment is the blend of "real" toys and action figures with digital games. LEGO's already dipped its toes into the same pool as Disney Infinity and Skylanders with LEGO Dimensions, but that's not the only combination that the mega-company is working on. An original franchise, Nexo Knights, lets kids build playsets based on the techno-fantasy theme and then upload the various characters' shield codes into the accompanying game, Merlok 2.0.
Games for portable consoles like the Nintendo 3DS and the PlayStation Vita make for natural ports to mobile hardware, if only because the technical requirements for those games are only a fraction of the hardware power needed for full console titles. LEGO has already released several of these, and the latest is in the company's home-grown line of vaguely Asian-style action toys, Ninjago. Shadow of Ronin is an action title that stars the characters from the kids TV show and the building sets, and it's available for five bucks with no in-app purchases.
I love LEGOs. The mix of the juvenile careless joy of playing and the brainiac excitement of building new things is a satisfying feeling. But LEGOs are now way past the colored bricks that we had when I was younger. There are mechanical pieces, more complicated designs, broader possibilities, and even programmable robots.