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15 Android games that offer the most demanding graphics in 2024
From Alien to GRID, we've rounded up the best-looking games on the Play Store
Have you heard the phrase "You're gonna need a bigger boat"? Well, it turns out that this phrase can be applied to gaming. Especially for keeping up with the most demanding mobile games, you'll need a bigger, beefier Android device. Unfortunately, contemporary mobile devices have a long way to go to reach the technical prowess of home consoles. But that doesn't deter developers from squeezing every ounce of graphical fidelity to allow new hardware to shine.
15 great Android games you can also play on PC
Dust off the mouse and keyboard for these amazing games
You would be amazed at the crossover between the Play Stores best apps and PC, given how antithetical the two platforms can seem. PC's processing and graphical capabilities coupled with complex physical controls seems to come from a different planet to your new and improved gaming phone. Mobile development has gained such power and popularity that their inclusion on other platforms was inevitable, from refined experiences like Downwell to the many many quality Vampire Survivors clones that take over your life for brief periods of time. We'd like to share our favorite Android games that have made the leap to PC, for their peerless dedication, graphical quality, and immense popularity among Android and PC gamers alike.
Destiny 2 crossplay is now live across Stadia, PC, Xbox, and PlayStation
After a shaky start, it's finally ready to go
One of the more persistent problems with Stadia is that, due to a relatively low amount of players versus established platforms like Xbox, PlayStation, and PC, its multiplayer games can sometimes feel a little empty. Destiny 2 will fix that problem sometime this fall ... or right the hell now, because the developers accidentally turned on crossplay a little early.
Get one of 2019's best games for free on PC this week
Control is usually $30, but free at Epic Games right now
One of my favorite games of the last two years is free for a limited time over at Epic Games. The award-winning Control is too good to spoil with an overly detailed introduction, but it's a third-person action-adventure title with fantastic controls, great design, and superb art direction. It's basically SCP: The Game, and you shouldn't miss it, especially while it's free.
A few days ago, Valve released the beta version of the Steam Link app for Android. This means that you can play your Steam library right on your phone, and it's pretty great. Though it's by no means a new concept – we've seen it before with Sony and Nvidia devices – it doesn't require either a PlayStation or a GeForce graphics card. All you need is a Steam library and your phone on the same network, plus a controller, and you're good to go.
NVIDIA's GeForce NOW game streaming service gets new games and a new price model, coming to PCs soon
GeForce Now, NVIDIA's PC game streaming service, is currently limited to the original SHIELD Portable, the SHIELD Tablet, and the SHIELD TV. Starting in March that's going to change: the company is expanding access to all standard PCs running Windows and Mac OS, via a regular download client. GeForce Now will finally be the successor to "cloud" gaming services like OnLive. According to the PR material, any PC - including those without an NIVIDA-branded graphics card - will be able to connect to the GeForce Now service. It's a big deal if you want to play advanced PC games on something like a Macbook or a Surface.
Let's state this now: Counter-Strike is awesome. Many an hour has been wasted passed playing the legendary first-person shooter mod for Half-Life, and now even more hours can be whiled away, as the game has come to Android.
Steam is the #1 gaming market for PCs, and the desktop client is quite robust (and big enough that performance-minded gamers complain about its RAM and processor footprint). The official mobile version of Steam has been slowly catching up to the desktop in terms of features, and today's update to version 2.1 is the biggest that's come in a long time. A laundry list of tools from the desktop and web versions of Steam are now available in the Android app, no pop-out required.
This War of Mine is not a fun game. But it isn't trying to be. While other "realistic" war games will hand you a rifle and tell you to take that beach, Private, in This War of Mine a few scraps of meat is a much more important tool for survival. You control three survivors living in a bombed-out house in the middle of an extremely non-specific war zone, trying to scrape together enough materials to craft their way through the war without starving or freezing.
In a lot of ways, NVIDIA's SHIELD (not to be confused with this SHIELD or that SHIELD) is a typical set-top box. And in many ways it isn't: though NVIDIA has built its living room invader on Android like the previous products in the line, the OS underneath is merely a means to an end. And that end is selling you games, in every form and fashion that the company can come up with.
NVIDIA Adds Saints Row IV To Its Streaming GRID Service, Alan Wake And Metro: Last Light Coming Soon
One of the lesser-known portions of the custom game software on NVIDIA's SHIELD Portable and SHIELD Tablet is GRID, an OnLive-style streaming PC gaming system. It allows owners to play a selection of full-feature PC games streamed from NVIDIA's own virtualized systems at a data center, no personal gaming PC required. The service is still in beta, but has been growing steadily since its introduction a little over two years ago. By the beginning of March, 40 PC games will be available for free to SHIELD owners.
You've got to respect the classics. And since the developers (or rights owners) of games like Civilization, Starcraft, and Age of Empires aren't releasing their classics on Android, or they're turning them into twisted versions of the originals, strategy fans need an alternative. Enter ExaGear, an emulator designed to let those fans play at least some of the classic PC strategy games on Android, complete with controls adapted for precision.
Those SHIELD owners who are lucky enough to be eligible for NVIDIA's GRID game streaming service, you've got two new options for cloud-based entertainment today. NVIDIA has added the zany open world sandbox game Saints Row: The Third and atmospheric zombie shooter Dead Island to the GRID beta, bringing the total number of streaming PC games to twelve.
Ever since we saw the initial demo of NVIDIA's game streaming technology on the SHIELD, we wondered when we could try it out with other Android devices. NVIDIA is jealously guarding its exclusive for now, but XDA Developers poster Cameron Gutman (cgutman) has created an app that duplicates SHIELD's functionality, allowing gamers to try their hand at streaming from a compatible GeForce-equipped gaming PC with any Android 4.1 or better device. Since I'm a dedicated PC gamer, I fired up Limelight and tried it out.
Everybody loves proprietary gaming platforms that make you sign in to play Far Cry, right? Hello? Well they're here to stay, whether you like them or not (thanks EA, Microsoft, Valve, and the rest of 'em) and Ubisoft is trying to make its proprietary service a little less awful with the official Uplay app. It's available now to gamers on the Play Store.
The Indie Gala Mobile 3 Goes Live - Pay What You Want For 9 Android Games
The Indie Gala is back for its third mobile release. Pay what you want for four Android games, and if you offer more than the average, you'll get your
The Indie Gala is back for its third mobile release. Pay what you want for four Android games, and if you offer more than the average, you'll get your hands on five more. The average is currently under $4. At less than 50 cents per game, I've bought gum balls that were more expensive.