Saw a game on Google Play that had great reviews (4.6k AVG with 77k reviews) so downloaded it thinking I finally might have found a good mobile game only to find it was trash like almost every mobile game I've ever tried.

Is it me, am I the problem, or are virtually all mobile games terrible?

Edit

Thanks for everyone's feedback and suggestions, I've been trying out some of your recommendations as well as trying out Steam Link to play my steam PC games

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[–] hardypart@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Nope, you just have to dig...

Minecraft
Ocean Horn
Terraria
Don't Starve
Neon Chrome
Stardew Valley
GTA III
GTA Vice City
GTA: San Andreas
GTA: Chinatown Wars
Bully
Max Payne
Star Wars KOTOR
Limbo
Roller Coaster Tycoon
OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon)
Portal

With some fiddling you can even run some PC games like Half Life 1 and 2, Doom 3 and Morrowind (not even emulated, their engines were actually ported to Android).

If you add emulation to the mix you can play everything up to the Wii if you have a half decent phone, which means an endless ocean of good games.

[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just to nitpick, Morrowind's engine absolutely wasn't ported to Android. What actually happened is that we made an entirely new game engine from scratch that can also interpret Morrowind's game data. That's obviously massively more effort than 'just' adapting source code to run on a new platform, but unlike DOOM, the source code has never been made available to the public, so that was never an option.

Also, OpenMW's Android port is technically not official and tends to lurch from maintainer to maintainer, so if anyone reading this wants to help bring it up to scratch so it can be absorbed into the main project, that might be good.

[–] hardypart@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

Sick to see the delveoper behind it here! Almost feels like that website :)

Thanks for providing this info, I was not aware of that.

[–] Lukecis@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just gotta dig? Dude like 95% of what you just listed are just pc/console game ports to mobile, does that really count as a 'mobile game' I'm not too sure, I think theyre still originally regular games that have been slimmed down and ported to phones.

[–] hardypart@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's a question of definition. Is OP looking for good gaming experiences on his phone? Then my answer is correct. Is he looking for games that can be played in short bursts while waiting at a bus stop? Then you're probably right.

[–] Lukecis@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I suppose it depends on how you look at the question, when I hear the question "Are all mobile games just garbage" I think it's asking about mobile games specifically, not mobile ports of regular games to phone operating systems.

Personally, I dont think a game becomes a 'mobile game' just because it was ported to a mobile platform, in that case we could start calling literally every game that's steam deck or switch compatible mobile games since they can be played on the go with a steamdeck or switch, or going further back, a PSP, DS/Gameboy etc.

A mobile game in my view, is a 'game' developed solely for the app stores of phones, and when you use that definition, then yes- almost all mobile games are flaming hot garbage that are more likely spyware & skinner boxes with ads meant to siphon money to skip the tedium.

[–] CoderKat@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure about many of these and wasn't aware of most of them being on phones. But you're the first comment I've seen that mentions Stardew Valley. It's by far the best mobile game I've ever played.

That said, I preferred it on PC for better controls, easier modding, multiplayer, and quicker updates. Though you actually can mod Stardew on Android. I still started with it on Android and it's a very high quality mobile game.