Best Games For Android

It’s not just a robot from a galaxy far, far away. It’s also a pretty great option for anyone who wants a mobile device unshackled by the closed operating systems of certain other smartphone manufacturers.

There are a bunch of really great games available for Android phones and tablets, including lots of the best games that are also on Apple’s iPhones and iPads. Below, our list of the 12 best games for Android. Above, a video version of the same list.

 Hitman GO

Hitman games are famous for their open-ended sandboxes. At their best, they let you creep around a party or a museum, find your target, and creatively take them out. Hitman GO… doesn’t really do that. What it does do, however, is offer a bunch of smart, tightly designed puzzles that gradually become more complicated as you go, but are never too complicated to finish off in the space of a single bus ride. With its stripped down board-game aesthetic and abstract violence, it may not look much like a Hitman game, but it still manages to capture the series’ meticulous, satisfying nature.

A Good Match For: Hitman fans, puzzle fiends, people who like imagining what it means when one board game piece “assassinates” another board game piece.

 Knightmare Tower

You’re a knight. You’re trying to ascend a tower. You are trying to fly ever higher by bouncing yourself off of enemies that are flying up from below. The better you attack, the swifter you fly. The ascent is exhilarating, but you’ll probably eventually fail. No bother. You’re constantly earning new and better abilities that allow you to soar ever higher. Warning: this game can be tough to stop playing.

A Good Match For: Gamers who are looking for something on their tablet that rewards strategy and reflexes while wrapping it all up in a good bit of monster-slaying and constant rewards.

Not a Good Match For: Those who want a long-session game. Your ascents in Knightmare Tower won’t last long, so even as games get a bit longer, this one is going to be over quickly, again and again.

 Drop 7

AreaCode’s numerical puzzle game may be the most perfect short-session game ever created. As falling numbers land on a 7×7 grid, you need to make them disappear by matching the number of vertical or horizontal spaces match the digit. Yes, it sounds tedious, but when the rules finally click in your head, it’s a lifetime addiction.
 
A Good Match For: Anyone who spends a lot of time waiting for things or people. Whether it’s stuck in traffic or waiting on a queue at the bank, a few quick levels of Drop7 will make any kind of stationary drudgery more bearable.

Not a Good Match For: Those hoping to stay productive. It take superhuman willpower to resist the siren call of Drop7, and if you want to get anything done after installing it, make sure your phone is out of reach.

 Rymdkapsel

Rymdkapsel is a real-time-strategy base-building game with a Tetris twist. It’s simple. Place odd-shaped floors of different colors on a plane in outer space. Command little rectangular men to farm on or work in these spaces to generate resources to build more spaces and feed more workers. Rally the little men to defend the base against alien invaders every so often. Survive and repeat.
This is a minimalist game, a stripping down of the real-time-strategy genre that went baroque with visually and technically complex games like StarCraft and Company of Heroes. Rymdkapsel makes its more ornate competitors feel needlessly garnished.

A Good Match For: Gamers looking for a portable real-time-strategy game. There ain’t much to choose from, and this one has the bonus advantage of being good.

Not a Good Match For: Those who want a lot of action or complexity. This is a mellow game with a single unit-type and a handful of rooms to create. Players won’t be progressing through complex skill trees.

 Threes

Threes is basically a game about kissing. And math. You slide a bunch of little numbers around a tiled pad, trying to get two like numbers next to each other. If you can do that, they’ll get friendly and combine to form a new, bigger number. Keep on moving, keep on combining, and your score will climb and climb. Threes is an immaculately designed game made all the more winning for its aesthetics. Charming, musical, and deviously addictive, it’ll become a new obsession.

A Good Match For: People looking for a simple puzzle game to play on a commute, anyone who likes competing with their friends for high scores.

Not a Good Match For: People hoping for a deep story, those who prefer sub-standard clones.