Not all games are created equal, and some are played better on some devices than they are on others. Gamers have diversified their platforms of choice tremendously over the last decade, and while home consoles once dominated the market Big Fish Games reports that now nearly 46% of teens play games on their mobile devices. With that in mind, here is a look at some great games out there along with information on which screens they are best suited for.
Fallout Shelter
“Fallout Shelter” is a free-to-play mobile game developed by Bethesda Studios in association with Behaviour Interactive available for the iOS and Android operating systems. Putting you in the chair of an Overseer, your job in this simulation game is to build a sustainable vault (secured living quarters) in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Bethesda’s “Fallout” series of games. Send your vault dwellers into the wasteland in search of food, bottle caps, and weapons or just have them man a radio station to bring new people to your little slice of hi-tech heaven. With its simple interface and time-based events, “Fallout Shelter” is the perfect game for a mobile phone gamer.
While it works on a variety of devices, the nature of the game is small digestible chunks of building, training, developing and action that make it the kind of title you’ll want to have in your pocket at all times. Since it doesn’t require much processing power to run, “Fallout Shelter” is great for those who may not have upgraded their smartphone in a year or two, as well.
Faster Than Light: Advanced Edition
A cross between real-time strategy and rogue-like, random dungeon crawling, “Faster Than Light: Advanced Edition” makes you captain of a ship that must transverse the galaxy to warn of an impending attack. Along the way, you’ll encounter opportunities to upgrade your vessel, gain new crewmates, fight space pirates and discover new life. You’ll also probably watch your entire crew die in a fire several hundred times – “FTL” warns you right at the start that you will likely fail in your quest and start over many times before you ever reach the end. Each playthrough features a randomly generated galaxy for you to explore with hundreds of different events, enemies and results from the decisions your make.
While “FTL” was a breakout on desktop PCs, the games look and play style begs to be played on a tablet device like the iPad Mini 3. Being able to pause the game and direct your crew members with a touch of the finger feels like you are actually piloting a spaceship and giving commands from the captain’s chair – something clicking a mouse doesn’t give you.
Portal 2
“Portal 2” is still one of the most engaging and fun puzzle games in recent history, and being able to play it on pretty much any laptop is a gift. The Portal Workshop is constantly releasing player-created content for the game, so even if you played it on a PC or console when it was first released there are hours of new puzzles to solve. Perfect for when you have to sit for hours in the airport waiting for a connecting flight, “Portal 2” is great for any laptop’s screen.
I'm a published author and proud US Army veteran who happens to be a gamer, so I decided to combine the two and love every minute of it! Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments and I'll be sure to get back to you.
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