I enjoyed plenty of phone and tablet games back in the day, when it all started (god I feel old). When there were both amazing free and paid games. But then they started including ads, and microtransactions, and then battle passes, and then unskippable ads and promotions, and then progression got locked behind paywalls, etc.
I’m sure there are a few good games out there, but the few attempts I tried a few mobile games again it feels like I always run into having to pay to progress sooner or later. It’s most definitely nothing like the golden ages back around 2010.
But a real Age of Empires game? Hells yes. This was announced not long after the AoE2 and AoE4 ports to console & controller had shown to be successful (at least critically—no idea how they’re doing commercially). So I thought that they had cracked a way to do satisfying RTS gameplay on a mobile device. It’d be great to be able to play a quick Skirmish on the bus, or while spending time away from home without my computer.
So when a few aoe creators showed previews of the game back in February this year, I was rather surprised and very disappointed to see that the game has absolutely zero resemblance to an Age game. That the worst fears of it being a shitty rip-off were completely true. Thanks to those previews, I was not surprised on release this week—though the extent of just how bad even the narrative side of this is was still overwhelming.
What self-respecting RTS and/or AoE fan plays this kind of stuff on mobile anyway?
Barely anything good ever comes from these kind of mobile games, or any mobile games in general for that matter.
There are lots of good mobile games. Mobile gaming gets a bad rep from all the prominent soulless cash grab type stuff.
There’s a couple good mobile games. Ascension, Lick Be A Landlord, and Shattered Pixel Dungeon are the only ones I play.
I enjoyed plenty of phone and tablet games back in the day, when it all started (god I feel old). When there were both amazing free and paid games. But then they started including ads, and microtransactions, and then battle passes, and then unskippable ads and promotions, and then progression got locked behind paywalls, etc.
I’m sure there are a few good games out there, but the few attempts I tried a few mobile games again it feels like I always run into having to pay to progress sooner or later. It’s most definitely nothing like the golden ages back around 2010.
Mobile gaming is like dumpster diving–there are a handful of good ones among the utter trash.
One of the good ones I found is Exiled Kingdoms–it’s an homage to 90’s RPGs, and it’s good on mobile.
Balatro is on mobile now. It’s digital crack cocaine
So I’ve heard. I’m avoiding it for the same reason I avoid analog crack cocaine.
It’s problematic. I was on a 5 hour flight this week and I played wheels up to wheels down and legit didn’t realize it until the bump on landing.
I haven’t been sucked into a game like that in decades.
It also slaughters your battery life for some reason.
Slice and Dice is quite fun. I love these threads as I always end up with new games to check out so thank you for the link!
I was just about to comment about slice and dice too
Hoplite and Knights of pen and paper 2 are both really good IMO.
This kind of stuff? None. It’s shockingly bad.
But a real Age of Empires game? Hells yes. This was announced not long after the AoE2 and AoE4 ports to console & controller had shown to be successful (at least critically—no idea how they’re doing commercially). So I thought that they had cracked a way to do satisfying RTS gameplay on a mobile device. It’d be great to be able to play a quick Skirmish on the bus, or while spending time away from home without my computer.
So when a few aoe creators showed previews of the game back in February this year, I was rather surprised and very disappointed to see that the game has absolutely zero resemblance to an Age game. That the worst fears of it being a shitty rip-off were completely true. Thanks to those previews, I was not surprised on release this week—though the extent of just how bad even the narrative side of this is was still overwhelming.
I mean, if I could run Civ V on my phone I’d play the shit out of that. Though that’s turn based I suppose.
Check out unciv. It’s an open source remake of civ v with simplified graphics.
Don’t blame me if this ruins your life.
I play Broodwar on mobile…😭 sorry RTS fans