You know the drill: adapt and succeed, or die and fade to black. The impact of late 70s arcade classics on the gaming industry is undeniable, and yet these games are now little more than footnote in a specialist mags for young gamers. Luckily these titles have seen lots of adaptations to modern platforms without having to turn to emulation. Here we list a few classic games that have now made the jump to Android.
Q*bert (1982)
The eponymous slack-jawed alien make a small comeback after his cameo in the Pixar movie Wreck-It Ralph and then last year’s forgettable Pixels. After the latter film the classic edition even got a remake for various platforms, including Android. In it you can play both the original and a revamp that preserves the entire gameplay of jumping on isometric blocks to change their color.
Breakout (1976)
The last time Atari squeezed a drop out of this juicy license was to release Breakout Boost in 2011 for iOS devices, although there are still no “canonical” versions for Android. Still, a thousand and one clones out there bring back the exact same formula – exactly how, back in the day, the concept was pinched by other developers and ended up becoming even more famous than the original (à la Arkanoid). If you have to pick from among the clones I’d say go with Break Bricks, which did a great job translating the controls to touchscreens.
Pac-Man (1980)
Pac-Man (or we should say, NAMCO-BANDAI) has proved clever at reinventing itself after nearly two decades out of action. In fact, there are now more than half a dozen Android games available starring Pac-Mac. (We did a roundup of them on the blog a while back). That said, if you don’t want to mess with anything but the real thing, you can always opt for the plain-vanilla adaptation of the classic game, the so-called Pac-Man Tournaments.
Galaga (1981)
While we’re talking about the great Namco arcade classics, we’ve gotta mention Galaga. To a lot of us Galaga is rather more than the shabby little brother of Space Invaders, although time hasn’t remembered it as quite so iconic a title. Galaga Special Edition for Android brings back the original gameplay dressed up with prettier graphics and controls adapted to touchscreens. And don’t forget Galaga showed up on the load screens for the Tekken titles – there’s even a game parodying that unlikely marriage.
Tetris (1984)
One of the most ubiquitous, for obvious reasons. These days it’s near impossible to find a puzzle game so precise that it seems to be challenging you to a round of chess. A lot’s happened since Alekséi Pázhitnov’s original came out. Currently the Android distribution license is held by EA, who are being very smart indeed about how they use the brand, with a remake that adapts the Tetris formula surprisingly well with new challenges and game modes.
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