The 11 Android games with best graphics are a way for you to see just how far gaming has come in the past five years. Even more so for mobile gaming, which as little as five years ago was confined to a world of two dimensional, highly pixelated graphics and simple game mechanics that at best kept you entertained for a couple of hours. While the hardware has gone far (just check out the 11 best waterproof Android smartphones), the gaming potential it currently has is not completely taken advantage of just because long, detailed games with a complex story are simply not profitable enough or just don’t rake in profits quickly enough to be a feasible challenge to tackle. Proper mobile games can’t utilize a freemium type of strategy, nor can they use in game currency properly because that would cripple the story and bring a major negative backlash to the developers. Because of that we don’t see many full-blown, at least portable console-like games out there, especially on the “Best Free/Best Paid” game sections on Google Play.
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However, it’s not all completely lost because people in the industry have been pushing for flashier graphics since we all played pathetic java games on our 2 inch screens phones with their VGA cameras and polyphonic ringtones. In the past five years, mobile graphic acceleration chips have been pushing the boundary for gaming further and further to the point where we can now easily cast a phone screen to a massive flat screen TV and enjoy a mobile game at an unnaturally high resolution without blowing up the textures to the point where you can count the pixels in them. On the other hand, a little more than five years ago, the pinnacle of mobile graphics – the PlayStation Portable 3000’s best games had characters whose faces looked like a dirty piece of paper stretched over a mannequin’s head. This, however is not an offence to the developers and designers behind the piles of titles that I have personally experienced and loved at that time. This is only due to the imitations of the console’s capabilities which were not exactly stellar with a 333 MHz processor and a 166 MHz graphics processor with 2 megabytes of embedded memory. Even scaled down to the PSP’s resolution, there are still games of it that can compete with modern Android titles very well. This comes to show that with a bit of engineering genius and a lot of squeezing, you can achieve a lot, even with limited hardware.
Now compare that to the 2+ MHz multi-core processors on even last year’s flagships, paired with gigabytes of RAM and a whole dedicated graphics processing unit and think about why we don’t have the quality of games that comes with all that power. And while you do, let’s take a look at some titles that either come close in terms of sheer technical execution or are just so adorably designed that they don’t need all that power to look good. The general outlines of the list of 11 Android games with best graphics are based on opinions gathered from Android forums such as XDA but I have taken or added a title where the public opinion lacked.
10. Shadowrun : Dragonfall – DC
Shadowrun: Dragonfall, the director’s cut is a standalone version of the critically acclaimed Dragonfall campaign that shot the game up the rankings not only based on its looks but also based on its compelling story and complex characters.
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9.Epoch 2
Epoch trades off the freedom of an open world and utilizes all that processing power to bring you excellent visuals instead. The story line evolves in a post-apocalyptic world where robots have taken over the planet. It can feel a bit restricting at first but the graphics will keep your mind occupied.
8.Amazing Spiderman 2
This hit Android title pretty much speaks for itself, it is a Spiderman game which also features some excellently done lighting as well as an open world for you to explore and a very entertaining combat system. The good old swinging on a spiderweb is also included.
7.Nova 3
Nova 3 took the series to the next level with graphics that were absolutely otherworldly at the time it came out. It ran smoothly on the higher end of average and up devices which probably explains why it never took off dramatically like some other titles on the list.
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6.Asphalt 8
Racing simulators on Android are kind of a grey zone due to the awkwardness that gyroscope controls can be at first but the Asphalt series in general have been extremely successful, going next generation with Asphalt 8 and its stunning visuals.
5.The Room Two
The first part of this game became immensely popular with its countless hours of banging your head against a wall while trying to solve the puzzles. The Room Two comes with some incredibly well done graphics and textures that can put some other games on this list to shame, giving it the fifth spot on the list of the 11 Android games with best graphics.
4.Real Racing 3
Real Racing 3, as the title implies, is supposed to not only feel real in terms of gameplay mechanics and physics but also in looks, which it very well does. This is one of the games you might as well cast on a flat screen TV and get some of that console gaming experience.
3.Dead Trigger 2
Taking the third place, Dead Trigger 2 continues the ever-so-loved zombie massacre of its first part. However, this time the game returns way more beautifully looking (as beautiful as walking corpses trying to eat you can look).
2.Leo’s Fortune
Leo’s Fortune is one of these games that have a very simple way to tell their story – through visual feedback. And the visual feedback in this game is an least stammeringly beautiful which rightfully puts it in the second spot of this list.
1. Modern Combat 5
Known as “the Call of Duty” of mobile gaming, Modern Combat has been pushing graphics with each new game, 5 being the latest and the pinnacle of mobile graphics according to many, including me. This game deserves the first spot among the 11 Android games with best graphics the most.
