Handheld Games that Stupefy and Amaze

 

I would much rather play video games on a console or PC, but sometimes that’s not available to you. So what do you do? You dig your phone out of your pocket and play some mobile games! Oh what’s that? You don’t have any mobile games? Well let me help you with that! Now, from my standpoint it looks like you need some help in your mobile gaming world. In my world people look up to me, no I’m just kidding… but seriously. My friends are good at some mobile games (*cough* Madden Mobile), but they aren’t very serious about it. I play a lot of games on my phone (probably a little too much… ok fine, I use my phone like a DS), enough to know the good mobile games on the market. You need look no further for the best and the greatest mobile video games.

Geometry Dash:

Kicking off the list is Geometry Dash, in my opinion the best out of these games. This game is like Mario, but on steroids and ecstasy (whatever that makes you feel like?). From the flashing lights to the moving objects to the different levels, it is an original game, based off the idea of platformers: 2-D, jump-as-you-go games. It’s almost exactly like the Impossible Game but… more impossible than that.

Impossible:

The Impossible Game has five levels; Geometry Dash has twenty and that’s not including the user-created levels you can download in the creator mode. All the levels require lightning-fast reflexes and precision timing. With tons of “Achievements” to earn, the reward being a new icon, ship, gravity ball, UFO, dart, robot, (all change the way you play) trail, or color, to the near impossible levels people decide to make themselves, the action in the game doesn’t stop. In Geometry Dash, one’s avatar can switch immediately when traveling through various colored portals. The Ship is like Mr. Cuddles from Jetpack Joyride, except instead of pressing down to go down, you go up instead.

The Gravity Ball is basically the Gravity Suit from you guessed it, Jetpack Joyride. Only with the ball, you can’t change gravity in midair. The UFO is basically Flappy Bird, enough said… Ah yes, the Dart, my personal favorite. This is my absolute favorite because of the skill and speed you need to use it. For example, Blast Processing (the first level in Geometry Dash to incorporate the dart) is rather easy, fun and is a great intro to getting used to the dart. While using the dart you can only move diagonally, so when you need go straight, and especially if it’s in a tight area, you’re going to need to tap, and fast. Last but certainly not least we have the robot, which is the most recently added mode, played when entering a white portal. Really the only thing special about this, (other than the fact that there is a Iron Man and Halo version of it) is that you can control how high you want to jump; you can either jump really high by pressing and holding down on the screen, or you can make a little miniature jump by just tapping it. All the levels (except for the cruddy ones the 5 year-olds make) have a unique sound track that you can use straight off the game. You can download these soundtracks for your level off here. The music goes along with the level and gets you in the groove and can give you hint as to what will come next. But unless you know how to keep your cool you are guaranteed to rage and lose your mind… .

NFS NL (Need For Speed No Limits) is one of several mobile versions of the Need For Speed franchise, this one being the only one with a real story line (no cut scenes, just subtitles). It has very good graphics for a mobile game, and contains 23 licensed cars, including the ,

Lamborghini Aventador and the Mclaren 650s. Many modifications can be put on each car. It is not like NFS Hot Pursuit, where you can play as a cop, nor is it like NFS Most Wanted, where you have to get through a ladder of different racers to get to the final one. Nevertheless, it is one of EA’s finest mobile games (EA stands for Electronic Arts, they are a big game publisher), having a mixture of a lot of different types of racing games like drag racing, street racing, and crew-style racing (different groups of racers against your crew or you alone). Though, if you download this game it will take over a gigabyte of space and will eat up your time like me… and ice cream sandwiches. This game features a gas gauge (it’s not a very good feature). This essentially means that you can only race a certain amount of times before you have to refill on gas. If a race costs two tanks of gas (represented by a meter) and you have 10 tanks, you can do that race five times before you run out of gas. When you do run out of gas there are two things you can do – the first is wait… the second is that you can pay a small fee using a special type of game currency. This feature can be looked at in two different ways; the way I like to look at it is that EA is trying to get me to spend money that I don’t want to spend. This game gives you a choice: pay for gas, or wait.

The other way some people (I mean people that are actually patient) will think to themselves about this is that “Oh no, I’m out of gas. I better go do something else productive while I’m waiting for more gas”. (And I guess you can tell I’m not patient or productive and I really hate this feature.)

In fact, I really despise this feature so much, and the fact that when I’m so far into the game, it suddenly costs three gas fill ups per race really doesn’t help my condition of “playing too much” (mom). Sometimes it annoys me so much that I feel like I would rather run through a pile of sewing needles, naked. However, Need For Speed No Limits is a great game; it’s very addicting, and I really enjoyed playing it.

 

Turbo Dismount:

Turbo Dismount is the new and improved version of its original version, Stair Dismount. The main difference in the new game is you actually have a vehicle that your character sits in. This game doesn’t really have a point (other than to get a new high score and watch your character get destroyed) and you don’t actually do much in it. It’s pretty much just charging up a power meter and then letting the game do the rest of the work. However, it is definitely more fun than it sounds, because, once you start, you get to watch your character drive into chaos as they go head-on into traffic or go off sky-high jumps into the air. You can even change the obstacles in front of you, which can determine your fate. Playing this game is very simple; all you need to do is pick your vehicle, and press and release your finger on the throttle button. Essentially, with the throttle, you press and hold your finger down on it to charge your power, then your vehicle has you release the button when the meter reaches the amount of power you want. However, you will need to pay some money to get the full experience of the game – everything all together (assuming you buy the premium package) will cost you around 6 dollars but it is well worth your money. With the premium pack ($6) you can get all the vehicles, all the maps, and everything that comes out in future updates.

Fruit Ninja 

Ah, a classic from Half Brick studios, released on April 10, 2010, started off as a nice little arcade game and has evolved tremendously ever since. Now there are tons of new options like the split screen mode and lots more within the game, and the it has become much more fun and enjoyable. It was so original at its time that I can’t even compare it to other games (besides the copies that came out later on). You don’t need to make In-app purchases in order to make the game fun, and it now has a wider variety of blades and backgrounds, as well as a tournament mode with a wide selection of mini-games within it (tournament mode has been taken out of the game because the update for the 5th year anniversary is over).

CSR Racing (fyi – this is nearly impossible later in the game, without in-app purchases)

CSR Racing, for your phone, one of the best and most challenging drag racing games ever, when comparing console games to mobile games, has stunning graphics, a defined vivid story line and tons of licensed cars. It is impossible later in the game, and between the bosses you have to beat three different times (the fourth is optional), and the insane amount of money you have to spend in the game to get a new car is outrageous (unless you are willing to spends tens maybe hundreds of dollars on this game then go for it). But… if you want to play this game without buying anything, it’s possible. It would just take a really long time. Within this game there are more than 95+ licensed cars, it is relatively easy to play, it has a live multiplayer game mode, and it feels very rewarding when you get as far into the game as I did when I still played (I got to the World Tour, Tier 6).

But now you might be thinking to yourself, “hey, what’s the World Tour”? In the game there are six different stages of racers you have to clear to beat the game (look here if you want every Tier and boss in full detail,) the highest stage being Tier 6, and the lowest being Tier 1. All crews contain five racers, the four members and the crew leader.

Tier 1 crew is called the Fangz, and the leader is Papa Biz.

The Second Tier is called the Iron Samurai and the leader of this crew is Yoshiro.

Tier 3 are known as the Stallion Riders and leading this crew is Alieda.

The War Pigs are the crew in Tier 4 and is led by Carlito, but do you really need to see his photo? No.

And finally the final crew before the World Tour (Tier 6), are the Silver Skulls and their leader is Errol. While you may think in this game the fun comes from racing against different crews and it does, the real satisfaction comes from beating each crew and saying “Yes, one down, like 10 more to go…”.

After you defeat Errol, the World Tour is unlocked, and you are introduced to the Italian, European, American, and UK crews – Veloci, Armada, Rushmore, and Spitfire, respectively. Leading the Veloci crew is La Stella driving a Ferrari LaFerrari.

The Leader of the Armada crew is Pierre Yassine and he drives a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.

Shifty Jack is the leader of the Spitfire crew and he drives a McLaren P1 GTR, one of my favorite cars, like ever:

And the last crew, Rushmore, is led by Boss X (interesting name huh?), and he drives a Saleen S7. However, even after this there is still one more stage in the game and that is CSRN (CSR international) and without going into too much detail, it is a nationally broadcast show in which you race the finalists. These final racers are Zoe and her Lamborghini Veneno,  La Sapeur and the Jaguar C-X75. Ivan and his Koegnigsegg One:1 (again, one of my favorite cars), Cypher and his Mazda Furai, and finally Nitro and his Ferrari FXX K:

Clear Vision 3:

Now getting a little more on the gory side of the list is the First Person Sniper, Clear Vision 3. With a loose story behind each mission this game has the feel of a quick and fun way to burn time. There are three different snipers to choose from and an abundance of attachments to put on each one, all which look and correspond to each gun. Now stepping away from the guns, there are three different types of missions. The first type is assassinations, which consists of you sniping a person (or people) in a specific way (for example you making it look like an accident). Then there are special missions where you get to use a special attachment on your gun or have to do some kind of interrogation on someone without killing them. Finally there are a few side events you can do, like placing bets on a fighter in the fight club, as well as little side jobs you can do to earn a little extra cash without doing anything (it just takes a long time to get through the cut scene.)

Cookie Clickers:

*sigh* Are you embarrassed to play this game?

(Me thinking to myself, “why am I writing about this?”) There isn’t much to say, other than it is really, really addicting (you’ve been warned). You tap on the screen to earn cookies – the form of currency in the game. The cookies can be used to buy other things to help you earn more cookies, faster, and so on, and really the process just continues, until you get bored or stop playing. However, this is one of those games and I’m sure everyone agrees with me, that doesn’t really look fun but when you start playing it, you can’t stop. It really should only be used to let time pass by but people play this nonstop. It’s actually really sad to see how many people play this time waster.

Hey you made it to the end! I hope I took up all the Internet bandwidth in your house with these GIFs!  I hope you download some of these games for yourself (if we get 1,000,000 likes on this essay, I’ll be sure to make a part 2! lol). All the games on this list are a great way to make time go by, and a great way to make it go by faster.