Monday, December 31, 2012

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Google Android News Android Forums

TalkAndroid Staff Picks: Best Android Games for 2012

Posted: 30 Dec 2012 12:55 PM PST

We already made our picks for best phones and best apps for 2012, and now it’s time for the best game. 2012 finally brought console quality games to Android, but overall, we saw major growth for games that appealed to both casual and hardcore gamers. Although we don’t agree on the best of the best, one thing we can agree on is that we are all looking forward to what 2013 has in store. Hit the break to see the results and let us know your favorites.

Robert Nazarian – Editor In Chief

So many cool games were launched in 2012, and although many of them had some pretty cool graphics and intense gameplay, to me it’s also about widespread appeal. Taking that into consideration, I have to go with Jetpack Joyride. It arrived a little late in the year, but with over 10 million downloads in three months, it’s hard not to argue that it’s a game that appeals to the beginner as well as the hardcore. The fact that it’s an absolute blast to play doesn’t hurt either. The runner up for me was Granny Smith. It’s not nearly as popular as Jetpack, but is so much fun and is one of the most clever games I have played in a long time. Other worthy contenders include Dead Trigger, Shadowgun: Deadzone, Modern Warfare, and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. They are all cool games that look sweet and sport great gameplay, but since they appeal to a smaller (barely) audience, I have to tip my hat to Halfbrick Studios.

Roy Alugbue – Editor

A near-unanimous staple on most gamers’ devices, Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation brings some serious fast-paced action to gamers. The game features incredible graphics, fluid controls, dynamic levels and some pretty impressive AI running the show. The real appeal of this game (like most other shooters) isn’t the single-player campaign (which is solid in its own right)— it’s the astounding mulitplayer mode that allows for up to 12 of your friends to be able to play in anything from a standard deathmatch to team-based battles, which could ultimately lead to hours and hours of gameplay.The only catch with the game is the fact that it requires up to a few gigs of storage space on your device in order provide the incredible level of detail it offers, so gamers will need to set aside some precious real-estate on their devices in order for the game to run. While that is a minor dealbreaker, the overall experience Fallen Nation provides has been easily been one of the best. Ladies and gents if you want to play one of the more exciting games out there— Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation is where it’s at.

Ed Caggiani – Author

Create a pathogen. Infect the world. Kill everyone. Plague, Inc. is not only addictively evil, it’s highly intelligent as well. Ndemic Creations has created a game that makes you think about how to strategically mutate and evolve your pathogen to be highly infectious, while maintaining a low lethality to keep governments from working on a cure too early. Once everyone in the world is infected, it’s time to amp up the symptoms and increase the kill rate. Can you kill everyone in the world before a cure is engineered? Once you succeed, you unlock other pathogens, from bacteria and viruses, to parasites and bio-weapons. Each has its own twist to keep gameplay interesting. This was the most played game on all my Android devices in 2012.

Colton Kaiser – Author

Picking the best game of 2012 is no simple task. We’ve seen thousands of titles from numerous well-established studios, each with its own strengths and caveats. With that said, there was one game that stood out apart from the rest of the pack this year. With its simple and charming approach, Granny Smith takes the cake, or in this case the apple. Mediocre Games has crafted an utterly spectacular gem of a game, offering Sonic-esque gameplay reminiscent of the old days of SEGA. The idea is simple, too. You’re an old lady trying to beat a punk skater in order to collect your precious apples. There are two controls: One to jump over obstacles, and one to stick out your cane and zip down power lines collecting coins in the process. It may sound a little too casual for some, but it’s this game that I found myself coming back to time and time again.

Jared Peters – Author

Despite a little piracy controversy over the price of the game, Dead Trigger is one of the most fun, addictive first person shooters available in Google Play. Madfinger has a long track record of fantastic shooters for Android, and Dead Trigger follows suit. It offers hectic zombie slaying, a huge arsenal of weapons to keep you entertained, and even a few little mini games to take your mind off the end of the world, like an arena and a slot machine. It also supports extended graphics for Tegra 3 devices, which make the game look even more amazing. Couple that with great controls and native controller support, and you’ve got a winning combination.

Rudy Rivapalacio – Author

My choice for best game of the year probably isn’t the most addictive nor will it spawn tons of merchandising partnerships. Ingress, however, is a lot of fun and has loads of potential. The augmented reality game is still in a private beta with about as many people trying to get in as people currently playing the capture the flag-type MMO. Game play can be repetitive and portal placement has been questionable in the early stages but the scale and possibilities make Ingress pretty damn awe-inspiring.

Alexon Enfiedjian – Author

I have to admit: I'm not really a gamer. I literally have ZERO games on my Android devices. However, when I got my first Android phone in 2009 (the HTC Hero for Sprint), I did download a few games: Trapped, Jewels, Paper Toss and Angry Birds…so when Rovio launched Angry Birds Space, I felt nostalgic and thought I’d give it a try. It was smooth, well animated, had fun sounds, and the usual addictive game play. I played it for about thirty minutes (which for me is a long time). I thoroughly enjoyed myself and thought Rovio had done a good job coming up with some new and interesting ideas regarding the game physics and lack of gravity. The game was fun and free, what more do you need?. It stayed on my phone for about a week. So, all that to say, I may not be the most qualified person to vote for the best game of 2012, but if I had to choose, I'd go with Angry Birds Space.

Subway Time App Gives New York City Subway Riders Added Sense Of Peace

Posted: 30 Dec 2012 10:03 AM PST

 

If you’re like me and live in New York City, you know that the subway schedules can be hit or miss at times, so it’s fairly common to miss a train or two during any given day– potentially causing some major angst. Fortunately, relief is finally at hand as the MTA has announced it is giving real-time updates via public data for all of its riders. The data (which is iOS-based), is pushed through to a newly-released app called Subway Time by a third-party developer called The Holodeck, giving riders a greater sense of peace knowing how soon a particular train will be at a particular station.

The app is currently in beta at this time, so naturally the app has its fair share of gaffes and bugs, but we’re optimistic everything will be worked on and hopefully, we’ll possibly see a perfected app sooner than later. The app is available now for all of you in the New York City area, so head on down to the Play Store link and give it a whirl today.

 

 

Play Store

 

TalkAndroid Staff Picks: Best Android Apps for 2012

Posted: 29 Dec 2012 01:34 PM PST

Yesterday the TalkAndroid staff picked their best phones for 2012, and now it’s time for apps. Games aren’t included in this one because we will do a separate post for that. The only other stipulation is that the app had to launch in 2012, but there are a couple of minor exceptions as you will see below. Without further adieu  hit the break to see the results. Don’t forget to let us know what your picks are in the comments.

Robert Nazarian – Editor In Chief

This is a very tough one. If you consider that probably 300,000+ apps launched in 2012, how do you pick the best one? The best app might actually be the one that very few people know about, but ultimately you have to go with what made the biggest impact for Android users. I think that has to be Instagram. Android fans were begging for it as it was long overdo. When it finally landed in the Play Store, Android fans rejoiced and at the same time Apple fans cried out like little babies. That’s what I call an impact, and any app that makes Apple fans cry is a winner in my book.

Roy Alugbue – Editor

As soon as it was announced, Instagram was welcomed to the Android community with open-arms and hated by many outsiders, but there’s no doubt about the fact that it has certainly made a major splash in its brief existence on Android. The app brought a new means for individuals to share cool photos with friends and family, albeit in a looney, retro-filtered way of sorts. Here’s a quick and easy way of gauging Instagram’s popularity: since it’s release back in early April, the app has achieved a whopping 50,000,000 downloads and the fast-growing user base spreads across 25 countries as of this writing. Instagram is one of the more widely-used apps on Android devices and as it continues to grow and improve with each update— it will ultimately end up being one of the more revolutionary Android apps ever.

Ed Caggiani – Author

Choosing the best app is difficult, but I’d have to say that Google Drive is one of the most useful apps I’ve installed all year. Sure, Dropbox is the granddaddy of cloud storage, and I still use it as well, but there’s just something about the integration of Google Drive with Android that gives me the warm fuzzies. Its tablet support is also highly appreciated, taking advantage of my Nexus 10′s large screen. Luckily, I purchased storage space on Google’s servers before Google Drive was released, so I was grandfathered in to the older pricing, but with 5GB free, there’s no reason not to install Drive if you have an Android device.

Colton Kaiser – Author

With hundreds of thousands of unique applications available, it’s tough to pick a clear winner. So, why not pick the application that houses them all, the Google Play Store? You may remember a little thing called the Android Market which previously served as Google’s application marketplace for the company’s mobile OS up until March of this year. The entire philosophy behind the tired app marketplace was abandoned with the introduction of the Play Store as Google shifted to a consolidated and unified ecosystem of content for your swath of devices. Featuring the usual games and applications, as well as Movies, TV Shows, Books, Music and Magazines, Google managed to revolutionize the idea of a one-stop content shop.

Jared Peters – Author

Google Now is literally an award winning application that launched with Google’s Jelly Bean version of Android. It’s the single application that revolutionized what a phone should be able to do for you. Google Now is able to tell you what you need to know with no input on your part. Need to know the traffic for your drive to work? Google Now will glady do that. Want to know when your Amazon package is shipped? It’ll let you know. Did you drive past a restaurant that you’d like to eat at for lunch? Google Now will send you a card and let you know it’s nearby. The amazing part is that it literally does all of this with no user input. It all happens automatically in the background and really changes what you think your phone should be able to do for you. Oh, and it’s also a fantastic personal voice assistant app that can do all of the above and more. Impressive? I like to think so.

Rudy Rivapalacio – Author

A lot of great innovative apps hit the Play Store in 2012. Google Now and Field Trip are certainly both worthy of App Of The Year awards but I’ll go with an app that has been my best friend this past holiday shopping season: Slice. Like the two apps I mentioned earlier, it gathers your information in the background but its focus is much narrower. Once you’re done with the relatively easy setup, you’ll have details for all of your online purchases and tracking information at your fingertips. It will even notify you when a package ships or has been delivered. It’s seamless and helps you be lazy. Sounds like a winner to me!

Alexon Enfiedjian – Author

Technically Pocket has been around since before 2012, but at that time it was known as Read It Later and had a significantly different look and feel. In 2012, Read It Later relaunched as Pocket and dramatically changed its image, marketing and applications. It was essentially a new company with a new app.  Pocket was clean, sleek, fast and functional. Best of all, it was completely free. I downloaded it immediately. Pocket has now become one of my most used apps. It integrates with every app you own so you can save anything you want for later reading, whether tweets, emails, articles or more. Basically, anything you can "share", you can save. I typically use it to save articles that interest me, but that I don't have time to read at the moment. When you’ve got time to read, you can browse your articles via the app or Pocket's website, which also looks gorgeous. They even recently released a really nice native Mac application and will more than likely release a Windows app in the near future. Pocket also has a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox, so it really is the ultimate read-it-later experience. Pocket is my choice for app of the year.

 
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