Be Excellent To Each Other

What-ho chaps and chapesses.

As readers of Grazia magazine will no doubt know, I recently bought a Nexus 7 Android device. It is pretty good. As others may know, it is possible to obtain many and varied emulation applications on Android devices. so i thought I would start a thread about it.
While information on emulators would be very much appreciated (which do you use, any issues, is it worth buying or just using the free ones, etc) I would also like this thread to be about about which games for emulators work on a handheld touch screen device.

Not limited to any specific emulated device - just general talk about these things, and what not.

So any recommendations?

Currently i have Beebdroid (BBC micro) emulator installed and am playing Repton 3, but I find the lack of feed back from on screen buttons makes rapid response tricky.
I also have an NDS nds4droid installed, which actually works quite well, but as i have an NDS, there isn't really much point using my tablet as one!

I can't be of any help I'm afraid, Bobby, but I was about to start a topic with the exact same title so I may as well jump on this one, albeit for a slightly different purpose.

How good is the Android emulator included in the Android SDK? Is it pretty accurate, performance-wise?

I've got an Xperia play with snes/mega drive/GBA emulators on it. It's not a great phone, but it's the best emulation handheld I'm aware of.

I played most of Minish Cap through on a GBA emulator a couple of years back and it was excellent. Obviously not quite as good as with proper buttons but the judicious use of save states in the harder dungeon rooms takes the frustration away and I'd have happily finished the entire game on my phone if not for a nasty crash bug on the last dungeon (which hadn't been fixed on any emulator at the time).

I was focussing on SNES/GBA games at the time and Minish Cap aside I struggled to find games that were both decent and playable on the phone screen. By which I mean anything that didn't really rely on the shoulder buttons too much because they're close to unuseable with on-screen buttons; you can't hit them while still using the direction pad/ABXY buttons like you can with a proper controller y'see. For instance, having never played a Metroid game, I really wanted to get into Super Metroid but it was rendered unplayable almost instantly because it used L or R as a modifier key to shoot missiles (I think) which were a core part of the game. I'm not a big retro gamer so there wasn't much left I felt stood the test of time and worked well without proper hardware buttons. Although I'm happy to be corrected on that if anyone else has some better recommendations for you.

Note to self though: check NDS emulator, if Picross 3D is playable on my Note 2 (which might even provide a reason to use the stylus for the first time ever!) that would be sweet.

My GP2X Wiz says otherwise... but it's not an Android device so I'll let you off.

It may emulate stuff a bit better (I dunno) but do you take it with you wherever you go? That's the big advantage the Xperia Play has for me. Lots of mobile games are fun, but I'll take a spot of Mario or Sonic or Metroid or Astro Boy: Omega Factor or EVO: Search for Eden or Gunstar Heroes on the tube/train over Angry Birds any time.

I'll be pleased about having a much nicer phone when I get my new one, but I will miss carrying this excellent emulation handheld with me at all times.

Yes I do... Seriously, I do.

But yes. I totally see your point and was tempted by the Xperia before I got the Wiz. If the Wiz could browse Twitter and send text message, it would be all I'd ever need to carry.

In my sleepshitted eyed state, I thought this thread was about Adrian Edmondson.

Now I do as well!

Bamba, your point about metroid and shoulder buttons is exactly the point I was trying to make in the op.

I am sure most have tried them all ready, but I installed scummvm and beneath a steal sky. The point and click aspect worms really well on a tablet.

FPse is a Playstation emulator that works damned well. Great for RPG games like FF7, not so good for action games that need lots of buttons.

I tried an NDS emulator and, well, it's pretty useless to be honest. The actual games run perfectly well in performance terms but anything that uses the touchscreen and buttons/crosspad (i.e. pretty much everything) is rendered unplayable because the emulator has to overlay the buttons on the actual screen which buggers your ability to use the emulated touchscreen (if you see what I mean, which you probably don't because I'm describing it really badly).

GENPLUSDroid and NESDroid are both pretty good emulators for their respective consoles, and GENPLUSDroid plays Master System as well as Megadrive games. I haven't really tried any other emulators on the Nexus 7 (other than Beebdroid).

Something you mind want to consider is a USB OTG cable, which will allow you to plug a USB controller in if that sort of thing takes your fancy. I'm using a wired Xbox 360 pad with mine, which works natively. You can actually use it to navigate round the Android OS too.

Revisiting NDS emulation on my Nexus 10 I remembered how well Warioware works because it uses the touchscreen exclusively so that comes highly recommended to anyone with a half decent Android device as it's an excellent game. I think the GBA version works well also.