Best Android Games of the Month

Every month thousands of Android games are released onto Google’s Play store and we are tasked with sifting through that lot to find titles worthy of review.  Then about midway through the month we sift through that group to bring you this list of the best of those releases.

A lot can be released in a month and there has been some heavy competition coming from big name developers. After much consideration here are the Most Hardcore Android Games of the Month.

5. Door Kickers

Door Kickers is a squad-based real time strategy game that has you managing a SWAT team to break into buildings to take out their targets. While it definitely is a tactical strategy game, it actually ends up playing more like a puzzle game due to the limited amount of SWAT members you have, the bevy of action available to each one and the complexity of the game’s missions.

You must tread carefully breaking down doors and running into rooms as it can be easy to run into a situation your team cannot survive. As you develop your team, you will learn to build meticulous attack plans, using your surroundings to your advantage, learning to coordinate your teams’ movements as well as how to pace yourself appropriately.

You will find that running through the levels recklessly is not the way to advance in this game. Using careful planning and actual tactical maneuvers is the only way to clear Door Kickers’ areas of all opposition.

This is a true squad-based tactical strategy game and one that will force you to change your tactics until you find a winning combination.

4. Rebuild: Gangs of Deadsville

A strategy game with a good story line is hard to come by and Rebuild 3 manages to combine a grim story about survivors in a zombie apocalypse with a sense of humor throughout.

The focus of the game is like the name suggests; you are tasked with re-building society after a deadly disease has spread over the world. You start out with only a couple blocks of a city and expand into surrounding areas but as you do so you will be required to make quick decisions through a continual series of randomly generated events.

These events can range from hoards of the zed (zombies) breaking through your walls to survivors looking for a new home.

The games challenges deepen and become more complex as you play. You’ find that keeping your survivors happy is just as important as maintaining your defenses. As the game plays on you will end up rebuilding entire cities to fend off the zeds.

The more people you have to manage the tougher the game gets but if you don’t expand fast enough then you will find yourself at the mercy of surviving gangs. Rebuild’s mix of survival and strategy dovetails almost perfectly here.

3. Sometimes You Die

Every now and then a game comes along and defies both expectations and definition. Sometimes You Die is such a game. This indie puzzler is an interesting little title that gets you to pass tests in ways that are a bit unorthodox while mocking you along the way. What’s more, dying is in integral part of gameplay. You get further in the game by dying.

When you die in this game—and you die all the time—your square (that is you) is left behind and can be used in many ways to continue through each room. Text on the walls addresses you and continues a conversation throughout each room.

The platforming element here works extremely well with easy, tight controls and the game draws you like any good exploration title does.

2. Five Nights at Freddy’s 4

The Five Nights series is known for its scare tactics and feeling of isolation. Each game provided its own set of requirements to stay alive and every night in Every Freddy game is a genuinely scary venture, and it is always a huge relief to see the clock hit 6am signaling the end of your shift at Freddy Fastbear’s Pizza.

This entry in the series however has a completely different feel to it and you instead find yourself having to make it through the night in a child’s bedroom, defending yourself from creatures that move in the dark. No cameras to check and no phone calls to add to the story as you play through. Instead this sequel focuses in the mind of the child that died from one of the animatronics while at Freddy Fastbear’s Pizza. You would think that the lack of story would detract from the reason to continue playing but instead it adds to the feeling of isolation that edges you on to keep surviving.

You will be listening closely to hear the animatronics move around and close doors to block their path. A flashlight is provided to look down hallways, closet and child’s room to ensure nothing lurks in the dark.

The animations of the animatronics are much more realistic this time around and also more terrifying. Even when you know the location of one, you can’t help but panic at the sheer hopelessness of the situation.

If you are looking for a horror game that provides a truly scary experience then this is a great place to start.

1. Fallout Shelter

While it is best known as a first person RPG, The Fallout series had originated as a turned based RPG which is kind of what we expected when it was announced. Here have an entirely different idea where you build and maintain your own vault.

This is Bethesda’s first foray into the mobile scene and has hit the top of the charts for both Android and iOS and for good reason. Its simple interface and controls lends itself well to mobile play, and it has a way of keeping you coming back for more. You start out with a small 3 room vault and eventually build yourself up to a thriving post-apocalyptic community.

The whole game is filled with charm and its fun just to find out what your dwellers are talking about. You can assign them different tasks like cooking and guarding and adventuring. As the Overseer you are rated based on how happy everyone is in your vault. You will want to assign dwellers to the appropriate job based on their skill levels which will help achieve better results.

As your civilization grows in size, different rooms become available. You can train your dwellers to increase their stats and send them out into the wasteland to gather resources. With so many things to do, managing your dwellers never becomes a chore. Balancing the game’s various jobs and protecting your vault from the many challenges of the wasteland adds to the overall feel of being a part of the Fallout’s post-apocalyptic world.

If this game is not installed already then I highly recommend it become part of your collection as it is hands down the best new game for September, and maybe even for the whole of 2015.