Good Old PC games for Android?

[BillButNotBen]

As i continue my epic quest to play through baldur's gate I've been thinking that it'd be great on a tablet. Unfortunately I don't have a tablet, and I don't think it'd work so well on a smartphone.

But I was thinking that my commuting time might be a great chance to catch up on some great old games that i missed, but I'm wondering if anyone has found any old PC games that work well on a smartphone. (I mean both technicaly and also being playable in short bursts/on a train, etc..)

I know there is a dosbox port for android... so I was wondering about Ultima Underworld or Betrayal at Krondor...
And there seem to be android ports of Lords of Midnight..

Anyone tried or found any?

PS... is anyone else amazing that the iphone can run Max Payne and GTA3 looking better than our PCs could.. i feel old.

[Heliocentric]

Apparently Scumm emulation is fine (old lucasarts games)

[soldant]

Funnily enough most of the old PC games get ported to iOS.

[DaftPunk]

As far as i know,you can play Doom 1/2,Quake 1,The Day Of The Tentacle and similar stuff.

[BillButNotBen]

i guess it's easier to port such games to iOS as the hardware is more standard, but unfortunately I don't have an iphone.
I'm actually pretty surprised that there seem to be NO official android ports of any old PC games (or even console games).

Doom, Quake, Scumm are all good, except i've played all those before. I was hoping to fill in a few blank spots in my gaming history while i'm wasting time anyway...

[apricotsoup]

Not so old, but there is a version of wesnoth for android.

I have however heard that it's not official, dunno if anyone can clarify the rumours but I've not bought it as I don't want some cheeky peeps benefiting from the hard work of the actual devs.

[soldant]

i guess it's easier to port such games to iOS as the hardware is more standard, but unfortunately I don't have an iphone.
I'm actually pretty surprised that there seem to be NO official android ports of any old PC games (or even console games).

I think you've answered your own question there - the Android platform gains much by being completely open, but the fragmentation also hurts the app sector. It comes with the territory unfortunately.

[alms]

It's not exactly what you had in mind, but what about Roguelikes? Before all the iPhone rage, I wanted to get a "palm top" to play Angband on the train.

[icupnimpn2]

I've been playing around with a paid dosbox port on Android. Have Might and Magic up and running that was purchased in the GOG sale recently. Not so great with the virtual keyboard, but I imagine other games would work better.

There is an implementation of GemRB compiled for Android that enables play of Infinity Engine games. This isn't a port of the original engine, but a ground-up, open source recode. Needs the game files from the retail game (or GOG version, etc) to run anything. Expect bugs and crashes, but sounds like it works well enough in some cases. I'd worry, too, that text would be to small, but here's part of a review by one user in the Play store:

"The only thing keeping me from playing Baldur's Gate 2 on my phone was the small font; now with custom font support - in my case it's Avatar.ttf, 18pt - text is perfectly legible on the 4" screen of my my SGS. These games are still some of the most complex and immersive rpg's in existence, and they even look great on an AMOLED display!"

[victory]

This thread just inspired me to try to run Monkey Island under ScummVM. ScummVM froze at my first try to save the game, but I tried again and was able to play for a couple of minutes and save & load successfully, with no further glitches.

The way right-click was executed in ScummVM is not so good; they use a half-second long press which seems hard to do reliably. Longer keypresses translate to middle click, which I don't even remember seeing used in a Scumm game. The game is easy to play with fingers due to how ScummVM gives you a virtual mouse cursor + trackpad-like operation instead of direct pointing. I'd love to see an option for direct pointing so I could use stylus to play, though.

[CitizenDickbag]

Android port of DOSBox is rad for Master of Orion 2 on the road, and it uses that trackpad thing victory mentioned.

[Megagun]

Not so old, but there is a version of wesnoth for android.

I have however heard that it's not official, dunno if anyone can clarify the rumours but I've not bought it as I don't want some cheeky peeps benefiting from the hard work of the actual devs.

Battle for Wesnoth is licensed under the GPL. It's completely open-source, so you should be able to find the source code of the Android port and compile it yourself, or "pay the fine" for the compiled version that's on the Market. Alternatively, find someone else to compile it for you for free. The GPL does not prohibit anyone from making any money on GPL'd bits this way, and each and every person on this 'Credits' list explicitly agreed with this when they licensed their stuff under the GPL. This is why Frogatto's content isn't licensed under the GPL, but the source is. :)

[Sproutmask]

Just to add that I recently bought Wesnoth for my Android phone (galaxy S2) and it works an absolute treat. I didn't begrudge coughing up the couple of quid asking price having tried the demo. Also, the last couple of Humble Bundles have included some really quite splendid Android ports of games like World of Goo, Anomaly: Warzone Earth and Osmos.

And in reply to the OP's PS, smartphones are absolutely amazing. I only upgraded after my ancient Sony Walkman phone broke and I've been blown away by the quality of some of the graphics, especially considering that (afaik) it has by smartphone standards a middling graphics chip. To be fair, at my age, I'm impressed that a phone has a graphics chip in it...

[sopabuena]

I already posted about this but I'm currently addiceted to the iOS version of Max Payne. It's amazing and works incredibly well for small bursts of play, as you say. Highly recommended. Pretty sure there is an Android version coming

[Misfit410]

I've been toying with aDosBox a bit, was able to run Warcraft and Alone in the Dark quite well, though I wish I could say playing them was pleasant on a touch screen.

[alms]

Death Rally, an old favorite of mine, is free.

[apricotsoup]

Battle for Wesnoth is licensed under the GPL. It's completely open-source, so you should be able to find the source code of the Android port and compile it yourself, or "pay the fine" for the compiled version that's on the Market. Alternatively, find someone else to compile it for you for free. The GPL does not prohibit anyone from making any money on GPL'd bits this way, and each and every person on this 'Credits' list explicitly agreed with this when they licensed their stuff under the GPL. This is why Frogatto's content isn't licensed under the GPL, but the source is. :)

Ok that's cool. I just hadn't looked into the details at all, know little of these things and remember what happened with Lugaru.