An Android Is A Casual Gamer's Machine

10.1.12 The Reporter 0 Comments

There are three types of gamers, in my opinion:

• The "Professional" Gamer
• The Hardcore Gamer
• The Casual Gamer

While all three may look the same to the non-gamer, these three are vastly different in their tastes, game choices and frequency of gaming.

All three types may come from all walks of life. Both may spend hours, even the equivalent of days, just gaming. But the similarities may well end there.

The Professional Gamer is stereotyped as the classic parents' headache. He or she may be the teen who goes home at 3AM because he just had to finish a game of DotA (Defense of the Ancients), Warcraft, or some other MMORPG, RPG or strategy game.

The Professional Gamer may choose a career that will allow for games for hours on end. In fact, there are cases that they never get a career at all. On the other hand, Professional Gamers based in the US do have a shot at success: game companies do hire Beta Testers for their game releases.

Professional Gamers tend to choose strategy games, RPG's and other games similar to DotA in gameplay and level of graphics complicity.

The Hardcore Gamer has similar tastes, but usually just uses games to relax themselves. They may play just as tough and as hard as Professional Gamers do, but they only do this for fun, and this is at the mid-level to the last of their priorities. They do this to de-stress, but that doesn't mean that they play in a mediocre manner. They may work hard, but they will also play hard.

I know of a high-ranking IT officer in a multinational company who may well be classified as a Hardcore Gamer. A CEO of a call center in Iloilo City may also be classified as such.

Lastly, the casual gamers.

Casual Gamers are those who loved Super Mario, Tetris, Battle City, Adventure Island, Twin Bee, B-Wings, and their ilk as kids. As they were growing into adulthood, DynoMite, Bejeweled, Text Twist, Chuzzle and Peggle caught their fancy. They have Nintendo DS', PSP's or iPod Touches. Today, they may have installed Plants vs. Zombies, Insaniquarium, and Feeding Frenzy on their PC's. And if they are Android users as well, their apps may mostly be games.

Many an Android casual gamer I know has Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and a permutation of a Match 3 Game (Bejeweled, Frozen Bubble/Bubble Shooter, Luxor). An Android could very well be an equivalent of an iPod Touch, with phone capabilities, or a more affordable equivalent of an iPhone.

However, The Android Searcher has noted that lower-spec Androids do have that "signature" lag, because a majority of entry-level to mid-range Androids do have only 600MHz in CPU speed/256MB RAM. If you want a seamless gaming experience, then higher-end Androids are recommended. Choose one with at least 1GHz in CPU speed, preferably a Qualcomm-powered machine, and at least 512MB in RAM. With that, you won't go wrong.

For those who are still on entry-level to mid-range hardware, however, we will have to find kludges for our handicap. For me, all I need to do would be to kill all the running apps then leave only the game. Removing or not even installing moving/dynamic widgets like a Facebook widget is also a good solution. Widgets tend to eat up resources, making the Android slower.

A friend once experienced having her Samsung Galaxy Y overheat and slow down, especially with playing Fruit Ninja. We cleared the memory using Android Assistant, killed all apps, and she even uninstalled nearly everything except for Facebook Messenger. Her Samsung Galaxy Y still stayed turtle-slow; until, she rebooted her Android. After the reboot, everything was back to normal. So remember, when all else fails, it won't hurt to reboot. It may well the fix-it-all solution for your Android's bugs.

But I digress.

While there are games that may cater to a Hardcore or even Professional Gamer's tastes on the Android, there is no doubt that it is a Casual Gamer's machine.