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[Dave12308]

Polarbit's Raging Thunder 2 recently became available in the Marketplace for the Android platform (recommended for high-end phones like the Droid and Nexus One, but reviews in Market show that it works well on lower end devices)

The original release was a 20+ MB download that was stored to internal memory. An update became available today that shrinks the main install to less than 4MB (download size was around 1.8MB) - the first time the game is launched, the remainder is downloaded to the SD card. Sure, this has been done before; but for the most part only by smaller dev teams. This update marks a paradigm shift for gaming on the Droid. It is the first "high-end" iPhone like game by a major dev team to launch in the marketplace and use the SD card for storage. Other developers are almost certain to follow suit.

Why is this significant? Because many people have questioned the ability of the Droid/Nexus One to run iPhone-quality games, simply due to storage space. Hacks like App2SD are available for other Android phones, but what big dev is going to stake their money on a storage method that isn't officially supported? Sure, Google is working on a way to store big apps on the SD card, but if the game does it natively, it works just as well; and we don't have to wait for it. Now we can store small "stub" apps on the phone, and large datafiles on the SD card. So games in the hundreds of megabytes are now possible. As I said, sure, some games on the Marketplace have been doiing this for awhile now, but they were all games by small devs. Now that we have a major cross-platform dev using this method, even larger companies may very well follow suit.

Now, I say iPhone-quality games are possible.... Actually, let me rephrase that - better than iPhone-quality games are possible. In a direct comparison, the Android version of Raging Thunder 2 literally looks better and runs better than the iPhone version. I suspect it actually runs in a native 854x480 resolution on the Droid, thus the better appearance; and my Droid is OCed to 1.2GHz, so that may explain the fluidity. Still, I suspect that it still runs well at 550MHz; no one on the marketplace is complaining.

At any rate, feel free to chime in with your thoughts, and let's discuss this. Is Polarbit's switch to SD card storage going to affect the overall Android games scene? I personally think it will.

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[jlevy73]

Definitely a good point. That's where the iPhone has a huge advantage in that it can store almost an unlimited amount of apps/games. I have had AP2SD running for a quite a while but I do know what you mean, developers cannot count on everyone having that script enabled. Anyway this IMO is a great idea as this will allow big games like Madden NFL to be stored on the SD card. As far as high end graphics go, I don't think Raging Thunder 2 is a good example of it though. Check out HomeRun batter 3D. That has some seriously amazing 3D graphics.

[Dave12308]

I like HomeRun 3D, but Raging Thunder 2 is technically more impressive, as it's throwing alot more polys around to render a full environment moving at a solid 30+ FPS. Of course, I am biased, I am really into racing games; so the possibilities here have me excited.

[jlevy73]

Dave12308 said:

I like HomeRun 3D, but Raging Thunder 2 is technically more impressive, as it's throwing alot more polys around to render a full environment moving at a solid 30+ FPS. Of course, I am biased, I am really into racing games; so the possibilities here have me excited.

Raging thunder is 30+ FPS, that is impressive. It renders very well on the Nexus as I'm sure it does on the Droid as well. I wish they would turn that Neocore demo into a real game. That I would be in a second lol

While Android gaming is stil in its infancy, the horizon looks bright especially as they begin launching phones with higher end hardware.