Recently, after a friend on Discord brought it up, I decided I needed to play through Doom RPG. This partially became "a thing" for me thanks to the re-releases on of Doom / Doom 2 / Doom 64 on Switch, so when I was reminded that the ID produced dungeon-crawler-esque turn-based Doom RPG existed, I figured yeah that's something I need to play.
As you can imagine from the post title, it has launched me down a little bit of a rabbit hole. Mobile games of this era are such a different beast altogether - it's fascinating to replay these titles and see how much of a "we have to figure this platform out" feeling you get from them. You'll see a lot of the same things over and over - so many side-scrollers - but you'll also see tons of very creative and intriguing games that feel lost to time.
Doom RPG (2005)
If you haven't played it, or heard about it, Doom RPG came out in 2005 for the mobile phone and instead of staying close to the formula of the original games, they made it (as the title says) an RPG. A turn-based, rogue-esque one to be exact. No, the levels aren't procedurally generated so feel free to argue about the rogue comparison, but the tile-by-tile movement and turn based combat should give you an idea of what to expect here. My favourite part of the game so far has been the ability to "capture" evil dog enemies and use them as shield/weapons (complete with a little dog-bone health meter for the dogs, ha.) Honestly, playing through the game got me hooked on revisiting more mobile games of this era. As far as I'm concerned, I'd say Doom RPG is damn-near a masterpiece of mobile gaming - it's perfectly suited for the platform, is quite fun while still posing a challenge, and retains the flavor of the original property perfectly. Probably the only thing added here that takes away from the game is the wink-wink humour, which I don't mind but your mileage may vary.
Assassin's Creed (2007)
There's a lot of mobile games from this era that are adaptations of console games (as well as a lot of movie properties, etc.) One that surprised me, was the original Assassin's Creed mobile title. On the one hand, it's a lot like many other brawl-ish side-scrollers of the era. That said, there's a nice attempt to capture the series' traversal and parkour-style running around and diving off ledges. It's a simple pleasure, but it feels pretty good and I felt like it captured the feel and atmosphere of the original game pretty well!
Call of Duty
Have you ever wanted to play an over-head shooter based on the Call of Duty property? There's a lot of them on the mobile platform from this era. I feel like the general consensus on these titles at the time where that they are solid but ultimately became a little stale over the course of many releases. I've been having fun with them though!
Darkest Fear (2006)
From Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds, came this survival horror series that manages to milk a lot of atmosphere out of the platform. True to the name, the game features a darkness/light mechanic that finds you opening and closing windows, brandishing a flashlight, and more. It actually works really well for the platform and turning on a light to reveal a corpse for the first time was truly surprising. There's more of these and I think I'll be checking them out as well, as Darkest Fear balanced the survival horror and puzzle vibes well.
Lemonade Tycoon (2003)
Who can forget Jamdat Mobile Inc.'s Lemonade Tycoon? A true classic. I spent a lot of time playing this back in the day and it's nice to be able to pull it up whenever I want now, but it doesn't grab me the same way it did back in the day. Still... fun!
And many more...
Obviously there's a ton more... including Gameloft and PopCap classics, other adaptations of existing properties, technology-pushing gems like Galaxy on Fire and more. I would love to know what else people have fond memories of playing from this era of gaming. There's something fun about the simplicity to these games - no IAP's to be found here (unless you count the menu option for "BUY MORE GAMES" many have.)
Oh, also, there's a Garfield JRPG. I'm not kidding, it's ridiculous. Paging Jeff Gerstmann because I feel like this needs to see the light of day in some capacity. Just look at this thing:
As you can imagine from the post title, it has launched me down a little bit of a rabbit hole. Mobile games of this era are such a different beast altogether - it's fascinating to replay these titles and see how much of a "we have to figure this platform out" feeling you get from them. You'll see a lot of the same things over and over - so many side-scrollers - but you'll also see tons of very creative and intriguing games that feel lost to time.
Doom RPG (2005)
If you haven't played it, or heard about it, Doom RPG came out in 2005 for the mobile phone and instead of staying close to the formula of the original games, they made it (as the title says) an RPG. A turn-based, rogue-esque one to be exact. No, the levels aren't procedurally generated so feel free to argue about the rogue comparison, but the tile-by-tile movement and turn based combat should give you an idea of what to expect here. My favourite part of the game so far has been the ability to "capture" evil dog enemies and use them as shield/weapons (complete with a little dog-bone health meter for the dogs, ha.) Honestly, playing through the game got me hooked on revisiting more mobile games of this era. As far as I'm concerned, I'd say Doom RPG is damn-near a masterpiece of mobile gaming - it's perfectly suited for the platform, is quite fun while still posing a challenge, and retains the flavor of the original property perfectly. Probably the only thing added here that takes away from the game is the wink-wink humour, which I don't mind but your mileage may vary.
Assassin's Creed (2007)
There's a lot of mobile games from this era that are adaptations of console games (as well as a lot of movie properties, etc.) One that surprised me, was the original Assassin's Creed mobile title. On the one hand, it's a lot like many other brawl-ish side-scrollers of the era. That said, there's a nice attempt to capture the series' traversal and parkour-style running around and diving off ledges. It's a simple pleasure, but it feels pretty good and I felt like it captured the feel and atmosphere of the original game pretty well!
Call of Duty
Have you ever wanted to play an over-head shooter based on the Call of Duty property? There's a lot of them on the mobile platform from this era. I feel like the general consensus on these titles at the time where that they are solid but ultimately became a little stale over the course of many releases. I've been having fun with them though!
Darkest Fear (2006)
From Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds, came this survival horror series that manages to milk a lot of atmosphere out of the platform. True to the name, the game features a darkness/light mechanic that finds you opening and closing windows, brandishing a flashlight, and more. It actually works really well for the platform and turning on a light to reveal a corpse for the first time was truly surprising. There's more of these and I think I'll be checking them out as well, as Darkest Fear balanced the survival horror and puzzle vibes well.
Lemonade Tycoon (2003)
Who can forget Jamdat Mobile Inc.'s Lemonade Tycoon? A true classic. I spent a lot of time playing this back in the day and it's nice to be able to pull it up whenever I want now, but it doesn't grab me the same way it did back in the day. Still... fun!
And many more...
Obviously there's a ton more... including Gameloft and PopCap classics, other adaptations of existing properties, technology-pushing gems like Galaxy on Fire and more. I would love to know what else people have fond memories of playing from this era of gaming. There's something fun about the simplicity to these games - no IAP's to be found here (unless you count the menu option for "BUY MORE GAMES" many have.)
Oh, also, there's a Garfield JRPG. I'm not kidding, it's ridiculous. Paging Jeff Gerstmann because I feel like this needs to see the light of day in some capacity. Just look at this thing:
