Almost all of the Android platform’s power, and features into your TV. With TV boxes like Mi Box, which retail for as low as $69, and bring a lot of power to your TV, you should convert your TV into an Android TV. With Android TV, you will get access to a plenty of great Android TV apps, and games that you can keep running on your TV.
1. Asphalt 8: Airborne
Asphalt 8 is one of the favorite mobile games. It is very fun to play, and even comes with a local (and online) multiplayer mode, which makes it better. On the Android TV, the game is available on the Play Store, and runs just fine on the Mi Box. The frame rate is not very smooth, but it’s completely playable, for sure. You can connect a Bluetooth gamepad to your Android TV, and Asphalt automatically detects it, and says you the control scheme for your gamepad.
It is possible to play the game with the controller that is provided with the TV box, it makes for a “not-so-exciting” gameplay. However, add a Bluetooth controller to the mix, and you will find yourself having a lot of fun racing on a huge screen in your living room.
Download (Free, with in-app purchases)
Asphalt 8: Airborne
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2. Crossy Road
Crossy Road is a fun game that will maintain you hooked for hours at a time. You just have to cross roads, while avoiding getting hit by traffic and also avoiding going out of the screen, as the camera keeps panning forward, and you need to keep ahead of that. What makes this game so addictive, is possibly the fact that you feel like it’s easy enough, when it’s not, and that it requires you to maintain a fast pace, right from the start. Making your way through traffic is hard enough, but the game quickly moves on to streams that you have to cross by stepping over logs, and leaves.
The graphic quality in the game is purposely poor, but that is what adds to the overall charm, and feel of the game. In addition, the fast-paced movement, and the easy control scheme makes it a lot of fun to play. Do note that the game is better played with the Android TV remote, rather than a gamepad.
Download (Free, with in-app purchases)
Crossy Road
3. Dead Trigger 2
Dead Trigger 2 is a first-person survival game, set in a world torn apart by a global zombie apocalypse. If you’re thinking this is yet another zombie apocalypse game, it kind of is. However, the “kind-of” open world maps, and the graphic quality of the game makes for a very interesting game design. You can walk around the map, completing objectives, and much more. The game requires a gamepad to play, and you will have to set it up before you can get to playing the game. While the set up does take some time, but the idea of customizing the controls when the game launches, so you know exactly how to go about playing the game, and completing the objectives handed to you.
When the game starts off, you’re in a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies, and you’re armed with just a melee weapon, and a handgun. More weapons get unlocked later on in the game, and give you the option to play the game in variety of different ways. The game is updated often, adding more and more gameplay elements, to keep you interested, and absorbed in surviving in what can only be described as a hell-hole.
Download (Free, with in-app purchases)
Dead Trigger 2
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4. Into the Dead
Into the Dead is another game that really liked playing on my Android phone, and it was a pleasant surprise to see the game being just as much fun on a larger screen. Also, playing the game on a bigger screen give the visuals a much deeper perspective, bringing out the real horror in running along a field filled with zombies, and obstacles. The game is easily playable with a gamepad, and tells you controls as you go along. Running is automatic, and all you have control over, is turning left or right, to avoid zombies as well as shooting from weapons that you can pick up from crates that are dropped randomly.
The game is basically an endless runner, and it gets progressively more difficult to play, as the distance increases. You will need to be quick with your reflexes, and turn at the exact moments, to avoid colliding with a zombie, resulting in death.
Download (Free, with in-app purchases)
Into the Dead
5. Badland
Badland is another fun game that you can play on your Android TV, is the critically acclaimed, and widely liked game Badland. The game has received over 1 million ratings, and averages out at 4.5/5, which is nothing short of marvelous. On the TV, the minimal graphics look extremely good, and the colors stand out well. You can play the game with a gamepad, or with the Android TV remote control, and it feels a lot like other tap-to-fly games like Flappy Bird.
In Badland, you can hit walls, and obstacles as much as you need, as long as you don’t get stuck in them, which results in death. The objective is to cross the level while dodging obstacles, and collecting power-ups. Levels get increasingly harder, and the game doesn’t stop being interesting.
Download (Free, with in-app purchases)
Badland
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6. Zombie Age 2
Zombie Age 2 is a fun, side-scrolling shooter game, with light graphics, and a funny take on killing zombies. The game starts off with teaching you the basic movement, and shooting scheme. Then, you’re quickly thrown into the field, expected to defend yourself with just a baseball bat, and a pistol. The first couple of levels are easy, and just when you start unlocking weapons, and basically start feeling invincible, you’ll be shoved into a level that seems almost impossible to complete.
It challenges in unexpected ways, and tries to keep you on your feet, and keep your adrenaline pumping. The game is really quite fun to play, and if you like shooter games that don’t take themselves seriously, Zombie Age 2 is the perfect method to spend some time shooting, and bashing zombies on your TV.
Download (Free, with in-app purchases)
Zombie Age 2
7. Fast Like a Fox
Fast Like a Fox is a level based, side runner game that will keep you entertained for hours. In the game, someone has stolen all the foxes’ treasures, and it is your responsibility to find, and return them all. But that’s not all, you have to be as fast as you can. Playing the game itself is easy, you simply press and hold the running button on your gamepad, and the fox increases it’s speed over time. You can press on the jump button to jump over obstacles, and chasms, or to collect coins, and gems that are hanging above in the air.
But, running is not everything in the game you’re really supposed to slow down at the perfect time to be able to collect every single piece of treasure on the level. At the end of each level is a diamond, that you have to touch. However, funnily enough, if you’re too fast, and you happen to jump over the diamond, the level doesn’t get over, and you have to restart from a little ways back. All in all, the game is quite a decent one to kill some time, while enjoying the Material Design oriented graphics, and soft color schemes that the game follows.
Download (Free, with in-app purchases)
Fast Like a Fox
8. BombSquad
BombSquad is one of those games that you can enjoy quite a lot with a keyboard, but not so much with a gamepad. However, if you happen to attach a keyboard to your Android TV, you’ll definitely like with BombSquad. The game supports a number of different gameplay modes, including single player/co-op, or multi-player. The game is a lot of fun when played in multiplayer mode all you need to do is connect two controllers to your Android TV, and you’re all set to play with your friends.
BombSquad has a number of great levels, and the sole goal of the game is to kill all your friends’ characters. You can punch them, lift and throw them off the platform or chuck bombs at them. The game is a lot of fun, even in single player mode, but playing with friends will bring out its true potential. You should definitely try it out with a couple of your friends.
Download (Free, with in-app purchases)
BombSquad
9. Does Not Commute
Does Not Commute is a very different type of a game, and while it comes off as confusing to start with, the objective of the game becomes pretty soon. The game follows turn by turn stories of a number of different people, all of whom are heading somewhere or the other, and you have to make sure that they all get to their destinations, in the given time limit, while avoiding collisions with other cars. From the starting of the game, you will need to think about things like the shortest path to their destination, and then, as the game progresses, you will need to figure out the best paths for each one of them, so they don’t end up colliding with each other, or with buildings, and other obstacles.
The game is fun, and the graphics are very nice. Gameplay is fluid, and definitely engrossing there’s something fun about reading the short descriptions of the people in the cars, and what they’re doing.
Download (Free, with in-app purchases)
Does Not Commute
10. Mars: Mars
Mars: Mars is a fun way to kill time on your Android TV. The objective of the game is not instantly clear, or clear at all even after you jumped over some 70 pads. Coming back to the game, you’re an astronaut who has been sent to Mars, and for some reason, your sole purpose on the lonely red planet, is to jump from pad to pad, using the thrusters in your spacesuit to manage your flight, and land slowly, without unscheduled disassembly of your suit, and by extension.
For some reason, the game is extremely addictive, and you will probably end up playing it (like me) for a long time, just waiting to see what happens next. The game does put up quite a number of challenges, and there’s always something or the other that will keep you wanting to continue playing.
Download (Free, with in-app purchases)
Mars