I bought a Toshiba Thrive tablet a month or so ago and I am in most ways satisfied with it. The game situation seems pretty bleak, though. I have the three Angry Birds games, but they are cursed with advertising and there are no paid versions to get away from it. I have Sims Free Play, but I’m not a giant Sims fan and it also has ads. I’ve lost track of the number of games I downloaded, tried, and deleted in the last few weeks. Can anybody recommend any games? I won’t even limit this to any particular genre. Are there any Android games that don’t suck right out of the gate or take what could be a good game (like Birds) and taint it with ads?
I’m a fan of Androminion, a free implementation of the card game Dominion against AIs. The AI isn’t as strong as a good human player, but it’s certainly good to learn against.
Nearly all free games have ads. You have to pay to avoid them. You can, however, download Amazon’s Android store app. It gives one paid app away for free every day and sometimes it’s a game. I got Cut the Rope this way and I really find it fun.
Cut the Rope is really fun, but it isn’t free.
Paid vs. free isn’t a factor. I would buy the Angry Birds games if I had the option. I bought them for my iPod touch. The thing is that I haven’t seen any paid games that looked appealing.
Pretty sure you can buy the Adfree version of Angry Birds from the Amazon App Store (which is really the only thing that store is good for).
I’ll have to check out the Amazon store. I’ve been using Toshiba’s Play Store which seems to be where apps go to suck.
I very much enjoyed Quell & Quell Reflect. No idea if you’ll like them but they’re both paid apps without ads.
Looking at what’s on my phone, World of Goo is excellent. Where’s My Water is equally good. Adrenaline 6 is an awesome arcade racer. Anything by Kairosoft is good, but they make a very specific type of game (old-school 2D sprite management/strategy) that you’ll love or hate. There’s always Plants Vs Zombies.
Labyrith – actually I think the full name is Reiner Knizia’s Labyrinth – is a fun little puzzle game.
The only game on my phone is Drop 7.
It doesn’t hold my interest as much as it used to, but I find myself going back to it again and again. A simple yet challenging puzzler. I think Hardcore and Normal are probably misnamed as I find Hardcore much easier and less tedious than Normal.
Not sure if it’s available for the Thrive, but I’m playing GTA III on my phone (a Samsung Galaxy S II). The controls take a while to get used to, but it’s great fun if you’ve played the original.
Paid apps: Sprinkle is an awesome water/physics game; JetCarStunts is a very cool driving platformer; X-Plane is amazing if you’re into hardcore flight sims; Apparatus seems fun - just installed the free version, and it’s interesting so far, but you can get a paid version for a couple bucks.
Contract Killer (and its Zombies variant) is a free game that asks you to pay for powerups, but most of them you can eventually earn with judicious gameplay, same with Six Guns, a Red Dead clone (ETA: just noticed this is a Gameloft title, not Glu Mobile). In fact, most of the Glu Mobile games are free-to-play, pay-to-get-good, but offer a decent amount of entertainment without having to pay a dime. And if you hit a wall and don’t want to drop a few bucks, delete, and find a new one.
And the new Angry Birds Space (free with ads) has a $.99 Premium version in Google Play (née Android Market). Not sure what it gives you, as I’m fine sitting through ads until I run out of gameplay.
Shoot the Apple is probably my favorite puzzle game so far - the physics work pretty well, it’s not too hard, and while the free version has ads, the ads disappear while playing the actual game (and only show up on the menus).
Shoot Bubble Deluxe is another good game that has ads only on the menus, not the actual game. A couple levels are frustrating (and/or dependent on the luck of what color orb you start with) but you can skip 'em.
It was for one day in Amazon’s store and that is when I bought it 
You should check out the current Humble Indie Bundle, which has some decent games that you can pay whatever you want for. I purchased it but haven’t yet explored the current games very thoroughly, but I’ve played Cogs on PC and it’s a very good sliding-blocks puzzle game. It also has Swords and Soldiers, which I have on the Wii but there it was hampered by the controls. Haven’t tried it on a tablet yet.
World of Goo is one of the best construction/puzzle games by far, and easily worth the price. I also got Anomaly Warzone Earth with the last Bundle, and it’s occupied much of my couch time for the past couple weeks. Basically, think “reverse tower defense”: you have to run your units past a gauntlet of towers. Other people really like Osmos, but I find it swinging between boring and frustratingly difficult.
Wow. I came in to post this as well.
Ceramic Destroyer and Super Stickman Golf are a couple fun physics games.
On my Galaxy SII I have enjoyed:
Free:
Pixel Rain (challenging physics game)
Cheese Tower (ditto)
Ninjump (ninja running up a tower, single-click control, fun for a while)
Air Attack HD (really fun action bomber/shooter - limited levels)
Grave Defense HD (zombie TD game)
Draw Something Free (too famous for me to bother with a desc)
Paid:
Jelly Defense (best TD game I ever played)
Try any of the *Zenonia *series if you’re a fan of SNES style rpg’s.
There’s ChessCom - the app for Chess.com. You can play against other people, even if they’re playing from a computer or a different phone platform.
Also Robotek - robot warfare slot machine sort of game, which actually has a lot more strategy than you think. I’m super addicted to it.