NVIDIA Tegra Zone Goes Live, Showcases Dual-Core Gaming Awesomeness
Sounds great overall, but here’s the thing: developers can tweak their code, leverage the nature of multi-core processors, and create games with drastically improved performance. How do you know which games are truly leveraging the dual cores and are worth downloading? Normally there’d be no way to know… but NVIDIA just launched Tegra Zone.
For the most part I HATE when developers/carriers and the like create their own little app store, but in this case I really like the idea. If you’re looking for great games on Android Market, you could easily be overwhelmed. Why not have a portal where NVIDIA can essentially vouch for what’s best, essentially saying “This is an awesome game that best leverages your phone’s hardware.”
Even popular classics like Fruit Ninja have been reworked and optimized especially for use on Android Phones with Tegra 2 processors. Speaking of specific titles, let me name a few that you’ll find in Tegra Zone:
Dungeon Defenders – the first game available for Android built on Unreal Engine 3:
Backbreaker Football THD (btw this game is freaking sweet):
Fruit Ninja THD:
Samurai II:
Hardwood Solitaire IV:
Monster Madness:
Vendetta Online
Galaxy on Fire 2:
If you’ve got a device with a Tegra 2 processor I definitely recommend you download Tegra Zone from Android Market. Rather than downloading games and hoping they work well, you can hit up NVIDIA’s Tegra Zone and know you’re getting a professional, high-end game that is optimized for your device. Just looking at the above titles is a pretty good indication that you’ll be getting great quality.
And what might you get in the future? It’s kind of scary. With NVIDIA’s pace of innovation they’re not being shy about their immediate goals and expectations. They’re intentions are to improve mobile gaming and they want to port the top PC game engines and game titles to Tegra. With how powerful Android Phones are becoming and with different form factors (like the Motorola XOOM which is Tegra powered) the idea that your mobile is less capable than your other devices will likely go the way of the dinosaurs.
Right now Tegra Zone features different games, reviews, high-res screenshots, HD video trailers, gameplay videos, news and more. As I said before, it’s pretty much it’s own little Android Market of Tegra 2 optimized games. I think the app itself could use a few cosmetic changes, but the purpose itself is great. You’ve got a Tegra 2 device and you want games high quality games, right? There’s only one place you need to go.
Go ahead and download Tegra Zone (if you’ve got a Tegra 2 device) and let us know how you like the app itself – and the games it features – in the comments below!