Welcome back to Android Gaming Weekly, our weekly recap of new game releases. We still plan to cover upcoming releases and games we’re playing, but this column is dedicated to new games that you can start playing right now. Check out our top picks and let us know in the comments section if you have any suggestions for next week’s post.

Stuntman Stuart

Description: Dear awesome film production company, my name is Stuart and I am interested in working as a stuntman for your next movie „Falling in Tokyo“. Pay what you want for this unique pixe-art game. No ads. No freemium. No goats. Just buy us a „slice of pizza“ if you like our game.

Adventure Time Puzzle Quest

Description:  The original match-3 RPG™ comes to the Land of Ooo in Adventure Time Puzzle Quest! Join Finn, Jake, and their friends for epic puzzle battles! Match gems to attack your enemies and earn piles of loot.

Wars and Battles

Description: Wars and Battles is a platform of turn-based wargames that simulate historical battles and campaigns over several centuries and continents. Wars and Battles offers you rich and immersive graphics, intuitive yet sophisticated gameplay and hours and hours of game.

Top Speed: Drag & Fast Racing

Description:  Dominate your criminally insane rivals in extreme head-to-head drag races. Reach impossible speeds by expertly timing gear changes and bursts of nitro. Drive 69 cars, beat 20 criminal overlords and become the biggest fish in the city.

Super QuickHook

Description: Conquer Eagle Mountain with the help of your trusty grappling hook. Swing and run your way through meadows, frost-tinged fields, ice caverns, volcanic caves, and more. Find secrets, loot, and special encounters. Race against your friends. Explore peaceful landscapes, or try to outrun an endless avalanche.

Piloteer

Description: In Piloteer, a whimsical and serenely challenging physics-based game about learning to fly, a renowned inventor is determined to overcome the stigma associated with flying a jetpack and convince the world that jetpacks should be revered by all.

Mountain Goat Mountain

Description: Mountain Goat Mountain is a fast arcade game, where you climb the highest and most treacherous mountain ever seen by a goat. JUMP up the mountain. Jump up the mountain.. Jump up the mountain… you get the idea.

 Earthcore: Shattered Elements

Description: Earthcore is a card battler (CCG / TCG) with infinite tactical opportunities that test your strategic thinking in ways you never thought possible! Hone your strategy by minimizing randomness with intellect and preparation.

Prismatica

Description: The goal is to unscramble a series of puzzle boards by rotating multicolored pieces to match a logical pattern. It’s easy to learn and simple to play but surprisingly deep and difficult to master at later levels, presenting even the most veteran of puzzle enthusiasts with brain-tickling challenge.

RPG Tears Revolude

Description:  A mainstream command RPG with a 3D map interface! Begin a new adventure in this game’s 3D dungeons! This game uses old-school command-based battles to bring you an easily understood and played mainstream command RPG.

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Previous leaks had already revealed that the new Moto G would feature Moto Maker customization options, but it appears that the update to Motorola’s mid-range may actually have slightly more to customize than the Moto X.

While the page has since been taken down, the image below was captured while it remained up and outlines all of the color options for the Moto G (2015) as it is being called. Like the Moto X you will have the option of a white or black front and then a slightly more limited palate for the back with 10 options and an additional 10 accent color options. There are also 5 FlipShells available as an add on. Now where it gets slightly more interesting is the memory configuration which allows you to go with either 16GB storage and 2GB of RAM or 8GB of storage and presumably 1GB of RAM.

Naturally there is a new slogan to go with the newly customizable Moto G, “The new Moto G exactly the way you want it. Choose your front and back colors, storage and memory, and more.”

We’ll of course have the full story in just 5 days when Motorola makes its announcements at the “Find your perfect Moto match” event.

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While the SHIELD Portable is now twice removed as the latest SHIELD device on the block, NVIDIA certainly hasn’t forgotten about those that got on board the SHIELD bandwagon early.

Today an optional update for the SHIELD Portable is going out that updates the device to Android 5.1 Lollipop. Beyond the OS update it adds support for Chromecast or any Google Cast Ready device, updates the Twitch app to the latest version, and fixes a bug that was preventing people from reading Google Play Books. (Although the SHIELD Portable would be an odd choice for that pastime.)

Unfortunately some features and apps have to go with the update as well due to support issues. Miracast will be removed from your device along with Sonic 4, Episode II, Expendable: Rearmed and the Android Browser.

The Chromecast support alone seems worth the price of admission to me, but mainly I’m just pleased to see NVIDIA continue its strong track record with updating the SHIELD devices.

Any SHIELD Portable owners out there already take the plunge on the update?

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Qualcomm used to have a monopoly on mobile chips. Back when Exynos chips didn’t support LTE, Samsung started using Snapdragon processors in its devices in the US. Around the same time, NVIDIA Tegra processors started their descent into forgotten hardware.

Qualcomm grew a lot in those times, and started making better chips because of it. The old Snapdragons were pretty poorly designed chips, the old S series chips weren’t very good compared to the competition. But Qualcomm was on top, and no one could touch them.

Unfortunately, it seems that the company is in a bit of a financial pickle. Qualcomm announced that it will be cutting $1.4 billion in spending, as well as 15 percent of its workforce. I’m no economist, but maybe the company just grew too fast, and now that Samsung is using its own Exynos chips for its flagships, Qualcomm is just too big for its own good and needs to downsize to stay efficient.

What are your thoughts on the story? Leave a comment!

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New apps need lovin’ too, right? Every day there are thousands of additions to the Google Play store, but many go unnoticed and never receive the attention they deserve. We’ve shown in the past that this community can discover great apps and propel them to new heights. Our weekly Fresh Meat column highlights new apps with fewer than 100,000 installs. Browse our new Android app picks below and let us know which ones you enjoy.

SlingPlayer Free for Phone

Description: Get the most out of your Sling devices and turn your Android phone into a TV with Slingplayer for Phones. With a Sling device at home and Slingplayer on your Android phone, enjoy live or recorded TV over 3G, 4G, or WiFi. 

HBO Now

Description: HBO NOW is the new standalone streaming service that gives you all of HBO®—every season, every episode of HBO’s original series—plus more of the biggest and latest movies than any other streaming service. All you need is the internet.

Booking Now

Description: Booking Now is the new way to book from Booking.com, Planet Earth’s #1 Accommodation Site. Last minute business meeting? Spontaneous trip with your friends? The big game goes to overtime? Your perfect room is two taps away.

WifiMapper – Free Wifi Map

Description: The world’s largest free Wi-Fi database, based on over 650 million hotspots.Find nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and save on data. WifiMapper can tell you what kind of venue it is and even if they have good coffee – and you can share your comments!

DogVacay

Description: Forget the kennel! With DogVacay, your pet can stay in a real home with a loving sitter while you’re away. DogVacay connects pet owners with our community of over 20,000 five-star-rated sitters across the U.S. and Canada. 

Microsoft Hyperlapse Mobile

Description: Say goodbye to long videos that no one watches, and hello to Microsoft Hyperlapse. Microsoft Hyperlapse is a new technology that creates smooth and stabilized time lapses from first-person videos.

HeadTrainer

Description: The HeadTrainer app was designed to engage and enhance performance through fun, athletically-themed training exercises and cognitive processes that are operational and challenging, with the goal of impacting skills and improving how athletes train and play.

JustWatch – Movies & TV Shows

Description: JustWatch – Find out where to watch movies & tv shows streaming online. JustWatch is the easiest way to browse through your favorite movies or tv shows to see if they are available at any streaming providers.

Jet

Description: Jet is a shopping membership that gets you savings on pretty much anything you buy. We find every opportunity to cut costs, and pass the savings back to you. Check out the four ways to maximize savings at Jet.

 SlingPlayer Free for Tablets

Description: Get the most out of your Sling devices and turn your Android phone into a TV with Slingplayer for Phones. With a Sling device at home and Slingplayer on your Android phone, enjoy live or recorded TV over 3G, 4G, or WiFi.

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T-Mobile has today announced a new feature launching exclusively at T-Mobile based on a new messaging standard that will change the way you text. T-Mobile’s new Advanced Messaging is the future of the SMS.

Based on the Rich Communications Services (RCS) standard, Advanced Messaging brings a lot of the perks of other messaging services –iMessage, Hangouts, etc.– to normal text messages like near real-time chat, read receipts, high-res media sharing and greatly improved group messaging. Since Advanced messaging is built on RCS, eventually all carriers and all phones will support it. But for now, T-Mobile has the exclusive.

Advanced Messaging will be available on the Galaxy Grand Prime first, with the Galaxy S5 and S6 to follow. And T-Mobile has a dozen more devices with Advanced Messaging already in the pipeline.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen any significant changes to text messaging. Leave it to T-Mobile to lead the charge. Here’s to hoping more carriers follow suit shortly.

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OnePlus has spent the last few weeks hyping the upcoming OnePlus 2 and now new photos have revealed our first real look at the device. The photos come from China’s wireless regulation department, Tenaa, so they’re likely legit. The OnePlus 2 itself looks as we’d expect it to look, similar to the original, but still carrying a few differences.

The most notable difference, of course, is the fingerprint sensor and possible home button on the front of the device. OnePlus has promised that the phone would bring a fingerprint sensor, but it’s impossible to tell if the sensor doubles as a physical home button or whether it’s simply for your fingerprint. We can’t see any capicitative buttons, so it’s fully possible that OnePlus is using on-screen keys this time around. That being said, the capicitative buttons could be hidden until they’re lit up.

On the back, we see the same Sandstone Black color and texture from the original model, something that many fans will be happy to see making a return. The camera is carrying a new sensor with it, possibly for laser autofocus, though there could be plenty of other uses for it. The sides are matte black and bring in a power button, volume rocker and what could either be a SIM tray or a dedicated camera button. It could go either way with the amount of emphasis that OnePlus has placed on the camera.

In any case, fans of OnePlus shouldn’t be in for any big surprises in the OnePlus 2′s design. Previous rumors have pointed towards the phone being smaller than its predecessor, yet still maintaining the same display size, which should be nice for those who prefer a slightly more compact phone. We’ll keep you up to date on further news and leaks regarding the OnePlus 2.

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Budget smartphones are a necessary part of the smartphone ecosystem, and AT&T has a new offering through its prepaid GoPhone service. The ASUS Zenfone 2E is a new budget smartphone that brings in specs such as a 5-inch 720p display, dual-core Intel Atom Z2560 processor, 8-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel front-facing camera, 4G LTE, ASUS’ Zen UI and a 2500mAh battery. All in all, it’s a better list of specs than many of the budget smartphones on the market.

The price is the real selling point on the ASUS Zenfone 2E, as it will retail for $119.99. The Zenfone 2E is now available in Walmart and Target, with AT&T beginning to sell the smartphone in its own stores beginning July 24. Best Buy will also begin carrying the Zenfone 2E on August 2, giving you a range of places to purchase from.

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The hype around the Galaxy Note 5 is continuing to build, with a particular increase surrounding the release date. Multiple reports have recently stated that Samsung will be launching the Galaxy Note 5 early in order to combat sales of the upcoming iPhones. Now, a new report from Business Korea has pegged a specific launch date for the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 Edge+.

According to the report, Samsung will launch both devices at an event in New York on August 13. If you’re wondering about the Galaxy S6 Edge+, the device reportedly features the same specs as the Note 5, but has a curved edge display and doesn’t come with an S Pen, giving it a distinct difference from the Note. In either case, we can expect to see both phones featuring top-shelf specs and oodles of marketing when they arrive.

We’ll keep you posted on further updates regarding the Samsung Galaxy Note 5.

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AT&T is at it again! In an attempt to make more money, the carrier has upped many of the fees associated with getting a new device and plan. The current $40 activation fee on the old contract plans will be raised to $45 starting August 1, making it the highest activation fee of any US carrier.

Of course, that’s somewhat understandable. Raise activation fees, tell customers that there are no activation fees with AT&T Next plans, and you get more Next customers. It’s what the carrier wants, right? Apparently not, as AT&T has also imposed a $15 activation fee on Next plans.

All of this madness starts August 1, so get your upgrade done soon (or, you know, leave AT&T if you can). It’s just more money that you have to give to the carrier so that they get your service.

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