Well, after figuring out how to get the NFS: Shift demo to install on my sdcard (pm setInstallLocation 2 at terminal prompt) I decided that it was a worthwhile game to keep on my phone (best racer period on Android, IMHO) - SO, I bit the bullet and bought the full version from within the demo. So far, so good (got thru the first 2 races in career mode)
I am going to give my initial impressions of the game, but first a bit of background on my device config:
Motorola DROID A855
P3Droid-provided leak of FRF84B w/1.0GHz LV kernel
Enabled app2sd via terminal for install of NFS only
Anyways, impressions:
- the demo IS the full version, it's just locked. So the APK is smaller than the IPA for the iOS version - I would assume that this is mostly due to the fact that Android games don't tend to include the unnecessary video clips that the iOS games do. In other words, the 100MB APK is the entire game.
- no credit card info required, so I assume it is billing my VZW account much like "Get It Now" used to on my feature phones.
- graphics (as expected) are quite a bit better than they are on iOS (at least on my iPod Touch 2G) - makes sense since this was coded for the Droid X's GPU and screen res.
- purchasing was seemless, took ~2 minutes. Clicked on the full version link, it connected to the server, confirmed I wanted to buy it, and went back to the main menu unlocked. No restart required.
- the purchasing process added a couple of files and folders to my sdcard, the downloaded file was very small, likely an encrypted license key.
- now, I am assuming that as long as this file is present on the sdcard, and the game is installed, that it is available as a full version and not a demo. Hopefully I am right. However, I have not tested this. After I get a chance to make a backup and load a fresh ROM; I will test this theory. In the end, when a market downloadable version becomes available; I may repurchase it; though - for ease of updating and peace of mind. I simply wanted to play this game, and I wanted to play it TODAY (had some downtime while doing a server upgrade at work) - so I pulled the trigger.
Once I figure out how easy it is to get the full version and license reinstalled after a wipe, I will report back.
I am going to give my initial impressions of the game, but first a bit of background on my device config:
Motorola DROID A855
P3Droid-provided leak of FRF84B w/1.0GHz LV kernel
Enabled app2sd via terminal for install of NFS only
Anyways, impressions:
- the demo IS the full version, it's just locked. So the APK is smaller than the IPA for the iOS version - I would assume that this is mostly due to the fact that Android games don't tend to include the unnecessary video clips that the iOS games do. In other words, the 100MB APK is the entire game.
- no credit card info required, so I assume it is billing my VZW account much like "Get It Now" used to on my feature phones.
- graphics (as expected) are quite a bit better than they are on iOS (at least on my iPod Touch 2G) - makes sense since this was coded for the Droid X's GPU and screen res.
- purchasing was seemless, took ~2 minutes. Clicked on the full version link, it connected to the server, confirmed I wanted to buy it, and went back to the main menu unlocked. No restart required.
- the purchasing process added a couple of files and folders to my sdcard, the downloaded file was very small, likely an encrypted license key.
- now, I am assuming that as long as this file is present on the sdcard, and the game is installed, that it is available as a full version and not a demo. Hopefully I am right. However, I have not tested this. After I get a chance to make a backup and load a fresh ROM; I will test this theory. In the end, when a market downloadable version becomes available; I may repurchase it; though - for ease of updating and peace of mind. I simply wanted to play this game, and I wanted to play it TODAY (had some downtime while doing a server upgrade at work) - so I pulled the trigger.
Once I figure out how easy it is to get the full version and license reinstalled after a wipe, I will report back.