This idea has been germinating in my mind since I got my first portable: The DS Lite. When I got my Android phone, I decided to write this article, but never got around to it. Now I have a PSP as well, and I feel like I’ve got a fairly well rounded take on the portable gaming scene despite never having owned an iOS device. Yeah, yeah – this is a filler article. Another list. But it’s been a while since I posted anything, and this is what I’ve got right now.

So many Android games just don’t work. Graphics-intensive games like Dungeon Defenders chug on a Droid X’s 1gHz processor. But there’s a huge wealth of games from older systems that would run beautifully on an Android phone. Here’s my wishlist for Android game ports from other systems.

Dungeon Keeper
I’ve replayed Dungeon Keeper a number of times, and despite the antiquated graphics, the game is still a lot of fun. Given the low-res graphics, I’m sure that it would translate wonderfully to a mobile platform. Selecting squares for imps to dig would be easy, as would picking up monsters. And zooming in and out could be accomplished via multi-touch gestures. Although it might be best to do away with the bottom menu for more screen space, the side menus could remain, with the option of collapsing them. Dungeon Keeper would be a kick-ass phone game.

Starcraft
I recently heard that Blizzard released iPhone and Android versions of World of Warcraft. If they can do that, why not the original Starcraft? The immediate reason that comes to mind is that they couldn’t charge for mobile Starcraft on a monthly basis like they do with WoW. Still, I think Starcraft portable would be fantastic, especially in Korea.

7th Guest
The 7th Guest was one of my favorite PC games back in the days when CD-ROM was new and cutting edge. A point-and-click adventure game with many puzzles that were loosely tied to the story, lots and lots of poorly-acted FMV, and horribly annoying voice-overs that would repeat ad nauseum as you worked on the puzzles. There’s already an iOS version of the game. Why not an Android version too?

Wasteland
You may have never heard of Fallout’s progenitor. Back in the days of the Commodore 64, Wasteland took the top-down gameplay of the Ultima series and the enemy portraits and scrolling text battles of the Bards Tale series and combined them into a gameplay experience that managed to perfectly blend the two, resulting in a gameplay experience better than either. And on top of that, it allowed you to split your party so that the melee characters could rush forward while your machine gunners could stay in place and spray lead into the enemies. If Android had a native version of Wasteland, or at least a DOS emulator, I’d definitely give the game another playthrough.

2D Zelda Titles
Ocarina of Time is on my list of shame. People talk about how it was the bestest game evar, but I’ve never played. And I started playing Link to the Past once as well, but never got far. I actually own Ocarina of Time on the Wii Virtual Console. I think I’d be much more likely to play these games if I had them with me at all times on my phone. Nintendo isn’t very likely to release their first-party franchises on a non-Nintendo handheld, but I can always dream.

Popcap Games
Popcap just released Chuzzle for the Android platform, and Plants versus Zombies is due out in a matter of days. When will we see Peggle? Why not Word Worm? And a Zuma release would kill the second-rate clones out there on the Android marketplace.

Elite Beat Agents
And here’s my number one pick. It’s likely to never happen, but Elite Beat Agents could be absolutely huge on a mobile platform if the right people got ahold of the license. It could be the Rock Band of phones. The Nintendo DS original title was one of my favorite DS games. The licensed music was great and very catchy, and the little stories that accompanied each were a lot of fun. You’d tap small circles and draw along lines in time with musical cues from the song. At each stage – usually one per verse – you’d see the story’s character succeed or fail at a sub-task along the way depending on how well you’d done. Fail too many and you fail the song. The DS game had Canned Heat, Sk8er Boi, Y.M.C.A., and Let’s Dance. An Android Elite Beat Agents game could sell individual songs like Rock Band does, and I’d eat them up.