Why we still test games on ancient phones

We keep a small pile of older phones on the desk on purpose. Not everyone upgrades every year, and a review that only reflects top-tier hardware is useless to most readers.

When a new game comes in, it goes on the weakest phone first. If it stutters, overheats, or drains the battery in twenty minutes, that goes straight into the review, no matter how pretty it looks.

You'd be surprised how often a well-built game runs smoothly on modest hardware while a flashier one chokes. Good optimization is a design choice, and we think it deserves credit.

So when you read a rating here, know that it factors in how the game behaves outside of ideal conditions. That's the whole reason we started doing this.