The 3 best Android games this week: R-Type II, The Room 2, Shardlands

Every Friday, Pocket Gamer offers hands-on impressions of the week's best new Android games.

Looking for a last-minute Valentine's Day present?

Why not give your crush a new app on Android as a gift? Because that would be a terrible idea, that's why.

Anyway. This week, Android fans are treated to one of the best iOS games of last year, an inventive puzzler with gorgeous visuals, and an arcade classic dredged up from yesteryear.

Think we've missed a top new 'droid game? Shout at us with all your might in the comments section at the bottom.

Shardlands
By Breach Entertainment - download on Android (Free)

Yes, Shardlands is a good-looking game. But it has brains to back up its beauty. You see, it's also an elaborate puzzler about shifting floating platforms about to help stranded explorer Dawn escape from an alien cave system.

You'll also have to lure ugly bad guys into traps, deal with lasers, dodge flames, and get lost in this understated sci-fi world (which comes complete with a sexy synth-infused ambient soundtrack, of course).

We gave the iOS edition of Shardlands a Silver Award back in 2012. We called it "a beautiful adventure-puzzler that doesn't need combat or flashy gimmicks to enhance its slow-burn appeal."

This Android port is free, but you can pay to unlock more stuff and kill the annoying video ads.

R-Type II
By DotEmu - buy on Android (£1.49 / $1.99)

Port specialist DotEmu has reworked another retro relic for modern-day touch gizmos. This time, it's 1989 coin-op shooter R-Type II.

If you never played it, it's a feisty horizontal side-scroller about killing waves of baddies with two types of laser beam, handy spaceship attachments, and an anti-ground unit smart bomb.

You get the same six levels as Irem's arcade edition. But you also get leaderboards, achievements, different input schemes, controller support, aspect ratio settings, CRT-style scanlines, and multiple difficulty settings.

The Room 2
By Fireproof Games - buy on Android (£1.99 / $2.99)

Fireproof's lavish box-fiddling sequel was one of our favourite iPad games of 2013. In fact, we called it "a brilliant sequel that expands the lore and scope of its predecessor".

Much like in the first game, you're trying to break into a mysterious puzzle box here by finding keys, pawing at latches, and working out riddles. All the while, you can't help but get enveloped by that close and stifling atmosphere of unease.

In this sequel, you mess about with entire rooms - including creepy Victorian seances and dusty Aztec tombs - which have multiple areas for you to investigate.

The difficulty is still wonderfully well pitched, though, so you won't get lost.