Early cell phones or mobile phones came with pre-loaded games, of which the most familiar is probably “Snake”. The game, which simply featured a “snake” which you had to direct around a maze (effectively, a box in the middle of the screen which either had walls or didn’t, depending on your choice), was practically inexplicable to those who had never played it, and also maddeningly addictive. Since the advent of more developed cell phones, there have been ever more developed games to go with them.
While on those earlier cell phones you essentially had the game that was pre-loaded and either liked or lumped it, WAP phones have made it possible to download the games from the Internet, and install them on your phone for unlimited play.
The more advanced the phone, the more advanced the game, although for the truly massive video games that have releases not unlike those of a Hollywood movie, mobile play will probably still be a pipe dream for a while yet.
The kind of game that really thrives on mobile play is a fairly simple one which involves basic movements in any one of four directions (up, down, left and right) – anything larger will usually require a more dedicated control system and will be much better played on a console with its own controller.
However, there are certain games which really thrive when played on a phone – Quiz games are particularly good, especially as it is possible to download updates with new questions when you’ve exhausted the old ones.