All I want for Christmas is Apple Arcade

Date:
Fri, 24 Dec 2021 11:00:10 +0000

Description:
I don't want a lot this Christmas just an App Store gift card to top up my Apple Arcade subscription with.

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Sorry for the want of paraphrasing Mariah this festive season in the headline there. Let me more accurately rephrase that all I need for Christmas is
Apple Arcade .

While all eyes often turn to Microsofts Xbox Game Pass (and not without reason) when the discussion turns to gaming services, Apple Arcade has had an enviable 12 months. The mobile gaming buffet continues to grow at a steady pace, increasingly adding ambitious games and casual titles alike, as well as a smattering of mobile classics.

At pocket-change prices for a monthly subscription, its totally upended the way I play games. And, paired with ever-more powerful iPhone and iPad
hardware and a growing market of iOS game controllers to link them with,
after many years of trying Apple finally offers a legitimate alternative to rivals like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Yes, your first console should be a Switch , PS5 or Xbox Series X . But your second? With Apple Arcade, it should be the iPhone in your pocket.

Heres a look back at the relatively-short history of Apple Arcade, and how
the past 12 months of excellent additions to its library have made its presence on my Christmas wish list a dead cert. (Image credit: Apple) Apple Arcade games list: Every game you can play right now Best Apple Arcade games
: Our cherry-picked selection of the top titles A new challenger emerged

Its hard to call a company as big as Apple a challenger in any market it
looks to enter, but when it comes to gaming, thats exactly what it is to the hardcore gamer at least. The doomed Pippin aside, its never put itself in the same console space as Nintendo, Microsoft with Xbox or Sony with PlayStation, and so you can be forgiven for forgetting the very capable games machine it has put in your pocket in the shape of the iPhone.

As a result, there are millions more people playing games than would be without the Cupertino smartphone, and the App Store is one of, if not the biggest gaming library out there. It just deals in games of a different scale
the kind you come back to again and again for five minutes at a time when theres nothing else to entertain you but your phone.

Apple Arcade then represented the companys first big attempt in decades to position itself as a name gamers of all creeds could congregate underneath. Not just those that wanted to fling birds at pigs in castles, but those also that wanted to engross themselves in large-scale adventures by some of the biggest development names in gaming. And these were set to be exclusives too on mobile, at least further incentivizing players to get on board with the new five-buck-a-month service.

The initial response to the subscriptions September 2019 launch was resoundingly positive. The library was well stocked with inventive and classy games from big-name brands, working well across Apples four core device categories: phones, tablets, Mac computers and the Apple TV set top box.

But then there were the signs of a stutter. A Bloomberg report in June 2020 pointed to developer funding being pulled on in-development titles, with the company alleged to be focussing more on games that encouraged long-term engagement than the curios that had largely made up its initial catalog.
There was the sense that the eccentricities that had made Apple Arcade so compelling, from broken gadget simulator Assemble with Care to
short-but-sweet fairytale deck builder Pilgrims would be lost in favor of
more Candy Crush clones.

Thankfully, thats not been the case. Apple Arcade has had its best year yet. Arcades stellar year

Apple made good on its commitment to make regular drops of new additions to its store, and continued to reveal inventive, visually creative games throughout the year at a rate that made that monthly subscription fee feel like a steal.

Kicking things off in January was Oceanhorn Chronos Dungeon, a smart multiplayer roguelike dungeon crawler with gorgeous pixel art. But things got much more interesting at the end of January with NUTS: A Surveillance Story , which was something like Firewatch with sinister squirrely and a unique filtered art style to carry through its light photography-based puzzles.

March brought us Cosy Grove, somewhere between Stardew Valley and Dont
Starve, a survival crafter that looks like a picture book, and has since proved a hit on PC and Nintendo Switch (where youll pay $/ 15 for the privilege to play it. (Image credit: Apple Arcade)

My personal favorite of the year is Wonderbox: The Adventure Maker, which launched in March. Its a gorgeous adventure title that ticks so many boxes essentially a build your own Zelda, it has elements of Minecraft, Little Big Planet and deep social sharing elements that let you publish and play other peoples grand games. Both a simple introduction to game design and a fun toybox in its own right, its as approachable as these DIY games get. And its excellent fun in multiplayer for short sharp bursts too.

The biggest update to the service of the year was the introduction (or should that be reintroduction?) of classic mobile titles to the Apple Arcade catalog in July. Dozens of paid-for apps such as Monument Valley and Mini Metro
joined the service as Monument Valley+ and Mini Metro+, as well as classic favorites like versions of chess, backgammon and sudoku. (Image credit: Mistwalker, Hironobu Sakaguchi)

A return of a whole other kind came with the launch of Fantasian perhaps the most beautiful game on the service. From Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, it was a large-scale JRPG to rival the classics of the genre, but with a petite twist of its own its digital characters ran around actual miniature dioramas hand-crafted by the games development team. His Final Fantasy? JRPG legend Hironobu Sakaguchi talks Apple exclusive Fantasian, next-gen gaming and an iconic career

Clap Hanz Golf represented a big steal for Apple too. An arcadey golf game,
it comes from the same studio that makes the Everybody's Golf titles, usually reserved for PlayStation consoles. Clap Hanz Golf is, in all but name, Everybodys Golf for iOS.

Another giant title was Monster Hunter Stories+ for Apple Arcade. Usually /$17.99, its an RPG from a steroid franchise that had previously launched on consoles. And while it diluted Apples initial Arcade games will be exclusives mantra, it was hard to find fault with getting a Capcom hit rolled into the subscription for free. Likewise, the long-awaited Baldo: The Guardian Owls made its debut on Apple Arcade with versions for other platforms following in very quick succession its Studio Ghibli-esque art style was a delight, even when its Zelda-like adventuring fell short. Studio Ghibli meets Zelda? Meet Apple Arcades next hit game, Baldo: The Guardian Owls (Image credit: Apple / Konami)

The long-dormant Castlevania franchise was resurrected too with Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls . It was a relief to see the long-running franchise
revived, and Apple Arcade would have been the perfect outlet for a new 2D side-scroller in the series. A pity then that its final arrival was a pale imitation of the best Castlevania games of old. How do you bring Castlevania to iPhone? We spoke to the developers to find out

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga for consoles remains forever delayed, but fans of the minifigs and that galaxy far, far away could still get a fix thanks to Apple Arcade, which added two new Lego Star Wars games in 2021.Lego Star Wars Battles launched first, mixing real-time strategy and tower defense elements with PvP combat and familiar Star Wars characters. The more
ambitious launch was Lego Star Wars Castaways , an MMO-lite that had players carving out a Star Wars legacy in multiplayer quests in an all-new Star Wars location. (Image credit: TT Games)

And these were just the highlights. Between all the above were a host of
other releases, each with an interesting concept, accessible for a quick test run by virtue of the subscription's try-what-you-like nature. It was a fantastic 12 months. Looking forwards

Now, with that Bloomberg report in mind, the fear will be that the 2021 releases represent the last titles to squeeze through before Apple changed tactic with its Apple Arcade content approach, and that 2022 will focus instead on more perfunctory app-game fare.

But even if that were the case, youve now got a couple of hundred games at your fingertips for just $4.99 / 4.99 a month unlike other services Apple
(so far at least) isnt rotating titles in and out of the Arcade catalog. Its simply a growing library. And there are already classics to be found there.

Third-party accessory makers are seeing the long-term potential of Arcade
too. The Backbone One controller for iOS , a 5-star award winner in its TechRadar review, uses a mix of stellar hardware and a smart app to make an iPhone into a legitimate handheld gaming device to rival the Switch, introducing a unified interface for all things gaming on an iPhone. A smart Apple would be considering buying Backbone up for its own branded Arcade controller accessories. In fact, its the Apple TV 4K that still feels like
the weak link not quite powerful enough to do the most demanding games justice, requiring a third-party gamepad, and without the storage capacity that an all-you-can-eat library like this chows down on for multiple game downloads. (Image credit: Apple / Mighty Bear Games)

Then, to round off the year, we have Disney Melee Mania , a multiplayer MOBA of sorts that will combine the hero character-driven addictive gameplay of titles like League of Legends and Dota with Disneys most recognizable characters in an almighty scrap, ala Smash Bros.

Beyond that? Well, how about Proxi, a new game from SimCity creator Will Wright that looks to be part AI builder, part life sim, and part human brain emulator. If that doesnt sound like an ambitious premise, were not sure what is...

Pop Arcade on your Christmas list, and make the most of that App Store gift card. Xbox Game Pass may steal all the headlines, but the best deal in gaming is really sitting right there in your pocket with Apple Arcade. The best iPhone games



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-apple-arcade/


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