A First Look At Apple Arcade

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Apple Arcade launches today. Let's take our first look.

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So Apple Arcade launched today! It's a gaming service that Apple offers across all their major platforms. So you can play the games on your iPhone, your iPad, your Mac, and your Apple TV. The basic idea is that you pay five bucks a month and then you have unlimited access to all the games in the special Apple Arcade catalog. Now the word games and computer games means something different to different people. For some people games are simple things like solitaire or chess. For others  they represent the casual games we play on our iPhones. But other people think of the $60 games that you buy for your Xbox and your Playstation. Well where does Apple Arcade fall in there? It's kind of all over the place. You probably not going to ever see the big, big budget games but some of the games do look pretty in depth and comparable to what you'd play on a console. 

On the other hand a lot of them resemble the casual games that you may be used to seeing on the iPhone or iPad. What makes Apple Arcade different than these other systems is you pay the subscription fee and then you can just download any of those games. For instance on the iPad you just add it as an app and it looks and works just like a regular app that you get from the App Store except that you have access to it through your $5 a month subscription rather than buying the app individually. In addition you're not bothered with any in app purchases or advertising. Your subscription fee covers the whole game.

Another thing about Apple Arcade is this is a curated set of games. Apple has gone out to developers and recruited them and had them pitch game ideas and then develop games specifically for Apple Arcade. So for now I think these are all exclusives. I'm not sure if they will remain that way in the future. But Apple has hand picked these games. So you're not going to see a lot of the junk you see on the app stores. Developers are competing for their share. So they want to make these games as compelling as possible so you end up picking one of their games to try, trying it and liking it and continuing to play. The focus can be more on quality.

First let's take a look at how it works, look at some of the games, and then I'm going to take a specific look at four games that I picked, kind of at random, just to get started. The way to get to Apple Arcade is to go to the App Store apps on the various devices. So on the iPad for instance I'll go into the App Store app here just like I was going to purchase an app. But instead I'm going to hit the Arcade tab at the bottom of the screen. This will take me to Apple Arcade. Before this took you to a preview there. Now it actually takes me inside of it and I can browse what's there.

The first screen here is just a bunch of featured stuff. So I'm going to see a big featured game here at the top, then I'll see some featured categories like Start Your Adventure for adventure games, New Arrivals, Other featured games going all the way across. Here's some games that feature sound. Then if I go all the way to the bottom I'll see a See All Games button. I can tap that and it'll go to a list of the all the games. Now I counted 64 games. Apple's adding them all the time and they'll probably get to the 100 games  they promised by the end of the year in no time..

To actually look at a game you can tap on the picture and get a video preview of it. You can also tap on the icon there to go in and read about it. Then you can just go and get a game with the Get button. Just like you were buying the app. Then when you do it it will download just like a regular app. Now at some point here you would have been asked to subscribe or join the trial. I already did that so you didn't see that for me. Here you'll see it downloading just like a normal app there. Once it's downloaded you can play these games like a normal app. 

So I can tap on that game I just downloaded and then it's going to load up with an Apple Arcade splash screen there. Then it will go into the game and really from this point it's just like a regular game that you may have purchased. Of course you're never going to get in app purchases or ads on these games. Another big difference is that your progress is going to be synced across all your devices. So I add this game to Apple TV and go to level 3 or collect a hundred coins or whatever it is and you should see the same progress point on that device. 

So let's start by looking at is Sayonara Wild Hearts which is a game you may recognize because Apple has featured it in some of their keynotes. In this game you're basically moving around from left to right in order to capture hearts as you travel on a path. Every level is a little bit different. This level you're kind of in space but then another level you're on city streets and such. The game plays pretty easy. You just swipe on your screen to move left or right. I found it easier to use a game controller and I'll show you the game controller I was using in a minute. Then you basically play these short levels. They are very quick. This is an entire level right here and you replay them over and over again as you learn the pattern of where all the things are and try to get a better and better score. The music is beautiful. The visuals are beautiful and it's fun to play over and over again. (music plays while game is running.)

So here's a very different game. It's called Mini Motorways. Basically you draw streets to connect houses and buildings and you have to draw them in such a way to let the cars flow through. So it's kind of like a fast paced puzzle game. It actually starts off very slow. It's kind of pleasant to look at and you draw your first few streets.  But then, of course, as time goes on more houses appear, more buildings appear. The colors match the buildings to the houses. You've got to use bridges. You've got to use these highway overpasses and all the cars get very impatient to where they are going. Eventually the system breaks down. So the goal is to see how long you can last. Eventually you figure out there are certain ways you should be drawing streets and directing the flow of traffic to accommodate more cars so then you can get further and further in each level. So this is something of the kind that appeals to puzzle fans and you can see already how different some of the games are. So Apple is really trying to put something here for everyone.

So here's another one that's a little more of an adventure style game. Sneaky Sasquatch. Basically you start off just being this little sasquatch that has to sneak into campgrounds and grab food out of coolers and RV refrigerators just to get by. Soon an adventure is revealed as you've got to try to save the campground. I like how this game gradually brings you into it. Presenting it very simply at the beginning and then building more and more areas and more things to do.

Here's Red Reign which is really simple real time strategy game. Now I love real time strategy games but this one may be too simple for me.  Basically you buildup your defenses really quickly. At lot of stuff is just done automatically. Then you defend your fort. Eventually you send your guys down different paths to takeover different elements and destroy the enemy's fort as well. You play against the computer but you can also play head to head which may be the best way to play this sort of game. It is a really quick play. It only takes a few minutes so that's a lot different than the hours or days it could take to play other real time strategy games. 

So I mentioned that I was using a game controller for some of this. I was actually us this Nimbus SteelSeries Game controller right here. I bought it a long time ago from Apple. They bill it as an Apple TV game controller. So I wanted to try it out. I didn't really use it much until now. Now I'm going to be getting a lot of use out of it. I was actually using this with my iPad. It's just a bluetooth game controller and it worked flawlessly just hooking up to bluetooth and using it on the iPad. Some games, like the Wild Hearts game worked with this really well. Other games basically seemed to work better with the touchscreen but you could use the controller to move around and do it too. I imagine because of Apple TV that has to be built into all the games. There needs to be a way to use a game controller and even the Apple TV remote to navigate around in it. This should work on the Mac as well, I imagine. I think a lot of people are going to be getting game controllers. You can buy a bunch of bluetooth game controllers pretty cheap online in various places. Apple has also promised that they will soon have Xbox controller and Playstation controller support. So you should be able to use controllers that you already own.

That's pretty much it. That's a quick look at Apple Arcade here on the day of its launch. Let me know if you've tried Apple Arcade. Of course it's got the free trial so just about anybody could give it a go as soon as you have the latest operating system that supports it. Let me know what your favorite games are. I think it's going to be a little tough in the beginning with 64 and soon 100 games to figure out what to play. But after you spend some time looking through those it will be a lot easier as new games are just added gradually. I'm looking forward to when I can just, maybe once a week, go to the new games section, see what's new, and easily pick out a game or two I might want to try.