Apple Arcade has been around for a little over a month now, just enough time to fully get used to a world where there are once again tons of cool mobile games to play that don’t try to constantly scam you with free-to-play monetization.
It’s almost too good to be true. Between the sheer number of intriguing games and ease of dabbling all over the place with the subscription model, I’ve played a bunch of Apple Arcade games on the shiny new iPhone 11 Pro, but not for nearly as much time as I would have liked. And I suspect that’s the case for most players coming off of the free trial wondering if they should pay for a few more months.
So with the context that these are not comprehensive at all, here are a bunch of tiny reviews of big Apple Arcade games.
Mutazione is like Night in the Woods was also a chill version of Annihilation, and folks who know what all of those words mean will dig it.
Redout: Space Assault is pretty but I didn’t like this series when it was fake F-Zero, and I still don’t like it as fake Star Fox.
Lego Brawls has all the colorful, wacky, fast-paced fun of slamming toys together. It also has about as much strategy, which is to say almost none.
Shantae and the Seven Sirens continues the journey of the half-genie hero and her cheesecake friends, finally combining modern illustrated graphics with the classic nonlinear structure. Just play with a controller.
Assemble With Care takes tasks as mundane as unpacking a suitcase or fixing a tape recorder and fills them with the gentle intimate puzzle-solving fun you’d expect from the (disappointingly anti-union) makers of Monument Valley.
Mini Motorways lets you draw your own roads to solve traffic jams across the world, but hardcore fans say it’s a step backwards from Mini Metro.
Frogger in Toy Town adds a bizarre amount of realistic physics to one of the most famously rigid and grid-based game designs in history. It looks really nice, though.
ChuChu Rocket! Universe doesn’t change my lukewarm opinion on the Sega Dreamcast, but the 3D spatial puzzles are clever enough that I’m glad this series made a comeback.
Grindstone is already cool enough as a block-matching puzzle where you sometimes worry about the blocks biting back. But it’s the satisfying carnage of your beefy fantasy hero just chopping through those monsters that put this one over the top.
Card of Darkness has the pleasing aesthetic and unexpected remixes of familiar but elegant deep strategy systems and number mechanics that we’ve come to expect from Zach Gage.
Rayman Mini is basically a pocket version of those gorgeous Rayman platformers from a few years ago, and it’s a fine substitute if you can’t get the real thing.
Cat Quest II feels like more of the same, an accessible yet surprisingly deep and addictive action RPG starring cats. This time you can play with a friend.
Whereas the original Oceanhorn ripped off The Wind Waker, Oceanhorn II has its hungry eyes set on Breath of the Wild. However, the overall structure is still closer to a traditional 3D Legend of Zelda game, and still quite ambitious and beautiful for a mobile adventure.
Speed Demons has incredible style and crunchy car destruction that made me pine for Burnout. But the top-down perspective just can’t provide the sense of speed I’m looking for from a racing game.
Hot Lava opens with this awesomely elaborate parody of 1980s eco-themed action cartoons designed to sell toys. It goes on and on, with a full storyline and emotional arcs for its characters. It’s honestly way better than the game itself, which is a first-person platformer that’s about as awkward as “Mirror’s Edge with touch controls” sounds.
Manifold Garden has been in the works for years and years. When you play it you get why. Traveling through this impossible geometry feels like an effortless dream. But pulling off those trippy puzzles was surely a stressful nightmare.
EarthNight is essentially an automatic runner, occasionally broken up by bits where you fall from the sky. But the art is so distinct, the music so fresh, and the motion so freeing and fluid, that you can’t help but get swept up into it.
In a world where pinball-inspired games are getting increasingly abstract, The Pinball Wizard is relatively straightforward. Each dungeon floor is a pretty traditional table, it’s just full of monsters you defeat by physically bouncing the adorable wizard into them.
Neo Cab presents a barely futuristic world where you are the last human driver competing against automated rideshare services, while also trying to find your missing friend. And you can monitor your exact emotional state when picking dialogue. It’s really engrossing. I just can’t get behind being a taxi driver that talks to customers this much, something I never want in real life.
What the Golf? makes you question the limits of what a golf game can even be. Is it just about hitting a ball into a hole? What about hitting a hole into another hole? What about hitting a whole pile of balls? What about hitting your club with another club? The answers to these questions are more are waiting.
Exit the Gungeon is more than just a great name for a sequel. It maintains the original’s ability to marry simple 2D arenas with surprisingly nuanced and action-packed gunfight mechanics. In this case, the touch screen actually makes firefights a lot easier.
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