Apple Arcade: 5 Drawbacks and 5 Top Games

Still boring, but not hopeless.

A day ago Apple, together with the new version of its iOS 13 operating system for iPhones, launched a new gaming service, Arcade. For $5 a month (but the first month is free), it lets users download an unlimited number of games. They will all be cross-platform within the Apple ecosystem, but only once the iPadOS and macOS Catalina releases come out.

At first, all the games seem empty and pointless. But after trying a few dozen, you realize that this is not the case: there are some truly worthy ones. 

So, the best games on Apple Arcade according to TK Media

Sonic Racing

A fun racing arcade game starring the legendary video game character Sonic the Hedgehog. The races take place on tracks with obstacles and boosters, and while driving, the characters pick up various items that they can use to shoot at opponents, place obstacles, or speed up. 

Sounds familiar? Of course, it is not an Arcade exclusive: it has already been released for consoles and PC. This is not the first racing game with Sonic. And yes, it is painfully reminiscent of the racing series starring another equally legendary character, Crash Bandicoot. But among the games on Arcade right now, Sonic Racing is definitely one of the best.

Skate City

A visually stunning game where you perform tricks on a skateboard. The skater rides through real cities such as Los Angeles, Barcelona and so on, completing trick objectives.

Down in Bermuda

Arcade takes any puzzle game out of its primitive design and combines it with beautiful graphics and a certain storyline. This one is no exception: you solve riddles and assemble puzzles while helping a pilot who survived a crash.

Dear Reader

A good game for those who want to brush up on their English if their level is no higher than intermediate. You read a novel by inserting the right words into sentences.

Assemble with care

An original puzzle game where you need to repair items such as a phone, a camera and more.

So what is wrong with Apple Arcade so far?

1. Most games are very boring and banal, as mentioned above. Beneath the beautiful graphics and a supposedly certain plot lie primitive arcade games where you walk around and collect coins or other items
2. Many games have little gameplay and a lot of storyline. Moreover, most of the time you cannot just click and jump straight into the action
   
3. The full spectrum of tastes is not yet covered. Try finding a sports simulator, for example: there is currently no football, basketball or any other sport
   
4. There are few recognizable franchises. So far it looks like the bet is on new games, but it is unlikely that most of them will become popular
   
5. The service offers no new ideas, except for partially solving the problems with games on Apple devices. It is not a streaming service but simply a library for unlimited downloading of games to your device, like PlayStation Plus, but nothing like Google's Stadia, which handles the computing on servers and makes the question of what device you have completely irrelevant (as long as you have a fast internet connection).
   

But even Apple Arcade will not make the MacBook an attractive machine for gamers. 

To sum up: thanks to Arcade, owners of iPhones, iPads and MacBooks will be able to kill time (or procrastinate) with games, but there is no sign yet of a step forward for the gaming world.  

Yevgeny Blazhko