Without a game controller, Fallen Knight is barely playable. There are five virtual buttons along with the virtual stick, and the responsiveness is poor. In a game that requires precise timing, this is not conducive to a positive experience. With an Xbox controller connected and on a bigger screen (after abandoning the phone version, I played it on an iPad) it’s better…but it isn’t good.

Fallen Knight is a bland side-scrolling platform shooter with uninspired art and a slight story about knights of the round table, except in the future, and also probably in space. I must admit that my attention drifted during the static cut-scenes.

I didn’t make it far into this game. The sameness got to me after a while, with the same enemies executing the same attacks in environments built from the same handful of assets. It might get better, but I didn’t much feel like finding out.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/fallen-knight/id1440570097

I really enjoyed PAC-MAN 256, so I’m not adverse to modernising the yellow pizza pie, but this “Party Royale” edition didn’t do much for me. Of course, I also didn’t play it the way it’s intended to be played, with an actual party of players in the same room. I’m sure that makes the game a whole lot more fun.

I did play a multiplayer PAC-MAN in an arcade (an actual arcade, not Apple Arcade) last year, in (of all places) Swakopmund, Namibia, but I’m not sure it’s the same game, and that experience was tempered by unresponsive controls. This version of PAC-MAN controls very well with touch, but there’s not much to it: it’s basically PAC-MAN, with multiple -MEN. I’m also opposed to the more anthropomorphic version of the Pac: I prefer it when he’s a pixelated yellow circle rather than a full-on cartoon character with hopes, dreams and an expressive face.

If you have three or four people in your household with an iPhone or iPad, I guess it’s worth a download, but don’t expect to be blown away by this. And if you’re looking for a solo experience, PAC-MAN 256 is the better game.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/pac-man-party-royale/id1465543094

Hey, taking screenshots of this game is super hard, okay?

I played Super Impossible Road on all the devices (except the Mac; I haven’t tried any Arcade games on Mac) and it works equally well on all of them, although the iPhone version has the slight edge. The premise is simple: you guide a big metal sci-fi ball down a narrow, winding slope in space, and the goal is either to get to the end as quickly as possible or, in the survival levels, as far as possible before you bounce off into the dark void. Sometimes, the goal is to fly through rings. But it’s always about that ball, hurtling at breakneck speed along a very narrow, very windy track. In space.

It controls really well, and thankfully the developers didn’t go with motion controls. You tap the left and right sides of the screen to turn, and swipe forward with both thumbs to boost. The sense of speed and momentum is fantastic, especially when you (intentionally or accidentally) take a shortcut, jump off the track, and land on a lower segment. I found the iPhone version the easiest to control; on the TV, the physical controller and slower frame rate reduced the immersion, even though the art holds up well on the big screen. This game was definitely designed for touch by designers who understand touch.

For some reason, save games didn’t sync between devices, so after making it through the first ten levels on both the TV and the iPad, it was a bit of a pain to do the same on the phone. But given how much fun this game can be, it wasn’t too painful. I’m not sure about the longevity of the game, but I played this when it first came out, and I keep dipping into it from time to time, so it’s definitely worth downloading, playing, and keeping on your phone for the occasional ride down the super impossible road.

I wrapped that up real well.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/super-impossible-road/id1465855765

Super Mega Mini Party is a collection of mini-games designed for playing with (or against) other people. I played all of them, and the quality of the games is mixed at best. The first one, Cannons of Chaos, an action game with pirate ships, may be the best of the bunch. Others (like Spruce Lee, where you have to repeat directional button presses to karate-chop a…spruce) are rudimentary at best.

There’s not a whole lot be said about Super Mega Mini Party. Played on a big screen with a bunch of people, preferably either the influence of alcohol or sugar, it can be an amusing way to pass fifteen minutes. Played alone on the iPhone, it’s not a good use of your time.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/super-mega-mini-party/id1465985511

Stellar Commanders is a relentlessly grim strategy game about global thermonuclear war that always seems to end with planetary destruction. Granted, I’ve only played the tutorial plus two matched multiplayer games, but as the minutes ticked down and the rockets flew, it all felt pretty apocalyptic. The game runs in real-time, with different phases — from preparing for war to fighting war to watching everything go kaboom — and each match is only seven minutes long.

There’s little positivity or hope here, and that’s the point: it’s all out war, and it’s just a question of building your rockets and tanks and defensive batteries as quickly and smartly as possible, before the nuclear missiles start flying. The world is pretty grim as it is right now, and I don’t have a lot of patience for more global death and destruction. Fair or not, this is not the game I want to play.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/stellar-commanders/id1469802393

I got stuck about a half hour into this first-person adventure, and I wasn’t motivated enough to search for a solution. Discolored feels lifeless and hollow, with rudimentary art, sparse sound and obtuse mechanics. The controls aren’t great: I started playing on the Apple TV with an Xbox controller, and everything felt off. The sensitivity, the button layout, the menus: everything is clunky and at odds with most first-person games. On a touch device, some things are easier, but now you’re dealing with virtual joysticks, which isn’t ideal.

Maybe it gets better. After all, the game is about bringing colour back into the world, and maybe this also brings the game to life? I didn’t get far enough to see. There are, fortunately or unfortunately, too many games out there to persevere past a dull opening. I’m glad Apple Arcade features a variety of games and genres, and I’m glad there’s room for a game like Discolored, even though it didn’t do much for me.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/discolored/id1479350739

I can only speak to the action bits of Sociable Soccer™ and not the management bits. I didn’t make it that far, and football club management is probably the last thing I want to spend my precious time on. I also found the collectible card bits to be distracting and uninteresting, but consider the source carefully.

As an action football game, this is pretty good — with some caveats. The controls are intuitive and smooth, the art is clean and good looking, and the pacing is solid. However: using the virtual buttons, it’s very difficult to play the game. I kept having to look down to see if my thumb was in the right place, and whether I was about to kick, pass or chip the ball, and by the time I’d figured that out, I’d either lost my window of opportunity or the ball. It’s just not possible to play this properly on an iPhone without an external controller.

With a controller — I tried this on the Apple TV — it’s so much better, and I had fun kicking the ball around. Again, I didn’t get around to the other bits of the game, but if they’re equally good, this is a solid package. It’s no FIFA, but it’s solid.

I’m just not convinced it’s possible to make a decent football game with touch controls. The way to do it is definitely not to try to emulate a controller, but rather come up with a fresh control scheme for touch.

Sociable Soccer™ stands miles above Arcade’s other football game, Charrua Soccer, and it might well be a great football game…as long as you’re playing with a controller.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/sociable-soccer/id1468314130

Don’t Bug Me! is a terrible name for a pretty interesting game. It’s a visually stylish tower defense game with some basic first-person shooting, set on Mars. You have to harvest resources and build turrets to fight waves of “Martians”, while you banter with a computer. The dialogue isn’t great, and there’s a strange dichotomy between the cool and minimalist art and the jokey writing that feels…off.

It took me a few minutes to get comfortable with the game mechanics, but once I did, I had fun — for a while. The difficulty ramps up quickly, and I struggled to progress beyond a certain stage. I plan to give it another go, however. The game looks and sounds great, the user interface and controls are good, and there’s definitely a moreish quality there that keeps you hooked. For how long depends entirely on how you adapt to the difficulty curve. I expect most of you will do better than I did.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/dont-bug-me/id1213139362

This game is pitched as a multiplayer AR party game, so naturally I played it in non-AR single-player mode. Look, it’s hard enough doing a review a day without having to put together a party of iPhone owners with supported devices in the days of social distancing.

Played this way, Secret Oops! is less a party game and more of a tactical bumbler where you have to stay one step ahead of a terrible and incredibly self-confident agent oblivious to cameras and security devices, ensuring that he makes his way to the briefcase at the end of every level. It’s incredibly polished, with lovely art and animations, and great sound.

I don’t know what AR plays like, but the non-AR controls can be a bit unwieldy. You swipe the screen to rotate the isometric level, but I found that using the free camera (and the terrible virtual joysticks) to get a bird’s eye view of the level worked best. It doesn’t look as good, but it’s a lot easier to deal with the various traps and buttons.

(Pre-publishing update: I tried the AR mode, and it’s technically very impressive. The levels look great, like little cartoony dioramas. Unfortunately, playing on your own requires dexterity and speed in order to physically move around the game “board”, and it ends up being a bit much for one person. I can see how this game might be perfect for parties, however: with four phone (or iPad) players in AR, things probably play a lot better.)

I know this review doesn’t treat the game fairly, but look at it this way: there are plenty of people looking for games to play on their own. Secret Oops! may not be particularly well suited to that.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/secret-oops/id1469240309

I was hoping for something quirkier and better tailored to touch devices, but this football game is a rudimentary take on the genre. There’s nothing out of the ordinary here. You can kick, tackle and pass. Control switches automatically to the player closest to the ball. On touch devices, you have to wrestle with a virtual gamepad. Connecting a controller makes it more playable, but playing on the Apple TV’s big screen lays bare the simplicity and crudeness of the cartoony art. It’s curiously charmless. With more work on the characters and animations, the game would have been massively improved.

The music in Charrua Soccer is awful, but aside from that there’s nothing that stands out about the game, either positively or negatively. I’d have a hard time recommending this to football fans, but undiscerning players looking for a kick on the go might find something to like here.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/charrua-soccer/id1462098662

This vehicular multiplayer arena shooter is barely playable on the phone. The virtual buttons are small and the camera hyper-sensitive at the default settings. I kept missing the fire-button, either pressing jump instead or moving the camera. The user interface is cramped and the settings and dialogue boxes appear straight out of a PC game. I tried to adjust the camera controls, but I couldn’t find a setting that felt usable to me.

On a bigger screen, with the Xbox controller, things might be better…but I didn’t get a chance to try. ShockRods just plain refuses to install on my AppleTV. It’s the first game so far that I’ve not been able to install…but not the first time the Apple Arcade has had problems with the TV.

Playing Arcade games on the Apple TV is a hit and miss experience. Sometimes the Xbox controller won’t connect, and you have to unpair it before going through the pairing process again. I’ve done this maybe seven or eight times now. Performance on the 4K Apple TV is never great. I don’t know why this is, maybe it’s just trying to push too many pixels. Perhaps the non-4K ATV performs better. And there’s the whole issue of getting screenshots from the TV. In general, things are just a whole lot easier on the phone and iPad.

Back to ShockRods. The game isn’t particularly pretty. It’s a bit like a late 00’s PC game, with muddy textures and effects. On a small screen, it’s hard to read. I’m sure this aesthetic will have its fans. I’m not one of them.

I don’t think this game or even this genre are suited to mobile devices, not without some major control and UI changes. A more radical approach would have been interesting to see. Instead, ShockRods feels like a PC game squeezed onto the phone, and while that’s impressive and speaks to the power of the iPhone, it doesn’t make for a great experience.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/shockrods/id1463754132

Loud House: Outta Control is one of the most stressful games I’ve ever played. I’m not emotionally equipped to handle it. It’s not like they don’t warn you: “Loud House” sounds very stressful, at least to a parent, and “Outta Control” even more so.

The premise is simple: you control a bunch of kids in various domestic locations by drawing paths with your finger to objects they’re interested in. The kids are always moving, so you need to keep an eye on everyone all the time. If two kids crash, it’s game over. If a “fight cloud” hits one of the kids, he or she will be sucked in. The game immediately throws a bunch of kids on screen, and I could barely keep track of two. It’s challenging and requires an aptitude for multitasking.

On the positive side, the colourful cartoon art and animations are lovely.

I struggled getting through the first four levels (of thirty). It’s almost as stressful as handling an active bunch of real children, and I just couldn’t. Sorry, Loud House. You’re by no means a bad game but you’re just too outta control for me.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/loud-house-outta-control/id1467939168

Jumper Jon is a Metroidvania-style platform game that’s quite unforgiving. You die every thirty seconds, unless you pick up feathers to extend your life for another thirty seconds. The feathers also function as save points. This allows you to make incremental progress through the world. You unlock new powers and find keys to unlock new areas.

This game has massive virtual buttons. On the one hand, it means you won’t have any trouble hitting the buttons. On the other, virtual buttons are hideous and I wish developers would find ways around it. I’m not sure attempting to replicate a control scheme that’s not native to touch makes a lot of sense. The game is missing the tactile feel of actual buttons, and would work a lot better on the Nintendo Switch. (Or with a controller connected.)

Aside from the awkward controls, the art style is very simplistic and, while somewhat charming, lacks the details necessary to bring the world and characters to life. The story is told through still images which, again, are very plain. And while the music is good, the sound effects soon begin to grate. It all feels a bit bland and boring.

I didn’t hate Jumper Jon but I found little here to make me want to return to it.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/jumper-jon/id1452727073

Roundguard is an eclectic mix between pinball, Angry Birds and old school Zelda. And it’s not bad. It’s actually quite fun — in limited doses. It reminds me a bit of Pinball Wizard, another Apple Arcade title, but Roundguard’s the better game.

You play (or rather play with) a series of tiny warriors who bounce around a room filled with monsters, potions and, um, pottery? You fire your warrior off in a direction, Angry Birds style, and the longer he (or she?) goes, the more points you rack up. You can execute attacks and special moves, and the challenge lies in both direction and timing. It’s not easy; the window for executing a move is small, but the game is generally forgiving. My best round so far happened through an accidental tap!

Roundguard does something fresh and does it well, and that deserves praise. It looks functional rather than attractive, and the controls could have used more work (accidental launches aplenty) but the game gets the basics right and is fun to play. I’m not sure how long I’ll be playing it, but for now it gets a spot in my rotation.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/roundguard/id1484566760

Redout is an on-rails 3D space shooter that looks very impressive. The art is bright and detailed and busy, with plenty of cool explosions. It sounds pretty good, too, although the voice acting feels perfunctory and uninvolved. Not the actors’ fault: it’s the direction that’s lacking. It’s all very mechanical, and that goes for the game, too. It’s ticking the boxes, but the controls are “floaty” and it often feels like you have little impact on what’s happening. “Floaty” is a terrible word, but you get it when you try it: your spaceship follows your thumb, but there’s no weight, no momentum, no joy to the movement. The same goes for the missiles, and it’s often very hard to see what’s happening, with all the beautiful spaceships and missile trails and explosions and pretty backdrops. It’s not a game well suited to the small phone screen, and I wish I’d had time to try this on the Apple TV — although I fear the performance will be unacceptable. (If and when I do give it a go, I’ll update this review.)

Despite the modern art, this is in many ways a retro game, but it harkens back to a genre of games that were never particularly good. And the small screen and touch controls work against it in every way. Redout is great for showing off what a mobile can do, but it’s not a great mobile game.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/redout-space-assault/id1464678372

This is how training begins. No actual training to be seen anywhere.

I gave this a shot.

I started with “training” because I’m painfully aware of my own limitations. I was dumped into a level where some disembodied axes generated what I assumed were resources. There was absolutely no explanatory text and no help function. I had no idea what to do. Sometimes enemy soldiers would come and fire at what the message told me was my base. I automatically returned fire.

I eventually figured out that I can tap and hold to make things happen, but my giant thumb obscured the user interface, so it was difficult to read the description. Once I’d done that a couple of times, the game told me to tap and hold to make things happen. Great! Maybe lead with this?

Then I was beheaded and it was game over. So I don’t know.

I also tried to play this properly against a human opponent by starting a quick game, but I ended up waiting endlessly, and eventually I had to resort to playing against the AI. Then I lost. Again.

I know, I know, I should probably look up a guide or something, or maybe I’m just supposed to know how to play games like this (I don’t) but man, talk about being dropped in at the deep end. If the game makes sense to you (check the store page for clues) then maybe there’s some fun to be had here, but I admit defeat. Life’s just too precious these days.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/red-reign/id1462365853

Star Fetched is a Metroidvania-style platform game with a somewhat psychedelic art style and virtual button controls.

I found the controls difficult to get to grips with. Pulling off precision jumping and shooting is a real challenge, and it doesn’t help that it’s sometimes hard to differentiate enemies from the environment. Switching to swipe controls in the settings helped a bit. There are equipment upgrades, though I don’t know if these improve the game experience any. I didn’t get far enough to see for myself.

Aside from the art, there’s little here that’s not done better elsewhere. If you’re looking for platform games, Apple Arcade already has Crossy Road Castle and Rayman Mini, both of which are great. There may not be many other Metroidvania games, but Star Fetched doesn’t seem to bring anything new to the table. If you’re a huge fan of the genre, give it a go. If not, there are better games on the service.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/star-fetched/id1461504229

Coincidentally, we are also working on a game about a Doomsday Vault — although that’s the only thing the two games have in common. In this take on the eponymous seed bank, you play a bouncy explorer in some sort of protective suit who traverses minimalist post-apocalyptic landscapes in search of seeds, which are brought back to the vault for cultivation.

This is another puzzle platformer, with climbing, jumping and navigation occurring on a grid. You can’t move diagonally, which makes movement a bit cumbersome at times, but at least the virtual controls are decent: you can tap and hold anywhere on the screen to bring up the “stick”. And dots showing where you can walk compensate for the lack of an adjustable camera.

The game is thematically interesting but it looks clinical, and the game mechanics are simplistic. I like the musical score quite a bit, though the rest of the soundscape is pretty sparse.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Doomsday Vault, but it’s not particularly exciting. I don’t know how the vault evolves as you acquire more seeds, or if any other game mechanics come into play, but my first thirty minutes with the game were passable but unremarkable.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/doomsday-vault/id1457773760

I was super excited when Hipster Whale announced a new Crossy Road game for Apple Arcade. I jumped on it immediately. I was super disappointed when I realised it was an endless platformer with virtual buttons. Then I played it for a bit and discovered its quirky charms, and guys: it’s pretty damn good.

Now, this is in spite of the virtual game pad. In an ideal world, I’d be playing this on the Nintendo Switch, though Crossy Road makes pretty sweet lemonade from vertical lemons. In other words: it’s a platformer that benefits from being played vertically. The virtual controls aren’t bad; far from it, they’re super responsive and easy to use. They’re still virtual, however, and I do wonder how great this game would be with actual buttons. I could connect a controller to the iPhone, but that would be madness. And I’ve yet to play this game on the TV, because it feels like such a natively mobile game.

I’m torn here. Crossy Road was great. This has the same charm, the same lovely art and great music, the same inventiveness and twists on familiar formats…but it’s also got those controls. Which work fine! But still.

At the end of the day, though, Crossy Road Castle is a very good mobile game. Most of you will love it. I think I sort of love it, too, but I just wish I lived in a world where I could easily play this with a real controller on my phone. With those caveats noted: one of the best Apple Arcade games yet.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/crossy-road-castle/id1478978570

P.S. Forgot to mention this, because I’ve yet to play it with other people, but it’s also got multiplayer, and it looks like a lot of fun! I can’t wait to give it a go.

Spelldrifter is an isometric, turn-based deck builder with a generic fantasy art style and synth-heavy soundtrack.

I’m sad to report that nothing about that sentence makes me want to play Spelldrifter.

The art is bland, but not technically bad. The touch controls are as good as you’d expect. The GUI has a lot of tiny text that makes playing on the iPhone a potentially frustrating experience. And there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the implementation: it’s a competent product. But.

Look, there’s honestly very little point to me going into depth about the game. I don’t get it, I don’t like it, I don’t want to play it, but that’s me. If you like the genre, and the aesthetic, then sure, this game could very well be for you. There are certainly better games out there, and Spelldrifter lacks character and a distinctive style, but that’s beside the point: if this scratches your itch, go ahead, get it scratched.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/spelldrifter/id1474012584