I I’m addicted to video games again. Addicted like I haven’t been in years. Addicted to the point where my left thumb and right index finger are borderline arthritic from touching them as soon as I open my eyes in the morning and last before I close them at night.
This is ridiculous behavior for a man approaching 50 years of age. He should wake me up and do pilates. My eyelids should droop as I read the Reader’s Digest at bedtime. You should have arthritis in your hands from planting peonies or unwrapping Werther’s Originals. But not. They’re games that don’t, and not even the hardcore ones that involve gods, wars, or ancestor rings. I’m obsessed with what I once might have labeled with disdain casual games. I’m talking about Apple Arcade, which I’m now convinced is the best value game delivery system on the planet in 2023. It’s turned my phone into the most fun game console I’ve had since my Neo Geo in the ’90s.
I can’t think of anything in the last 20 years that has given me so many games of such quality, variety, imagination, and downright weirdness. I have helped trees grow by cutting branches to guide them into the sunlight in Prune. I’ve solved serious family problems by fixing people’s gadgets in Assemble with care. I’ve completed complex puzzles by dragging water across paint in Tint, built cities in Outlanders, improved my word power with Word Laces, and did… whatever I did in Lifelike. (I think he was adapting alien life forms by fusing his particles with others in deep space, but I felt like I was warmly immersed in a Pink Floyd album.)
I tried some crazy city planning with Mini Motorways, spun primates through rainforests in Gibbon, farted and frustrated with Lego in Builder’s Journey and pioneered my character across America in The Oregon Trail. All this for less than five dollars a month.
The irony is that I had Apple Arcade for a long time without using it, one of those classic modern subscriptions that you buy because it sounds good but never have time to take advantage of it. I finally started using it a few months ago because I was about to call it off. Now he has me looking at Xbox Game Pass, wondering if that’s the one I should defund.
Apple Arcade introduced me to my favorite game of 2022, Marvel Snap. I had never considered playing a deck-building game before, but it was listed there, so I gave it a try. Now I would dare to say that it is a perfect game. Gameplay, graphics, sound, brightness? It has it all, and it’s wonderful for comic book fans like me, with characters and locations true to the original pages that have captivated me since childhood.
Now the same subscription has given me what I suspect may end up being my favorite game of 2023: Pocket Card Jockey. I never thought I would spend my days playing a horse racing solitaire game, but the people who decide what games come out on Apple Arcade are geniuses. These games are also convincing me that a touchscreen really is the most intuitive and versatile way to control games. Maybe it always was.
All of these games give me pure, uncomplicated joy. And joy is hard to find these days. I play them with a smile on my face, whereas so many modern video games make me wince in stress or frustration. They’re also complete games, delivered complete—no need for a patch or 10 terabyte day-one update. It annoys me that Marvel Snap has the dreaded microtransactions, but you absolutely don’t have to buy anything to be competitive in the game, which is how it should be. And it’s the first game that I feel like I can play at a high level online since Fifa.
Even games I don’t enjoy (I’m talking to you, Mutazione and your impossible-to-find-and-place seeds!) still make me pat my chin in thanks for the imagination shown. I haven’t seen this standard of curated innovative entertainment since Channel 4 in the ’90s.
I guess the cool kids can judge me now, by secretly sticking a sign on the back of my jacket that says: Casual Gamer. And? If I’m being honest, with the emotional, mental, financial and physical challenges that life presents, I don’t know if I can be foolish spending 30 hours on a game right now. The next Fantasy could be my Finale. I can die before completing Starfield. I currently need games to fall into one of two categories: noteworthy stories that I can complete in a week; or games with superheroes, cards and/or cartoon animals that I can immerse myself in for 10 minutes every hour.
