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"Alba: A Wildlife Adventure": One of the newer games on Apple Arcade
Photo: ustwo
Explore virtual worlds, fight for high scores with friends: You no longer need a gaming PC or console to play exciting games - streaming offers and flat rates for smartphones make it possible.
With subscriptions from Apple, Google and Microsoft, numerous titles can be played for as long as you pay for a small flat fee.
But what good are the monthly cancelable game flat rates of the three technology giants?
And which advantages and disadvantages of the offers should mobile gamers know in advance?
The overview.
Apple Arcade: Quality instead of quantity for iPhone owners
What's this?
Apple Arcade is a flat-rate game from Apple that can be used on iPhone and iPad as well as Mac and Apple TV.
The service costs 4.99 euros per month, a trial month is free.
The flat rate package includes around 180 games optimized for mobile use, some of which are not available anywhere else.
All games come without advertising and annoying in-app purchases, so you can't spend any more money on them.
In addition, all games can be downloaded and then - provided it is not about multiplayer content - played offline without an internet connection.
Progress in games can be synchronized between different Apple devices via iCloud.
The subscription can be shared with up to five family members via Apple's so-called family sharing.
What can you play with?
Apple's game subscription attracts with dozens of top-class titles.
The 20-hour role-playing game »Fantasian«, which also stands out from the crowd thanks to its diorama look, recently appeared exclusively for the platform.
Behind it is the star developer Hironobu Sakaguchi, who became known through »Final Fantasy«.
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An eye-catcher: »Fantasian« is available exclusively from Apple
Photo: Mistwalker
There is a wide range of arcade titles: it ranges from time-consuming and playfully demanding titles such as the action adventure "Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm" to new editions of classics from computer and mobile phone game history such as "Pac-Man "And" Frogger ".
Mobile phone game hits like “Fruit Ninja”, “Threes!” And “Cut the Rope” are also part of the catalog.
For spontaneous duels in the home network, there is, for example, a music quiz with “SongPop Party” and “Lego Brawls”, a fighting game with Lego figures.
Arcade subscribers should definitely try out “What the Golf”, “a golf game for people who hate golf”, which is bursting with clever ideas.
We also recommend the puzzle and discovery games from the studio ustwo, which provides Apple Arcade with its classic "Monument Valley", but also two newer titles called "Assemble with Care" and "Alba: A Wildlife Adventure".
In “Assemble with Care” you repair defective objects and learn something about their owner in the process, in “Alba” you explore the beautiful nature of a Mediterranean island as a young activist.
Roughly estimated, it is definitely worth half of the 180 arcade games to try out - a good cut.
How do I control the games?
The games can be controlled via the iPhone or iPad touchscreen.
If you want, you can usually use a game controller.
Halfway up-to-date Playstation and Xbox controllers can be easily connected to Apple devices.
Is there a catch?
Or special advantages?
When it comes to games, Apple attaches great importance to family-friendliness - you shouldn't expect too brute action or topics like sex at Arcade.
Likewise, most games are trimmed for accessibility, which should please casual gamers, but may put off some frequent gamers.
Players from the Apple cosmos also stay among themselves: If you play a game via Apple Arcade, you can only meet other users of Apple devices in multiplayer games.
And there is one more thing to consider: some titles from the flat-rate package can really only be played via Apple Arcade.
Those who do not want to keep their hands off them will from now on pay month after month.
Google Play Pass: A mixed bag from the Android world
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Google Play Pass: An offer that seems to be thrown together
Photo: SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
What's this?
Google's Play Pass is the Android equivalent of Apple Arcade.
The monthly subscription with hundreds of apps costs 4.99 euros per month, an annual package for 29.99 euros is much cheaper.
A trial month is free.
Google's subscription can be used with numerous Android devices as long as they run the Play Store version 16.6.25 or higher and Android 4.4 or a newer version of the operating system.
The Play Pass contains an ad-free version of apps that can also be purchased individually or downloaded as a freemium version, in which any in-app purchases are automatically activated.
A subscription can be shared with up to five family members via Google's family group system.
What can you play with?
The Play Pass contains well-known mobile phone games such as "Mini Metro", "Threes!", "Reigns: Her Majesty" and both parts of "Monument Valley", but also mobile adaptations of computer games such as "Dead Cells", "Thimbleweed Park", " This War of Mine ”,“ Limbo ”and“ Terraria ”.
The catalog also includes titles that seem obscure, such as “Taxi Spiel 2”, “Furious Car Driving 2000” and “Horror Hospital 2”.
There are also some games especially for younger children, some of which are only available in English.
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»Terraria«: One of the better known games in the Play Pass
Photo: 505 Games
The offer seems like Google is simply throwing a huge pile of games at your feet, in which, on closer inspection, you can find both real pearls, but also games where the name and the thumbnail make it clear that you probably won't needs.
Unlike Apple, whose arcade games almost all suggest a certain minimum level of production effort, Google does not place any value on exclusive titles.
The Play Pass is therefore more interesting for people who want to try out a large number of games that are otherwise often individually paid for in a short space of time - from time wasters like Sega's “Football Manager 2021 Mobile” to simple apps like “Minesweeper Pro”.
If you find a dozen interesting titles among the difficult to keep track of games, it may well be worthwhile to secure access to them with a monthly subscription.
How do I control the games?
The mobile games are controlled via the touchscreen of the Android device.
Some, but by no means all, can also be operated using a gamepad.
Like iOS, Android now recognizes all common Playstation and Xbox controllers.
Is there a catch? Or special advantages?
A special feature of the Play Pass is that, unlike Apple Arcade, it is not a pure game subscription.
For five euros per month or 30 euros a year, Google also enables its users to use apps from areas such as photography, music and efficiency, including programs such as the Voice Recorder Plus Profi or Photo Studio Pro.
Much of this software can be tried out free of charge without a subscription if you are interested.
The same goes for some of the games such as multiple Sudoku titles.
If you just want to get a taste of it, you don't necessarily need the Play Pass.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: Real blockbusters on the phone screen
What's this?
The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is a cross-platform flat rate from Microsoft that contains many classic video games that can be played on the PC or on an Xbox console.
This also explains the comparatively high price of the offer of 12.99 euros per month, with the first month only costing one euro.
Another game package for PC and Xbox is part of the Game Pass Ultimate with EA Play.
The service also includes Xbox Live Gold, a subscription that Xbox players need for many multiplayer games.
Now comes the interesting thing for mobile phone players: If you subscribe to the most expensive version of the Game Pass, you can use it to play more than 200 games on Android phones and tablets.
The devices must have at least Android 6.0 and Bluetooth 4.0.
The whole thing is a streaming offer: The games run in Microsoft's data centers and are streamed via the Internet to mobile devices, which otherwise would not be technically capable of displaying blockbusters like "Doom Eternal".
The Game Pass app must be installed on the smartphone in order to play.
The Game Pass Ultimate, which will soon also offer game streaming on Apple and Windows 10 devices, is the only one of the three monthly subscriptions mentioned that brings the big titles to your mobile phone.
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Xbox Game Pass app for mobile phones: Now you need fast internet
Photo: SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
For the streams, however, you need permanently fast internet: Microsoft recommends an internet connection with a download speed of at least 10 Mbit / s and a 5 GHz WLAN or, alternatively, a mobile data connection with at least 10 Mbit / s (but be careful: the game can be played over the cellular network of course on the data volume).
Officially, the cloud service is still in a beta version, but in practice it can be used quite well.
What can you play with?
According to Microsoft, over 200 titles are currently available for streaming, including, in addition to "Doom Eternal", other action-heavy blockbusters such as "Gears 5", "Grand Theft Auto 5", "Control" and "Monster Hunter: World".
More niche titles are also available, such as “Desperados III”, which has just been named German Game of the Year, or the indie classic “Undertale”.
Fans of sports and racing games will find titles such as "Forza Horizon 4" and "NBA2K21", RPG fans "The Outer Worlds" and platformers interested in the wonderful "Ori and the Will of the Wisps" .
The cloud gaming catalog also includes some older games such as The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, which was originally released for the Xbox 360 in 2006.
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"Ori and the Will of the Wisps": A visually and playfully convincing work
Photo: Moon Studios
All of these games are not classic mobile games - so they can be very challenging for casual gamers, especially on a small phone screen.
Game Pass Ultimate does not attach great importance to games especially for children.
How do I control the games?
Microsoft recommends an Xbox controller for cloud gaming, either from Microsoft itself or from a third-party manufacturer named on this website.
Halfway up-to-date Xbox controllers can be easily connected to Android devices.
Alternatively, around 50 of the streamed games can also be controlled via touchscreen.
This means that certain parts of the screen are covered with the control elements.
Instead, players who no longer need a controller can simply pick up their mobile phone while playing.
Is there a catch? Or special advantages?
Many of the streamed games can also be played together with Xbox and PC players in multiplayer mode.
A dedicated family offer in the style of Apple or Google does not yet exist with the Game Pass Ultimate.
Whether the Xbox offer makes a mobile phone player happy ultimately depends on two things: the question of whether you want to play classic video games on your mobile device at all, and the question of whether Internet access is fast enough for this.
The one-euro month should be used as a test month: As soon as the network connection is not stable enough, for example, the fun in games that require quick reactions ends abruptly.
If everything works technically, the Game Pass Ultimate is a good introduction to the world of big video games, although the flat rate is of course much more worthwhile if you still have an Xbox and a PC at home, in the best case both.
By the way, all the games that are in the Game Pass Ultimate can also be bought individually if you like - but mostly only for playing on the console or PC.
So if you are forced to play a game like "Mass Effect: Andromeda" including side missions on your mobile phone, which can take a good 60 hours, you might need your subscription for a few months.
And something else you should know: For some Game Pass games such as "Forza Horizon 4" there is additional content that is subject to a charge that is not yet included in the flat-rate versions of the games.
