Jul 17, 2021
Alto’s Odyssey — The Lost City on Apple Arcade
I have always been a big fan of endless runners, particularly side scrolling types. Jetpack Joyride is the very first such game that I used to play quiet often. Then, I saw the commercials for this Alto guy. The first Alto game is very good.
Then, came the second Alto — Odyssey. I grabbed both the Alto’s on a sale for the iPad. They run fine on the iPhone too, but, the game is much better on a larger screen. Now, Apple has gone ahead and included it in Apple Arcade with a bonus location.
Lost City, just as good as the rest of the locations.
Lean Back and Relax
Lately, I find myself playing more and more on the iPad than my HP Gaming PC or the Xbox One S. I have the Xbox Game Pass and I also have the Apple Arcade. That way, for a monthly payment, I have access to hundreds of games. This monthly thing has saved me hundreds of dollars I used to spend on buying games individually.
That means, rather than making my way through cavernous mountains in the Shadow of The Tomb Raider, I am exploring caves with Alto. It takes almost 3 to 5 minutes to load and play Tomb Raider on the Xbox or PC. On the iPad, unlock and 3 seconds later, you are skate boarding.
Alto is great. The controls take a bit of getting used to, especially if you want to go on skating for more than 10 minutes without falling down a chasm or crash horribly. Further, there are lot of unlocks that can be done via in-game coins to collect. Of course, there are no in app purchases.
As a principle, I hate games with in app purchases, especially those that make you buy everyday or every week. One time purchases are the preferred way.
Lost City Experience
Once you have all the unlocks, the game becomes a true joy. Lost City detected that I am already on Level 41 with the existing Alto Odyssey purchase. It transferred the progress over to the Apple Arcade Lost City installation. Essentially, I now have two Alto Odyssey’s installed on the iPad.
This was convenient as I did not want to level up all over again.
My transferred progress unlocked the existing three locations right away. Right after that, the game started offering me ‘fragments’ of map to The Lost City. Catching each fragment was tricky. The level generator would force me to do specific angle jumps or, sneak down or jump higher and similar maneuvers.
Eventually, I got all of them. Earn your happy ending, I suppose. I finally arrived at Lost City, and my god, is it beautiful!
Final Note
Apple Arcade continues to become more value, just like Xbox Game Pass, every month. Alto Odyssey was already an incredibly soothing experience. The ever changing visuals. The soothing music. Very Relaxing to a stressed out mind.
Now, I have one more location to explore and it is a joy to continue playing this.
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