Impressions of Apple's Game Center

With the release of Game Center, Apple has finally addressed the ridiculously fragmented state of social gaming on the App Store. Crystal, Scoreloop, Plus+, OpenFeint and others were all attempts to fill a hole that should never have been there.

The release of Game Center now, two years after the launch of the App Store, exposes how unprepared and ill equipped Apple was to meet the demands of running a premium gaming service.

Still, better late then never. We’ve spent the last few hours getting to grips with the fledgling service, and thought we’d offer our (or at least my) initial impressions.

First things first – the stylistic choices Apple has made with regard to the appearance of Games Center offer ammunition to those who say that Apple doesn’t get games or gamers. It’s hard to know what the company was trying to achieve, but it looks like a cheap online poker application.

More than that, it’s just incredibly, disappointingly un-Apple-like with its amateurish, half-arsed appearance. Bring on version 2.0.

The Game Center home screen is symptomatic of this curiously phoned-in vibe. The cheesy banners denoting Friends, Games and Achievements feel like they should lead to the appropriate sections when touched. I have to fight the urge to give them a prod every time I open the app up.

Going into the friend comparisons, things take a turn for the better. Comparative stats are clearly presented, and the simple “ranked lower/higher than me” summary on the Games in Common section tells you at a glance what you need to work on in order to overtake your buddies.

The setup’s also reassuringly Apple-like in its simplicity. Except, we’ve all been having problems inviting Pocket Gamer's Tracy Erickson to be a Game Center friend. Whether this is a regional issue (Tracy’s based over in the US) or an isolated anomaly we don't know.

Functionally, there’s not a lot to shout about at the moment. Arguably the two biggest games to have converted to the service so far – Fieldrunners and Flight Control – feel like they’ve had the service sprung on them at the last minute. I sincerely hope that’s the case.

Neither game seems to offer much interaction with the service. You have to quit out and go into the Game Center app itself just to see how your scores match up to that of your friends. Presumably this will be better implemented in future games that are made (or at least finished off) with Game Center firmly in mind.

The achievement system seems to have been the main focus with these two games, but the only real advantage over the other social gaming networks that I could spot is that these will go towards a single, centralised total.

We shouldn’t underestimate how important an improvement that could be, though. As Xbox Live has shown, a prominent reward “currency” can push your involvement with a game to new levels.

While I came away distinctly underwhelmed with Game Center in terms of both design and implementation, it’s clear that this is only the first step, and the fact that it’s been made at all is hugely positive.

Indeed, it’s the first time Apple has attempted a service of this kind, so we should probably cut it a little slack and wait to see how the service develops

After two fractured years of the social gaming network wars, any kind of resolution comes as a blessed relief.