Infinity Blade Infinity Blade certainly wowed the crowd of coders at last June's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, prompting cheers from the audience when an early version of the Unreal 3 Engine-based game was shown running on the iPad. Six months on, and the game is finally here. Yes, it's as pretty to look at as the demo suggested, …
One thing I'm a bit unclear on with this game is why they spent time making that lovely castle and surrounding scenery in Epic Citadel when the castle in this game is totally different. Based on Epic Citadel I was expecting a point and tap adventure with some exploring and NPCs, but Infinity Blade is basically just a succession of battles, with only a couple of opportunities to leave the beaten track.
On the bright side, the graphics are stunning, and are definitely the best I've ever seen on a mobile device, somewhere between an Xbox 1 and an Xbox 360 in terms of graphics I'd say. Also I believe ChAIR only had a few months to make the whole game, so they clearly tried their best to provide as much depth as possible with the time they had. I suppose my main disappointment comes from expecting to love the game as much as Shadow Complex, but given the development time I suppose that wasn't realistic.
Now I just hope Bioware spends some time making a portable Mass Effect game using the Unreal Engine, it could be amazing!
Epic Citadel was the proof of concept of the engine, with little more than a panning camera. they did not overlay a game logic on top of it. This is an entirely re-done system, getting a basic fighting engine up an running withing the unreal environment. AI logic for movement has to come later (if not P2P)
Keep in mind, this is the premiere game on this engine. non-rail versions of multiple games are coming soon, the engine has already been licensed "by multiple firms" for iOS development.
They wanted to milk it before the fuss over Citadel died down, so they rushed out a lacklustre RPG ( if you can all it that ), a linear "run'n'gun / hack'n'slash" adventure.
I believe from what I read that the cutscenes do not allow audio if your box is set to British English, but plays perfectly well in all other zones! So not only is is a bit naff, but it's not even written to work in English speaking zones properly.
Call me when Obsidian/Bethesda release a Fallout variant on the iPhone. Fallout is a proper "Westernized" RPG, by a proper company, not a tinpot, £4 beat-em-up-cum-RPG rip off!
... It's a £3.50 handheld game. Were you expecting Dragon Age mobile?
In all honestly, it's pretty entertaining. You can drop in for a quick 5-10 minute game and be entertained by the fluid combat and awesome graphics. The RPG mechanic is there to satisfy the need for levelling up and buying better gear.
Remember that this is only the first iteration of the first game to use the Unreal 3 engine- Multiplayer will add a new dimension; There's plenty of opportunity for updates. I wouldn't write it off yet.
Fair to say I'm finding it pretty engaging.
Those that play it through one bloodline, get beaten by the God King and then declare it done are rather missing the point of the game.
As complete each bloodline, levelling up your character and your items, the game responds by becoming harder. The bad guys get fancier moves, better weapons and armour and they get much faster.
There's not much wrong with the gameplay IMHO. Yes it is basically just a little series of one-on-one battles leading up to a big boss a la Streetfighter/Soulcalibur, with added RPG-alike elements for levelling equipment and stats.
But that mechanic is only really a disappointment to those folk that played the Epic Citadel tech demo (and subsequently didn't read any reviews) who decided that was what this game was going to be a multi-player open-ended MMORPG sandbox.
The combat gameplay works very well: parrying, dodging and blocking all take a bit of skill to master and timing can be critical, especially against the higher level enemies. The experience system means there is some room for being tactical with your equipment choices (i.e. fighting with the worst sword to maximise your experience).
All in all, for £3, on a phone, it's a pretty impressive achievement.
Further expansion is on the way too, they've just released an update with more weapons, new bad guy and a Santa party helm :)
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