Infinity Blade
Is the iDevice fantasy fighter as sharp as it's claimed to be?
Review 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, but it's not the revolution in iPad gaming publisher Epic Games is hoping you'll think it is.
Street Fighter, meet AD&D
That's not to say it's bad, or dull - quite the reverse - just that it might not be the game you're expecting.
The story you can read in a million pulp fantasy novels: evil bastard rules from his ruined castle, and you're the uppity SoB who's decided to do something about it. Standing between the two of you are a dozen or so grim opponents, all bigger than you - and your dad. Defeat them all and you have a shot at Mr Big, the God King, armed with the titular Infinity Blade, himself.
This being nominally an RPG, successful combat ups your experience, improving your chances against the beasts before you. Your prime enemy is level 50 so your chances of prevailing in the early stages of the game are very slim indeed.
You gotta Troll with it
He will hand you armour-clad arse as readily as any teen gamer on Xbox Live or PSN will, though he's rather more polite about it.
Next page: Passed from father to son
COMMENTS
Graphics and no gameplay
How can you give a game that has no gameplay 80%?
A bit shallow aren't you?
I suppose you think Paris Hilton is 80% too?
The review reads a little on the negative side
and then you gave it 80%! Most games would be proud with that.
Let's be realistic, folks...
... 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.
you missed the memo
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.
