Infinity Blade!

By now it seems that posting about Infinity Blade is almost an obligation, coming so late after its meteoric rise to fame. I’ve had tons of screenshots waiting, contemptuously, to be posted but their cause was lost since this very blog had been hacked. Now that I’m back in business, brace yourself for the obligatory homage.

And So It Begins…

First off, Infinity Blade is fuckin’ cool. If you haven’t played it, go drop $500 on an iPad and buy this game. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let me explain it’s greatness and it’s faults.

Unreal for iOS

Infinity Blade introduced the venerable Unreal Engine to the exploding mobile gaming world. The Unreal Engine is the world-class, cutting-edge 3D engine behind some of the biggest and best game titles to date. This move into mobile, along with iD’s Rage Engine, is really telling of where gaming will be branching out to. Who knows, perhaps the future will see the fall of gaming handelds (DS, PSP, etc.) and see our mobile phones as the next generation of gaming platforms.

Polish

No, not those crazy kids from Poland, but rather the incredibly high degree of polish that this game has. The graphics are beautiful enough to rival some XBox 360 games. The audio is incredibly immersive even from just the iPad speakers. The cinematography is fantastic, drawing you in and keeping you immersed, building upon the audio. It’s an incredibly beautiful game all-around.

Storyline

The first downfall, sort of, is it’s storyline. It’s basically non-existent. But honestly, it’s only a downfall compared to it’s console brethren. This is a mobile game and is meant to be played in short stints, not marathon gaming sessions. Its simplistic storyline allows you to get to the point rather than having to remember the two dozen side quests and four story arcs you’re in the middle of. Epic is monopolizing on the fact that people use their mobile devices a certain way instead of forcing you to use it outside of your comfort zone.

Gameplay

Here’s where I’m giving Epic some really big kudos. They’ve realized that this is a touch game, and the gameplay needs to utilize that. So what did they do? They make you actually use touch gestures to play the game. There is a very minimal amount of button touching involved with the game, which is fantastic. Touch devices open up the realm of interaction to a whole to level of possibilities. Mobile app and game developers need to be keen on that and really start to push the envelope.

Physical Interaction

My main complaint is that it’s very awkward to hold the actual device and still utilize all the features of the game. I’m right-handed, so I use my right hand for fighting and my left hand for actually holding my iPad. The problem is there are buttons on the left side of the screen obviously meant to be pressed by your left hand. However, my left hand is busy holding the device, and if I move my thumb to press that button I’ll drop the iPad or have to switch hands, which is awkward and time consuming and not really something I want to do in the heat of battle. I would like to see a little more thought go into interface and physical usage.