Quick Review: Infinity Blade (iPhone)
In what is the first and quite potentially the last of its kind, I’ve decided it’d be a good idea to review the iPhone game (that still sounds weird to me) Infinity Blade. Developed by Chair Entertainment, the guys who made last year’s stellar Shadow Complex, it’s become evidently clear that the mission statement over at Chair is to take gaming venues not necessarily taken seriously and drop some hardcore gaming up in its face; while Infinity Blade may not be a wholehearted success on in this regard, it should certainly be considered an incredible step forward in the oft-maligned world of iPhone “games”.
Let’s address the elephant in the room before we get into any other details: this game looks amazing. Considering the graphical quality expected on a phone/game system is something equivalent to that of Bejeweled, Infinity Blade blows expectations out of the water, as it looks like something from this generation of home console. It uses the current generation of the Unreal Engine, and so suffers from some of the symptoms of Unreal Engine-itis, most specifically in that the colour palette all looks like different shades of brown, and the game at times suffers from some graphical and frame rate hitches. But overall, especially considering the aesthetic quality on display, the game plays at a surprisingly smooth level, though the load times can be excessive at times (at least on my 3GS they were, the iPhone 4 likely does a better job of load waits).
Like I said, it’s goddamn pretty
The game plays much like Punch Out with swords, with a little bit of point-and-click exploration thrown into the mix. You’re traversing your way up an old-fashioned dilapidated tower, finding treasures and potions and fighting a small menagerie of ill-tempered creatures. When not in combat you don’t actually control your character, but you can look around the surroundings for hidden bags of gold or treasure chests; it’s all rather simple.
The real game comes into play once you get into combat, which is simultaneously simple to understand and yet easy to quickly get your ass handed to you. The camera pans behind your character, where you can hit buttons to dodge, block, and you swipe the screen to swing your sword or parry your opponent’s attacks. Don’t expect to do any real damage by simply scratching at your screen however; much like in Punch Out the game comes from dodging and countering your opponents moves to the point of eventually stunning them, where you’re given the ability to lay into them. It doesn’t sound complicated, but the gameplay is fast and fluid, and it’s an incredibly satisfying feeling to parry a number of attacks in succession and then follow it up with a killing blow.
It’s not a fantasy game until the Black Knight shows up
The real addiction of Infinity Blade comes from its RPG mechanics, however. You level up your character, as well as your weapons and armor, of which there are dozens to choose from, and it became something of a burning desire of mine to level up and max out every weapon I could find. And when you finish the game, which isn’t actually all that time-consuming as a single run-through probably tops off at about a half-hour, you restart the game with your same level, and face off against stronger enemies. So in a way the game never really ends, as you can always face off against stronger and stronger opponents.
There’s some sort of story of “fighting the deathgods” and “avenging your father” jammed into the game but that is in no way the reason to play this game. It’s to power-level. It’s to power-level all your swords. If you’re the kind of person that can’t stop until your character is as insanely powerful as he possibly could be, then you understand the driving force behind Infinity Blade.
The game’s by no means perfect, as when you really break it down all you’re really doing is the same basic battle over and over again, without any real sort of story to drive you forward. There’s not a lot to Infinity Blade, but the things that it does accomplish it does with aplomb, and there’s a strange addictive quality to what you’re doing that you can’t really help but pick up it and play for a few minutes. Which I suppose is sort of the goal of an Iphone game. And at $6, which is expensive for iPhone games but dirt-cheap for a game in general, it’s definitely worth checking out.
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