VentureBeat » Infinity Blade

Epic Games finally releases Epic Citadel on Android

Jeffrey Grubb — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:36:34 +0000

In September 2010, Gears of War developer Epic Games released a tech demo for Apple’s iOS devices called Epic Citadel. The interactive app showed the power of Epic’s Unreal graphics engine on the iPhone.

Finally, more than two years later, Epic released the Epic Citadel tech demo on Android devices today as a free download.

Epic Citadel has full 3D graphics and can benchmark your device’s performance. You can see how many frames per second your phone or tablet gets while guiding a character around the visually intensive medieval town. Epic Citadel isn’t really a game, since it doesn’t have any interactive elements.

This isn’t the first app to use Unreal Engine on Android. Several other games, like Trendy Entertainment’s Dungeon Defenders, use Epic’s development tools to build their products.

Epic Citadel preceded the release of the developer’s well-received mobile game Infinity Blade and, eventually, its sequel. The release of this tech demo could signify that the studio is preparing to release those two games on the Android platform.

Filed under: Games, Mobile

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12 of the best games for your new mobile device

Jacob Lopez — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 21:30:16 +0000

Those gifted with new mobile devices this holiday season have a world of fun awaiting their fingertips — maybe too much fun. Thousands of games have been made available over the years, especially since iOS and Android have increased in popularity, making the selection process frustrating for those navigating Google Play, the App Store, or the Amazon App Store for the first time. Well, consider this list of the best mobile games your saving grace. We’ve compiled a source for mobile gaming based on user friendliness, accessibility, and more importantly, fun factor. Whether you have an iPhone, iPad, Galaxy device, or Kindle Fire, these games are waiting for your attention. Think of this list as a beginner’s guide to gaming on your mobile device.

Plants vs. Zombies

Developer: PopCap Games
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Plants vs. Zombies still stands as one of the more addictive games I’ve played. Ever. The object of PvZ is to protect your home from a hoard of zombies that hungrily make their way across your yard. All that stands in their way are plants curiously armed for your war against the living dead.

Specifically, the plants are equipped with a variety of weapons, such as projectile peas. Other plants eat zombies while cherry bombs blow them to deader than dead bits. The more plants you create, the better your chance at survival. You must position your plants strategically, or the game will end rather quickly.

Cut the Rope

Developer: Chillingo Ltd.
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Cut the Rope is disgustingly cute. How so? A piece of candy hangs on a rope over an adorable little monster, and the player must swipe to break the candy free and drop it into the creature’s mouth. His smile is priceless. He’s a happy, goofy-looking little beast named Om Nom.

Cut the Rope’s puzzles are mostly based on physics and timing. For instance, the candy may be hanging from two or three ropes. The order in which you cut them becomes a strategic decision, and timing a cut perfectly so that the treat lands in Om Nom’s mouth can prove tricky. Some of the tougher parts incorporate elements such as hungry spiders that also want the treat, forcing the player to act quickly while still trying to carefully plan moves. More often than not, you’ll retry a level in the hope of feeding the little guy a candy so you don’t have to see his pouty face. It’s heartbreaking, and you can’t help but feel overwhelmed with guilt every time you fail.

Infinity Blade and Infinity Blade II

Developer: Chair Entertainment
Platform: Apple App Store

Infinity Blade is the first iOS game developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, and it looks beautiful. It’s truly a showcase of what can be accomplished visually on a mobile device with the right resources, and it’s not far from what current consoles are capable of.

You walk through a castle fighting monsters using simple left, right, and swipe gestures to dodge, block, or attack your enemy. These controls work well with touch screens because they don’t rely on precision finger movements. Instead, the player must focus on timing and pattern recognition to win. It’s Punch-Out!! with shields, swords, ogres, and knights.

Angry Birds series

Developer: Rovio
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

I admit that every time a new Angry Birds game hits the download market, I pretend I’m too cool to be interested. How many times can Rovio reskin the same game? Then I pick it up, and I’m hooked. Angry Birds is arguably the most popular mobile game around right now, and for good reason. It’s no wonder the developers keep releasing sequels and making Angry Birds available on every thinkable platform because even when you want to hate it, you have to admit it’s fun.

The object of the birds’ anger are evil green pigs that have stolen their eggs. The player’s job is to slingshot the birds into said pigs’ fortresses, rendering them dead and bacon. You have a limited number of birds per level, and you must find clever ways to efficiently eliminate all the pigs before advancing. The puzzles are physics-based, so players have to calculate distance and trajectory to win. You’ll often find that what was supposed to be a few minutes of playtime can become an hour or more of slaughtering hogs and cursing at the touch screen.

Draw Something

Developer: Omgpop
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Draw Something was one of the first mobile games to bring a social element to the general public thanks to its Facebook integration. In fact, the social network is very likely the reason Draw Something became so huge. It’s easy to sign up for because most of us have a Facebook account. It’s also very accessible to nongamer types since drawing is a basic skill, which eliminates the need to learn complicated control schemes or rules to enjoy the game.

One player is given a word and must do his best to represent it in a drawing by using his device’s touch screen. Then, he sends it to the other person, who must guess the word based on his (usually horrible) illustration. You can be playing against several friends at once, and it’s not unusual to have 10 or more games going at any given time. Keep in mind that it may be hours or even days before a friend gets back to you with a reply. The only downside to any of these social games is that you are forced to rely on others if you want to play. Once the initial popularity dwindles, it’s a little harder to find opponents.

Rayman Jungle Run

Developer: Ubisoft
Platform: Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Appstore

Ubisoft is one of those top-tier gaming companies that wasn’t afraid even early on to invest in development and publishing for mobile platforms. Rayman Jungle Run was picked by Apple as its best game of 2012. Luckily, Rayman is multiplatform, so Android users don’t have to sit this one out.

Rayman Jungle Run is what’s called an autorun game. The character — in this case, Rayman — continuously runs through the levels. The movement is out of your control. It’s the player’s job to jump, glide,, or attack at the right moment. This genre has grown in popularity on mobile devices because it brings elements of traditional run and jump games (often called platformers) yet keeps gameplay simple enough so that users aren’t annoyed by sloppy touch-screen controls.

Filed under: Games

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Avengers Initiative delivers thrilling bite-sized superhero combat but not much else (review)

Giancarlo Valdes — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 18:00:15 +0000

Avengers Initiative marks a new era of games based on Marvel Comics’ iconic brand of superheroes. Taking place in the same universe as the Avengers Alliance Facebook title, the episodic mobile series is a part of the company’s aggressive “push for quality.”

Heavily inspired by Chair Entertainment’s Infinity Blade, both in terms of one-on-one combat and branching exploration, the first chapter in Avengers Initiative features the Hulk, the always angry Mr. Hyde to Dr. Bruce Banner’s mild-mannered Jekyll. Unfortunately, not even the green-skinned hero is big enough to save this first chapter from mediocrity.

Just don’t tell him I said that.

WHAT YOU’LL LIKE

Strategic combat
Despite the lack of movement in battle — you can only move from side to side — the Hulk has a ton of combat options at his disposal. In particular, counterattacks are plentiful if you time your dodges or blocks accordingly. Some of these counters, and a few of your energy-sapping special moves, involve rapidly tapping the screen to power it up. Other times, you have to swipe in specific directions. The fighting mechanics do a good job of keeping you on your toes.

The same can be said when it comes to customizing your specific kind of Hulk. Stats are broken down into four categories — Health, Damage, Stamina, and Rage — where you can spend your experience points. If you want to block more, dump points into Stamina. Want to perform more special attacks? Spend it all on Rage.

Special shards made from Isotope 8, a mysterious element found in the shared universe from Initiative and Alliance, also serve to augment your stats when equipped. And costume pieces, used to customize the look of your Hulk, have specific bonuses as well. So if you micromanage enough, you can shape the Hulk to whatever play style you prefer.

Obsessive attention to detail
From the Hulk’s bulging veins to the characteristic chin wrinkles of the shape-shifting alien menace known as the Skrulls, everything in Avengers Initiative is painstakingly crafted down to the tiniest detail. The Hulk walks with the right amount of heft, and the animations in battle look smooth and natural. The cinematic finishing moves are a lot of fun to watch, as they let the Hulk do what he does best: smash his enemies.

Distinct level variety, whether its the dilapidated ruins of a town or the abandoned wreckage of a military airship, makes this chapter appear far bigger in scale than it actually is — an experience that amounts to three or four hours. If this is the kind of quality we can expect for future releases, I’m all for it.

WHAT YOU WON’T LIKE

Flat storytelling
When GamesBeat first saw Avengers Initiative in action, the developers promised that we’d see “full character arcs” for each chapter. But nothing really happens with the Hulk. You’re sent to clean up a few bad guys here and there until you reach the inevitable cliffhanger ending. Radio transmissions to and from Nick Fury, the head honcho behind the S.H.I.E.L.D. espionage agency helping the Avengers, provide some insight to what’s going on, but these don’t lead to a coherent narrative.

A sharp difficulty curve
Sometimes, the difference between life and death in Avengers Initiative is not a matter of skill. A few of the villains are simply too powerful to take on in your first run through, and they can knock you out in one or two hits. This normally wouldn’t be a problem; except that when you die and run out of continues, you must start over from the beginning of the game.

This is yet another design decision borrowed from Infinity Blade where you play the game again and again with all the stats and powers you previously earned. However, what felt like a learning experience in Chair’s release — which also had more paths and areas to explore to alleviate the repetition — feels cheap and frustrating here. I grew so impatient with one enemy that I spent $0.99 to buy 10,000 of the purple ISO-8s (the in-game currency) so I could stock up on a few more health packs for the battle. And it worked.

I usually avoid spending money on in-app purchases whenever I can, but I sure as hell did not want to grind for a few more hours against the same type of enemies just to beat this one guy.

It walks like the Hulk. It roars like the Hulk. But it doesn’t feel like the Hulk.
Despite the many ways I pummeled, kicked, or crippled my foes, I never felt like I was playing the same badass Hulk seen in comic books or films. My issue with this came down to the sound effects. Every punch the Hulk throws sounds like he’s smacking a piece of cardboard around. A complete lack of impact or momentum behind these attacks immediately breaks the immersion.

CONCLUSION

Due to a few design issues, Avengers Initiative doesn’t quite start out with the bang that developer Wideload Games probably hoped for. But with solid combat and production values, and the diverse fighting styles of the other Avengers, the future is potentially bright for this episodic series.

Score: 67/100

Avengers Initiative is now available for iOS (iPhone 4, 4S, iPad 2, the new iPad) and select Android devices. The publisher provided GamesBeat with a download code for the purpose of this review. I built my Hulk up to level 22, beating the campaign multiple times on an iPhone 4S.

Filed under: Games

Unreal Engine 3 will work on Windows RT tablets

Mike Minotti — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 21:18:24 +0000

Gamers like graphics. It’s one of the constants in our weird little universe. Just like monkeys always enjoy bananas or that rabbits always want a bowl of colorful Trix (which I heard may only be for kids), you can always count on fans of interactive entertainment to “ooo” and “ahh” at crisp, shiny polygons.

So it is with joy that we learn that developer Epic Game’s powerful Unreal Engine 3 will be compatible with Windows RT tablets, according to Neowin. Windows RT is a new operating system for Microsoft’s tablets launching October 26.

“By porting the full engine as opposed to a modified mobile version, Nvidia and Epic have made it easy for UE3 developers around the world to bring their best content to Windows RT, Windows 8 and Nvidia’s Tegra 3 processor,” said Epic Games vice president Mark Rein on Nvidia’s blog. “Windows RT code is available to licensees from Epic now and we’re excited to see the great games they develop with it.”

Unreal Engine 3 has powered some of the most popular games in recent history, notably the Infinity Blade series, which has run on iOS devices since December 2010.

You can see a demonstration of Unreal Engine 3 running on a ASUS Vivo Tab RT tablet in the video below.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Blizzard hacked, Nividia earnings rise, and more bad news for Zynga

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 17:51:07 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Konami cancels a patch for the Xbox 360 version of the Silent Hill HD collection (but totally updates it on PlayStation 3), Zynga’s chief operating officer steps down, and Amazon launches its own online studio and Facebook game.

You’ll also find a review for New Super Mario Bros. 2 and previews for Marvel: War of Heroes, FIFA 13, and PlayStation All-Star Battle Royale.

News

Second quarter earnings reports and NPD numbers

Interviews

Mobile News

Previews

Reviews

New Super Mario Bros. 2 is too obsessed with reliving the good old days (review)

Oh, Zynga….

Pieces of flair

Filed under: Games

Death Rally paves a developer’s path into brave new world of games (interview)

Dean Takahashi — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 15:00:06 +0000

Oskari “Ozz” Häkkinen, the director of franchises at Remedy Entertainment, seemed a little out of place at the Casual Connect game conference in Seattle. While everyone else had cute mobile and social games, Häkkinen was walking around with a game called Death Rally. But the game is Remedy’s foot in the door. Death Rally is leading Remedy — the famous maker of hardcore story-based games Max Payne and Alan Wake — into the brave new world of digital games.

Death Rally, a chaotic racing game with weapons and explosions, debuts on the PC today on the Steam digital distribution service. The hit game has had millions of downloads on mobile devices, and it is Remedy’s ticket into exploring the side of games with disruptive features and business models.

Remedy is still at work on its next major story-based game with a huge team, but it also has one dedicated to making digital games as well. Like other companies, Remedy is looking for a way to cross over to new markets where it can innovate and entertain larger audiences than ever. Can a hardcore game development company make it in this new world? We caught up with Häkkinen (pictured above) in Seattle. Here’s a transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: Tell us about Death Rally.

Oskari Häkkinen: We developed it with a team called Mountain Sheep, who did Minigore and some other games, like Bike Baron. We’ve taken the development in-house now, but they did all the heavy lifting for Death Rally. On Death Rally Steam, we again used Mountain Sheep. With Death Rally, we’ve had over 11 million downloads and over 150 million play sessions. From the get-go, it wasn’t designed to have in-app purchases. It was a premium game at $4.99. Then we quickly realized that our price point was perhaps a little bit high, so we dropped it down to $2.99. And then we saw that a lot of games that are competing, especially on the mobile side, are in the 99-cent space, or they’re free to play. We couldn’t possibly go free to play because we didn’t have that built into the game. We didn’t have in-app purchases. We didn’t have a way of monetizing if we were going to give the game away for free. So we went down to 99 cents.

Our philosophy on the mobile side is to keep adding retention — to get people back. We do a constant string of updates. We kept adding more cars, more guns, and more tracks. That seemed to resonate with gamers. They keep coming back, and that’s why we had so many play sessions. Then we added multiplayer.

Because we built the game as a premium game, we hadn’t built it with in-app purchases, so it was quite difficult to add those on afterwards. We did some simple stuff like car packs. Grab a car and a gun and whatnot for 99 cents extra. But that’s not really built into the game. We started thinking, “Well, can we do multiplayer with in-app purchases?” You have this story mode where you earn everything, and you unlock all these bits by grinding it. When you enter the multiplayer, everybody’s on a level playing field. You start off again with a basic Vagabond and the basic gun. You have to purchase to upgrade. When we did that, it kind of worked, but again, it’s a little bit disjointed. At that point, you’ve already played through five or six hours of story mode and earned everything. Now we’re asking you to pay for those things on the multiplayer side.

So it’s not built from the ground up as a free-to-play game. Having said that, we’re going to be doing more Death Rally. With the number there, people are getting interested in seeing some more Death Rally. We’re working on the next iteration of that right now. In addition to that, I think what Remedy really wants to do in the mobile space. Death Rally was one of our first games, back in ’95 or ’96. People don’t identify Remedy with Death Rally. It’s not story-driven. It’s not character-centric. It’s not cinematic. It’s an action game, but that’s probably the only point of comparison. So what we’ll be doing with Death Rally is trying to add more of those elements to make it more Remedy-like — such as more popular culture inspiration. The inspiration for Death Rally was obviously Mad Max, but maybe we can go further in that direction. We can make it more story-driven. We can bring more life to the cars and the drivers. We can make it a hell of a lot more cinematic. And we can certainly make it a damn good action game.

GamesBeat: And here at the conference, you’re learning all this monetization stuff to throw into it?

Häkkinen: Yeah, exactly. For the next one, I think you’ll be able to just endlessly upgrade. There should be no end to it. User-generated content, also, is going to be a very important way for us to extend it. The gamers out there can come up with ideas that we never would have thought of: the craziest cars and the craziest weapons. We want them to be able to do that, so we’re going to build that into the game. Some sort of level editor or some such. What we really want to do in the mobile space, though, is make a real Remedy game –make something that people identify with us, like Max Payne or Alan Wake, where they say, “This feels like the Remedy that I know.”

GamesBeat: Your last game was Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. I compared that design to something like Infinity Blade. There is a repetitive cycle that you go through, covering the same ground. In Infinity Blade, you keep trying to defeat that king. It’s a lot like American Nightmare, where you go through the same ground three times.

Häkkinen: That’s actually a good point. I’d never thought of it that way. I’d played Infinity Blade.

GamesBeat: You mentioned that memory limit they had on Xbox Live. That’s a reason to do an iterative design like that.

Häkkinen: Right, and the same applies to iOS.

GamesBeat: With Infinity Blade II, they didn’t care, but a lot of these developers are all serious about the 50-megabyte over-the-air download limit. If it’s bigger than that you can’t download that over the air.

Häkkinen: Yeah, you have to use the Wi-Fi.

GamesBeat: But Infinity Blade went way over that, and it still sold well. That made me think: There is some truth to the notion that you can design something really cool but also fit it into this format. That’s increasingly popular. A mobile game does not necessarily have an inferior design.

Häkkinen: Yeah. I think for the type of games that we make, you won’t see a real casual game coming from us. And we’re not going to be able to stay within that limit that can be downloaded over the air. That’s just a given for us. It’s going to be a big game. We’re doing a ton of prototyping right now to find out. What are the unique mechanics we can bring, so that people say, ‘This is a Remedy game.” You had bullet time in Max Payne; light and darkness in Alan Wake. What is that mechanic that is completely unique? It’s not where the puck is now; it’s where the puck is going. We want to be there. And, of course, we want to utilize the touch screen in a way that nobody else has.

GamesBeat: That whole question of, “What’s the function of a publisher in the digital space?” It’s interesting here because there are so many middlemen that want to get your attention and take their 30 percent of whatever you’ve got. Even Activision is moving in and partnering with Flurry and Swerve. But what are they bringing to the table?

Häkkinen: I don’t know. Everybody talks about marketing. Everybody talks about the marketing arm of a publisher.

GamesBeat: Well, I got from some of these talks that, yeah, you can go straight to the App Store, and the App Store has some publishing functions that help you self-publish. But they’re all so generic. Game Center may or may not be that helpful. So the DeNA/Ngmoco and GREE guys are stepping in and saying, “Yeah, we can do some publishing functions and be a platform that pays attention to just gamers and games.” They’re not sharing your game with everybody. They’re sharing it with gamers. There’s some value there. And DeNA/Ngmoco is at least pointing to Rage of Bahamut as an example of a big hit game. They’ve got this game that has been grossing in the top 25 for months. They’ve proven that they can push something up there and keep it there for a while — for more than two weeks.

Häkkinen: These guys definitely have something substantial to offer.

GamesBeat: But is that worth 30 percent?

Häkkinen: That I don’t know, but I think they do have something substantial there. If they can keep a game on the charts more than two weeks…that’s a very long time. That could be worth 30 percent.

GamesBeat: And then there’s Tapjoy, Chartboost, Flurry, Swerve…all of these guys offering different pieces of it. It all makes you think, “Well, if I’ve got that, then I don’t need the publisher to take care of that piece.” It’s all so confusing. Who’s going to be the best partner here?

Häkkinen: That’s it. There’s always more than one player doing exactly the same thing or something very similar. They’re playing off each other, so one brings a new feature, and the other one brings that feature in, as well. Perhaps the latecomer does it a little bit better. It’s difficult. What’s good about it, though, is they’re making their SDKs super easy to implement. You’re talking a few hours or a day to implement these SDKs, which makes it very easy to flip between them and try different things — seeing what’s working and what’s not working. It’s really hard to get a grasp for it up front as far as what the best thing is. Not to mention, what the best thing is right now might not be the best thing tomorrow. It seems that things are changing so quickly.

GamesBeat: The popularity of the Ouya shows that the console guys are leaving all this stuff on the table right now that people want. Free-to-play, high-end console games; Android on a TV…. Maybe Ouya won’t succeed, but they might force the issue with the bigger console guys. Maybe they’ll wake up Apple and help them get their television on that market.

Häkkinen: Absolutely. Or help Apple toward the next iteration of Apple TV, which is a lot more than what Apple TV is today. There are certainly lots of things left on the table. When are all these apps just going to be on your TV? You’ve got a controller, and…?

GamesBeat: Sony’s purchase of Gaikai…you see the disruption that’s possible there. They’re going to make a PlayStation 4, but now they don’t have to worry so much about backwards compatibility for all those libraries of PS3 games. They don’t have to worry about the hardware becoming obsolete. You could actually make the data center more powerful and then run better games through Gaikai — maybe make that console actually last 10 years for real. And maybe you don’t even worry about selling that many consoles because your games will be part of a PlayStation service that lays across a lot of things. You could play them on anybody’s tablet. So the potential of that, if it pans out, could be a great hybrid.

Häkkinen: Gaikai is super, super interesting to us. I’m intrigued to see whether or not Microsoft will make a move on OnLive or something similar. I think the dream for them, always, is to have a console cycle that runs a lot longer than the few years that they’re squeezing out of them. Alan Wake is on Gaikai, as well.

GamesBeat: Are you enthused about the next generation of consoles, then? Is there enough information coming for you to make it very interesting?

Häkkinen: Yes. We’re a tech company. With Max Payne, we built the engine and everything from the ground up. We did the same with Alan Wake. We’re a tech company, and we’re a story company — that means being able to combine story and tech from the get-go. The story team talks to the tech team about getting the tools they need to tell a great story, and then those mechanics are built from the ground up to create this story-driven experience, where the technology is actually supporting the story. You saw that in Max and even more so in Wake. This will be our next iteration of storytelling in video games. Working with technology definitely enthuses us. Working with story definitely enthuses us. We just recruited an even bigger writing team. Writing is is super important for a story, and we want to take it to the next level with our next iteration. Hopefully, it’ll be our best to date. I think that’s what drives us — what has us waking up for work every day and getting excited about our projects.

GamesBeat: You still have the developer bandwidth for more of these emerging platforms, then?

Häkkinen: We’ve split into two teams. We’re all under the same banner, of course, but we’re talking about two teams in-house. NBT, Next Big Thing — that’s one team. They’re growing rapidly. You need to throw more men at future generation stuff. When the technology becomes more powerful, it means that you need to do things bigger. It’ll probably be around 100 people by the end of the year. You know Remedy: We’ve always been lean, and we’ve always been small. It’s a major transition for us, to grow so big when we’ve always tried to stay very small and very tight-knit. It’s an exciting time, but I’m sure we’ll have some growing pains, as well.

GamesBeat: I’m sure you’ve seen the Unreal Engine 4 demo. They had a pretty good story to tell there about making artists a lot more productive. I wonder if that’s going to be helpful.

Häkkinen: Well, we’ve always made our artists and level designers productive by putting the tools into the tech. If you look back at Wake, we spent a ton of time creating these biotypes, and the biotypes would mesh together. If you had asphalt and then you had grass, the grass would merge with the asphalt automatically, and you’d have small pieces of grass growing out of the asphalt. It would understand how these two things fit together. It took us time up front to create those, but then when those were created, we were able to create these huge environments extremely quickly. We’ve been doing that a long time. Because we want to stay lean, we spend so much time on the tools up front, and we’re using a lot of the things that we’ve learned and done and invested in from Wake for this next project. Once you’ve done that, it’s so much quicker in the end. But the investment of time at the start is a little bit higher. So the two teams, as I was saying…. NBT is growing, and then we have a digital team. The digital team looks after iOS, Android, and so on. Death Rally’s coming out for Steam on August 3. We don’t ever do anything half-assed, so we’ve completely revamped the game. All the art assets are new. It’s going to be a $9.99 price point, and there’s no in-app purchases or anything. You just get everything at once. I hope people are going to have a blast with it. The UI looks really slick. It’s amazing what the guys have done with it. It supports keyboard and mouse and a controller. So that’s coming out soon. As I said, we’re working with iOS and Android, and of course Steam is really important for us on the digital team. We’re a small team, but we’re growing. We’re getting great game devs in: coders and artists.

GamesBeat: A 100-plus employees is a giant team for you guys. You made Alan Wake with 40.

Häkkinen: Yeah, absolutely. We’re working with partners, as well. We didn’t develop Death Rally in-house, as I said. For the Alan Wake ports to PC, we wanted to do it right. We had a 25-man team called Nitro to help us with that. Same with Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. Finland’s a really great place to be right now because it feels like the bay area in a way: startup central. A lot of people are falling out of Nokia here, which is a sad story, but at the same time…everything is buzzing. You’ve got these people from Nokia — super-smart people — and they’re saying, “Hey, listen. We’ll put up this company called Jolla that’s going to work with the MeeGo.” I don’t know if you heard about that? They’re a 50-man team, and they’re taking MeeGo, if you remember that. They want to do the Ferrari or the Lamborghini of smartphones. Their philosophy is that Ferrari doesn’t sell more than 100,000 cars a year, but they’re doing really well. Perhaps they can sell only 100,000 phones a year and do really well, if they stay small and lean enough. 100,000 can mean a lot. It doesn’t have to be a 30-million-unit play. I think it’s a Finnish kind of mentality. But as I said, things are falling away from Nokia, and because of that, there’s a lot of great teams to work with.

[Photo credit: Dean Takahashi]

Filed under: Business, Games

Infinity Blade II gets third major expansion, fixes infinite gold exploit

Sebastian Haley — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 23:55:03 +0000

Developer Chair Entertainment’s iOS adventure Infinity Blade II has been crowned the most profitable title publisher Epic Games has ever produced (with some caveats). Since the sequel’s release last December, Infinity Blade II has received two major expansions featuring new items, enemies, and locations. This week, it receives its third and presumably final free expansion: Skycages.

“The most action-packed Infinity Blade II expansion to date,” claims a press release from the developer, “Skycages invites players to delve more deeply into the story of the Deathless, as new areas are unlocked and relics from the past come to light. While battling all-new enemies such as the Headsman, Petrified Noc, Xyloto, Ryth, and others, players can now harness the power of the sun with the Solar Transport Energy Blades, a completely new weapon type to be mastered.”

The new weapon type in question is essentially a Star Wars lightsaber (pictured above), available in normal, dual, and heavy flavors. Each Solar Transport weapon costs $1,000,000 gold (equivalent to 25-50 real-world dollars depending on which in-app purchase you’re looking at) and may seem overpriced at first, especially given the hefty price tag, but any socketed elemental attack gem will have its power magnified 10-fold.

Other new items include a chainsaw and a set of scuba equipment from Chair Entertainment’s first Xbox Live Arcade title, Undertow. While not overly expensive if purchased outright, I was able to get the entire Undertow collection consecutively by using the special prize wheel items.

The 1GB+ update also seems to have patched the infinite gold trick where players could exploit a specific cutscene to sell an endless supply of free Infinity Blade weapons. Now the weapon can no longer be sold during that sequence.

For those looking to get the most of their time with Infinity Blade II, the makers of the game recently shared a few tips and tricks for the ClashMob mode:

On treasure challenges, try to pick up tightly grouped bags as quickly as possible and leave the others alone. New gold bags will spawn a few seconds after you stop picking up bags. Picking up that one extra bag resets the timer and could cost you even more bags!
With parry challenges it is best to use dual or light weapons as they have a better reaction time. Don’t waste time attacking the enemy during a break, hit him once, wait for him to recover, then start parrying again (same with dodge challenges).
During “kill the titan” challenges, learn to sneak a ‘scratch’ attack in after every parry to increase the overall amount of damage, while still being able to obtain a parry break. Also, always go with a heavy weapon so you can deal as much damage as possible.
Due to the time limit on some ClashMobs, try to get as many parry breaks as possible to get stab points that will do extra damage, and then continue on when they get dizzy with slashes and combos.
When doing any Parry challenge and the enemy becomes dizzy, attack him to bring him out of the dizzy state faster so you can get more parries. If you wait without attacking, more time will come off the timer and you’ll lose potential parries.
Be sure to have one of each class of weapon in your inventory (sword and shield, two hand, and heavy) to be ready for any type of challenge.
Use Dual weapons for the Stab challenge. Damage doesn’t matter and you will be able to get 40+ stabs with dual weapons rather than 18 stabs with light sword.
Don’t worry about your health, exhausted dodges, or broken blocks. Achieve the objective at all costs, since the costs go away once you’re back in SP.
Dodge/block/parry/stab/survival challenges are more friendly to low-level players than boss-killing challenges.
Set reminders for future ClashMobs and the game will send a push notify when the event is about to start. If you didn’t allow Infinity Blade II to access push notifies, you can go into the iOS settings to enable them.

So why is this likely to be the last major update for Infinity Blade II? While the game is undoubtedly a well-reviewed cash cow, Chair is already setting its sights on the upcoming Infinity Blade: Dungeons, a prequel to the original game. And for those of us who have seen the true ending of Infinity Blade II, I’m sure we’re more than ready to get our hands on Infinity Blade III….

To celebrate the release of Skycages, Infinity Blade II is available at the discounted price of $2.99 on the iTunes App Store for a limited time.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Dawnguard, Zynga Unleashed, and Sega’s ongoing decline

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 19:37:09 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Sega shut down several studios world-wide, Zynga held a press event in San Francisco revealing tons of new Facebook social games, and developer Radical Entertainment shuts its doors.

You’ll also find a review for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim expansion Dawnguard and Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes.

GamesBeat:

The DeanBeat: Zynga battles to dominate the red ocean, not the blue

The Last of Us’ “Truck Ambush” trailer: now with 100% more Sackboy (video)

Console game studio Radical Entertainment shuts its doors

Sega closes multiple offices worldwide and focuses on digital

Nintendo hires a networking chief to shore up a weak spot

Dawnguard finally brings a sense of urgency to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (review)

How we voted in the Game Critics Awards

Infinity Blade is more profitable than Gears of War

Valve releases the magically fiery ‘Meet the Pyro’ video

Halo 4′s free Spartan Ops content detailed: 50 missions spanning 12 hours

Past sales point to a ‘win’ for Nintendo with the 3DS XL

New Smart TV device allows game-streaming via OnLive

Sulake un-mutes Habbo Hotel in select countries for first time since sex scandal

CCP’s David Reid says Dust 514 heralds a new free-to-play era on consoles (interview)

Dragon Eternity lets iOS gamers play with Android users

4 games that should be in Kirby’s 20th Anniversary Collection

GamesBeat casts the Need for Speed movie

Lego Batman 2 tries to redefine the franchise but stumbles (review)

VentureBeat:

Delaware’s approval of online gambling will make social game companies perk up

Gaikai streams Bulletstorm console game in the Chrome browser

Meet the judges for our GamesBeat 2012 ‘Who’s Got Game’ game-startup competition

Lara Croft will invade your Chrome web browser this fall

Hello, Hero Academy: $2M deal helps mobile-platform Yodo1 bring Western games to China

New institute gets $10M to gamify education for kids

The new console war pits Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony in an Apple arena

Pocket Gems launches All Talk voice-based mobile game

Pamela Anderson takes on Zynga with BamPoker game

YoYo Games launches a series of Chrome games with the flip of a switch (exclusive)

Zynga’s big Unleashed event strikes out with investors

Earn real recipes while playing Zygna’s new game, ChefVille

Zynga confirms that FarmVille 2 is in the works

Zynga With Friends to feature live synchronous multiplayer

By the numbers: Zynga’s total words, drawings, users, and more

Take-Two aims big in China with free-to-play NBA online game with Tencent

Google transforms its homepage into a Turing machine minigame

Filed under: Games

Zynga Partners for Mobile showcases an eclectic mix of gameplay experiences

Giancarlo Valdes — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 20:03:01 +0000

Perhaps one of the more compelling announcements to come from yesterday’s Zynga Unleashed event was the unveiling of Zynga Partners for Mobile, a partner program for mobile-game developers. A number of companies, including Atari, have already committed to work with the social gaming giant. Partner games will take advantage of Zynga’s large pool of active players as well as the features offered in the upcoming Zynga With Friends network.

A short video on stage showed off four developers and their games, providing the press with quick glimpses of the wide variety of gameplay experiences that the partnerships promise to deliver. Here’s a breakdown of what we saw:

Horn (Phosphor Games Studios)

Horn is an action-adventure game that looks like it belongs on a console. Sweeping vistas and lush vegetation populate its fantasy world, where a young boy has taken it upon himself to lift an ancient curse that has plagued the land. Like another well-known fantasy game on mobile devices — Chair Entertainment’s Infinity Blade series — Horn is being developed using Epic Game’s Unreal Engine; unlike the linear journey in Infinity Blade, however, Horn will offer players complete control of their character, with much more freedom and movement, including secret areas that can be explored off of the main path. And in combat, players are free to move around their enemy while they block, dodge, and attack.

From the demo being shown, it was clear that simple gestures like tapping on the screen was all you needed to do to move from one area in the level to the next. Another tap brought up a crossbow, which can then be aimed either at enemies or at certain anchor points to place a grappling hook. And as if to emphasize its console-like visuals, the demo ended with a towering stone golem (reminiscent of the epic boss fights found in Sony Santa Monica’s God of War titles) looming above you.

Horn is scheduled to release later this year.

Twist Pilot (Crash Lab)

The U.K. developer wasn’t available to show off its product in person, but from what we could tell from watching the video, Twist Pilot is a quirky puzzle game where you use your finger to drag your character through a predetermined environment. Not much else is known, but Twist Pilot is currently on track to be released sometime this year.

Clay Jam (Fat Pebble)

Another U.K.-based developer, Fat Pebble, is responsible for Clay Jam, a self-described “monster action game.” As the name implies, Clay Jam revolves around modeling clay, which gives it a distinct and almost tactile presentation. Players guide a rolling pebble down a hill, and the more creatures you squash, the bigger and faster your pebble becomes.

Unfortunately, Fat Pebble was also unable to attend the event.

Rubber Tacos (Sava Transmedia)

Rubber Tacos is a physics-based game (similar to Angry Birds) that tasks the player with helping a colorful family of luchadores as they chase after a rogue piñata, collecting red peppers along the way. Gameplay consists of pulling back a bouncy platform at just the right angle and momentum to launch your luchador (five in all, each with its own special powers) onto the platform on the other side. Of course, this isn’t as easy as it sounds: In between them are challenging obstacles that will force you to rethink how to tackle each level, such as cannons, open flames, squids (which must be scrubbed out), portals, and more that have yet to be revealed.

Rubber Tacos also has an ambitious social strategy when it comes to playing with other people: Not only can you issue direct challenges to friends for claiming the top score on a specific level, but you can also create your own using the same set of tools that Sava Transmedia used with a simple drag-and-drop level editor. Taking inspiration from Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet franchise, these levels can then be shared with your friends for continuous play.

The free-to-play Rubber Tacos is set to release later this summer on Facebook, Zynga.com, and mobile devices.

Filed under: Games

Infinity Blade is more profitable than Gears of War

Mike Minotti — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 19:34:43 +0000

The gaming industry has frequently been dominated by expensive triple-A titles, but the continuing popularity of social and mobile gaming may change that. If you need proof, look no further than Epic Games, a developer famous for making popular shooters such as Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. These games are best-sellers, but the company’s most profitable game is an iOS title: Infinity Blade.

“The most profitable game we’ve ever made, in terms of man years invested versus revenue, is actually Infinity Blade,” said Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in an interview with Gamasutra. “It’s more profitable than Gears of War. Nowadays, the high-end of the game business is in these console game. Activision invests almost $100 million per year in Call of Duty.”

Sweeney said that Epic was “very very surprised to see how fast smartphone and tablet devices are improving.” He also noted that Apple’s newest tablet, the iPad 3, is almost equal to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in terms of technical performance.

Originally conceived as a title for Microsoft’s motion-sensing Kinect device, Infinity Blade and its sequel have earned more than $30 million.

Filed under: Business, Games

The DeanBeat: How developers can avoid a bloodbath in fighting for new users

Dean Takahashi — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:00:44 +0000

In the past month, what app makers have to spend to get the attention of Apple device users has risen out of control. That’s a tough fact of life that could make survival hard in the Darwinian mobile app ecosystem. Solving this problem is going to require a lot of innovation and clear thinking. And if it isn’t solved, we’re going to see a number of mobile app companies start to die. If Apple and others in the ecosystem don’t handle it right, it could be a bloodbath for developers.

We talked a lot about the consequences of the rising cost of user acquisition at our VentureBeat Mobile Summit 2012 this week at Cavallo Point in Sausalito. Our three session chairs: Gabriel Leydon, chief executive of Machine Zone; Maria Alegre, CEO of Chartboost; and Chris Akhavan (pictured top right), vice president and general manager of strategic partnerships at Tapjoy, drove the discussion about solutions and strategies to deal with the rising costs.

This problem applies to free-to-play games, where companies have to spend money on marketing and advertising to get new users. If they spend more on acquiring users than the lifetime value of those users in terms of future revenues, then the companies will start losing money. The costs have been steadily rising, but the entry of Gree, which pledged to spend $50 million on mobile marketing in the U.S., has pushed those costs over the top. Costs will only get worse this year as companies such as Zynga, Electronic Arts, Gameloft, DeNA, Perfect World, and Tencent battle for mobile market share.

A year ago, the costs were under control because developers like Tapjoy were using low-cost incentivized installs, which rewarded users with virtual goodies for downloading other apps. But Apple shut that down because it led to manipulation of the top 25 charts. Add to that Apple’s crackdown in February on bot-driven third-party marketing services (because they also led to chart manipulation), and costs have trended upward.

Some of the tips are kind of random, and they come from people who have had deep experience in this young market. For instance, it pays to release your app on a Thursday since Apple features apps that appear on that day. Getting featured on Apple’s store is perhaps the best way to get discovered without having to pay anybody a lot of money.

First and foremost, the best way to control your user acquisition costs is to have a great app. Great apps spread naturally via word of mouth, and they are more engaging and easier to monetize, Leydon said. A developer such as Epic Games’ Chair Entertainment has set itself apart by creating the Infinity Blade series of games with outstanding 3D graphics. Chair could keep going down that road since mobile devices such as the new iPad are getting better and better. The foundation for high-quality 3D games is in place, with fast processors, great displays, and tools such as Unity 3D. But better graphics is also a dangerous road that led the console game makers to create teams of 100 people or more working for two years at a time.

With a great game, it isn’t so hard to improve your lifetime value and generate organic downloads. If your lifetime value is high, you don’t care as much about your cost-per-install (CPI) or the cost of each new user.

“CPI is a relative number and should be measured in relation to the LTV of your product,” said Adam Flanders, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Glu Mobile. “If CPI is getting too expensive, the focus needs to move to engagement, retention, and monetization of your product to drive LTV up above CPI costs.”

It is possible, and quite scary, that even great apps could get lost in the App Store, which has a total of 598,154 active apps. Sometimes, great apps need a boost to get noticed. And it helps to have a game that is designed for monetization.

Usually, game designers focus only on making a high-quality app. But it can help to have a user acquisition expert involved in the design of a mobile game. That expert can help design the funnel of activities that lead directly from trying out the game to paying real money for digital bits, or virtual goods, that don’t exist in the real world. And so that expert isn’t flying blind, your app has to be instrumented with analytics, said Greg Canessa, vice president of mobile at Activision Blizzard.

The solutions include moving your apps to Android, where the cost of user acquisition has actually been dropping. Tapjoy took its incentivized installs to Android as well. And while Android’s user count has been on a tear, monetization has been weaker than on iOS. So while Android represents a great release valve on costs, it isn’t a panacea.

Another way developers can bring down costs and bring up installs is through services like FreeAppADay or Iddiction’s App-o-Day. FreeAppADay gets millions of users coming to its site to download an app that has been made free for a day. Iddiction’s Andrej Nabergoj, (pictured middle), argues that a curated list of the best apps will be very appealing to a lot of users. Chartboost, meanwhile, lets developers set up their own networks where they cross-promote games of other developers in a kind of barter system. Alegre said this kind of network can disrupt the ad networks that charge money for this kind of service. FreeMyApps is another app discovery service with its own digital rewards system.

Akhavan said that more intelligent targeting is also essential. But it could get harder now that Apple is doing away with user identities known as UDIDs. That makes it harder to know who your user is and thus to target that user with relevant advertising. There are other ways to target users. Groups are forming to create new identification systems. And apps could access a user’s address book, but they walk a delicate line on privacy when they do so. With the UDID in flux, the state of targeting ads is in flux.

One strategy app makers could use is to publish games for other developers or promote the games of other developers within their own apps. That turns the problem around and helps developers take advantage of high CPIs. Another strategy is to try everything, using multiple promotional networks and going to the trouble of analyzing the return on investment for each one of them. If someone creates an analytics dashboard for managing that activity across networks, it would be quite useful to developers.

Of course, Apple could do a few things to ease the problem, too. It could get rid of its top downloads chart and switch to an engagement chart that ranks apps by the number of daily active users. Those are the apps that have users coming back over and over. Of course, you might see something like Draw Something or Facebook dominate that list. Improving how it surfaces and promotes new content through something better than Genius or Game Center is a must. Apple bought app search firm Chomp, and most observers are expecting that to result in improved, low-cost ways to surface good apps.

In the absence of action from Apple, the middle-layer companies could make a difference. Gree and DeNA have built mobile social networks in Japan that have created a lot of virality and improved engagement among users. They’re launching networks in the U.S. that are attempting to do the same thing, although it may be a while before they really work.

Facebook Mobile, which now has hundreds of millions of users, has come on strong on the social front, enabling users to discover new mobile apps based on the activities of their friends. A lot of that may be through what some users consider to be spam. Just a month ago, Leydon wouldn’t have considered putting Facebook Connect into his games. But Draw Something grew to more than 50 million downloads in less than two months, thanks in no small part to the virality of Facebook Mobile. Twitter is also going to make a lot of impact in mobile promotions this year.

The rising cost of user acquisition is a tough problem. It takes the whole ecosystem to solve it. But even at this point in the growth of the App Store, Leydon says there has never been a better time to make mobile games and apps.

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

Filed under: Business, Dev, Games, Mobile, Social

Epic’s Infinity Blade series has sold more than $30M on iOS

Dean Takahashi — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:57:05 +0000

Epic Games said today that its Infinity Blade series of iOS games has sold more than $30 million to date. That suggests that console-quality games with outstanding 3D graphics have great potential on smartphones and tablets.

The sales include both the original Infinity Blade, launched in December 2010, and Infinity Blade II, released just a month ago for iOS. The game was developed by Epic’s Chair Entertainment division as a marquee title for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch platform.

Epic said the sequel is selling faster than the original. The first title took three months to hit $5 million in sales at a $5.99 download price (later discounted to $2.99). The second title hit $5 million in a month at a $6.99 price. That’s far short of major console game releases, but the numbers show that games released as exclusives for the iOS platform have become a big business.

Epic is also branching out with franchise extensions, including a digital novella, Infinity Blade: Awakening, from bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, Infinity Blade: Original Soundtrack, and Infinity Blade FX, a coin-operated version of the game in arcades.

“The success of the Infinity Blade franchise is testament to our talented team who is devoted to making games we want to play, all while using Unreal Engine technology to redefine what is expected from games on iOS devices,” said Michael Capps, Epic Games president. “We have so much more in store for players, and will continue to make great content for Apple’s evolving platforms.”

Filed under: Games

Infinity Blade II review: more is actually more

Rob LeFebvre — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:00:06 +0000

Infinity Blade II is debuting today, and the mobile game reminds us of the attractions of iterative game development. The risk is low, the potential for gain is high. While an innovative game can change the course of development in its own right and become the fastest selling game in iOS history, a well done sequel can polish what the first game got right to a high gleam, and add just the right amount of extras and enrichment to become something even sweeter. We’ve seen it with a series like Games of War, another Epic Games property, and now we can see it again with Infinity Blade II, my pick for the most console-like experience on the iOS platform to date.

Infinity Blade II (Epic Games & Chair Entertainment) is out for the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S [update: Chair informs me the game is also compatible with the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, iPod
Touch 3 (16GB+) and iPod Touch 4].

There’s something primal about the way combat happens in this game. It would seem as though, on paper at least, that swiping and tapping on a glass screen wouldn’t feel so damn, well, tactile. Infinity Blade, the first game, gave us all a sense of place and a sense of impact with stabbing, blocking, dodging and slashing our way through the same path of evil warrior beasts and humanoids again and again, only to die at the hands of the God King at the end of each hard-fought road. Death became us, though, as we were reborn after each successive death at the hands of our arch-nemesis, and we again picked up the heavy mantle of hero, trudging ever onward to our doom.

Infinity Blade II is a game of polish, solidity and ever-present light effects. The combat system is deeper, allows for more varied gameplay styles, and just feels dangerous. Weapons can again be upgraded with in-game earned money, but also not contain slots for enhancing gems of different shape and effect. New weapons can be purchased with the same in-game currency, which is also able to be purchased as an in-app micro transaction by the impatient or excessively rich.

Game play will seem suddenly familiar to players of the first game – move from place to place in the stunningly beautiful world with a tap on a pulsating circle, tap on the guardians in the way, and then fight. Fighting involves breaking the enemy’s attack with a series of blocks, parries, or dodges, then slashing across the screen as fast as possible to do as much damage. There are special attacks only available after a timed charging period is active, like the super strike button to the upper left of the screen, and magical attacks that are unleashed with a tap on the upper right onscreen button and drawing a rune-like figure center screen. It’s all great fun, most likely due to the intensity with which players must decide whether to block, parry, or dodge and in which direction. The sound effects and camera shake fully embrace the combat; more than once I found myself on the edge of my seat, slashing and parrying my way to victory. It’s all very palpable and intense.

In contrast to the first game, there are now three types of weapons: heavy, light, and dual wielded. The light weapon is similar to the swords of the first game; equipped with a shield, the protagonist warrior is a dead ringer for the hero of the first game, all shiny armor and fluid motion. The dual weapons are smaller, faster, and one is held in each hand. Parrying becomes easier, perhaps, but there is no shield to block with – a trade-off to be sure, even with a ducking motion now allowed. Dual weapons allow for faster combos, adding in tapping to the standard swiping or slashing motions of the single-handed sword/shield combo, and a special damage bonus comes in after a three hit combo is performed. The heavy weapons include axes and bizarre two-handed affairs, slower but doing incredible damage per connection with an enemy. Attacking in the same direction twice in a row allows a special attack, triggered by a slash in the same direction as an onscreen prompt, to do extra damage. Heavy weapons preclude dodging, so the directional buttons are used to block in those directions.

Visually, Infinity Blade II again sets the bar high for any iOS game, faster processor or not, wishing to compete. The world is brilliant, the lighting is much more realistically alive, the textures of characters and environments are richer, more detailed. Dust motes shine in the cathedrals, birds of prey fly off in the distance, cherry blossoms fall delicately to the ground. Big giant monster-things beat the ever-living crap out of the hero when a dodge is missed, or a block broken. The soundtrack, while suitably epic, is also at times creepy, even creating a subtle anticipatory soundscape, most notable after each new “rebirth” as the hero warrior stands on the brink of returning to the tower to free the Maker.

The story is new, here, too. We’re given tantalizing hints from early on that all was not what it seemed in the first game. The first scene includes a partner, a similarly armored woman with a crossbow and as many questions as answers. She plays a pivotal role in the final bit of the introductory scene, moving us forward to our first revelation. The storytelling is much more confident here, and – perhaps more interesting – much less melodramatic than I expected.

The menu screen has some interesting surprises – one tab touts a feature called ClashMobs – a massively social online challenge system – while another tab us that there will be new titans, new bosses, new areas, and – thank goodness – new weapons, shields, armor, magic rings and gems to collect. All these updates are promised to come free to game purchasers. If the first game is anything to go by, the chances are good that these are not idle boasts. The original Infinity blade had four content expansions during it’s little over a year lifespan. In addition, there are tabs to directly purchase the first game and a novel based on the infinity Blade universe, by author Brandon Sanderson, on the iBookstore. Now that’s cross media!

Overall, Infinity Blade II is a worthy successor to the already well-received original game. The game play, while similar in feel, is expanded enough to provide players of the original – as well as newcomers – a satisfyingly rich experience. It’s a fine day indeed when we carry around in our pocket or messenger bag such a compelling and graphically amazing video game, one that only a few short years ago would have been only seen on highly powered gaming consoles. Yes, Infinity Blade II is more of the same, but the first game was fantastic; this one is even that much more so. While owners of “older” Apple devices are out of luck, I highly recommend this game to owners of an iPad 2 or iPhone 4S; this is the benchmark, state-of-the-industry level game that everyone should have a chance to play. Our review score is 90 out of 100.

Filed under: Business, Games, Mobile

Interview with Epic Games bosses on Infinity Blade 2 (video)

Dean Takahashi — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 21:33:48 +0000

Epic Games today showed a demo of Infinity Blade 2, the latest game for the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2. The company was one of the few to take the stage at Apple’s press event introducing the new iPhone 4S.

Epic’s subsidiary, Chair Entertainment, stirred a lot of excitement for iOS gaming last year when it launched Infinity Blade, a sword-fighting adventure game. Now the sequel, Infinity Blade 2, will take advantage of the seven-fold improvement in graphics rendering of the A5 chip, which is inside both the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2. Mike Capps, president of Epic Games, and Donald Mustard, creative director at Chair Entertainment, demonstrated the game live on stage, showing off a stunning sword fight between a puny swordsman and a giant titan (pictured). The 3D graphics show that mobile game technology is getting closer and closer to console quality.

“I put those graphics up against Xbox One games for sure,” said Capps. “It’s getting real close to current generation consoles, no doubt.”

The game will support iOS 5 features such as iCloud, which will allow you to transfer profiles and saved games across devices. Mustard said the game is uniquely focused on touchscreen controls, where you can swipe across the screen to simulate a sword thrust. Epic will also work to see if it can make the game compatible with earlier iPhone and iPad models.

Mustard said the new game will have customization features so you can put your own mark on hundreds of different weapons. You will also be able to work in “clash mobs” where you can work together with other gamers in joint battles. If you participate in the “massively social” clash mobs, you can unlock rare weapons and exclusive features.

The game will be available in the App Store on Dec. 1. Chair also announced today Infinity Blade: Awakening, a novella written by fantasy author Brandon Sanderson. That novella is selling for $2.99 in the iBookstore as of today. You can see the trailer for the Infinity Blade 2 game here.

For more on Epic and Infinity Blade, check out our video interview with Capps and Mustard below.

Filed under: Business, Games, Video

iPhone 4S gets a sequel of Epic Games’ Infinity Blade, but doesn’t do much else for gaming

Matthew Lynley — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:03:48 +0000

Gears of War developer Epic Games today unveiled the second version of its hardcore mobile hack-and-slash game, Infinity Blade — designed specifically for Apple’s next iPhone (also unveiled today) and once again featuring suped-up graphics.

The original Infinity Blade broke through a lot of the boundaries for graphics on a smartphone. It was one of the first games to show that the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 could compete as gaming platforms with devices built specifically for gaming. Infinity Blade on the iPhone 4 actually looks a touch better than the graphics available on the PlayStation Portable, Sony’s handheld video game console, and much better than those on the Nintendo DS.

Infinity Blade 2 looks like it will once again push the phone’s boundaries. It includes new gameplay features, like being able to customize weapons and armor. But it also features a revamped graphic engine with dynamic lighting, which is extremely graphic intensive. Apple’s iPhone 4S should be able to handle it thanks to its A5 processor, which is about 7 times more powerful than the A4 in the iPhone 4 when it comes to graphics.

But that’s about it. Aside from the incremental upgrades to the processor, the iPhone 4S doesn’t really push the envelope in gaming like the original iPhone did when it introduced touch and motion controls. Even the iPhone 4 still pushed mobile gaming forward with its super high-resolution Retina display, which made colorful games much more vivid and artistic games more popular. The iPhone 4S runs the risk of going along with other pieces of hardware that assume graphics are what makes or breaks a game.

“Agreed, I don’t see a material change here,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter told VentureBeat.

Creating a device that can handle more graphically intensive games isn’t always the most successful strategy. For example, the Wii is not a graphics powerhouse, but it is still the most popular console of the current generation. That’s because it opened up gaming to a brand new audience.

Infinity Blade 2 puts players in control of a man on a mission to destroy the “God-King,” a hyper-powerful knight who kicks your ass the first time you play. You control the game by swiping your finger to swing your sword and tapping the screen to dodge attacks and bring up your shield. Over time, you become more powerful and get access to better equipment — like new spells, swords and shields.

Infinity Blade was a commercial success for Epic Games and brought in more than $10 million in revenue. That’s pretty impressive given that the game costs $6 on the Apple App Store. Epic Games is known for games that push the limits of graphics on devices like its over-the-shoulder shooting game series Gears of War.

Infinity Blade 2 comes out December 1 this year.

Filed under: Games

Hardcore iPhone game Infinity Blade lands on DeNA’s social gaming network

Matthew Lynley — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:09:12 +0000

Japanese mobile games portal DeNA announced today it’s bringing the popular iPhone game Infinity Blade, one of the first mobile games geared toward hardcore gamers, to its mobile social network.

The game will be marketed as Infinity Blade X for Mobage. It will be free to play and supported by selling virtual goods in the game. Players can spend real-world dollars to buy better weapons, armor and spells that will help them progress through the game more quickly.

Infinity Blade broke through a lot of the boundaries for graphics on a smartphone. It was one of the first games to show that the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 could compete as gaming platform with devices that build specifically for gaming. Infinity Blade on the iPhone 4 actually looks a touch better than the graphics available on the PlayStation Portable, Sony’s handheld video game console, and much better than those on the Nintendo DS.

The game puts players in control of a man on a mission to destroy the “God-King,” a hyper-powerful knight that kicks your ass the first time you play the game. The player controls the game by swiping their finger to swing their sword and tapping the screen to dodge attacks and bring up their shield. Over time the player becomes more powerful and gets access to better equipment — like new spells, swords and shields.

Infinity Blade was a commercial success for Epic Games, the company behind the game, and brought in more than $10 million in revenue. That’s pretty impressive given that the game costs $6 on the Apple App Store. Epic Games is known for games that push the limits of graphics on devices like its over-the-shoulder shooting game series Gears of War.

Mobage has around 28 million users and carries more than 1,000 games for smartphones, tablets and feature phones. By contrast, Zynga is the king of Facebook games and has barely started operations in the fast-growing mobile social game market in Japan. In a direct challenge to DeNA, Zynga launched a joint venture in Japan with SoftBank last year to build games for the Japanese market. DeNA has been growing at a blistering pace and could be on track to unseat Zynga as the top developer of social games for mobile devices.

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Filed under: Games

The iPad 2 will be great for playing games (video)

Dean Takahashi — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:44:33 +0000

Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games, has seen lots of game machines. But he says that the iPad 2, unveiled by Apple today, is really a cool portable game console.

That’s a good thing for Apple, since playing games is the top activity on the iPad and the new version will help Apple further invade the turf of game hardware makers such as Nintendo. That, in turn, will generate a lot more revenues for Apple and game creators such as Epic, the maker of high-end graphics technology and games such as Gears of War 3 and Bulletstorm. On the iPad, Epic Games created the runaway hit Infinity Blade, which has beautiful 3D graphics.

Apple has nearly 60,000 games on the iPhone, and many of the 65,000 apps on the iPad are games. With nine-times better graphics, Rein says game makers will be able to create scenes with faster action, more detail, and better shadows and lighting.

Rein said the nine-times better graphics in the A5 chip — the dual core processor that serves as the brains of the iPad 2 — will be great for games. The screen resolution is the same as the original iPad, but the device now has an HDMI output port, which lets you play iPad 2 content on a bigger screen at 1080p resolution. With a dual core chip, game makers can also make improvements such as better sound.

Check out Rein’s reaction to the iPad 2 in this video.

Filed under: Business, Games, Mobile

Epic Games bets 3D graphics will take mobile devices by storm (video)

Dean Takahashi — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 05:02:45 +0000

Epic Games is known for titles like Gears of War on the PC and on consoles. But the company is also working hard to make its Unreal Engine run on mobile devices such as the iPad. Epic’s Infinity Blade game (pictured) took the App Store by storm when it launched in December, taking the No. 1 spots for both top iPad and iPhone games.

The company’s Unreal Engine enables 3D games to run on smartphones and tablet computers. One reason serious gamers have been hooked to their high-end PCs and consoles is that those systems can really show off 3D graphics. So by getting its 3D software to run on mobile devices, Epic could bring hardcore gamers to portable devices — and those types of gamers are currently an under-served market on smartphones.

Getting 3D graphics to work right on a smartphone is one of the biggest technical challenges there is. Good 3D usually requires a powerful 3D graphics chip, which typically consumes a lot of power. But the best tablets and smartphones feature low-power 3D. If a high-end Epic Game can run on a tablet, that’s a big statement and a money generator.

Mike Capps, president of Epic Games, said in an interview that Epic is working to bring Epic’s technology to more platforms such as the Android operating system. Some of the game platforms may not be capable of running the best 3D games, but a number of the Nvidia Tegra 2-powered tablets will likely have great 3D quality.

Will Infinity Blade run on Android tablets? Capps isn’t saying yet. He does say his company has a close relationship with Apple, which supported Epic closely on the iPhone launch of Infinity Blade. He also said that Sony’s NGP, a portable game player launching this fall, has outstanding 3D graphics capability.

We interviewed Capps on the red carpet at the Interactive Achievement Awards to night at the Dice Summit.

Filed under: Business, Games, Mobile

Epic releases groundbreaking 3D game Infinity Blade on App Store

Dean Takahashi — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:01:55 +0000

A long-awaited 3D game hit Apple’s App Store today.

Epic Games launched its Infinity Blade fantasy combat game on the iPhone and iPad today. The title is a groundbreaking visual feast that shows it’s possible to make high-end games with rich 3D graphics on the Apple platforms. With titles like this one, dedicated game devices such as the PlayStation Portable and the Nintendo DS seem like they’re doomed. Infinity Blade looks so good it approaches console quality.

When you see something like this, it feels like the dawn of a new era on smartphones and tablets. In the past, weak graphics quality has been a turn-off for hardcore gamers. And with games like this coming out, the days may be over when small apps made by small teams can succeed.

This kind of game could only come from a company with graphics wizards. And Epic Games has those aplenty, having made PC and console titles such as Gears of War, Unreal, and the upcoming Bulletstorm. Led by graphics guru Tim Sweeney, Epic has few rivals with it comes to game graphics. Its peers include id Software, which recently released the gorgeous Rage HD on the iPhone, and Valve.

The Infinity Blade game’s file size is 318.3 megabytes. Don’t try this on your BlackBerry.

Filed under: Business, Games