Infinity Blade app review (March 2011)

Name: Infinity Blade
Version: 1.2
Social gaming: Game Center
Lite: No
Company/publisher: ChAIR Entertainment Group
Price: $3.99
Size: 548mb
Universal: Yes

Version 1.2
- More than 30 new items!
- 10 new enemies to defeat including the Wood Jester, the Iron Guard, the Plated Sorok, the Warden, and more!
- New dungeon area to discover.
- Multiple character slots
- New achievements and leaderboards.
- Gameplay enhancements and optimizations.

Following the release of Epic Citadel which showed a demo of what the iPhone engine can do, ChAIR released Infinity Blade, a game that REALLY shows what the iPhone can do.

It hit the App store by storm, becoming the fastest top grossing app ever although it came with a hefty price of $7.99. The price turned me off for a few days since it first released, but I kept reading the reviews and hit buy straight away. It was worth it, a great game showing the graphics and detail that can be formed on a little device such as the iPhone (sorry every other hand-held gaming toy).

Downside.
I'll speak about the downside first so it doesn't turn you off buying the game. Firstly, it IS quite repetitive, basically each 'stage' is called a 'bloodline' and each bloodline you're on, is the same walk through the castle each time, but approaching different enemies in different spots. You get treasures in different spots and then you reach the top of the castle. After you kill or get killed by the God King, you start a new Bloodline as the follow-up son that is coming to avenge his father. (Despite the name 'INFINITY Blade')
There. That's the only problem, repetitiveness/lack of things to do (not long before the new update!)

Area of expertise.
Now onto the points that defy this game. Infinity Blade has astonishing graphics with detail in every area including the castle walls, enemies, water, sky, and the main environment. It's hard to concentrate on fighting when you're staring into the beautiful graphics (that's what normal people do, right?)

Infinity Blade has a nice inventory and shop feature that allows you to choose from 25+ weapons, 15+ shields, 20+ Helms and 6 different pieces of armor (leather, plate etc). The items range from low stats to high stats, leaving you with only one or two choices if you want the best weapon, shield etc, but there will be new items in the update that is close.
As you kill enemies, you receive EXP that gets added to your equipped weapon,shield, helm, armour, and ring, which eventually becomes mastered. Mastered gives you an extra stat point to add to Health, Attack, Shield, or Magic.

The store interface is VERY easy to use and seeing weapons in detail to pick from is quite hard.

The soundtrack and effects in Infinity Blade give a very realistic feel and depth to the game, definately a type of game to play a little louder :)

As Infinity Blade is now on sale at only $3.99 AUD, grab it while you can!

There are 10+ enemies all of which are very detailed. As you're going through the castle, you can fight up to 7 different enemies by choosing different ways to go such as through a door, or up the stairs. You come across treasure chests, and items along the way including bags of cash and health potions that you can store for later (can't be used in the fight).

After going up the elevator to the top, Your character approaches the God King, who is quicker than most opponents and is the end of the bloodline.
When you take away about 1/4 of his health, he tells you of two choices, 1 - Fight alongside with him and join him in his quest for damnation (Alternate ending achievement) or 2 - Continue fighting him and finish the game the 'normal' way if you manage to kill him.

See some screenshots of different enemies below.

If you're willing to pay $7.99, definitely get it now as there is an update soon to come (within a week). The price shouldn't drop straight away, so if you're wanting to pay a lower price, you may have to wait longer than expected.

It is very addictive as you try and master all items to gain as many stat points as possible, but it won't take long before you kill the boss and definitely not long before the alternate ending.

If you DON'T have an iPhone 4 or iPod Touch 4, I wouldn't pay $7.99 for this game as I can't imagine it being as good without the beautiful retina display, but entertaining nonetheless.

Worth the buy, even if you just want to show it off!

For lots more screenshots, check out my Flickr gallery of Infinity Blade.