Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Grows on you"

Infinity Blade is a beautiful tech demo. It showcases the potential of what games on iOS platforms can look like and back it up with some excellent battle mechanics. But the experience in Infinity Blade is short-lived and based entirely on repetition. When you consider that the development team is Chair and that they are owned by Epic Games that doesn't come off as a shock though as both teams are known for short games that make you do the same thing again and again.

Infinity Blade begins with a man challenging the God King. It's never explained why, but apparently being killed by the Infinity Blade means that your child will follow in your footsteps to fight the God King. What does this mean? You die by the hands of the God King, you start again 20 years later, or 18 years later or if your son was a late bloomer and took awhile to make him some babies, 22 years later (apparently they have babies young in the world of Infinity Blade, but when your fate is to die, you might as well just go for it and enjoy the moment while it lasts).

The game is set in an ancient, fantasy castle where various monsters will stand in your path. They are a hideous bunch, but they look fantastic! The environment especially is beautiful as you make your way to the castle, underground, across the ramparts, and inside it. Each area looks stunning with a ton of detail. Unfortunately the environments aren't open for you to explore. Your character simply walks to where he is meant to go. And if you are skilled enough you can technically beat the game in about thirty minutes. Admittedly, that's a tall order that would require sharp reflexes and no damage taken, but not entirely impossible.

Combat involves you making slashes on enemies with your finger. There are two buttons to dodge enemy attacks to either the left or right, there is a button to block, though your shield will break if you only block and you also have the option of parrying enemy attacks. As soon as you can get past their defense through dodging, blocking or parrying you can attack. But if you attack before enemies will either block, or simply cause massive damage to you. Infinity Blade is a game of precision, and timing both your defense and offense is what makes the combat feel so fresh, challenging and entertaining. Unfortunately, once you get a feel for the game combat boils down to the same thing. This still takes awhile, but if you can defeat the God King more than one time you have a solid enough grasp on the game where you simply won't be surprised by what's thrown your way.

As you level up and earn gold you can purchase better items. Each item you equip can be mastered and for each item mastered you earn an additional skill point to help either increase your health, attack, shield or magic. It helps add some extra depth to the game's light RPG elements and helps mix up combat a bit as well.

There are branching paths in how you can reach the God King and this feels as if it was done in an attempt to make the game have more replay value, but ultimately, the content is so limited that the branching paths won't do much to build on the game's length beyond a few battles.

Infinity Blade really shines as a showpiece for iOS. It is actually really cool to show it off to friends and family and let them know that your phone is capable of playing games that look as fantastic as Infinity Blade. But the game works as more of a showpiece to impress people rather than as a full-fledged game. At its initial release at the $6 asking price it was simply too pricey for what was offered. But at its current price of $3, Infinity Blade will provide a few hours worth of fun, which makes it perfect for short bursts of gameplay between classes, or on a quick break at work. But as a full-fledged game Infinity Blade doesn't match up to the true iOS classics: Final Fantasy III, Chaos Rings, Espgaluda II and Jetpack Joyride. But for $3, you do get a hell of a showcase game.