Tech demo for that new Epic game they showed off at the Apple conference is out, engine is very nice on the iPhone 4.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/epic-citadel/id388888815
Looks to be more of an RPG than a shooter, uses the fake twin sticks, or you can just tap on the ground to start walking there which seems the better control scheme.
Cubit
3142
Epic Citadel runs well on the 3GS too, and looks incredible.
Best graphics I’ve ever seen on a handheld.
Just tried Epic Citadel on my iPhone 4 and it looks amazing on the Retina display. Nothing to do, of course, but it’s quite a tech demo.
Editer
3145
You have given us no useful information here.
What was so offensive that you quit after 15 seconds?
Volbard
3146
I played through a tutorial level, and I’m pretty much done with it.
The main issue is that it’s pretty hard to click on anything at all. Making your guy go where you want takes a lot of tapping, and battles are really frustrating. Imagine tapping the same spot or different areas around the same spot over and over until it finally registers, and then the character often goes to the wrong place.
It also feels like a rip off in kind of a terrible way. I’m fine with people making similar games that iterate within a genre, but it seems like they just copied everything without understanding why it was good. The tutorial actually told me to save my game before going into a witches hut, because I might not like the skill she gives me and then I should reload.
Anyway, I’ll just have to go back to pining for a real HoMM3 port.
True, Denny. Volbard explained what I should have explained.
Gamasutra has a very interesting interview up with Mike Capps from Epic. It’s linked from the Gamasutra home page right now if someone wants to get it and post the actual link since I cannot. I found it over on the toucharcade.com forums. They are trying to make it easy to port console and PC games, which can only be awesome. Excerpt:
Does Unreal Engine 3 now, for external developers, have iOS tools in it?
Well, we’ve got them internally, and we’re just starting to work with a few guys now, but yeah, absolutely, we’ll be putting them out to all of our Unreal Engine developers.
Do you use all of the exact same back-end tools, like Kismet and everything?
Yes. Everything’s supported. The difference of course is that it’s not quite as powerful a graphics processor as on the Xbox 360, so you’ll probably do some custom content work, but you’re using the same tool chain of UnrealEd and Kismet and the same phsyics tools and everything.
The Citadel demo is for 3GS and up. Is that also the specs for the engine, or is that up to developers?
That’s the current plan, because of the various shaders and things we have support for, that’s what we need a 3GS for.
Is there anything in the tool chain about scaling down products that are developed on console platforms, or is that something that people are going to have to do manually?
I think it’s going to depend on the title. I mean, if you’re really pushing the PS3 to the limits, then you’re going to need to do some rework.
But we’ve got some automated tools to help customize how draw calls are met for iPhone, but I think it’s probably going to be a mix of the two. Some people’s games are going to work just fine, and other games you’re going to need to do some custom work.
Vesper
3149
Mirror’s Edge for iPhone and Puzzle Agent are out tonight at 11pm EDT.
How’s the Mirror’s Edge 2D game, for any iPad owners who may already have it? Does it have the same story as the real game, or something different? I’m curious since I just finished the PC version and am hoping for more fiction in that world.
I really like the iPad version of Mirror’s Edge. Great controls and overall one of the best games for the iPad IMO. I can’t really compare the story to the PC version though because I haven’t played it.
Downloaded Citadel. Holy cats. It’s like a tiny slice of Oblivion.
Mitya
3152
Just picked up Mirror’s Edge, about time it came out for the iPhone. Lost of fun so far. For performance, I have a 2G touch and it runs just fine.
Cubit
3153
Yeah, I was especially impressed with the textures. They looked about as good as what I see on my PC.
Citadel on my iPhone 4 looks better than the 360 version of Oblivion, unless my memory’s failing me. It’s unbelievable how much better it looks than anything else on the App Store.
The story is basically excised except for a scroll of text in the (very short) loading screens that tell you what your exit is. I wouldn’t buy it for the story, but I’d say it’s definitely worth buying for the streamlined gameplay and visuals.
Citadel looks a bit cartoonish compared to the state of the art on the PC, but that’s the worst I can say about it. Easily on a par with big console games, far better than anything else on the iPhone, and pretty fast even on my iPod touch 3. So that’s what it looks like when the graphics experts get to work on the platform… wow.
Adult Swim titles are on sale right now.
I had my eyes on “Amateur Surgeon” for a while and finally I got it.
(Think of a black humor “Trauma Center”)
While I was on it I also got “Meowcenaries” for the lulz.
Based on the demo it’s a bit crappy but the humor is close to the “Icanhazcheezburger” meme which I love.
Both have (short) lite versions so one can get an idea before buying.
On the one hand, I agree that Palm Heroes is an unashamed ripoff of HOMM3. If that galls you to the core, move along. However, given a lack of anything remotely similar on the iPhone and given that I love HOMM3, I’ll take what I can get.
I agree the interface sucks at first, but it can be fixed. Make sure you set “autozoom on hold” to ON in the options. Trust me, this makes the game playable - you can now hold your finger on where you want to go, the world zooms in after a couple of seconds, and you can then drag your finger around to set the destination. When you release, a quick tap on the destination icon will execute it. It works far better than the default peck and pray. The battle maps can’t be zoomed it seems, but I don’t seem to have a problem with accuracy on those: single tap to set destination, followed by quick second tap to execute.
So a slightly more positive review from me. For free it’s great. Would I pay 5 bucks for it? Depends on how badly you want to play HOMM3 on your iPhone I suppose. I’ve only put about an hour into it so far, barely out of the tutorial area, so obviously I’ve no idea how the AI holds up later in the game.
Ok, no laughing, but does anyone still play We Rule? I didn’t even realize there were “leaderboards” for it till I was comparing notes on the latest update with someone else. Turns out I’m 924th overall. So uh, in your face?
