Jemist

Epic Citadel

Epic Citadel

Developer: Epic Games
Style: First Person … Walkthrough
Platforms: iOS
Price: Free
Rating: Worth Getting

This one came out of nowhere. And it’s not actually a game. Which may make you wonder why it's getting a lengthy review, especially considering there’s super new fandangled games out there such as Starcraft 2 to talk about. But let’s face it, if you’re a PC gamer you’ve totally played it anyway.

Epic Citadel is not only a large (‘Epic’ seems fitting in the Generation Y Web 2.0 vernacular) castle you walk through in first person view, but actually serves as Epic Games’ tech demo showing off the prowess of iOS. Epic, as a reminder, is the company that created the game engine perpetually responsible for some of the most memorable games in the past decade or so. You probably already associate the Unreal Tournament series with it, but add to that Gears of War, Deus Ex, Bioshock, Batman: Arkham Asylum, America’s Army... get the gist? Hefty. So, here we are with Epic Citadel. Have Epic delivered a viable gaming engine for iDevices?

It certainly looks like it. Okay, there’s no shooting aliens, weapons, or even jumping around in this piece, but you do walk and explore and get to witness wonderful things like dynamic lighting, rich textures, reflections and a large open environment. Walk through dark alleys that curve around, with sun in the sky and shining rays, leaves blowing in the wind, and a very respectable draw distance as you look past the rolling hills and into the sea. This needs to be seen. It looks great on a 3GS, and just deadly on an iPad and iPhone 4’s much hyped Retina Display. Oh, and the touch controls work quite well, and you can choose to use typical dual-stick, or a simple ‘point and click’ type walking mechanic.

The first game to use Epic’s engine will be Project Sword – Epic Citadel, featuring characters with brutish armour and big swords. Youtube it. Touted to be an action RPG filled with swipe control sword slashing fun. Die By The Sword meets Oblivion? Something like that.

So what does it all mean? There’s already been plenty of quality gaming on iOS, from the casual monsters of Angry Birds and Doodle Jump, to the more console-based like Modern Combat and Square’s stellar Chaos Rings. Coupled with the new Game Centre’s ease and the App Store’s delivery, Unreal for iOS should certainly prove to naysayers that iDevices are well and truly a bonafide contributor to the handheld market. Now, I just hope that this encourages Valve to finally bust out a handheld Half Life engine...

The Word On Games

The Street Fighter series finally received some necessary re-invigoration with last year’s SFIV, after nearly a decade of absence since the release of SFIII: TS. I’ll be honest, having been a dedicated  2D fighting game player since their inception, I was hesitant about SFIV, and I’ll go even further to admit to not having picked it up until about a month or two after release. Fast forward to April 2010, and checking my game time on SFIV, I see I’m well into the 500+ hours mark. Capcom did something very, very right.

The Street Fighter series suffers from criticism due to the constant reiterations, generally seen as some cash-in in this world of home console gaming, but an absolute necessity in the game’s roots as an arcade machine. Things have to be kept interesting, balance tweaks must occur to existing characters, add some new characters, and still maintain each iteration’s individuality. Does SSFIV address  these elements?

Immediately noticeable are the changes to the roster, which includes nods to the previous Street Fighter games, plus some new characters to the IV canon. The additional characters balance out what tends to be a slightly redundant roster; in this case the additions lean towards leaner, faster or stronger characters, and eschew the projectile types. This certainly opens up the game – long gone is the all too common online Ryu-Ryu-Ryu-Sagat-Ryu-Ken-Ryu-Sagat ad infinitum frequency.

This has occurred in due part to some hefty character balancing, for instance, bringing Sagat more down to earth with his damage dealing, and increasing the health on characters like Dhalsim, and minor tweaks to damage and priority all around. Characters now receive the choice of two ultras prior to the match, and it’s up to you to commit as to which one you’ll choose.

A major overhaul comes in the form of the multiplayer aspect, which has been the most exciting part of this generation’s contribution to SF. Tweaks to the netcode mean smoother matches and matchmaking has been streamlined so it’s easier to come across players from the same region. Australia’s tyranny of distance has always made this quite iffy, in a game that relies so much of finesse and timing. The inclusion of Endless Battle mode brings the arcade experience closer, with its ‘winner stays on’ principle. Just right.

In brief – it’s SFIV made that much better. You can still choose to play it like you did the original SF2 down at the takeaway in the ‘90s, without a doubt. I would recommend exploring all the new things on offer, as it is a much richer experience. Here’s to another 500+ hours.