It is the future. The world is governed by a singular authority; a tough motorcylcle-riding all-female police squad named the SXPD. Dark and violent in nature, SXPD ($1.99) is reminiscent of comic series such as Tank Girl or Heavy Metal, perhaps, and is ideal for anyone who wishes to dive into the world of intense high speed chases, rapid gunfire and earth-shattering explosions.
Veteran developer David Perry (of Earthworm Jim fame) is the mastermind behind this beautiful looking comic-esque style game, who teamed up with Little Chicken Company to deliver an iOS game greatly inspired by ZX Spectrum classic 3D Deathchase.
My initial impressions? The visual style is very refined in its outstanding artwork, but I felt a slight disappointment in regards to content. Though comic book fans will indeed feel at home where the storyline and graphics are concerned (reminds me of a Sin City and Mad World hybrid), many newcomers to the concept will struggle.
When you’re suddenly dropped into the interactive segments, you’ll find yourself zipping around a 3D monochromic world in first person view; your aim to destroy and take out all of the enemies in your line of sight and avoid colliding with obstacles as you do so. When all the enemies have been annihilated, the story will then advance. The combat is a mixture of nitro boosts and rockets, both of which feel somewhat added as an afterthought. I kind of felt these were more of a hindrance to the gameplay, considering activating the nitro whilst controlling the bike and avoiding crashing into obstacles became a bit of a struggle.
Due to the game’s fast pace and some very tricky tilt controls, I sometimes felt the gameplay was a little too out of control for my liking. There’s no control over the speed, so slowing your bike down is never an option, and due to its monochromic landscape, obstacles are not always easy to see and avoid.
The brief bursts of interactive gameplay fail to match up to its adrenaline-rush storyline, and the whole game is over before you know it. Overall, it’ll set you back around about an hour to complete, perhaps slightly more with the optional arcade challenges, but it still altogether feels like it’s lacking longevity. Sure, there’s obviously potential here to keep building up on the game with further instalments and it has a whole lot of promise, but there’s just not enough depth here to keep me invested further.
A lot of hard work has certainly been invested into SXPD and its with no doubt that this game has got a lot of clear potential, but due to its repetitive nature and lack of depth it unfortunately misses the mark just slightly. It goes without saying that the visuals were the forefront of the games ultimate selling point, but if the developers of SXPD want the game to reach other audiences, they may need to focus on offering a little more variety to their gameplay and a little less of the vogue.
i wonder how long before my ipad comes to the point it simply not be able to run the latest operating system i seen countless people on the forums comment on a games say cant download it as its only for 7.1 which makes me wonder why they not downloaded 7.1 cause there device cant take it?
No. I think those don't wanna update cause maybe jailbreak is still not out for 7.1 (not really following the jailbreak drama) anyway any points added to numbers, are always general bug fixes & minor improvements, Apple don't ditch devices in points. But an entirely new number like 6,7,8 these numbered are the ones devices get ditched in.
The way it's done (for the past couple of years at least) is that they ditch a device of each line every year. So last year, it was iPad 1 & iPhone 3GS that got ditched, then this year it'll be iPhone 4 (iPad 2 is still supported though, maybe it faired well in their tests ;-)). Calculate it respectively according to your device. Sorry it is long, wanted to make it easier for your to understand. Hope this helps.
Infinity Blade IV is gonna look awesome ;-)
i thought the 3rd was an end!
It was the end of the trilogy. No one said it was the end of Infinity Blade! Fingers crossed!
Ya maybe a free roam rpg this time.
I also liked the idea of app bundles that should open doors for a lot of developers to package some of their games together and try to increase revenue. I don't know the full details of how this works but this could possibly work for things like humble bundle.
On the image it says designed for A7 chip, does that mean only iPhone 5s + iPad air and above will stand to benefit from Metal, or would it be any device that can run iOS 8?, e,g. my archaic iPod Touch 5g, (hopefully they will release a new one later this year).
Likely it's just for 64bit architecture which only A7 has. iOS 8 compatibility won't be enough, you'll need the power to back it up.
Hmmmm. So I assume Zen Garden won't work on my iPhone 5 or iPad 4. Right? Would have liked to see them, guess I'll download on iTunes for later use.
So... Could we see PVZ: garden warfare on iPad, like apple showed? That seems a bit unrealistic... Also, is this 'metal' thing basically a program that taps into the iphone/iPad/whatever's power more, by going directly into the processor instead of, I Guess, this open GL thing?
This is great news! I use both an Android and an iOS device daily - am very contented with both - and I do have to say that gaming is undeniably a better experience on iOS. Even if a lot more top games are coming out on both platforms these days, which is VERY good to see (you should have seen the garbage that was leading the 'Top Paid Games' charts on the Play Store a few years back) I can't see inherent issues going away given the plethora of Android screen sizes and dimension ratios out there.
I don't typically support proprietary-type moves, but I'm glad to see that Apple is recognizing a legit, undeniable strength here.
I am obsessed with my ipad air, as I was with the "new" ipad (3) and the ipad 2 before it. So I'm not a hater. Far from it. I do believe that this will create improvements. But 10x?! Seriously? That HAS to be greatly exaggerated. Right? Even double seems a stretch. What do you guys think? I'm asking those who would know by the way. Uninformed guesses I can make (Clearly).
10x DRAW calls isn't anything major. They're not promising 10x faster performance...
Yeah, I have no idea what "Draw" is. I know it's not draw distance. Is it a reference to triangles or polygons? Thank you for the schooling.
about 20-30% improvement is real though...
Look at the difference between a PS Vita and a iPad Air ?
PS Vita Hardware is like iPad 3, but provide much more power than ipad air.
Marc Vaughan (Sigame => football manager) explain it like that :
"iOS is built around long-term stability and ease of use with an inherantly 'interruptable' approach to applications so that external-kernel programs can come in interrupt applications.
This is essential if you think about it because its first and foremost use is on phone devices - this does however mean that its constantly sharing its resources and processing power, restricting it hugely in comparison to a dedicated games device like the Vita.
The easiest way to think about this is that the iOS/Android devices constantly get interrupted by things other than the 'active' game which slows down their effective processing power and what they can remember ... to put this in non-programmer terms, think how efficient you are if you're doing a task without interruption, then imagine you're doing that task with your wife constantly interrupting you and how much slower you'd be (and you'd probably forget where in the task you are because you're trying to remember what you're doing at the same time as what your wife is talking about)."
404- wife not found
I would agree but games like Dead Trigger 2 and Asphalt 8 or Real Racing 3 show that they can push some pretty impressive graphics, and that's on older hardware like the iPad 3 and the Nvidia Tegra 3 etc. So roll onto today or the end of this year, and I think mobile devices will be able to surpass the PSVita as well as do all those other things.
I pretty much understood that part. It makes me think about how Xbox One dedicates so much to their three operating systems instead of just one for gaming. I guess I don't know what "10x greater draw" means. I know what "draw distance" is, and increased triangles means more polygons. I guess I just wonder how much performance we should expect from "10x greater draw." I appreciate the clarification.
Soooo... PVZ: Garden Warfare iOS anyone?
Wait so dream quest is gona look awesome then right ? ;)
I'm glad that my phone will finally be able to run Flappy Bird at 60 fps.
GTA SA WITH GRAPHICS BOOST <33
God I would kill for Apple to make some kind of revolutionary iOS standard controller in a innovative way kind of like the smart-cover for the iPad. Where the controller feels natural to have as an extension of the phone and enhances it at the same time. Wishful thinking I know.....but it would get so many more devs on board I bet with getting games to the platform.
PS3 controller. Jailbroken for true flexibility.
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what was the name of the second game played in the demo?
Let's put things in perspective. iOS already gets the highest quality mobile games first. A lot of games aren't released for Android until a year later like XCOM: Enemy Unknown (which was a PC game first). And with Metal, there's a chance for even better games than Enemy Unknown. Who knows maybe this is Apple's challenge to NVIDIA's Shield. If so we could see one hell of an increase in quality gaming for iDevices.
But only for A7 devices. Apple's programming overview document for Metal specifically says it's works with the A7 GPU only.
It works starting from A7, not just A7.. There is also A8 and A8x.
And obviously, there will be A9 in 3-4 months.
Everytime you decide on using something and start using it they change everything lol
I bet you the next infinity blade is going to have console graphics
shame the gampelay is shallow
IOS grow by leaps and bounds every year. I bet it will pass consoles soon.
I've attempted posting this 3 times over the last few days but I've discovered something while looking through Apple's developer site -
Metal is only for A7 devices. It's designed specifically for the A7 GPU.
IE It will only be active on an iPhone 5S , iPad Air or iPad Mini (2nd Gen)
Ios verry good for because Apple is good for graphics.
And now console quality damm, no other os cant beat that.