Project Sword - Epics Iphone Game

[davek22]

Epic demonstrated Unreal Engine running on the Open GL Iphone and Ipod Touches today. Part of the announcement was a tech demo available free from the App store called Epic Citadel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqYi_WRq6M4

I downloaded this for my Iphone 4 and have to say it looks amazing.

[PeteJ]

Yeah, it is amazingly impressive. The RAGE iPhone demo we saw last week must have been real because this is just as, if not more, impressive.

Imagine Oblivion on this engine

[Number45]

Wow, that looks great. It would need to be used for the right game though, I can't imagine controlling a fast paced action game like that.

[Psyduck]

It's a demo of the graphics, not the control scheme! If it was to be an FPS then that bit would change

[Number45]

Actually I thought the controls looked fine. I'm not even remotely interested in how an FPS would control with a touchscreen.

[Psyduck]

Looks like I'm utterly wrong, that's what I get for not actually looking at this properly first or reading the rest of the forum. Thought this was just a demo of UE3, not a game, so the controls may well be right.

FPS games aren't perfect but they work ok on the touchscreen though.

[Number45]

I'm just not interested in finding out. I don't play FPS games that often, but those that I do I like to immerse myself into and I'm never going to get that on a small screen.

An adventure game using that engine and those controls though would be fantastic, given the right production values. I'd love to see how more substantial, traditional gaming applications would perform on the iPhone given they would likely have to charge more than the standard pennies for it.

[Dogg Thang]

Even on my iPod Touch without its fancy iPhone 4 screen, this little demo game looks astounding. I'm quite blown away by it. But, while I was messing around with it, it was busy sucking the bejesus out of my battery. That's something that Carmack mentioned about his Rage demo I think. With this, I don't think I've seen something that made that much of a visible difference to my battery in such a short space of time.

But it's amazing looking. As Pete says, you could have something like Oblivion working on this with a VATS-type system to make up for the uncertainty of touch controls.

[davek22]

Agree a first person RPG like Oblivion would be best suited for touch screen. I also spotted my battery draining like mad while playing it. This must be pushing the IPhone to it's limits.

An interesting point mentioned on another forum is the new Apple TV announced yesterday. There's potential for this to play IOS games like this on your tv using an IPhone or Itouch as a wireless controller. The new Apple TV is priced at $99 which is very agressive. I wonder if Apple have the home console market in their sights now

[Number45]

Oblivion is still a relatively fast paced action game, I don't see how you can maintain the same sort of intensity while greatly simplifying the controls. People already complain about how bare Oblivion is, but it would need to be stripped back significantly further to work in a meaningful way on these platforms and you'd lose the scope - one of the things that made Oblivion so special.

[davek22]

I played Nova with the gyroscope controls and got so confused between tilting and sliding that I gave up in the end. If apple released an official dual analogue controller like the one craigx developed I think the iPhone could corner the handheld Market.
I have played a few iPhone games recently and got Peace Walker on PSP at the weekend. Using physical controls again was like water to a man dying of thirst!

[rmoxon]

I'm just not interested in finding out. I don't play FPS games that often, but those that I do I like to immerse myself into and I'm never going to get that on a small screen.

An adventure game using that engine and those controls though would be fantastic, given the right production values. I'd love to see how more substantial, traditional gaming applications would perform on the iPhone given they would likely have to charge more than the standard pennies for it.

Granted I love FPS games and play virtualy all of them, but there are actualy some really good ones on the iPhone. Action games seem to be getting better in general to play with virtual sticks, there are some that play almost flawlessly with them now.

The only major drawback so far has been that its impossible that to use more than just your two thumbs so you have to let go of the look or movment stick when you want to shoot, but its a small price to pay for having quality FPS games on your phone I'd think. Especialy when you consider that they control better and look just as good as any FPS game on the PSP, and for only a small fraction of the price. (in fact I recently picked up Modern Combat Sandstorm for 59p and its better than any shooter I have played on the PSP, first person or otherwise, full stop).

Speaking of pricing I dont think your statment about higher pricing is that true either, or well it certainly wont come about over night. most 3d action games that are made for the iphone seem to take anywhere from 2-4 hours to complete, have good 3d graphics, and as stated do somtimes match other handhelds for quality, theres already loads of good stuff on the app store that in truth is probabaly worth more than we often pay. But thats becuase its a phone, until people start buying iPhones just for games I cant see a price hike happening really.

You keep mentiong that the controls would be simplified but thats not really true. NOVA plays just like Halo, its not simplified at all. Despite obviously never being a replacment for an actual controller touch screen action games can work, very well in fact, the developers just need to put the effort in thats all. Somthing which I would imagine Epic will do.

Having said all that the controls felt really sensitive on this tech demo, I resorted to the point and click method of moving around becuase most of the time I ended up looking all over the place. I'm sure that can be sorted out though, infact you may even be able to change it within the App, I didnt check.

[Number45]

It's been a while since I've played a Halo game, but how do you intuitively fit eight or more button based commands into a touchscreen game? Fire/alternate fire/grenade/melee/jump/sprint/reload/zoom etc?

[rmoxon]

It's been a while since I've played a Halo game, but how do you intuitively fit eight or more button based commands into a touchscreen game? Fire/alternate fire/grenade/melee/jump/sprint/reload/zoom etc?

They are there and they work BECUASE they are intuative, which is what touch screen controls obviously need to be.

Basicaly you have a stick to move and a button to shoot, you can rotate anywhere on the screen to look around but if you hold the fire button and rotate then you can look while shooting. The rest of the controls are just dont with small buttons dotted around the edges of the screen, compared to alot of iphone action games the layout is very neat and minimal and as I said, its very intuative to play.

Like most new types of control types it will porobabaly take people a few minutes to get use too (I remember when I first used the N64 analogue stick and couldnt make Mario move right, then dismissed it until a year later when i tried it again and realised how good it was). Once you are use to it though its easy to play and as stated, is also a good game to boot.

[Number45]

As I said previously, I'm not going to find out for myself so I'll take your word for it. Just watched a short tutorial on IGN and it seems to control OK.

How busy is the game though? The sections shown on that video show no more than a few enemies around at any one time.