Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we’ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome. Here is one cool enough to keep you busy during this weekend.
Infinity Blade III ($ 6.99 Universal) is a three-dimensional touch-based dungeon crawler with a battle engine that puts you right where the action is. WIth an intriguing and well thought out story line, you can immerse yourself into this quite elaborate and graphically detailed world.
The game starts out as a continuation of the story that was set up in the first two installments of the trilogy. There are two heroes — Siris and Isa — who set out on a quest to rid the world of powerful beings like The God King Raidriar and Saydhi, who are members on an immortal race of tyrants know as the Deathless. They do so by using a weapon known as the Infinity Blade, which was originally forged by another Deathless, The Worker of Secrets. He created it to rule over all of the Deathless as it is the only weapon that when fully charged can kill a Deathless forever. While knowing the back story helps understand things a little better, not knowing it has no effect on game play.
On certain levels of Infinity Blade III you can choose between the two playable characters in the game: Isa, who is a female assassin and Siris, the warrior, are the two heroes. Within each level, you move around in a controlled fashion by tapping on the screen where you want to go. Pulsating blue circles will appear indicating what directions you can take. As you make your way through each level, the story unfolds and you continue to battle stronger and stronger opponents.
The battle system is from a third person perspective where you can see the back of your character and the front of the opponent you are fighting. You have defensive moves like tapping on a shield to block, or on one of the two arrows on each side of the screen to dodge left and right. After waiting for opportune moments to strike back, you then swipe your finger across the screen slashing away at your opponent. Watching for visual clues in your opponent’s fighting style will indicate when it is best to take a defensive position and when it is best to attack. Each playable character has their own uniques strengths and weaknesses when engaged in battle.
There are eight distinct areas accessible via a world map. This provides an opportunity to add more content later on. In this vast world, you will find a blacksmith, gem cutter, potion master, and even a pirate for trading. With money you earn and items you collect (or by bankrolling your character through optional in-app purchases), you can upgrade weapons and brew potions. However crafting your weapons and potions takes time. How much time depends on the strength of the weapon. Fortunately you can leave things brewing as you continue with your quest, and return to collect your new items when they are finished. Creating powerful weapons in earlier levels will make you stronger and help you defeat your enemies in later levels.
If this is the first time you have played one of the Infinity Blade games, you may want to go back and play the original Infinity Blade ($ 5.99, Universal) and Infinity Blade II ($ 6.99, Universal) as well. Seeing as how Infinity Blade III has perfected itself compared to the first two games in the series, you may just want to catch up on the back story by reading Infinity Blade: Awakening ($ 2.99 iBooks) and Infinity Blade: Redemption ($ 2.99 iBooks) instead.
Even though the graphics were designed to take advantage of the increased processing power of the iPhone 5s running iOS 7, you can still play the game on iOS 6 with your iPhone 4, iPad 2 and 4th generation iPod Touch. If you were one of the lucky ones to get their hands on an iPhone 5S this weekend, you should spend some time playing Infinity Blade III to see for yourself this weekend why Apple chose to showcase this game at last week’s launch event.
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