When you think of Epic, it’s natural to immediately associate that name with the big studio behind the Gears of War franchise. Outside of Gears, you’d probably also think of the studio’s history with Unreal Tournament, or its future with the upcoming release of Bulletstorm. But squeezed between those giant triple-A blockbuster projects is Chair Entertainment’s portfolio: the quirky underwater shooter Undertow, or the Metroidvania-style Shadow Complex. To me, as big and burly as Gears of War 3 and Bulletstorm are, I actually think Chair’s next project, Infinity Blade, might end up becoming one of Epic’s more significant games.
That’s mostly because Infinity Blade, like Rage HD, will be proof that you can have a game with the visual fidelity of an HD console squeezed onto the ubiquitous Apple platform. Sure, the App Store is filled with all sorts of games like Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, and Game Dev Story, but the closest I’ve personally seen a game approach similar graphic fidelity on both the console and an iOS device (iPhone, iTouch, iPad, etc) is Street Fighter IV. So of course, it’s crazy to see Rage and its 60-frames-per-second make its way to the iPhone, and even with an early preview build, it’s just as crazy to see something that looks like a “real” Unreal Engine 3 game on the small touchscreen. (It even looks a bit sharper due to its size; though there’ll be an iPad version, the developers generally consider the iPhone 4 version to be the best looking one.)
