The Unreal Engine is really starting to pick up ground with developers as more and more games being created within it are being released. The latest development group to take advantage of this amazing engine is Uppercut Games, who has just released their first iOS title, EPOCH.. Now, generally, saying that a game is a development company’s first on the iOS brings with it some skepticism, but in the case of Uppercut Games, that weariness really drips away when you find out that it’s 3 guys who have worked on games like Fallout: Tactics, Freedom Force, Bioshock, Bioshock 2, and XCOM.
So, with the recent release of Shadowgun, a lot of Gears Of War fans came out of the woodwork, and, before Shadowgun was released, there were quite a bit of people that were saying a cover-based shooter would be nice to see on the iOS, but until that first real title that focused on utilizing cover within gameplay came out, people really didn’t know how big of following there would be for a game like that on the iDevice. Since the release of Shadowgun, and the insane amount of players that stepped forward to throw their two cents in, it’s pretty clear that iOS gamers will have more and more cover-based shooters tossed their way in the years to come. But I’ve kind of gone off topic, as it’s clear that while playing EPOCH., you can tell that it wasn’t just thrown together since the release of Shadowgun to take advantage of the amount of cover-based fans.
EPOCH. takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where an on-going battle between robots is taking place. You’ll need to fight your way to a building while searching for a woman, picking up bits and pieces of information along the way by picking up transmissions, from before the world was destroyed, after each battle.
To control your robot you’ll use swipes and taps on the screen to jump, flip, and go in and out of cover while taking on waves of robots. To destroy the robots, you’ll need to tap on which one you want to focus your fire on, and then dodge the incoming fire by jumping and rolling between the 3 places of cover you have to choose from. There are 4 different robots, each with a variation of it, that fires different projectiles, or has a different firing pattern, really giving you 8 different enemies that are mixed and matched, creating quite a bit of variety with what you’ll encounter along your journey.
The difficulty goes up at a very good pace, giving you a chance to learn the game, and get to know how enemies work. You’ll start off only being able to play on Easy, and then unlocking Medium after you beat the game for the first time, then Hard after beating it the second time. All of your equipment that you pick up and purchase with credits earn after each level are carried over with each playthrough, giving it a strong Infinity Blade feel. You’re also given experience, with the game increasing your attack and defense as you level up.
Now I know it may sound boring, tapping on enemies to auto-fire at them, and swiping to take cover, but Uppercut Games has done an amazing job taking this sort of gameplay mechanic, and making it extremely fun, and incredibly challenging in the mid to later difficulty levels. Mixing up the enemies will have you franticly swiping and changing which enemy you’re focusing on constantly, and after you get through a level of heavily armed bad-ass robots, you feel like you’ve actually accomplished something. Throwing the perfect mix of agility into the cover-based shooter genre, and how it’s all pulled off was an amazing design decision. Needless to say, the graphics are incredible. Utilizing the full potential of the Unreal Engine, EPOCH. really brings the post-apocalyptic environment to life, giving gamers an all around immersive game; not only with the story, but with the gameplay, sounds, action, and graphics.
The main game is only about an hour long, but like Infinity Blade, and Dark Meadow, you’ll keep playing over and over again, gaining more experience, equipment, and bits of the story as you progress. Uppercut has nailed the exciting, entertaining gameplay that gives EPOCH. an incredible amount of replay value, and has definitely earned it’s $5.99 price tag. It has been named as the iTunes game of the week, and for very good reason. The future of iOS gaming is looking brighter and better with releases like this, and gives players loads of hope that the AppStore will not turn into just a freemium, “let’s do whatever we can to get as much money out of these gamers as we can” type of store.
The main game is only about an hour long, but like Infinity Blade, and Dark Meadow, you’ll keep playing over and over again, gaining more experience, equipment, and bits of the story as you progress. Uppercut has nailed the exciting, entertaining gameplay that gives EPOCH. an incredible amount of replay value, and has definitely earned it’s $5.99 price tag. It has been named as the iTunes game of the week, and for very good reason. The future of iOS gaming is looking brighter and better with releases like this, and gives players loads of hope that the AppStore will not turn into just a freemium, “let’s do whatever we can to get as much money out of these gamers as we can” type of store.
EPOCH. gets a score of 5 out of 5.
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