Epic Games has announced that the long awaited iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad game, Infinity Blade, will be in the App Store on December 9. The game will be available for the iPad, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, as well as third- and fourth-generation iPod touch devices at a cost of $5.99.

Infinity Blade will be the first full game to utilize Epic’s Unreal Engine 3. Epic Citadel, already available in the App Store, is a short demonstration level showing  the power of the Unreal Engine on iOS devices. If you haven't seen it, it is free and definitely worth a look. [Free - iTunes Link]

Infinity Blade is an RPG (Role Playing Game). You are a Knight in a giant 3D Castle environment, in search of a God-King, battling various enemies to gain new weapons and powers in your quest.

So mark your calendar, this is one great looking game, my iPad is twitching with anticipation, who’s getting this one when it hits?

[Joystiq]

Chaos Rings is the ultimate RPG thus far on the iPhone. Square Enix has done a fabulous job bringing the console RPG experience we have come to love on to our beloved Apple devices.

Our story begins with several pairings of unlikely partners thrust into a battle they do not wish to fight in a tower competing for rings. Starting the game you are given two choices for characters. Both teams include two people and you are always a party of two. When beginning, you are given a choice of two pairs and both have a similar story but different dialog. Each team has a stronger "fighter" type of character and the other is more of a support/magic character.

As the story evolves, you roam around the world presented to you in tiers. You often have a choice of what tier you would like. This way, you can always go back to an earlier level and gain more experiment for your characters (recommended) or continue on and enjoy the progressively harder battles.

The battle system in Chaos Rings is fun and does not seem to ever get old. Every battle allows you a few different attack options. You can defend, attack solo or as a pair. Defend is obvious, but solo and pair start to get interesting. If you choose solo, each character attacks individually and all attacks and damage are their own. If you decide to attack as a pair, you have a more combined powerful attack, but if attacked, both characters take damage. Of course you have the usual itms to revive fallen comrades, but instead of magic you collect "genes". Genes are basically spells that you collect randomly after defeating an enemy. After a battle your HPs are restored but not your magic points for genes. You have to exit the level or use an item to restore.

In between battling monsters you have to solve the occasional puzzle. This typically involves collecting crystals or moving blocks in a particular order within a certain number of moves. These puzzles can become frustrating as many are required to progress through a level. However, persistence usually pays off.

Once you make it back to the lobby level, there is a merchant to buy sand sell items. As always this comes in handy to sell stuff you don't need and buy stuff you do. The good news for a portable game of this nature is that you can save anywhere. Whew, it sure makes life easier.

But how does it look? I would equate it to Final Fantasy VIII on the PlayStation. Better textures and more polygons, but generally, that is the look in feel which is fine by me. The monsters are big and animated and lots of diversity in color and textures.

Should you get this game? If you even remotely like RPGs, this is a 100%' must-buy, no-brainer. Good story, fantastic gameplay and graphics, it is a dream for any RPG fan. Check the video and screens after the break!

[$12.99- iTunes Link]

Pros

• Great gameplay
• Good story
• Awesome graphics
• SquareEnix quality we love
• Hidden dungeons

Cons

• Battle system could be deeper
• I can't wait for the iPad version!

Today the App Store was introduced to the latest RPG from Square Enix, Chaos Rings. [iTunes Link - $12.99] If you appreciate RPG titles with RTS turn-based battles than Chaos Rings could be for you -- if you can get over the hefty admission fee.

• Amazingly smooth 3D graphics
• Gorgeous sound that takes full advantage of the iPhone and iPod touch’s powerful hardware
• A deep story with unique twists for every pair and multiple endings
• Traditional game and battle systems polished to perfection
• Hours upon hours of gameplay, complete with hidden bosses, secret weapons, and more

Are you going to give it a try? What do you think of a $12.99 price-point for an iPhone game? If you decide to give this a try let us know what you think in the comments below!

Square-Enix has been quite busy developing for the iPhone/iPod touch with the recent release of both Final Fantasy 1 and 2, and now Chaos Rings.

Make no mistake, this is no Final Fantasy but if you love turn-based battles it does look very promising. No official release date or price has been mentioned but we will be sure to fill you in on the details as they are released.

Check out the full trailer after the break and let us know what you think!

They are finally here RPG fans, Final Fantasy [$8.99 - iTunes link] and Final Fantasy II [$8.99 - iTunes link] were released earlier today in the App Store for your iPhone or iPod touch. Each game will cost you $8.99 but that seems to be a small price to pay for such classics as these.

Final Fantasy features the bonus dungeons added to later editions of the game - the Soul of Chaos and the Labyrinth of Time. Part 2 also contains the bonus dungeons added to later editions from the Soul of Rebirth and the Arcane Labyrinth.

If you try them out let us know us what you think in the comments below! Do they live up to the hype or are there better ways to spend $18?

In Gameloft's Dungeon Hunter [$4.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone and iPod touch, you play a prince whose bride dies on your wedding night. In sorrow you decide to resurrect her. And as anyone who's ever watched Buffy could tell you (or could have told the developers), this is a recipe for disaster.

Anyway, she becomes evil (duh!), kills you by way of thanks, and then proceeds to wreak havoc on the world. But here's where it becomes an RPG -- you, the prince, get a second chance to make things right.

The graphics in Dungeon Hunter are beautifully rendered. They are clean and crisp and allow you to fully immerse yourself in the fantasy environment. Load times, however, are extremely long. I have a 3G but if you have a 3GS it may not be that bothersome. Loading occurs not only when you begin the game but also each time you zone into a new area during the game.

Dungeon Hunter begins by asking you to choose between three different classes: warrior, rogue or mage. Though some people may enjoy the game enough to play it again using another type of character class, I doubt many would find the storyline compelling enough to go through the same stages again.

There are also five fairies which join you throughout the game. Each of these fairies gives you access to a different element of magic. The elements are: fire, air, water, earth and lightning. You can only choose one fairy to accompany you on your quest at a time.

Sorting through your various magic items can be a difficulty in RPG games. Dungeon Hunter has each magical item color coded so that you know how many magical properties it has. Items written in white have no magical properties while those in gold have 4.

Likewise, RPGs can be cumbersome and take a long time to learn character movements and spells. I found that the controls to the game were very intuitive and the manner of moving your character easy. The story is well developed and the quests are not overly difficult. If you are looking for a lot of difficult puzzles to figure out, you won't find them here. However, if you want a fun, beautifully rendered RPG for your iPhone or iPod touch, give Dungeon Hunter a try and let us know what you think!

For those of us looking for that pinnacle action RPG for the iPhone, Ravensword: The Fallen King [$6.99 - iTunes]has been released. This game looks absolutely fantastic! I have only played this game for a few minutes (enough to leave the inn and wander the town. I will have a more thorough update later) but the controls are great and there are lots of options to tweak the performance based on your hardware.

The character and environment detail is some of the best I have seen on the iPhone. The game is similar to other games such as Oblivion in this genre. There are NPCs to interact with and several weapons and items to use. There has not been a game quite like this so far on the iPhone, so it will be exciting to see its reception in the App Store. I for one, know what I will be playing this weekend!

Aurora Feint Forum Review by cjvitek (For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

[Ed- Aurora Feint 1: The Beginning, is FREE in the iTunes store. Aurora Feint 2: The Arena is now available for $7.99 and if you head on over to the forum, and ask Chris and Matt, we might just get a review up for that soon too! Meanwhile, here's Chris' review of the original to whet everyone's appetite!]

This is an extremely interesting game that tries to combine elements of a puzzle game with elements of an RPG game.

You start with a map screen. From there, you can go to the mine (the puzzle game), the store (to use your tiles for skills or tools), the smith (to actually obtain the tools), and the tower (to actually learn the skills). You need to start with the puzzle game, and once you start to gain levels and tile,s you can move to the other areas.

As a puzzle game, it is a pretty standard "match multiple tiles" type of game. You move peices horizontally to try to match at least three tiles together. One twist is that by holding your iPhone at different angles, "horizontally" changes, so in reality you can also move tiles vertically. Depending on the orientation, "gravity" is always down, so the tiles may fall differently as well. The graphics are pretty nice (there are five types of tiles) and the sound during the game is nice as well. There are a few powerups (more on this later) that add to the game play, destorying additional tiles or various other effects.

As you destroy tiles (or "resources", consisting of water, fire, earth, moon, and wind), you are actually "collecting" them, and this is used in the RPG side of the game. As you complete levels of the game, you gain experience, and can choose to "level up" in various areas. These additional levels allow you to either learn new skills, or gain new tools. This is all based on the number of tiles you have collected. To learn a skill or gain a tool requires various combinations of the five tiles - if you don't have enough of a specific type that you have collected, you can't learn the skill or gain the tool.

Learning skills or gaining tools requires you to complete a different puzzle. For skills, you are required to solve a specific puzzle (matching similar globes this time, making them all vanish) in a limited amount of moves. As the skill levels progress, these puzzles become harder. To learn new tools (by building blueprints), you have a time limited tile-removal puzzle, where you have to collect a specific number of tiles in various combinations (these are different from the tiles that are collected to try to gain the tool). If you fail at these puzzles, you have to try again at a later date.

All said, this is a complex game with an intriguing concept - combining a puzzle and RPG game. However, there are some problems that I have had. There are some features of the game that I can't figure out. There seem to be scrolls you can buy, but I haven't found out how to di that. In addition, it appears like you can have multiple members in you "party", but I can only really get one player going.

My biggest problem is with the RPG aspect of the game, however. The first problem is that many of the skills and tools are confusing. Once you get a tool, it can appear during the puzle side of the game (the power ups I mentioned previously). It also appears that you are supposed to be able ot "merge" tools, or use them when you are building blueprints, but I can't figure that aspect of the game out as well. This all dovetails into my biggest issue - the lack of clear instructions. There is no help screen or anything the clearly describes the gameplay, the features, or the RPG side of the game. With a game this complex, I think some sort of help screen is essential.

The last problem I had was with the RPG side of the game. Allowing a player to "level up" and learn different skills is great, but it doesn't appear that there is any real specialization going on. That is, if you don't learn a skill or a tool at one point, you can try to do so at the next "level up". Rather than allow people to really choose a path for their characters, it just appears that you can only choose the order in which you gain new skills and abilities - but eventually all character would be the same.

I applaud this game and the developers for trying a new approach to a puzzle game. And I think it has a lot of potential. Heck, even with the game as it currently stand I probably play it more than almost any other game. But it seems like they took a great concept, and stopped 10 yards short of the goal line. A little more development could have made this an incredible game, instead of a merely "very good" game. It is free, so I strongly recommend trying it. As I said, even with my concerns and issues, it is one of my top three games on my iPhone.

Pros

• Great graphics and sound,
• interesting game play,
• a great new concept for a standard puzzle game

Cons

• Lack of help screen or instructions,
• lack of a "real" RPG type of mode

Forum Rating