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Initially, I rolled my eyes a bit when I saw a thread in our forums posted for a game called Infinity of God. After the sweeping success of the Infinity Blade series, tacking “infinity” onto your title in any way has just about as much effect on me as if it was “doodle” or “angry.” That’s to say, the predetermination is that what I’ll find will be a low quality knockoff of the highly successful games that have made those words ubiquitous on the App Store.

For better or worse, Infinity of God actually does not resemble Infinity Blade so much, but it definitely does not hide the fact that it’s a God of War-inspired game. In fact, it appears that in the developer Calvi Game’s native Chinese, the subtitle reads as “Wrath of God of War”. And so it goes.

However, no matter your feelings on games that are very blatantly “heavily inspired” by other successful games, the trailer for Infinity of God looks mighty impressive:

A few more tidbits of information can be found at Asian gaming blog Ewtang.com, and while I’m not totally sure how much is lost in translation, it looks like Infinity of God is already in the review stage with Apple and waiting for approval, at which point it will hopefully be released this month for $5.99. We also know that the game is being developed in Unreal Engine 3, the storyline will follow a classic Chinese mythology named Shan Hai Jing, there will be 10 unique upgradeable skills for your player, and two game modes including a Story and a Racing mode. The game will be compatible with 3rd generation hardware and up, and will have additional enhancements for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S devices.

I haven’t totally figured out if this is some dodgy knockoff that will look great on the surface but contain little substance, or if this will be the type of high end action game we’ve all been waiting for but just seems dodgy due to language barriers. Either way, I’m at least interested enough to give Infinity of God a spin if and when it launches sometime this month.

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The mobile division of Nexon Co. is readying an iOS version of their popular free-to-play online first-person shooter Combat Arms. Known as Combat Arms: Zombies, the title has been developed using Unreal Engine 3 and is based off of the zombie themed cooperative Fireteam Mode from the original game. There aren't many details regarding Combat Arms: Zombies at the moment, but Nexon Mobile hints that they are interested in supporting the game post-release until it almost equals the full scale of the original Combat Arms online game.

I've never played Combat Arms, but this Zombies edition sounds like a cooperative survival mode similar to the popular Call of Duty: Zombies [$4.99/HD] that's been a pretty big hit on iOS the past couple of years. The first trailer for the game looks pretty darn impressive, and although it doesn't appear to show any actual gameplay, it does seem that the entire video was rendered using an in-game engine.

Combat Arms: Zombies will first be unveiled in playable form at the G-Star 2011 expo in South Korea on November 10th. The release date is expected sometime shortly after, though nothing specific has been confirmed. We'll of course be keeping our eye out for Combat Arms: Zombies as it gets closer to release, and bring you any new information or media as we get it.

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Square Enix has a billion Final Fantasy XIII spin-offs and a handful of new IPs in the oven set to hit a variety of handheld devices. One of these fresh and clean IPs, a card-based battle game that apparently goes by the name Demon’s Score, is coming to iOS and Android in 2012, the mobile arm of the publisher announced at its Tokyo Game Show presentation.

The Machine gods behind Google Translate isn’t helping us at the moment, but it appears as though the nitty-gritty given at the event begin and end at the genre and the fact that it’ll boast over 50 cards — a feature that means nothing to us at the moment because the game mechanic hasn’t been shown. Interestingly, Dengeki mentions that Demon’s Score will utilize Unreal Engine 3, so there’s that.

On the off-chance that Square shows off Demon’s Score at the show, we’ll be sure to update this and throw in some footage. As for now, we only have a singular image for you to gawk at. Eyes up, sirs.

[Via Dengeki, Pocket Gamer]

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IGN recently got their hands on Gameloft's upcoming modern military shooter Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation and aside from a new gameplay trailer, also have tons of details on the game itself. First off, you really need to watch this:

It seems Modern Combat 3 will fall in line with the other entries in the series and feature online multiplayer, this time with 12 players and six different game modes spread over six maps. They've also told IGN there will be "frequent updates," so it will be interesting to see if Modern Combat 3 sees better post-launch support than previous iterations.

Single player sounds like it's basically what you'd expect: 13 levels of fast-paced military-centric combat with voiceovers and battle locations ranging from Los Angeles to Russia. Controls sound like they'll be similar to other Gameloft first person shooters. What I'm curious of is whether this is a Unity or an Unreal Engine game, not that it really matters either way, but we haven't seen much yet from Gameloft's announcement of their future utilization of Unreal Engine 3.

[via IGN]

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Emotional Robots’ Warm Gun will pull your eyeballs out of your head at first glance. It’s got a unique look: it’s a sci-fi, class-based FPS set in a post-apocalyptic second coming of the wild, wild west. Think Red Dead Redemption meets Borderlands, except the Borderlands part is just icing on the grit-and-sand cake. The game first hit our radar earlier this year when it was announced for an iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch release alongside its PC launch. At the time of that report, we didn’t have a release. And while we still don’t have an exact one, we do have a window now: August, so says a studio rep.

We’ve also since seen the first footage of the iOS version, too. Just the other day, actually, the studio dropped a pretty stellar teaser trailer of the game running natively on the platforms. And if you can’t already tell, yeah, this is an Unreal Engine 3 joint.

To hear Emotional Robots explain it, the decision to port the game had a lot to do growth and popularity as a studio and for the game. Emotional Robots took the opportunity that Epic has given developers with UDK as a challenge and as a way to “break into the industry and get gamers familiar with Warm Gun.” At the end of the day, it believes its created not just one, but two unique experiences for PC and for mobile respectively.

It'll be interesting seeing how the iOS counterparts play, as a keyboard and mouse is arguably the ideal way to play a FPS. In an e-mail chat, the studio addressed my concerns to some degree, stating that the controls on iOS devices are definitely a key point of interest and it’s creating multiple schemes for players to get comfortable with.

“We are constantly updating and tweaking the controls and will be offering multiple control schemes,” executive producer Zach Lehman said. “ We realize that using touch screen to control a FPS is limited in some ways, so we are trying to cover as many bases as possible by doing extensive testing and offering customization where we can.” He also mentioned that users will have a hand in the future of the controls — as I was reminded several times, it wants feedback from enthusiasts.

The fact that Warm Gun iOS will be a port of a promising, technically-cool property that was once scheduled to hit a standard platform doesn't come as the same kind of surprise as it used to. We see this happening a lot as mobile devices in general are increasingly becoming more legitimate platforms in 'traditional' video game makers' eyes. Lord knows they've demanded the market share for awhile.

“Warm Gun's level of graphics combined with the freedom given by an FPS that isn't 'on rails' is still rather unique to the market,” Lehman told us when we asked what differentiated the title from others. “In the past, we've had a lot of comments regarding our art style (and it being compared to games like Borderlands or Red Dead Redemption). While we recognize the similarities in atmosphere, that's pretty much where it ends.”

“Warm Gun offers a fast paced, gun-slinging experience with 12 unique weapons, 4 unique characters and 5 very different maps. We will also have achievements and honors that you can flaunt in front of your friends after you dominate them in a match.”

No word on price yet, but we'll pay whatever for the promise of Warm Gun.

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Yuji Naka, the former head of Sonic Team and now co-owner of PROPE, has dropped a new Unreal Engine 3 thing on the App Store. Note the hesitance.

It’s called PD – proper discoverer [$2.99], and it’s remarkable because it doesn’t jive with what PROPE has released in the past. It’s not a Let’s TAP mini-game title, in other words.

It's experiential. Like Epic’s showpiece of the engine’s power, Epic Citadel [Free], PD has you walking around a castle and its grounds in first-person. The goal is to see everything PROPE has rendered. In order to do that, you have to collect hidden cards scattered in the environments.

PD strikes me as little more than a tech demo. And for better or worse, it's a demo that PROPE is monetizing as it learns the ropes of Unreal Engine 3 and what it can offer in terms of lighting, shading, and all that technical jazz.

In the past, we've seen many other studios experimenting with Unreal Engine 3 take and twist Epic Citadel in a similar manner. Just a couple of months ago, actually, I played a poker game with an Epic Citadel-y vibe and structure. Yeah. It was weird.

It’s interesting to see a Japanese developer experimenting with Unreal, no less Unreal for tablet and smart device games, but will PROPE continue using the engine? I’ve blasted over a note to the studio in hopes to learn of its long-term plans, or at least its goals. I’ll let you know when or if I hear back.

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We all had a suspicion that Infinity Blade [$5.99] was continuing to sell well at this point in its life, but we haven’t had a number to back us up. Now, we do. According to Epic Games and creator Chair Entertainment, the hack and slash third-person action game has raked in around 10 million dollars in earnings. That’s… a lot of games and in-game gold sold.

What gives, asks the indie developer with a good game that hasn’t accrued this kind of landmark dough? While Infinity Blade is a good game and a technical marvel to boot, it’s also had a heck of a lot of external support from two well-known entities: Epic and Chair. I think that helps to explain why it’s sold so much in so little time. It was also a flagship game for the UDK, which certainly drew some a lot of extra eyes to the project.

Epic released this number for a reason: it wants me, you, and every developer out there to know that there’s a market for core, Unreal Engine 3-powered titles out there. Mark Rein, Epic VP and co-founder, says in statement that Epic is “looking forward to our licensees achieving spectacular results of their own,” as if this perfect storm isn’t so perfect.

I suppose we’ll see.

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Earlier this week Epic Games reported that LucasArts signed a multi-year studio-wide licensing agreement to utilize Epic's awesome Unreal Engine 3 across multiple platforms. According to Epic Vice President Mark Rein, “LucasArts is now primed to capitalize on Unreal Engine 3’s ability to scale across platforms, from mobile, through PC and console all the way up to the next generation of games.”

Now, I'm not entirely sure just how excited to get about all of this. Epic Citadel [Free] and Infinity Blade [$5.99] have done a great job showing just what the Unreal Engine 3 can do on the iOS platform. Technically speaking, if games are developed in UE3 with multiple platforms in mind, targeting iOS devices could all be part of the same development process that would result in Xbox 360, PS3, and PC games. Rein does specifically mention mobile gaming too, and there's no disputing the fact that iOS is a main mobile platform currently.

However, LucasArts really has yet to get that involved in the world of iOS. Their App Store catalog is fairly barren, and only consists of Monkey Island remakes. I'd love to think that we're about to get a bucket of amazing LucasArts Unreal Engine 3-powered games dumped on the App Store, but if this is just being announced now, it will likely be quite a while before we see any of the projects utilizing this engine.

Keep your fingers crossed, iOS-owning LucasArts fans!

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Gameloft just announced that they have made a long term, multi-platform licensing agreement with Epic Games, Inc for the Unreal Engine 3. Julien Fourniais, Vice President of Production at Gameloft had this to say:

“Gameloft is very pleased to partner with Epic, especially with their ability to stay ahead of the curve and continually place the best game engine technology in developers’ hands at any given point in time. Using Unreal Engine 3 allows us to push game visuals with remarkable lighting and high-fidelity environments. We are confident that players will enjoy the games powered by Unreal Engine 3.”

Ever since Epic Games first revealed the Unreal Engine 3 for iOS, we've been excited to see what developers might come up with. Uptake, however, has been slow possibly due to licensing fees.

Gameloft's been no slouch from a game engine perspective as is. Gameloft is planning to release four new games with the Unreal Engine 3, two in 2011 and two in 2012.

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