I actually beat Zero Mech and the ancestor inside it a few days back but I wasn’t able to activate New Game+ mode so I had to go try beating them again. This time, I used the cheat exploit: Every time Zero Mech or the ancestor beats me, I exit Infinity Blade, terminate the Infinity Blade process, and start again in front of Zero Mech. Saved time going through the low-level champions again and again. I finally beat them both again and activated New Game+. Now I’m harvesting gold for the Zero Mech equipment now available on the store. This game sure is worth the $4.99 spent!
iPhone Weekend
Michelle and Jeanne went to visit the grandparents and attend Tin and Jansen’s wedding. I was left at home suddenly with plenty of time. I still did some usual chores: laundry, cooking, washing the plates, washing the car, etc. But somehow I still had extra time. Okay, I know why :P
Anyway, what better to spend spare time on than continue learning iPhone software development! The two days, I played around with Objective-C, the Interface Builder, and of course XCode. Learned quite a lot!
And when I wasn’t studying, I was using the iPhone to watch How I Met Your Mother and to play Infinity Blade with its The Deathless Kings content pack (damn Zero Mech!).
Infinity Blade
I had nothing much to do while recuperating from a nasty cold so I played and finally finished Infinity Blade, an iPhone game. The gameplay itself is nothing to write home about. You, and your descendants, make repeated attempts to kill the antagonist, the so-called God King. To this end, you have a progressively more expensive array of helmets, shields, armor, swords, and magic rings.
Once equipped, you head into the God King’s castle along a pre-set path, encountering a handful of the God King’s champions along the way and impaling or disemboweling and generally disposing of them until you reach the God King in his throne room and try to do the same to him. To accomplish this, you can dodge, block, parry, slash, stab with your sword, and occasionally cast a spell.
Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, right? But how all these was translated into a mobile touchscreen-controlled game and with such gorgeous graphics is the marvelous thing. It’s only a few years ago that this kind of graphics can be found only in monster gaming PCs with bleeding edge graphics cards. But here it is now in the palm of your hand. Nothing short of awesome!
Rating: 5/5
Red Dead Redemption
Finally finished Red Dead Redemption (RDR). I sort of rushed through it so that I can get started with Starcraft II but it still too quite some time. This game world is huge! I thought after playing Assassin’s Creed II (AC2) that I’ve seen huge. Not so. While AC2 has towns, RDD has towns and a whole lot of countryside between the towns. And what an awesome countryside it is: rivers, hills, mountains, trees, bushes, shrubs, wildlife, people… and if you want to shoot at those, you have a whole arsenal of rifles, shotguns, pistols, and even knives.
There are so many things to do: gather flowers, hunt animals, hunt outlaws, herd cows, break horses, rob trains, the many side quests, and of course the main quest which takes you across the border to Mexico and back to hunt down some former gangmates in return for the freedom of your wife and son. A spaghetti western through and through. And an epic one at that. This is more of the story and the world than the action or the puzzles. If you’re into that, you’re going to like Red Dead Redemption.
Rating: 3/5
Hell, It’s About Time!
Finally completed downloading the Starcraft II installer as well as all the patches. I was able to download everything overnight, much less time than I initially expected. Due to the 1GB per day limit to its “unlimited” surfing, it would have taken a few days at an estimated cost of P200. So I decided to use Globe’s time-based browsing which is P5 for 15 mins or P20 per hour. Total cost is about the same at P200 but with no usage limit. You would think postpaid is not a complete failure until you realize that time-based browsing is also available with prepaid. Anyway, looks like I’m now late in finishing Red Dead Redemption. Gotta double time on that now.
UPDATE: Still haven’t finished Red Dead Redemption. But couldn’t resist the urge and played a few missions :D