First impressions: Infinity Blade 2

Yesterday the sequel to ‘Infinity Blade’ by Epic Games was released. The initial reviews on gaming centric websites were almost unanimously positive.

I downloaded the game this morning and took a few minutes to check it out.
What I saw was impressive to say the least:

• Incredible graphics, diverse, changing environments and cutscenes
• Gone is the tedious repetitiveness of the first title
• New enemies with new moves and attacks, old enemies with a few new tricks up their sleeves
• Improved sound effects, voice overs and music
• New upgrade system for your inventory and a sleuth of new items

There are a few bugs, mostly small graphics glitches, imperfect localisation (I also couldn’t find a way to set the subtitles from German to English) and it’s still annoying to see advertisements for game-related things left, front and centre. I didn’t have any crashes so far, which wasn’t the case for the first one, and I’ve noticed that the game manages to get my iPhone 4S pretty warm.

I can’t wait to spend more time with this game. Go get it.

Two quick software shout-outs

I wanted to express how impressed I am with two pieces of software that I’ve started to use during the past few days.

1. Reeder for Mac: The day the public beta was released I installed the application. I’ve been a Reeder for iPhone user since day one, too and really love how the developer intelligently brought look and feel of the iPhone application to Mac OS X. Even though some essential features are still missing, the development of the app is progressing at an impressive pace. Today support for multitouch gestures was added, making this a joy to use. I’m curious how much it will cost once it gets out of beta, but then again I don’t particularly care, seeing that it blows every other current RSS reader out of the water.
2. Word for Mac 2011: I was able to try this one on a friend’s computer before deciding to take the plunge and buy the educational package. I haven’t been using my copy of Office for Mac ‘08 for a host of reasons for a while now and was positively surprised by the new suite. Believe it or not, the ribbons actually work quite well for me (I was very sceptical at first). I especially love the good integration into the rest of Mac OS X and the amazing formula editor. I do most of my academic writing in Scrivener, but Word 2011 has simplified my workflow, because I can get the layout, formatting, grammar- and spell-checking done more quickly, exporting the finished piece from Scrivener to Word.