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'Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD' and Other Anticipated iOS Releases Arrive

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night, a number of highly anticipated games made its way out into the App Store ahead of the holiday rush. Among them was Crescent Moon Games's role-playing game Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD. Aralon is an epic open world western RPG that is more comparable to the PC/console game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind than anything else available on the App Store. In fact, the game's art was even done in part by Mark Jones, a contributing artist to Morrowind and other Elder Scrolls RPG's. Aralon features over 30 hours of gameplay, a character creation and customization that is unrivaled by anything else on the platform, mounts to ride, crafting systems, and much more. Our sister site TouchArcade calls it a "masterpiece of an iOS game" in its review:
[Some things] can only be experienced firsthand, like the first time the sun sets and gives way to a breathtaking night sky overlooking the vast land before you. I used to look at my iOS device as a small window into new worlds and fun experiences, and with Aralon I feel like I actually have a fully realized living and breathing universe sitting snugly in my pocket. ... I don't only suggest Aralon for fans of Western RPGs or expansive open-world action games, but I think every iOS gamer needs to pick up this title just to experience what is possible on this constantly expanding mobile platform.
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Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD, priced at $6.99, is a universal app optimized for the third- and fourth-generation iPod touch, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, and iPad. Other notable releases include:

World of Goo for iPad. A highly rated PC/Mac game that has been ported to the iPad.
Dungeon Defenders: First Wave - The second game on the App Store based on Epic's Unreal Engine.
Real Racing 2 - A sequel to the highly rated Real Racing for iPhone. This time the game comes with 16 licensed cars and online multi-player.

Article Link: 'Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD' Takes iOS Role-Playing Games to the Next Level
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/12/16/aralon-sword-and-shadow-hd-takes-ios-role-playing-games-to-the-next-level/
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Only got my Mage character up to level 6 but I'm REALLY enjoying this game so far. I highly recommend it if you are a fan of RPG games.

Some of the interface elements are too small when played on the iPad but it's still very playable. I may make a second character on my iPhone to see how the experience is on the smaller screen.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Sky Blue said:
How much does a front page ad like this cost?
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Very good question.
 
4look4rd said:
This is not an ad. It is showing the graphics capabilities of idevices.
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There was nothing in that trailer that I havent seen before on my iPhone. Anyone who has seen Unreal's engine knows what iDevices are capable of.

Let's not kid ourselves though, it's an ad. Not that that's a bad thing though. The site has to make money to support itself.
 
I admit I don't do these games often enough to know, but from the video clip I am not seeing how this takes things to the next level. Is it supposed to be the art, the realism, the ability to create characters, what? The characters look as artificial and stiff as most other games.
 
kas23 said:
There was nothing in that trailer that I havent seen before on my iPhone. Anyone who has seen Unreal's engine knows what iDevices are capable of.

Let's not kid ourselves though, it's an ad. Not that that's a bad thing though. The site has to make money to support itself.
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If there was payola involved, then it's very definitely a bad thing. They already have ads, which is fine. An ad masquerading as a news story or a review is unethical.

However, I don't think it's really an ad. Maybe he knows the developer and wanted to throw some love his way, but I doubt it's anything more sinister than that.
 
kas23 said:
There was nothing in that trailer that I havent seen before on my iPhone. Anyone who has seen Unreal's engine knows what iDevices are capable of.

Let's not kid ourselves though, it's an ad. Not that that's a bad thing though. The site has to make money to support itself.
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I think it's actually illegal to receive advert money and not clearly mark the post "advertisement."
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

JPark said:
If there was payola involved, then it's very definitely a bad thing. They already have ads, which is fine. An ad masquerading as a news story or a review is unethical.

However, I don't think it's really an ad. Maybe he knows the developer and wanted to throw some love his way, but I doubt it's anything more sinister than that.
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I expect you're right, though this "article" FEELS like an ad.
 
dogcowx said:
What a great... "rumor"... :)
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To be fair :
2bjld7
:D

shartypants said:
eh, doesn't look very special.
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kas23 said:
There was nothing in that trailer that I haven't seen before on my iPhone. Anyone who has seen Unreal's engine knows what iDevices are capable of.
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I think what makes this game a milestone for the iOS (and newsworthy), is its depth. While I think Infinity Blade is a very fun and beautiful game, like most games on the app store, it still feels like a "light" game to me compared to what can be experienced on other platforms. Aralon might be instrumental in finding out if larger games (lengthy and costly development) can be profitable on the iTunes store where, prices are low in comparison to console games.
 
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To be clear, it's not an ad. We are always careful to note when we are promotional partners, and that's generally limited to app bundles and major software release links.

We occasionally try to highlight content of interest featured on our sister site (ie. also owned by arn) TouchArcade. The community over there has been anticipating this game release for months, and we thought we'd draw some attention to it.
 
I'm starting to get the feeling that a lot of these $5+ games are really more tech demonstrations than anything. Which is fine but I got a lot more value out of simple 'mini-games' like Angry Birds than I will with stuff like this.
 
Looks good, as it looks to be free roaming, and not on railway tracks like two recent BIG NAME titles I could mention.

If I can't wander where I want to, and feel free, to at least some degree then sorry, but I'm not interested.
 
thedarkhalf said:
Wow.. worst "trailer" ever
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This.

Also, note to dev, if you're gonna rip-off World of Warcraft art style and graphics, at least do the animations right, mmkay?

Also, whoever said mini-games are a lot more fun and engaging on the iPhone than these >5$ megatitles was right.

:eek:
 
ReallyBigFeet said:
I'm starting to get the feeling that a lot of these $5+ games are really more tech demonstrations than anything. Which is fine but I got a lot more value out of simple 'mini-games' like Angry Birds than I will with stuff like this.
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A game isn’t a tech demo just because it’s not simple and mini :)
 
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