Every time we hear the words ‘Unreal Engine’, we know something good is in stock for us. And Epoch doesn’t disappoint, it’s as beautiful and detailed as you’d expect.

EPOCH (Universal: $5.99) 

“Follow the echoes of a lost civilization in a visually-stunning post-apocalyptic world where only robots survive to fight a never-ending war. Fight towards your goal and piece together the fragments to reveal exactly what happened when the old world ended. Is this the dawn of a new Epoch? And how can you find the one person you were originally assigned to protect?”

Presentation

When playing Epoch, we couldn’t help but noticing a similarity to Infinity Blade. Although the games are set in completely different times (medieval vs. futuristic, sci-fi), one thing remains the same: rails.

Infinity Blade disguises this fact a little more by letting you choose where to go, but Epoch is very upfront about it. Each level takes place behind obstacles, with thee places to take cover: left, center, and right. The enemies will pop up in the background. But ultimately, that’s as much choice as you’ll have over movement.

Controls

The game is swipe based. You’ll always be behind cover, but swiping left or right will have your character move between pieces of cover. Likewise, swiping up will have you stick out of cover and start shooting at the enemies, while swiping down will have you hide in cover. As for targeting, you simply tap on enemy targets. Your character shoots automatically.

Gameplay

The game doesn’t have much a storyline: you simply wake up with the purpose of protecting a women, who is on the other side of town, so you end up fighting your way there. As I mentioned above, the game is pretty much on rails, only being able to move around the three pieces of cover.

Which brings us to the gameplay itself, which is a interesting concept. Instead of a typical FPS, Epoch takes care of most things automatically. What you’ll be doing is moving around, both keeping the enemy off balance, as well as avoiding the grenades they’ll be throwing.

That being said, the game isn’t very long. In fact, you’ll probably finish it in little over an hour. Personally, I was able to ease my way through most of the levels without barely a scratch up to the boss fight, where it got harder.

Although it’s not fair to compare the game to Infinity Blade, there is one thing in common between them: the upgrade system. And while the game encourages you to play through the levels again to unlock more weapons, you won’t really have any reason to do so.

Conclusion

The concept behind Epoch is definitely one of the most unique and intriguing ones I’ve seen for a while on the AppStore, and that’s great, let’s be unique. That being said, when you look at the overall game, it wasn’t the most fun I’ve had, and it didn’t fee like it had any replay value. All I can say is, if you’re going to pick this up, keep in mind all of the above issues, as well as the price.