Let’s compare graphics! Horn on the iPhone 4 vs the iPhone 5

With news of Horn having a worthy Free version to check out, I was finally able to see what everyone loved so much about it. The fact that it had Zynga attached to it had me a bit worried, but mere minutes of playing it, all those worries quickly disappeared.

I've read everywhere what a gorgeous game it is, and while I did think it looked very good, compared to Infinity Blade and its sequel, it looked much worse. I wondered why that was, since I am on the iPhone 4 which does have retina display. I then had my colleague Andrew download it as well on his iPhone 5, and the results were night and day.

Not only was his version more visually pleasing, mine had bits removed from it altogether. Let's look at the screenshots. The left side shows screens taken with the iPhone 4 while the right shows the iPhone 5. Click on each one to get a better look.

In the very first screenshot, you can already see the vast difference between the two. Not only are the textures better, the environment is more full in the iPhone 5 version. There is much more foliage too, small plants on the ground and trees in the background.

The biggest difference here is the giant glare effect in the iPhone 5 version which looks absolutely stunning. We also get a good close-up shot of the ground here, which shows how much more detailed it is on the 5. Not only is the plant removed from the 4 version, so is the arch on the ruins, hmm.

This one's all about textures. Everything from the rocks, the statue, to the ruins looks much more bland on the 4. The glare effect is there but instead of it being seemless like it is on the 5, it looks as if it was layered on top of itself. There also seems to be a support beam missing from the 4.

Here is the first shot of the game in action. The glare and the floating particles once again makes the other version look so much better. There is a lot of foliage missing and there seem to be entire buildings removed from the iPhone 4 version.

This one might be my favorite of all. A look behind our horned hero shows a castle of sorts. I didn't think much of it until I looked at the iPhone 5 version and noticed there are towers missing from mine. The hilarious part is that the shadows from those towers are still there!

Ultimately, I learned that I need to upgrade. Regardless of the game looking bad on my phone, it's still rad, and free! Go download it.