Why didn't TouchArcade get a hands-on with this at Paris?

Why didn't TouchArcade get a hands-on with this at Paris?

I thought it looked pretty amazing, what tiny bit we actually get to see. It's obviously very similar to halo. Who does gameloft get to do their cinematic trailers? Must be expensive.

can't wait. Merry Christmas to me!

tim

Looks great, but my god the main character and enemies are nearly identical to halo!

Gameloft does copy classic games, but they really make the iphone an amazing gaming system!!!

omg wow! what a halo ripoff! the main character look exactly like master chief and that red guy looks like a brute

The thing I like about Gameloft is that they always come out with teasers and deliver on the game shortly after (at least for me) unlike other companies like Ngmoco that tease us with games for a month and underdeliver on the product. Word-Fu anyone?

wow it looks just like halo, looks amazing

Well, you got to love Gameloft for churning all this stuff out. Having not been a fan of GL in the past, I think recently their games have got quite a bit better. The Settlers was the last one I bought, and I haven't come across one bug yet, which is saying something for GL. Let's hope Halo....oh sorry...N.O.V.A follows suit; )

I've never actually seen Gameloft confirm true online multiplayer for this game. They've only gone so far as to say that it will have wi-fi mp, which could very easily mean local only. A lot of people seem to be assuming that it will include global online multiplayer, but I have yet to see any real evidence. Gameloft has a habit of being intentionally vague at times. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

Gameloft did, however, promise "dozens" of levels; meaning a minimum of 24 levels. Many full-length console games don't have that many levels. No Gameloft game to this point has ever had that many levels. No 3-D iphone game has ever had that many levels (Well, perhaps Assassin's Creed comes close. That was simply a port of a DS game though. It was really the DS game that had that many levels).

Yeah, I'm thinking Gameloft's "dozens of levels" claim was an exaggeration. Modern Combat had 10 levels. One was a tutorial and one was a cut-scene. In actuality, Modern Combat really only had 8. We'll see. With dozens of levels and global multiplayer, this game would basically be the steal of the century at only 6.99. I'm skeptical, however, on both accounts.

Pocket Gamer has a preview of NOVA to go along with the video. NOVA ships with 12 levels. Gameloft sure makes a helluva lots of promises that they never back up. Not that I would have expected NOVA to include dozens of levels. Of course I wouldn't have. But why the heck did they claim that NOVA would have twice the amounts of levels that it actually contains? For such a large and established entity, some of the things Gameloft does is extremely shady.

12 f ing levels!!! That's only 2 more than MC:S, Jesus when are they ever gonna realise that their games are to short! But atleast there is multiplayer

HOLY SHIT!

Even for GameLoft that's bold. I don't understand why they feel the need to be so blatant when ripping off other games. Why make the main character a near carbon copy of master chief? And the red guy at the end - that's a brute from Halo. They even managed to get the word 'orbital' into the name of the game, as a nod to Halo ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper).

It's surprising that they're owned by Ubisoft, who are a very respectable developer. I wouldn't have thought they would have wanted to be linked to a developer of cheap knock offs of other dev's titles.

I don't understand this, gameloft (ubisoft) has a very decent catolouge of games. Why is it that they feel the need to blow their resources on knock offs when they could be making weaker copies of ghost recon, randbow six, splinter cell, and many more. They should be like EA, EA lands all of their games on the top 25 for a very steady amount of time soley due to the brand names. Now gameloft is doing okay with things like assasins creed and hawx, but they should seriously take advantage of their library of games to work with. Plus i hate it how they cheap out and reuse all of their game engines like an old condom that seems outdated and uncomfortable.

I don't see what the big deal is about it being a Halo clone. Halo was and is a successful game series. Lots of companies have emulated it in one form or another. Sure this has a VERY similar look to Halo, and it would have been nice if they stepped away from that, but it's far from the first game to go down that road.

I'd love to play Halo on my iPhone, but since it's pretty unlikely that Bungie and Microsoft Game Studios are going to release a hand held game based on the series (unless it's for the Zune HD, but even that I doubt), I'm excited for Nova and look forward to playing it.

Sure they get docked points for originality, but the main question should be is it going to be good to play?

I hope they do a better job than Eliminate. That game had such potential, but the implementation was abysmal.
Terrible pricing scheme, rediculously long recharge, broken match system.

Hope this is a step forward.

The game looks Great ! I sure hope this will launch by Christmas any word on the multi player options and price ?

Wow. That's not just a Halo clone, that's a Halo impersonator with a Halo fetish stealing Halo's hair off of its pillow so it can add it to the ball later.

To me this looks like a mix of Halo and Metroid Prime. Graphics look good for the iPhone though...

This will be great. Gameloft games are good, regardless of how 'inspired' they are by popular titles. If only EA and other big publishers lavished this sort of attention on the platform.

Where is Rockstar? I don't want dodgy chinatown DS, I want a real GTA, or a real Midnight club racing. I also want Bugbear's Flatout series, BADLY, on the iphone.

Haha, I love how everyone's hating on Eliminate xD

You're all just a bunch of complainers who expect everything to be free and don't think the 30-something team at ngmoco should make enough money to keep them from begging on the streets. It's disgraceful. Eliminate is a great game with excellent execution. Sure, pricing could be improved a BIT, but you're not obligated to pay. I haven't paid a cent, but with all their special offers, I haven't needed to. Obviously if you're super nerds who play on their iPhone/iTouch FPS all day, then you're gonna want to be able to play a lot. If that's the case, play for free or pay to play and also earn credits. It's as simple as that.

I don't know... It's just pretty annoying to see all of you whiners whining over a great game.

I think if all the clone moaners where bannned from downloading the game they would soon change their attitude.

games looks awesome.these are some of the best graphics that have been developed for a mobile device.cant wait! im getting an ipod touch for christmas so ill get this game when it first arrives

Nova>Eliminate Pro

I hope that this game has enhancements for those of us wielding a 3gs..

as much as I didn't like halo, this totally looks like a rip off.

Yummy law suit :]

Face it, NONE of these games are very original. Marathon preceded Halo.... blah blah blah. They all have essentially the same scenarios. All you need do is swap out time, place, bad guys and weapons.

Having some sort of post-apocalyptic theme with an evil corporation/government/occupying force or invaders is a must! You've got to be trapped in spaceship/castle/house/city/science facility that is, naturally, disabled and overrun with Nazis/zombies/aliens/monsters/criminals/enemy soldiers. You must run/swim/jump/fly/drive, solve tricky puzzles and moves, while shooting a clear path, picking up health packs, power-ups and new more deadly (hopefully outrageous, cool and humourous) to wipe out ever more crafty, larger and more powerful foes. Ultimately you must escape and save ___________ (fill in the blank).

The only thing that distinguishes them is gameplay, good graphics and sound. Gameplay is the number ONE element! Some of these things can be a lot of fun on the iPod touch/iPhone. It's nice NOT getting sucked in for hours at a time as I would playing on my Mac!

Haha, I love how everyone's hating on Eliminate xD

You're all just a bunch of complainers who expect everything to be free and don't think the 30-something team at ngmoco should make enough money to keep them from begging on the streets. It's disgraceful. Eliminate is a great game with excellent execution. Sure, pricing could be improved a BIT, but you're not obligated to pay. I haven't paid a cent, but with all their special offers, I haven't needed to. Obviously if you're super nerds who play on their iPhone/iTouch FPS all day, then you're gonna want to be able to play a lot. If that's the case, play for free or pay to play and also earn credits. It's as simple as that.

I don't know… It's just pretty annoying to see all of you whiners whining over a great game.

I always wondered why no one has ever sued Gameloft. Blades of Fury is a blatent clone of Soul Caliber. Gangstar is a horrific clone of GTA 3, right down to color palette, fonts, menus, logo's, etc. GT looks like a pathetic clone of Gran Turismo. The game's not out yet, granted, but jesus, just look at the logos. And N.O.V.A, forget about it. As unapologetic of a Halo clone as you can possiby get. Skater Nation seems a little less obvious in terms of it being a Tony Hawk clone. I think it's just different enough in order to Gameloft to get away with it. Also, we know MC was "inspired" by MW, but it's different enough as well, I think. But some of these games. I mean, I don't even know how Gameloft gets away with what they are doing.

Realize, however, that if the companies that Gameloft blatently rips off decided to bring to the real deal to the appstore, they would demand between 20-30 easily for the finished product. Companies like Bungie and Poly already know that they can't possibly get that much, and that is why they don't develop iphone games in the first place.

Activision will never deliver a true COD game. Nor will Konami give us true versions of Silient Hill or MGS. Square Enix will never give us a true Final Fantasy game. Production value is simply too high in the eyes of these companies to give the final product away for 9.99

Gameloft producing a reasonable "Halo" clone for 6.99 is a pretty remarkable deal. Bungie would definitely want $30.00 for this game if it were an actual Halo game.

I'm actually disgusted by how much this looks like halo. All of the aesthetics, down to the musical score, the name, the enemies. Despite looking "just enough" different to avoid copyright issues, the characters have the same proportions and behaviors as the Covenant. The main character looks like a cheap Spartan prototype, the weapons and environments are all SOOO familiar. It even has the same style of orchestral score for crying out loud.

I understand making a game in the same genre as another because there's a wide appeal for that genre. But this is pathetic, what is it Gameloft? Are all your games designed by committee? Your games have great production values but no heart. Halo was a success because the people at bungie poured their heart and souls into it, this is just shovelware to capitalize on the value they created.

First of all they said a dozen, NOT DOZENS, for all you ignorent people who are complaining. Dozen = 12. So the didnt lie. Second the reason why nobodys sued Gameloft is because the other companies dont care about the mobile clones. And Third why has this article turned into a debate about Gameloft and their ethics? I mean really if your going to post a comment, be on subject. with that being said i personally look foward to this mobile game.

I don't mind Gameloft using top notch games as inspiration; but do they have to be so blatant about it? That alien at the end is an Elite. I don't care what they end up calling it, it's an Elite. And that soldier at the beginning of the trailer looked like Master Chief wearing Helghast goggles.

look like iHalo.
Im gonna stick to Eliminate for now

Gameloft affirmed that a single player story-driven campaign is planned that spans "dozens of levels."

That's an exact quote from Pocket Gamer's original preview of N.O.V.A., posted on September 9, 2009. Obviously, Pocket Gamer got their information from Gameloft, because Touch Arcade reported the same exact facts.

And I'm not neccessarily saying that what Gameloft does is bad for us as consumers. I feel bad for people who may get suckered into buying certain Gameloft games based upon false promises that Gameloft never delivers upon. For example, Gameloft absolutely promised multiplayer support for NFL 2010. That was a blatent lie. There will never be multiplayer for that game, nor was there ever going to be. Anyone who bought it based solely upon Gameloft's promise of mp got hosed. Also, Gameloft promised months ago an update for mid-level saves in MC.

I know what Gameloft is and will never get suckered into buying one of their games based upon their twitter feed, which is where they tend to make most of these baseless promises. I buy or don't based upon what the game is the day it ships and I never expect anything to be added to Gameloft games after they have been released.

But, like I said, Bungie, Square Enix, Activision, Konami, Poly would all insist upon selling their games for upwards of 30 a pop, while Gameloft sells reasonable clones of these games for 7. As long as we know exactly what Gameloft is, we as mobile device owners benefit greatly by Gameloft's app store presense.

I don't know why everyone assumes the bungie, valve, square etc. would sell their games at a high pricepoint. It would be business suicide to do so, especially with gameloft undercutting their prices with clones. I expect that were any of these companies to see iPhone as a platform they wanted to target they would price it competitively just like any other developer / publisher would. Gameloft makes money after all.

Exactly. A mobile Halo produced by Bingie would be extremely polished and require no updates. Just look as PSP games. Those games don't require bug fix updates, because they get it right the first time. But the budget/production value on high-end PSP games is much greater than with any iPhone. They can afford to invest more on the front end because of how much they are able to charge per copy on the back end.

A true console-quality game, like say either The God of War or metal gear solid game that came out for the PSP, if ever created on the iPhone, could never be priced at 9.99.

halo would never come to the iphone cause its owned by microsoft. bill gates doesnt even allow ipods or iphones into his house if anyone is over and owns one.

so this is the best we'll get.