Gameloft demo NOVA 2, Asphalt 6 Adrenaline and Shadow Guardian in a special press event, read-on for our thoughts…
Today we were invited to a Gameloft press event, where they demoed three of their upcoming games with a Q&A session for each…
We’ll be getting hands-on with each game on monday 6, but until then we have a few interesting morsels of information to share with you eager iOS gamers out there.
Asphalt 6
As we already know, there are 42 vehicles in all, including 38 cars and 4 motorbikes. There are two electric cars too, including the Tesla. With all these great looking licensed cars available to play and unlock, Gameloft have created a PGR inspired garage where you can view them all.
Placed around your garage you are free to walk around and look at each car in more detail, and for a more immersive experience they are adding gyro support so you feel like you are in the virtual garage yourself. It’s a bit of a gimmick and not core to the gameplay, but it’s a nice addition and looked great in the demo we saw.
In the game itself there are 55 events to play through across 11 racing leagues. This includes an elimination style event much like burnout where you must take out your computer or online opponents. The Adrenaline subtitle of the game comes into play here, and when activated highlights both other vehicles and the trackside in glowing neon pink for a greater level of precision, kind of like a focus mode.
Online allows for six people to battle it out in all vehicles, across all tracks and events over Wifi, and locally over bluetooth and WiFi. XP and achievements are available to unlock on Gameloft Live.
As for the graphics – which to me didn’t look great in an early video trailer they released, but looks way better in this demo on an iPhone 4 – the development team said that the engine was built from the ground up to make the iPhone and iPad version look and run the best it can, while still allowing for downscaling for older devices.
And asked about how long the development cycle was for this game, Gameloft replied that it took around 10 months from start to finish. About the same as all their games, which can take from 10 months to one year to complete.
Shadow Guardian
Originally starting life as a tech demo called Temple Explorer design to push the limits of the iPhone 4, the game then developed into a full featured game. The team involved in the game admit that it very based on their love for Indiana Jones and games such as Tomb rRaider and Uncharted.
Pitched to us as Gameloft’s most ambitious game to date it pushes the iPhone 4 technically, using 4 times the amount of polygons seen in last years Avatar game, and far higher resolution of textures. They showed off three levels today including Luxor, Alexandria and Medusa’s temple (an underwater temple in the red sea), and each had greater draw distance seen in other games (iPhone 4 only) and featured full 360 degrees camera.
Across 4-5 hours of gaming, including achievements that can’t be all accumulated in one play-though for added replay value, the game boast a different gameplay experience in every level. Luxor for instance was very heavy on climbing and platforming like Tomb raider, while Alexandria was more Splinter Cell in terms of action. The medusa level was also heavy on puzzles, where you had to use light to reflect off mirrors, in order to activate doorways etc. In fact over 40% of the game will be puzzle based, with the other action and exploration.
The action is split between duck and cover style fighting with various weapons, such as pistols and sniper rifles. And when up close the action moves to a quicktime events style of play, as you must time the melee action button to take out the enemies, with up to 12 different execution kills.
Unlike Tomb Raider, the game employes a full free camera, that can be moved in 360 degrees at anytime, vital when climbing to see where to jump to next. During action you can also switch to Iron Sights for better aim.
NOVA 2
Last week we played the first level of the game, and you can read our hands-on impressions here. Some new levels were shown to us today, including a vehicular level much like the jeep level in the first game. only this time you a re on a fast moving jet bike, echoing scenes from the pod racing in Star Wars. As you swerve left to right while speeding through desert canyons, you must also take out enemies on the ground and in there air. It looks pretty cool, and will certainly add a change of pace to the FPS heavy segments.
In fact I ask a question to the development team during the press conference if there will be any puzzle and exploration elements to the game as seen in NOVA 1, as in my play through of level one there was none. They answered that yes there are both puzzle elements and maze like exploration segments to the game, as well as mini games. in fact the last level they showed opened with a free fall section ,as you plummet down what looks like an alien mine shaft. This plays out like the usual tunnel like games where you must avoid the oncoming beams and other objects in the tunnel.
Finally I asked if Gameloft will continue to support all iOS devices in future or if they think there will come a time where the graphics technology of the older devices will hold them back? To which they answered they will always strive to provide gaming experiences for every gamer on all devices, and so for the immediate future every iOS device will be supported.
We’ll be getting hands-on with these games next week, so stay tuned to TouchGEN.com
