Not another Halo
Gameloft has made their name bringing console-style gaming to mobile devices. For a long time now, this has meant blatant rip-offs of popular console series that have all the subtlety and class of those mockbuster movies you find in impulse racks at the grocery store. Series like Modern Combat and Hero of Sparta did nothing to distinguish themselves from Modern Warfare or God of War, making it clear that they were just surrogates, filling a void on a platform where the originals were unavailable.
Now we live in a world where major franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Mass Effect are making their way to our phones and tablets, and Gameloft is hoping to prove it can be more than just a skillful mimic. For the third entry in their once shameless Halo riff, they’re attempting to establish their own style. While nothing here screams originality, it’s at least clear that they’re no longer content to simply ape other developers wholesale.
N.O.V.A. 3 begins on a “long abandoned” (albeit remarkably well preserved) Earth, an environment that immediately sets it apart from the futuristic landscapes the series has explored previously. Shooting aliens in a post-apocalypitc San Francisco feels more like Crysis 2 than anything in the Halo series, and the presence of squadmates evokes cinematic war shooters like Call of Duty or Homefront. Later, the game ventures to an abandoned spaceship, and an alien world, both of which feel fresh for the series.
It’s equally clear that Gameloft has invested a great deal into their graphics technology. Cinematic depth-of-field, specular highlights, filtered lighting, and refractions are just a few of the advanced graphical effects that set N.O.V.A. 3 apart from the competition. The environments, textures, and enemy models are all packed with detail, and at a glance, you can almost mistake it for a console game.
N.O.V.A. 3 is arguably the most beautiful game on the Android – if your device is supported. Like other recent Gameloft releases, a single download packs two flavors, and selects the setting arbitrarily based on mysterious criteria independent of performance. On the handset we tested with, the game would load the HD version or the standard version based on whether or not Chainfire 3D was installed, and this experience was reproducible on several other models. While mobile gamers might not be ready for PC-like visual tweaking, Android gamers are probably sophisticated enough to handle an HD/SD switch in the settings, and hiding this behind a terrible detection system is a mistake.
The gameplay fundamentals haven’t changed much from its unadventurous predecessors. It’s text-book first-person shooter, with a wide array of weapons, limited ammo, and regenerating health. The weapons pack a pretty good crunch and each behaves differently. The designers do a good job of placing you in varied combat scenarios, but there aren’t many surprises here.
The devil is in the details, though, and that’s where N.O.V.A. 3 starts to fall apart. The enemy A.I. is spotty at best, and sometimes even stays put out of sight and out of range, making it tough to actually finish your objective without restarting the mission. Controls are what you’d expect, and function just fine, with a generous (and optional) auto-aim that makes up for some of the inherent deficiencies of playing a FPS on a touch-screen. When going into scoped mode, this goes so far as to automatically line up your shot, allowing cheap players to just go in and out of scoped view and rack up dead-eye shots. Minor bugs abound as enemies clip through objects or when mission objectives won’t trigger. Visual glitches can sometimes obscure the action, as well.
N.O.V.A. 3 packs a robust multi-player mode, with a wide range of modes and a solid selection of maps to choose from. This mode is wholly self contained, and potentially offers just as much value as the solo campaign. The networking seems very good, and it wasn’t hard to find smooth, lag-free matches when playing with a good Wi-fi connection. The aforementioned auto-aim, however, feels like a bad choice in the context of multiplayer, and when combined with the already accurate weaponry, leads to a map full of perfect snipers. This lack of polish and balance extends to the map design, as well, and spawn point camping seems to be a fact of life.
N.O.V.A. 3 manages to step out of Halo’s shadow, and it’s an impressive effort for the limited hardware, but the fact remains: If this game was on a console, you’d never think twice about it. It does a respectable job of imitating the console experience on your phone, but the result is still a generic shooter that’s a bit rough around the edges. Gameloft has a lot of talent and some impressive tech behind them, but their creative direction and quality assurance need to step up their game if they’re going to really stand out.
