Gameloft never tries to reinvent the wheel.  What they do, and they do it very well, is to bring inspired clones or ports of successful games from other platforms onto the Idevice.  In N.O.V.A. they deliver a striking Halo inspired FPS that should appeal to that large fan base.

  

You play Karl Warden, a retired Marine hero forced into active duty to fight the aggressive aliens know as Judges who threaten the Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, a group of artificial satellites constructed to house mankind.  The generic single-player story takes you through 13 levels.  The level design, while graphically appealing, is decidedly earth-like except for the alien stronghold and does little to immerse you in a futuristic sci-fi setting.  You’re led down corridors and through jungle trails and snowy mountain passes by Gameloft’s familiar arrow.  The aliens appear through portals and consist of the typical brute types and solders.

  


Your weapons are the standard assault rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher, sniper rifel and pistol, although you do pick up a plasma gun toward the end. You have the ability to freeze your attacker for a short while by pressing the bolt in the left corner but it uses up some of your energy bar which regenerates.  You can jump with the arrow in the lower right corner which you’ll need to get past a couple of jumping sections and N.O.V.A. contains all the standard jeep-on-rails and manning the machine gun sections found in many FPS.

The game controls well, similar to Modern Combat, but there is no iron site.  There are supply boxes scattered throughout that you unlock by playing a circuit mini-game to break up the action.  There is no ability to melee instead when you’re attacked up close you automatically change to your pistol for close-in fighting.  

  

If you like multiplayer, N.O.V.A. contains Wifi multiplayer and a working online deathmatch of 5 maps that you can play by signing on to Gameloft Live.  It was easy to join a match but it ran rather slow on my 1st generation Iphone.

N.O.V.A. is a competent FPS although I didn't find anything revolutionary or ground breaking to its gameplay. It didn’t immerse or excite me with its single player campaign as much as Modern Combat Sandstorm and I found myself slogging to the end just to finish.  The multiplayer gives it added value and brings it to 4 stars.


goyami@comcast.net