© Gameloft
Also available on: iPhone, Android (May 2012)
Developer: Gameloft
Publisher: Gameloft
Genre: First-person shooter
Gameloft has made a career out of taking other people's ideas and repackaging them to mobile platforms, but nobody can deny that they're good at what they do. The N.O.V.A. series is as close as we're ever likely to get to Halo on a smartphone, so there's a place for its products in an ever-growing mobile market.
N.O.V.A. 3 is arguably the studio's most ambitious undertaking to date. Tablet and smartphone technology has come on in leaps and bounds of late, giving developers powerful new tools to play with. Gameloft has used these to their potential here, delivering a cinematic offering of blockbuster proportions.
In what feels like a homage to Mass Effect 3, N.O.V.A. 3 brings the action to a battle-scarred Earth, allowing for some impressive visuals of ruined cityscapes. Graphics and art design were key areas of focus for the developers, and while the end result is one of the best-looking games on the iPad, there are other aspects of the N.O.V.A. formula that were crying out for improvement.
Gameloft has made a considerable effort to make this a faster-paced and more intense sequel. The action feels more hard-hitting, the fire fights more visceral, but there were control issues that should have been addressed before the scope of the series was expanded.
The user interface remains a mixed bag. The virtual control stick offers a good level of responsiveness and accuracy, but the screen is crowded with action buttons. Several of these are clustered around the bottom right corner, meaning that you'll often hurl a grenade when you mean to switch to scope aiming, or access Kal's Jedi-like ability instead of jumping. It's rarely fatal, but doesn't exactly facilitate the faster-paced gameplay of this instalment.
Mission objectives are your usual blend of defending strategic points and eliminating targets. You'll spend the bulk of your time following the HUD around and blasting anything that moves. It isn't the most thought-provoking experience around, but it's certainly playable. While the AI isn't up to much and the auto-targeting system might irk the purists, this is in many ways a step forward for iPad gaming.
Gameloft has been keen to push N.O.V.A 3's multiplayer potential, and with 12-player support across six different game types there's no shortage of scope here. The usual game types of deathmatch and flag capture make the cut, along with some novel additions like Freeze Tag.
Functional stage design and upgradable weapons should have made this a resounding success, but the experience is hampered by a poor spawning system, and occasionally ruined by lag. The latter issue is the multiplayer component's biggest drawback, but there's no reason why this cannot be rectified and the game can fulfil its potential.
We're prepared to forgive some of N.O.V.A. 3's sins simply because you won't find a better high-calibre shooter on the App Store. It may be a little short of original ideas and the controls can be fiddly, but blockbuster titles like this are what we need to take tablet and smartphone gaming to the next level.
