In the gaming industry a certain genre only arises after a certain innovation is cloned several times over. During the early days of RTS every other RTS are considered a Dune clone, after several more dozen Dune clone it was officially categorized as a genre...same goes for other genres e.g. stealth, FPS, survival horror, and RPG... wasn't every free roaming game considered a GTA clone ( e.g. Saints Row). In gaming, a certain game is only called a clone of another game after an innovative game is copied by another (e.g. loco roco to rolando 2 w/c is great btw) , if another 1st person free running/platformer gets released it will be considered a Mirror's edge clone but ony because the genre is new..now after several more 'clones' it will be considered a genre. My point is if you are going to call a Gameloft game like modern combat a clone of Call of duty 4 then we have to call it a clone of a clone of clone...i mean how many modern FPS have we already seen before Call of Duty 4?
if gameloft have ties with ubisoft, does this mean theere's a possibility of rayman coming to the idevices? rozzie
All I can say is that I enjoyed Hero of Sparta. Yes, maybe it is a dumbed-down clone of God of War on PSN family, but I will probably never play GoW and I had fun with HoS. I may pick up their Oregon Trail and Assassin's Creed in the future too.
I've got to agree with Matt. They just make well produced clones. None of their games have been "innovative" like Rolando or Flight Control. They're just reproducing popular games from other media. They take what the other games have done, and plaster iphone controls on (virtual d-pad - Gameloft style) and voila! another insta-hit. Until Gameloft makes a game like Rolando, Zen Bound or Trism, that is iphone specific and downright amazing, I'll never think they're the #1 iPhone Developer.
Flight Control is a ATC clone, Rolando is a LocoRoco clone and Zen Bound is a port of the PC game Zen Bondage
Exactly! And i love those games but i can't really call them original. Give me one great game in the appstore that is truly an original concept, something that wasn't done before! My point is we shouldn't berate gameloft of 'cloning' without doing that as well to all other big devs here e.g ngmoco, chillingo, firemint, gamevil and even iugo! What should be the focus of innovation is controls, making these clones/genre work on the iphone touchscreen and for me gameloft nailed the fps control scheme in modern warfare and the tps scheme in Gangstar
Games influencing other games is all very healthy and so on. The difference between Gameloft and other big devs like Ngmoco and Firemint is that the former make, on the whole, non iDevice sentric games. Games that were designed for some other platform, and plonk often ill-fitting controls on the screen. Ngmoco and Firemint have most likely taken inspiration from games on other platforms too, but seem to me to have never lost sight of what platform they are making a game for, and hence their games are IMO top draw stuff. They don't seem to be prosituting their integrity by spewing out anything that will make a bit of dosh without really sitting back and thinking 'does this actually really work on an iPhone?', which I think is very admirable. In the case of Ngmoco and Firemint, less is most definately more, IMHO.
What gameloft is doing is proving that these genre: fps/sandbox/fighting can work in the idevices when cynics say they can't. Can you imagine how many new idevices are sold because of gamelofts titles as of late? In my workplace alone 5 of my co workers are so pump up to buy an itouch because they saw me playing Modern combat.
By 'cynics' I assume you mean people who think they don't work, as apposed to people such as yourself who think they do. I'm stoked that you enjoy them. On the whole I don't, but no need to throw the 'cynic' word around. Gameloft are clearly a bunch of talented guys. I so wish they would invest more of their man power and financial resources into making their games really 'iDevice only games', for want of a better expression. If anyone can Gameloft can (hmmm, catchy)
When i say ' cynics ' i mean people who doubt the idevices graphical capability, psp and ds fans mostly lol! Have you tried modern combat? The control truly works and i wil go as far to say that i feel more in control than any psp fps!
Aha No I haven't tried it. To be honest it looks just 'fiddly'. Although not a true FPS in its purest form, I think Doom resurrection sums up how far you can go in the direction of FPS on the iDevice and not compromise game play and fun factor. Would be interested to know how you got along with Doom Res (if you played it at all)?
ummm rolando is nothing like loco roco, and if you say rolando is a clone... you clearly have not spent enough time on either game.
Others can decide that one the point is that almost all games in the store are inspired by other games why does it matter than Gameloft does the same thing?
Gameloft does have...well a "few" games, but the thing is their reputation isnt the greatest, due to their early games coming out unpolished and kinda bad/flops.........Yes they are gaining ground on the quality of games, but i no longer just go out and buy the game the moment it comes out because usually a month or so after the release date theres a price drop, and they need to come out with a few updates to fix the bugs,graphics,or gameplay. In my view they are a company that pushes games out too quickly and are usually if not always arent what they are hyped up to be and will end up at .99 a month or so after release
