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Say what you will about Gameloft, the developer occasionally does a good job of filling the App Store void with iOS versions of console staples. N.O.V.A. 3 [ $6.99 ], the third game in the company’s perennial FPS series is one such title.  Capitalizing on the success of the previous two titles, as well as offering full support for the latest and greatest in Apple hardware, N.O.V.A. 3 offers a great action-packed single player experience complete with some very impressive visuals.

Following the never-ending trials and tribulations of Kal Warden, N.O.V.A. 3 continues the story as Warden is yet again recalled into action, this time to the ruins of San Francisco to aid an old friend. From there, you’ll travel to several more planets, a derelict ship, and even the home planet of the Volterites. I’ll save the spoilers for those of you that care about the story, but suffice to Kal gets tasked with saving the human race (again) from certain doom and will go through humans, Volterites and Judgers alike to accomplish that feat.

You’ll be saving humanity via gameplay that should be largely familiar for genre veterans. Like its predecessor, N.O.V.A. 3 has you exploring a wide variety of locales while battling enemy archetypes and hitting objective-marker based goals that shouldn’t offer much in terms of surprise. Also, you can expect the occasional break from the on-foot battle heroics by piloting Mechs, manning the weaponry on top of AI driven trucks and serving as sniper support for other NPCs. By now, it should be apparent that Gameloft has uncovered the formula for a successful FPS, and while N.O.V.A. 3 doesn’t offer much in terms of revolutionary gameplay, it certainly succeeds in what it does implement.

One interesting inclusion is an in-game store that offers unique weapons and upgrades that takes currency you earn by completing single player levels. It’s nice to see a system that actually provides rewards proportionally to how well you complete a level run. Unfortunately, the inclusion of IAP to bypass said currency collection lessens experience somewhat.

A well-done FPS is in some ways far more reliant on its controls than other genres. Thankfully, N.O.V.A. 3 works within its limitations to provide a competent scheme for a touch screen. The standard dual-stick controls are available, as well as generous use of a swipe gestures for swapping weapons and powers. I was particularly a fan of the gyroscope inclusion, as proper use of that option goes a long way towards making the game’s aiming accurate and fun.

N.O.V.A. 3 plays well on the iPhone, but I found the screen to be a bit cramped compared to the roomy iPad controls. Either way, a host of options such as auto-aim, attempt to help even touch-screen novices blast away with ease. While I imagine there are some folks that will never get used to touchscreen controls for an FPS, the fact remains that N.O.V.A. 3’s control schemes do a decent job of letting you take out baddies and navigate the environments with ease.

By the way, those environments you’ll be traversing across look absolutely gorgeous. N.O.V.A. 3 takes full advantage of the hardware offerings of the iPhone 4S and new iPad, which leads to one of the most visually impressive FPS titles I’ve played on iOS. The textures, weather and visual effects – even the shadows are all well done and simply stunning.

As nice as the game looks on the small scree, N.O.V.A. 3 begs to be played on a new iPad. The larger retina-display of the tablet lets you truly appreciate just how far the visuals have come in the series. The fact that the game manages to look this good while successfully running (for the most part) at a decent framerate is probably the most impressive accomplishment. Granted, there were a few mishaps with the graphics engine, such as a few instances of falling through environments, the occasional slowdown when there’s a lot of action on the screen and the unusually lengthy loading screens (that occasionally make you think the game crashed), but these do little to detract from what is an otherwise impressive visual system.

It would be easy to simply classify N.O.V.A. 3 as impressive eye candy and leave it at that, but Gameloft deserves credit for continuing the trend of creating a well-rounded FPS experience complete with a full story-driven campaign, a plethora of control and gameplay options and a balanced gameplay experience. We sometimes talk about games that possess that certain something that make them ideal for showcasing the might of iOS. I’d argue that, while N.O.V.A. 3 may not necessarily be at the top of that shortlist, it has enough going for it to warrant being close to such a classification.

This is part one of our two-part N.O.V.A. 3 review. In previous N.O.V.A. games, multiplayer played a very large component of how much our community enjoyed the game. With our early review copy, there obviously wasn’t anyone to be found to play with online. As soon as the game is released, and we can spend some quality time with the multiplayer we’ll post a follow-up focusing on the multiplayer aspects of N.O.V.A. 3.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Despite the majority of the gaming world wishing otherwise, Nintendo seems pretty dead-set in not bringing any of their beloved properties to other platforms. Which means, if you’re standing in line at the bank and get a sudden hankering for some Mario Kart, you’re mostly out of luck if you aren’t sporting Nintendo hardware.

However, video games are an iterative pastime, and Mario Kart is far from the only kart racer around. On the iOS platform, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing [ $1.99 ] is widely considered to be the finest answer to Mario Kart currently available, and we’d tend to agree. It pits a cast of Sega characters against each other in the power-sliding, weapon-laden, arcade-style racing we’ve come to expect from a kart racer, and it does it extremely well.

Throw in fantastic course designs, a full single-player campaign and challenge mode, and both local and online multiplayer options and you have a seriously good kart racer, even with the lack of everyone’s favorite plumber.

Over the weekend, Sonic All-Stars Racing got just that much better with its first significant content update since being released in June of last year. The big ticket items in this update are two brand new characters: Shadow the Hedgehog and Knuckles the Echidna. These are two extremely popular characters from the Sonic universe and are a great inclusion here. In addition to the two new characters there is also a brand new track to race on.

The other big feature in this latest update to Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is native video-out support either wirelessly using AirPlay or through an HDMI hookup. I checked out this feature back at GDC and can say that his game in particular scales up to the TV screen extremely well. Finally, iCloud progress saving has been implemented as well as some UI changes including character faces on the mini-map during single player and Game Center avatars for when playing online.

If you’ve got kart fever on-the-go and don’t have a spare copy of Mario Kart handy, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing should do the trick and is an even better game now thanks to the latest update.

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Long-time TouchArcade readers might remember an upcoming title that we were really excited for called Galactic Keep: Dice Battles. The premise of the game was to take dice-based tabletop RPG mechanics and translate them into video game form on the iPhone, while keeping a heavy emphasis on the storytelling aspects of classic Dungeons & Dragons games.

We first learned of the game way back in July of 2009, and got to see a playable version in person at Pax East the following March. Since then however, as more than 2 years have gone by, things have been extremely quiet on the Galactic Keep front.

After successfully launching another of their long-awaited title called Skull Smashers [ $0.99 ] last month, developer Gilded Skull Games has once again jumped into Galactic Keep development. In fact, as they note in our forums, they made a decision to hit the reset button on the project since it was so badly outdated, and just start over from scratch.

It sounds like a crazy idea for a game that’s already been in development for years, but this way they can take everything they have learned thus far and build the game with newer hardware and features in mind, like Retina Display and Universal support. The screenshot above is the first glimpse of this revamped take on Galactic Keep.

No word on just how long Gilded Skull is expecting the rebooted project to take, but just knowing that Galactic Keep is still alive and kicking is sure to warm some hearts.

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We just learned this week that one of the pioneering forces of both the freemium pay model as well as real-time online multiplayer, Eliminate, will be closing up shop later this month. Well according to RockBandAide.com right on the heels of that news it looks as if EA Mobile will be giving the same treatment to the original Rock Band [ $4.99 ] iOS game, which we thought was pretty good when it launched towards the end of 2009.

The original Rock Band was usurped by the superior sequel Rock Band Reloaded [$4.99 / $9.99 (HD)] in December of 2010, so it’s not totally surprising that EA would want to focus on the newer version. However, for a game that many people have likely spent a good chunk of cash on by buying new songs through IAP, not to mention that it launched at $9.99 to begin with, it seems sort of crazy that EA would flat out make the game inoperable.

At the very least you would think that EA would be able to just leave the original Rock Band alone, so those who bought it and paid for IAP songs can continue to at least use it even if future updates aren’t in the cards. Perhaps there’s a reason for this, like a licensing issue with the music, but at any rate if you’re still a fan of the first Rock Band on iOS you’ll have until May 31st to continue enjoying it.

Servers being shut down and dropping support for games isn’t a new phenomenon, but in the increasingly more digital age of video games you’ll just have to keep in mind that the experience might be finite unlike physical copies of games which will last for eternity as long as you have the hardware to play it.

Note: I’m leaving the links for both Rock Band games in case you already own the original and want to re-download it for safe keeping, but obviously it won’t work after the end of the month. If you want a Rock Band game for iOS go with Rock Band Reloaded (for the time being, anyway).

[Via RockBandAide.com]

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A couple of months back, Tiger Style Games released Waking Mars [ $2.99 ], the follow-up to our 2009 Game of the Year Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [$0.99 / $0.99 (HD)], and we thought it was an incredibly unique and enjoyable experience in our review. About a month ago, Waking Mars was updated for the new iPad’s Retina Display, and we noted that the visual improvement really had a big impact on a game that is so much about creating a moody atmosphere.

But wow, as good as we thought the game looked after that last update it turned out to be just a partial Retina update and just a taste of what was to come. Today Tiger Style has released another new update which adds full Retina Display support for Waking Mars in addition to a set of new jetpack types for your character to zip around Martian caves with. Check out this screen from the new iPad, which Tiger Style has cropped in close in order to show off how much detail you can see.

In a blog post detailing this latest update, which is called the May Day Update by the way, Tiger Style notes that the iPad’s beefy hardware generates the 3.1 million onscreen pixels at 60 frames per second, and that all of their artwork had been drawn at an incredibly large scale to begin with so adding support for the new iPad resolution wasn’t terribly difficult. Screens don’t really do it justice though, you have to see Waking Mars running on a new iPad in person to fully appreciate just how gorgeous it is.

In addition to the update for Waking Mars, Tiger Style has also updated the iPad version of Spider with partial Retina Display support. Only select assets have been upgraded, but Spider is still one of the most beautiful games around. Also, all 3 of Tiger Style’s games are currently on sale for a limited time. Waking Mars is down to $2.99 from $4.99 in its first ever sale, and both the iPhone and iPad versions of Spider are just 99¢ each. Finally, you can grab the excellent soundtrack to Waking Mars for just a buck on its Bandcamp page, down from $5.

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When we said that Marvel vs Capcom 2 was hitting the App Store “next week” last week, I think we all assumed that meant it’d be in the standard barrage of Wednesday night releases. Well, this is not the case, as the game is already available in most international regions and should appear for download on the U.S. App Store at 11:00 PM Eastern tonight.

First impressions on our forums are starting to roll in, and so far it seems like the game is what you’d expect in that if you can handle the virtual controls, you’ll be in for a good time. Some forum members with 3GS-level hardware are noting some slowdown, but anything more recent than that seems to be A-OK. Also, the game is universal, which only makes things more awesome.

We’ll take a closer look at the game in the not too distant future.

App Store Link: Marvel vs. Capcom 2, $2.99 (Will be available in all regions at 11:00 PM Eastern.)

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The most influential man at hardware and software powerhouse Nintendo has found at least one phone game he enjoys. Visionary Shigeru Miyamoto recently name-dropped Rovio’s Angry Birds in a conversation with Hookshot, Inc, noting that it’s one of the few phone games he can dig. “There aren’t many games that I’ve played recently that have been truly convincing to me,” he said at a Paris event. “That said, I have very much enjoyed Angry Birds — especially the way in which it combines traditional and new game elements in exciting ways.”

Miyamoto later praised the surprising depth of the game’s flinging mechanic and the overall simplicity of its design. “Angry Birds is a very simple idea but it’s one of those games that I immediately appreciated when I first started playing, before wishing that I had been the one to come up with the idea first,” he said.

Nintendo does its best to totally dismiss the App Store and phones in general, so these quotes strike us as a particularly notable. It’s acknowledgment that something great can happen on our platforms of choice, from the mouth of Nintendo’s visionary designer.

In an interview with Edge at the same event, Miyamoto admitted that he keeps tabs on the mobile space, but noted that Nintendo can be just as creative.

“I check up on them sometimes, but I don’t have a lot of time,” he told Edge. “I think we also have a history of having certain fun ideas and making a game out of it, and there’s lots of other people also doing this [now].

“This kind of environment inspires us to try even harder, and create even more unexpected new things.”

Miyamoto is in the middle of some sort of slow (and disputed) stepping down process that’ll see him working on smaller games with smaller teams instead of big, blown-up AAA Mario and Zelda titles.

[via Hookshot Inc, via Edge]

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If you’re still in the honeymoon phase with your new iPad, know this: Tilt to Live HD [Free] has joined the family of retina-supported titles, which has given it some fresh legs in yet another new generation of hardware. One Man Left tells us that it had to dig through all of its old assets and code to make this happen, but the end result of that work is paying off. The dots look so much more… red. And round.

For those of us looking ahead to One Man’s Outwitters instead, don’t worry about new iPad support. According to One Man, it’s currently in the process of upgrading all of its gorgeous assets for the device’s retina screen. We’re especially pumped for this one, if you couldn’t tell by our excited GDC 2012 ramblings for the new-look strategy game with a dab of StarCraft-inspired multiplayer.

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After suffering a bite from the clone bug back in January 2011 from Capcom’s MaXplosion, everyone was curious if developer Twisted Pixel would layeth the smack down by officially porting their critically acclaimed XBLA platformer ‘Splosion Man to the App Store. The team seemed pretty soured on the idea after the whole MaXplosion thing, and they had their hands full with a sequel to ‘Splosion Man set to hit XBLA that summer. Fans of exploding iOS platformers collectively shed a tear.

That sequel, Ms. Splosion Man, did hit Microsoft’s downloadable game service in July of last year to much critical acclaim much like the first title. However, with that project out of the way, Twisted Pixel could focus more on what kind of options might lie ahead for their franchise. As they’ve just announced today via the awesome trailer below, Ms. Splosion Man is indeed heading to the App Store along with a version for Steam, Games for Windows Live, and Windows Phone 7.

What we know about these upcoming versions of Ms. Splosion Man is that the PC versions will be more or less direct ports with some additional features, but the iOS version “will be a unique experience built specifically for those devices with familiar content but all new features, objectives and gameplay modes” according to the developers. They note that they’re keen on taking full advantage of the iOS hardware and are already planning plenty of post-launch support in the form of updates with new content.

More details on pricing and a specific release date for Ms. Splosion Man will be coming soon, but the release window is slated for summertime. If you’re lucky enough to be at PAX East this week, then a playable iPad version of the game will be on hand for you to check out for yourself.

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Thinkers, entrepreneurs, and manufacturers of all shapes and sizes are still trying to bring us useful, physical controllers for iPad and iPhone. We’ve seen a lot, over the years, but none have struck as novel as the one currently in an early development stage at Keio University in Japan. It’s an analog stick similar to the Fling, except it uses the iPhone’s front camera to control the action on the screen.

Here’s what makes it possible, according to the following video from DigiInfo:

There are small markers in this elastic device and the markers are detected by this built-in front-facing mobile phone camera. By tracking how the markers move as the elastic device deforms, this system enables a variety of inputs. Basically, the system’s precision depends on hardware factors, like the camera resolution and refresh rate.

It’s a neat idea, and while it has a couple of obvious issues working against it, we’d love to see this end up as an actual product. Who knows, maybe it’ll catch on.

[via AppAdvice]

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