From GDC: Hands On Preview Of Gameloft’s Zombie Infection And Fishing Kings

Gameloft gave us hands on time with three upcoming games including Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction, as well as Zombie Infection, and Fishing Kings. Zombie Infection is another App Store game where you blast away zombies, but this is a game we've seen before. It's very similar to Resident Evil 5, and even begins in Africa. It's a third person shooter with an over the shoulder camera. In the game all movement is slow, and you have to stop to fire. Controls are standard for Gameloft with a left virtual stick, and action buttons in the bottom right. You tap on the gun to aim, then tap again to fire, and then you have to holster it before moving on. 10 levels are included of zombie shooting action with a familiar storyline of a cameraman looking for his brother who picks up a female counterpart. I got hands on time of blasting away infected Africans in a slum type area, and then moved on to a zoo infested with zombie animals. An arena mode is also included for continuous zombie action, though the heart of the game is the campaign. It's another game that looks great running smoothly right in front of me. The zoo environment looked great with nice shadowing effects, as did the zombie enemies. The game progresses slowly though, and there's always extra button presses to fire that you occasionally forget to do. A map in the upper right always shows you where to go so you're never stuck or have to think, so you can play just as a mindless zombie. You have to fire multiple times to kill any zombie, though when you get them to the ground you can walk over, and stomp on their head resulting in an explosion of blood. For a zombie shooter which are known for killing tons of zombies quickly, this one feels dull in comparison. The game is expected later this month, and we will have a full review once it's released.

The third gameloft game we saw was Fishing Kings. It's a fishing simulator that when you see it you instinctively think of Flick Fishing from Freeverse. The controls are similar where you flick to cast, and then spin the reel to reel in a fish. The difference is once you cast an underwater camera appears. Now you see the fish, and can see when a potential bite is close. You can tell a fish is hooked when it jumps at you like popping out of the screen. Then you start to reel it in which will take a few minutes of tedious reeling. The fish will struggle hard, and your line will become tight quickly so you need to reel a little, then let go and just tilt the device in the direction the fish is going all in an attempt to tire it out. The fish will finally give up for a little so you can reel it in quickly, but the fish will get a second wind, and more struggling will ensue. The entire time there is a voice over telling you what to do, like let it go left which is annoying to say the least. Five varying locations are included with three fishing spots per giving you 15 in total, and each location giving you appropriate fish (30 to catch). The game is really well designed providing a deluxe 3D view above and below the water that no other fishing game on the iPhone has yet to provide. The game will be available later this month as well, and a full review will soon follow its release. Overall from our sit down we can expect more of the same from Gameloft as they port existing ideas to the iPhone that look great. When actually playing though the gameplay will fall short of many other games in the App Store from developers who don't have the name recognition to charge similar prices.

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