Gameloft launches BackStab, a new adventure game for iOS and Android
Gameloft is producing games like crazy these days and their newest addition is BackStab, an adventure game for both iOS (iPad optimized) and Android. This time the game is somewhere in between a ripoff of Assassin’s Creed (which ironically Gameloft themselves have available for mobile platforms) and Tomb Rader, with a little bit of Pirates of the Caribbean thrown in for good measure. You play a navy officer in 17-18th century whoknowswhere who has to defend his city from a Spanish attack using his sword and the most rapid-fire cannon that side of the 20th century. After sinking a couple of Spanish warships single handedly using said cannon, our hero stumbles across his commanding officer talking with the Spanish and discovers that they planned all of it. The hero is sent to be executed but is rescued just in time and flees the scene with his rescuer.
After escaping through various linear landscapes using Tomb Raider-like climbing skills the hero ends up back in the city where it all started and the game really begins. At this point you have a more Assassin’s Creed type game with a city full of guards, citizens and merchants and the ability to climb walls faster than Spider Man. The game also reminds me a bit of GTA, but so many of these games overlap in style that I could drag in half a dozen other games that share some similarities as well.
While Gameloft is infamous for copying game styles, the quality is normally quite good and that’s also the case here. Graphics are excellent, the game has both cut scenes and voice tracks to help give it a console-like environment (though it also brings up the download size- 584MB on the iPad). The controls are also very nicely done, and you don’t get the frustration that you get with first person shooters. This is mainly because the auto lock-on system is quite good, so you don’t have to fight the controls to hit something. That being said, the same auto lock-on feature means that sword battles is simply a matter of repeatedly hitting the virtual sword button until everything around you is dead. You later get guns though which require a bit more skill, and when you get to the open world part of the game you can also upgrade your weapons at merchants.
Some users have reported the game crashing on them quite often, but for me this has only happened once so far and the auto save feature put me right back where I left off. I play on an iPad 2 though and the game is supported as far back as the iPhone 3GS, so the experience is likely to be quite different (in a bad way) on older devices.
As mentioned in the title this game is available for both Android and iOS. For iOS it’s a $6.99 universal download in the App Store, while Android users have to go through Gameloft’s website, fill in country, carrier, phone manufacturer and model before being allowed to purchase the game. Just what Android needed, yet another place to get apps (the game isn’t on the Android Market, nor the Amazon Appstore).
