N.O.V.A. is primarily a first-person shooter, with one on-rails driving segment. Throughout the game's twelve levels, players fight alien enemies known as Xenos. The game takes major cues from sci-fi console shooters, such as the Halo and Metroid series. The player can use eight weapons that resemble futuristic versions of weapons found in one of Gameloft's previous works, .
Multiplayer
Players can use multiplayer in N.O.V.A. in the following ways:
At an indeterminate point in the future, Earth is rendered uninhabitable by humans and animals by unknown means. Therefore, humans built satellites in space, known as the Near Orbitals. The race responsible for this event, later named in the sequel as Volterites, waged a war of genocide upon learning of mankind's threat as a growing power. The Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance was formed as a resistance group to defend mankind from further alien aggression. The protagonist of this story is Captain Kal Wardin, a retired soldier who is returned to active duty to investigate a missing transport. He is supported by Yelena, a newly created artificial intelligence, and later a starship AI known as Prometheus. He battles against a new alien race known as the Xenos, who begin to attack military facilities of NOVA across the unnamed planet that most of the story occurs on. After multiple occasions of Kal not following orders, the leaders of NOVA delete Yelena and attempt to kill Kal with a hit team, but Kal escapes through a portal to the Xenos Homeworld to end the invasion. Upon reaching the planet, Kal learns that the Xenos are actually caretakers of an omniscient race of aliens known as the Judgers, whose leader, the Controller, deemed the human race as a threat when the sister ship of the transport vessel entered a portal and crashed into the world below. Kal defeats the controller and confronts the Judgers, who judge him based on the player's actions. Yelena is restored to life, Prometheus becomes the guardian of mankind and the Judgers' messenger between the two races, and the NOVA leaders are erased from existence for their actions to save themselves rather than the rest of their race. If Kal doesn't commit to save others, he is haunted for those he would not save, but impresses the Judgers to let him and the rest of humanity live for showing the courage to save others. He is given the title of "Hero of Sagittarius" for his heroics but retires soon after.
Release
Reception
The game was well received by critics and has a Metacritic score of 94/100 based on 9 reviews. Levi Buchanan of IGN awarded the game a 9.0/10, calling it "the best first-person shooter on the iPhone right now." Pocket Gamer gave the game a 9/10 and a "Gold Award". Slide to Play gave a perfect 4/4, saying "Fans of FPSes shouldn't let this one slip by. Halo ripoff or not, it packs a lot of great content into a tiny, modestly-priced package."
A high-definition version of this game was released on the App Store on April 1, 2010. However, it is only compatible with Apple's iPadtablet PC. On July 21, 2010, N.O.V.A, along with ', ', and , was heavily updated for the iPhone 4. It includes gyroscope control, HD and 3D graphics, and is compatible with multitasking on iOS 4. On August 31, 2010, the free version of N.O.V.A. HD was released for iPad. A remaster of the game called N.O.V.A Legacy, with updated graphics, a weapon upgrade system, a power meter, and other features was released on March 27, 2017.
Sequel
A sequel to N.O.V.A. was developed and published by Gameloft and released in the iTunes App Store on December 16, 2010, titled . The game innovated on the many designs created by the first N.O.V.A., and added many new features such as 10-player online multiplayer matches, retina display and gyroscope support for the iPhone 4. Later, on May 10, 2012, N.O.V.A. 3 was released on the App Store, also developed and published by Gameloft. It added new features such as two-man cars in multiplayer and updated graphics after working with an in-house editor.
