Gameloft's Clone Masterpieces
I finally got to play guilt-free for a few days over the break. I installed a few big-name games on my iPad, all from Gameloft. From the very first one — Hero of Sparta — something felt off. Why does this look so much like that other game? After trying a few more, I figured out the pattern. Gameloft really is the king of clones. Word has it these cloned titles are all made domestically in China — fitting the local vibe. Of course, I’m playing pirated copies, didn’t pay a cent, so I’ve got no right to complain, just offering my two cents.
Hero of Sparta is a blatant clone of God of War on PS. The hack-and-slash, weapon upgrades, QTE — all faithfully reproduced. Not a bad clone overall, but it gets frustrating later on. For a game about the joy of hacking things up, they designed way too many pits that instantly kill you. One wrong jump and it’s Game Over. Way too much platforming — feels like Mario. The funniest part: even the final boss fight has death pits. You’re going at it with the boss, and oops, you fall into a pit and die. Worst of all, the protagonist’s three-hit combo moves him forward one step each swing. If you’re too close to a pit, you and the enemy both tumble in and die…
Eternal Legacy is a clone of Final Fantasy — even the name sounds similar. As an RPG fan, I have to say this one’s a failure. First, the game gives you a real sense of inflation. Items cost in the millions — a crappy piece of armor is several million. Damage numbers are the same. At the very start of the game, you can deal 9999 damage. Later you find out enemies have millions of HP… Why not just drop three zeros and make it readable? Second, the crystal socket system is a rip-off of FF7’s materia system. Third, the mounts are Chocobo clones. Fourth, the summoning animations are flashy but the actual damage is pathetic — sometimes even worse than a normal attack. The funniest part: after an unskippable fancy animation, you find out you missed. Makes you want to curse. Fifth, to prevent players from getting lost in 3D, they added a compass — but what’s the point of having mazes if the compass always points to the right path?
Zombie Infection clones Resident Evil 4 onwards — even the logo is similar. You shoot zombies. But the zombies here are weird. Normally they move at a snail’s pace, basically standing there waiting to be shot. Then suddenly they pop some kind of stimulant and sprint at you at Olympic speed in the blink of an eye. Some zombies throw bricks at you (probably copying the axe-throwing zombies from RE). But the brick-throwing frequency is absurd — sometimes you’re dead from several bricks before you even spot the thrower. There are zombie dogs too, but they seem more like pet dogs — makes you feel kinda bad shooting them. Close combat doesn’t work like in RE either — you don’t need to stun them with gunfire first. You can just punch them, and punches deal surprisingly high damage. For a while, I was running up to every zombie and throwing punches — Resident Evil suddenly turned into Street Fighter. The boss fights are hilarious too: a pistol and a shotgun seem to do the same damage, and the pistol fires faster. Sigh, it’s passable at best.
Dungeon Hunter is a Diablo clone. I’ve never actually played Diablo myself, just watched others, so I can’t really comment. I played as a Berserker — way overpowered after leveling up, just mowing everything down. There’s normal and hard mode after clearing the game, but strangely, easy mode feels hardest, and hard mode feels easiest, because you carry over your previous level and skills. By hard mode, you can kill the final boss in under five seconds.
I hear there are more: Nova is a Halo clone, Let’s Golf is a Hot Shots Golf clone, Brain Challenge is a Brain Age clone, Modern Combat is a Call of Duty clone, Gangster is a GTA clone… Haven’t played those, so no comment.