inglorious

TouchArcade (via IGN) posted two screens for Gameloft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed. The game looks quite fetching, nice three dimensional environments, decent textures (much improved over the DS version,) and an interesting setting. But… you see I don’t want to talk about Assassin’s Creed, not really, I want to talk about the current lack of innovation when it comes to controls on the IPhone.

Maybe ngmoco:) and Hand Circus’ Rolando spoiled me. After all it was great, a subtle blend of accelerometer and gesture based controls that created a fun and challenging game. It embraced the platform; it felt new, like nothing I had really played before and that’s what helped make it great. Assassin’s Creed looks different, here we have a powerful touch surface where we can tilt, pinch, swipe, flick, tap and slide. Instead of embracing this new technology like Rolando, Assassin’s Creed returns to the D-Pad. I find it hard to believe a traditional control scheme replicated virtually is the best we can do with such a powerful platform.

There’s more to this than just embracing the new technology available, there is also the screen size. The screen on the IPhone is a decent size, but much goes to waste when onscreen controls take up so much real-estate. Assassin’s Creed isn’t the first this is the path many developers have taken. Gameloft’s previous games: Hero of Sparta and Brothers in Arms also replicated classic controls. Chillingo’s iDracula, Fishlab‘s Galaxy on Fire and to some degree Hermitworks‘ Space Trader follow in a similar footsteps and the list doesn’t stop there, the App Store is full of them. These aren’t bad game, I enjoy the lot of them, but they just don’t feel like they fit on an IPhone. They feel like they want to be on a DS/DSi or PSP where the the traditional inputs already exist.

I’ve written about the IPhone before, looking at developers who treat the device almost like a Wiimote. Now it seems like I am seeing the opposite, developers (with great games) shying away from the powerful interface options that the IPhone provides instead of trying to find that happy medium.