Gamescom '11: Hands-on with Shadowgun on Android, iPhone, and iPad

You can’t accuse Madfinger Games of lacking ambition. Fresh from the success of the eye-catching Samurai 2: Vengeance, the indie developer is looking to go one better next month with the release of hardcore third-person shooter, Shadowgun.

We caught up with the team at Gamescom 2011 to give the latest build a test-run and see how the game is shaping up.

We’ve seen developers try to squeeze the Gears of War template onto a touchscreen before, but most previous efforts have failed, due either to the controls or to the look and feel of the game.

While the build we played still had a few placeholder textures and other signs of a title in development, it’s clear Madfinger is aiming high with this title, not just through the graphical sheen (which, admittedly, is the first thing that you’ll notice) but also in oft-forgotten but equally as important areas such as AI.

Indeed, this is one area that the team is very proud to show off. Rather than enemies following a set movement pattern (“Find cover, move to cover”) every action is performed depending on how threatened, scared, or brave they are.

Keep firing at their positions, or kill a friend of theirs, and these enemies will dash away to find better cover.

I was shown a few snippets from a variety of levels, set in large industrial mines, large industrial facilities, and glorious mountain landscapes (behind a large industrial facility).

Despite the general industrial/steel feel to the scenery, there's quite wide range of colours in the pallet – barely anything was actually brown. The scale of the rooms you’ll be fighting in is also incredibly impressive, with complicated, multi-tiered ceilings peeling away into the distance.

Along with the increased variety in the locations, there have been a few changes since the E3 build, including adjustments to how the grenade launcher fires (it’s a lot easier now) as well as a new hacking mini-game that plays out like a technological version of classic memory game Simon Says.

It’s hard to bet against Shadowgun being another hit for Madfinger. The presentation is through the roof, while the focus on trying to properly emulate the ‘core’ gaming principles on the smaller screen may have mobile gamers more accustomed to Gears of War than just Gears frothing with anticipation.

The build I played was still quite early in development, with textures missing and placeholders littered around the stage, which means it’s still too early to call whether it has enough to push it into the higher echelons of iPhone gaming.

But with the latest Unity engine and Madfinger’s almost obsessive attention to detail, you can be sure Epic and Chair will be in for a strong fight on mobiles when the game launches on iPhone and Android in September.