Gameloft unveils StarCraft II lookalike

After offering up bargain basement riffs on Uncharted and Call of Duty in recent months, mobile and budget game specialist Gameloft has unwrapped it's latest 'homage' - an intergalactic iPhone RTS called Starfront: Collision.

Anyone care to take a guess from where it might be drawing inspiration? A quick glimpse at the trailer below should offer up a few oblique clues.

Yes, if you squint hard enough you should be able to spot a few similarities with Blizzard's quite-successful PC strategy title StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.

Gameloft's visionary twist on the genre sees three factions battle it out for control of a mineral-rich planet called Sinistral. There's a space marine-y humanoid posse called The Consortium, a bug-faced alien species called The Myriad and a savant robot race called The Wardens.

As well as all the standard resource management and strategic combat-orientated gameplay you'd expect from an RTS, Gameloft has shoehorned four-way multiplayer in there too.

Considering how notoriously protective Blizzard is over its intellectual property, Gameloft is either very brave, very stupid or has a ninja legal team.

Last month, Gameloft chief Michel Guillemot defended his studio's output from plagiarism allegations, insisting, "The videogame industry has always played around a limited number of themes. There is maybe one new idea a year.

"If a type of game is not available, then you should make it. The damaging thing is if you do a bad expression of a good idea."

Curious iPhone users can find out how Starfront measures up on 10th February.