The game type has nothing to do with it. Frame rate is an issue with animation, regardless of the pace of the game things have to move at some point. A frame rate drop means that aiming becomes harder as the reticle jumps around and the character movement looks like a bad game of QWOP. If anyone reading isn't familiar with frame rate in animation think of one of those flip books with drawings on the bottom. The faster you flip, the more natural it looks. If you slow down the whole thing starts looking jerky and unnatural.
As I feared, and it can also quite obviosly be seen from any gameplay videos, so there is a drop in FPS when moving even on newer devices, and even with cut out textures , lights and other effects. Is there an FPS drop when shooting and would you say FPS drop when moving is annoying from your perspective ? From what I've seen "managing base" and all cutscenes run at normal speed. C'mon iPad folks post more impressions of game
The frame rate issues are intermittent, sometimes they happen, sometimes they don't, but they are frequent. It feels like shit when you're trying to give an order and the touch isn't registered. It's worse for camera controls when it's lagging because often rotate will be mistaken for zoom in/out and vice versa. I can't even imagine what this will be like in later levels with lots of enemies. Here are some iPad 4 shots, unless I'm mistaken it isn't really improved over iPad2/3? http://www.coflash.com/stuff/xcomipad01.png http://www.coflash.com/stuff/xcomipad02.png http://www.coflash.com/stuff/xcomipad03.png http://www.coflash.com/stuff/xcomipad04.png Graphics don't really bother me though, I'd rather a stable framerate but it doesn't even seem to have that. The $20 didn't bother me either until I saw it running. If you're going to charge that much - give us a smooth port.
Disappointing, but saves me $20. Kind of a bummer that unless you've got a fourth gen iPad or iPhone 5, performance is such an issue. With all the graphical sacrifices, that should not be the case.
Given that i've stayed up till midnight (uk time) one thing i didn't want to read is 'framerate issues'. I have a iPad 3. if xcom is chugging on an ipad 4 what chance do i stand for a good experience? This was instabuy, but its still not showing up in the UK store. at 00:52. As it goes, i think I'll wait for more impressions. I actually own XCOM on xbox, never unwrapped it, got it cheap then decided not to play it as it was due on iPad. Buuuut, well, chugging, no, not as I have a copy for xbox. I can always play Frozen Synapse for my TBS fix on the pad. EDIT: its almost 1am GMT and its still notin the UK store following the NZ link or searching under 2K games. Anyone in the Uk seeing it yet? EDIT2: Nevermind there it is, £13.99... gonna wait for more impressions. Ipad 3 chugging = no go.
Ok, anybody care to give their input playing this game on iPhone 5? I don't have an iPad and would like to know if it's uncomfortable on iPhone 5.
Okay so I've played the tutorial and the 1st mission on both the iPad 2 and iPhone 5. Disclaimer is thatI have played the game on 360 and loved the pants off it so I'm not exactly imparticial. Also I really want this to be supported so we can get other devs to pull games like this across. Sadly the difference between the two versions is significantly larger than what you would expect. The graphics are passable borderline good which also fall back on the great design of the original. However, little things like your characters lips not moving for dialogue can be pretty jarring. For the ipad2 the tutorial crashed the game on my 1st two tries meaning I had to rerun back through all the initial cutscenes. I closed all my other apps and restarted the iPad which worked. The frame rate however is pretty horrific on the ipad2. It's quite jarring and really takes you out of the experience. It is noticable on almost every aspect of the game. The animations especially look extremely choppy. On a more positive note the iPhone 5 works great. Smoother animations (not perfect but pretty good) and heldup without slowdown in firefights. In terms of gameplay it takes a little to get used to but they have done a good job of getting the controls to work on the touch screen. Two fingers to rotate the camera. Touch and drag to move your position. Obviously I will need to get to sink my teeth into it a bit more before I can comment on the more detailed targeting of later levels. So far I cannot confidently recommend Xcom to anyone unless they have a high end device. For those that do then there is fun here to be had and if you haven't played it before then you are going to love it. Considering the price, the size and the planned updates already in the pipeline for mp and such my recommendation is to hold off on purchasing until the frame rate is addressed.
This game is not really my cup of tea but I purchased it anyway to support the devs and show them if you make a AAA title then people will buy. Hopefully this is the start of more AAA titles, and the beginning of the end for freemium.
That really sucks, I'm glad I didn't jump in. You would figure it would run decently on the latest touch. I mean Gangstar runs very smooth and looks really good.
That's the kind of review I was looking for, and is something that sites like this really never cover (but they should). Hardware really makes or breaks a game's experience. You just assume that the reviewer is using the latest hardware, but good reviewers also go back to older hardware to test performance as part of the review, especially if the publisher says that it's supported on those older devices. I really don't get reviews that simply say "Buy this game now because it's awesomesauce!"
Forgetting that The IPod Touch 5th gen is only as powerful as a 4s... I guess it only works like its suppose to on the IPad 4 and IPhone 5. I thought the IPod 5th gen was more powerful Than the iPad mini? Don't understand whoever said it ran well on that. I was going to buy it as I've never played it before, but now I'm not sure. Lower graphic quality is one thing(I don't care about graphics) but if has choppyness and crashes that's another thing. It's stupid, why is the IPod which is made to play games worse than the iPhone which is suppose to be more of a all around device?
Thanks for the great imps Lost Deputy. I'll hold off for now, at least Xcom wasn't the only game I was looking forward to.
Amen! Yes thanks a lot lost deputy, I think a big name game like this should be tested on other devices. So we have one person saying its fine on iPad 2 and several saying it runs really bad on 'older' devices including the touch 5g. This game doesn't sound like awesomesauce at all .
So the latest IPod can't be or isnt considered a high end device? That's pathetic.. I knew this going in when I bought it... Guess this is the first game that pushes it past its limits. They should've made sure it worked on the iPod 5... Guess they forgot.. This would be different for a 99. Cent game but at 20$ it's kind of important that the game actually works. Here the TA review had me all excited...guess they forgot too
They mentioned this and I will stress it, both Brad and Eli got the game immediately upon launch in NZ. As far as how long it takes to download it, I zipped through the Warhammer update in minutes. A good enough connection and it doesn't take nearly as long as you'd expect. As for the review, we have a game that is a slightly modified (lower quality visuals and sound, fewer maps) version of a game that has been out 7 + months. The "game" isn't what needs reviewing, but how it has been ported does. I honestly believe with the experience Eli and Brad have ( and trust me, I'm saying this as a person who has butted heads with the both of them before) I DO trust that they wouldn't let loose a review that wasn't an accurate reflection of the actual game. They haven't said exactly how much time was spent in the game and on the review, but I'm putting my trust in the site I visit evey day. A site that has had a few small missteps, but is one of the more reliable out there. And have you seen Brad's biceps? Those things don't lie. They simply don't. No. It wouldn't take long for word of mouth to blast a game that did that. Hell, we get it for free and cheap games, imagine the crapstorm. No. Not here. As was mentioned by Eli, they did not, because of breaking the Borderlands embargo (especially with getting such a justifiably bad review) they've cut them out. That said, I'm amazed that the embargo got broken, it's not the mistake I'd expect from TA. Oh I do truly, truly hope you are joking. If not, you've officially lost any credibility that you may have had, and is officially the most boneheaded remark I've seen on the forums, and I have seen many, many boneheaded remarks here. There is someting that has been harped on and NEEEEDS to be addressed. Not a single one of you, not even those of you who are game developers, really know what the story is behind the port. I see comments on how it "wasn't properly optimized" and comments with such absolute certainty that the missing shading and extra textures are clearly the result of lazy and ineffectual work. That there is absolutely zero reason why it should have frame rate drops ever, other games are on the platform and look so much better, so of course there's no reason this shouldn't look far better. Listen to what you are all saying. I think I can be fairly confident in saying very few, if any, of you have the level of experience necessary to understand the technical aspects relating to the port of a DISC BASED console game. None! However, looking at it from a common sense standpoint, here are some facts to consider: The actual game is 12 gigs. TWELVE. The iOS version is LESS than a quarter of that size. There is a strict size restriction on the App Store. They completely capped it out, along with KotOR. Textures, videos, and sound files take up a crazy amount of space. Sound and video especially cannot be compressed without massive hits to the file size. Textures are also quite large. Break apart any game installed on your PC and look at the file sizes of textures. You'll be amazed at how large they are. The comments on shading and frame rate are also speaking out of turn. There are loads of factors in play behind the scene here. The game has to be designed to run on the iPad 2 hardware as well as the iPhone 4S, hardware that is 2 years old. So let me summarize this: - The game was designed for the 360/PC/PS3 and is quite intense graphically - the iPad, even the 4th gen, can't match the graphical and CPU power that a dedicated console can have. - yes, some other games might look better on the iPad. But not a single one of them comes close to this in regards to how complex everything is here. There is so much going on in regards to the graphics as well as the computing power and memory needed to not have hour long loading times. So something has to give. If this was a much simpler game, maybe the graphics would be improved? Maybe everyone's thinking that it should be a no brainer to have shadows is completely wrong, and it's not possible without majorly sacrificing something else in the game. I won't try to say it's not disappointing that it doesn't look better, and doesn't have a more stable framerate, it is sad. It would be nice for it to look better, of course. But I also think it's unfair to state as though it were fact that the developer did the bare minimum to optimize the game. Unless someone is an employee there or is very close TO an employee, you're just making assumptions. I personally can't wait. I could have just done a 3 month PS+ subscription and had it there with better textures on my TV, but thanks just the same I'll take the dip in quality and some of the questionable framerate issues if that means I have it wherever I go. 2.5 hours to go!!
The iPod touch 5 is a very slightly tweaked iPhone 4S minus the GPS and cellular antenna, nothing more. At least it's better than the iPad mini that is pushing an extra 60K pixels with the same 2011 era hardware and specs That said, the publishers have set themselves up for an uphill climb by charging $20 for a game that with as many graphical cuts as they made *should* have run like butter on the 5G touch and iPad mini. When all these people using hardware that was nominally brand new barely half a year ago find a $20 app running like ass, they're not going to be happy. If the only 2 devices it runs well is the iPad 4G and iPhone 5, then by the time it's ready for the masses, either through optimization or we've all moved onto better hardware, they will have missed the opportunity for a runaway $20 seller.
Glad I have an iPad 4 and an iPhone 5 then! I am surprised they even got it working on the iPad 2. Seriously, that hardware is over 2 years old and was not even remotely designed for gaming like this. It's a shame it doesn't work better, but is it really surprising? What I would be interested in is how it works on the 4S. I will give you the oddity of the lacking lip movement. It's a really strange choice, but I don't think they made the choice lightly. Yep. Agreed. Though even with the fact that I'm not that great a strategy gamer, what we have here is enough for me to enjoy it like crazy. Anyone else a little cheesed that pocket gamer compared the console version with the iPad 3 and not the 4? At the very least they should have ALSO compared the iPhone 4S and iPad 4. Maybe they're the same, but who knows until we actually try it? I'm glad they did it, but they should have covered all the bases.
PS3 is on 2006 hardware with 256MB of RAM in all, Xbox bumps that to 512MB. Really no technical reason why a game shouldn't be able to come close to or match the performance of these consoles on an iPad 4 or iPhone 5, or a touch 5 for that matter.
There is nothing saying that they didn't do as much regarding the optimization as they could have, these are total assumptions that have no basis. I don't think the developers got into a room and decided they'd just half ascot it and try to screw over people into buying a pile of garbage that could have looked better. The game will still sell well, and could push some hardware purchases. It's a start, that's for damn sure. Now where are the early warcraft and Starcraft games?!
