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Quick Look: XCOM: Enemy Unknown (iOS)

Does Giant Bomb's 2012 Game of the Year work on a telephone? Well, yes... technically.

Sit back and enjoy as the Giant Bomb team takes an unedited look at the latest video games.

Jul. 4 2013

Cast: Jeff

Posted by: Drew

In This Episode:

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

121 Comments

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rpwll

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Edited By rpwll

Awesome, I already bought this on PS3 last year and played the heck out of it, but it could be pretty great on iOS, might be worth getting.

Edit: Hmm, this looks a little janky, I think I'll stick to playing it on the PS3 for now.

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morningstar

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Im waiting for Xcom 2.

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Demonsoul

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Edited By Demonsoul

I love this game.

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fartlord

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Genuinely surprised to see this is a universal app. I wouldn't play it on anything but an iPad.

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Thiefsie

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IS this a port of the PC/PS3/XB game or different campaign, more simple etc?

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NekuCTR

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Edited By NekuCTR

Why would they do this quick look on an iphone? It basically only has phone compatibility for convenient portability. It's primarily an ipad game, and works tremendously on one. This is like a quick look for DoA 5 using the Vita cross play version.

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jellotek

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@rpwll: I have it on iPhone 5. Honestly, I think it really depends on the size of your fingers. I also don't play with my thumbs though. But in any case, it works fine for me. I definitely don't have the degree of trouble that Brad seems to be having. In fact, I'm on the Temple Ship mission already.

It's missing a few bells and whistles though, like the ability to zoom into your random areas of your base, but it's got all the essentials. It has really low poly count, and some of the cutscenes show that unflatteringly well, but that's mention here and it's kind of expected. It also CHEWS THROUGH YOUR BATTERY like no app's business, so I wouldn't really suggest playing it when your phone is unplugged.

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mrangryface

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Edited By mrangryface
  • This game is totally worth 20 dollars and iOS customers need to get used to higher price points if they want to see big recent titles hit the platform.
  • Game is fine on iPad.
  • PC release wasn't THAT buggy lets be real. I also used one save because iron man mode is iron man mode for a reason.
  • However, more should have been done to adapt it for phone- or just make it an iPad only release.
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fodigga

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@nekuctr: Brad said early in the video he was doing it so they could get full 16x9 video for the site. If you have noticed all of their ipad quicklooks aren't fullscreen.

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north6

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Edited By north6

The fingers you are using to dial are too fat. Please mash your palm against the keypad to obtain a special dialing wand.

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Brinty

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The graphics might look very basic but the framerate on this looks far far far smoother than the PS3 version. Tried playing that version recently and couldn't stand it at all.

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north6

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This is free on playstation plus right now.

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AlexanderSheen

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What is going on in this Quick Look?

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jchenderson

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Edited By jchenderson

Amazing game that I won't play again on IOS. Want more of this game but new missions etc.

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cerberus3dog

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Brad: (not reading the tutorial tool tips) "I could just throw cautious to the wind... and fight!"

Jeff: "That's literally what the tutorial is telling you to do."

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Y2Ken

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It's nice that this is a thing, but the iPhone screen is really too small for this sort of thing. I've played the Sims some on my HTC One (which has a marginally bigger screen) and even that was awkward, so I imagine this would be even harder to deal with. Doesn't help that the game seems a little unresponsive even when you do manage to do stuff.

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aretak

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@nekuctr said:

This is like a quick look for DoA 5 using the Vita cross play version.

Not sure that comparison really works, given that the Vita port of DoA5 is better than the console versions.

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RudeCubes

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Edited By RudeCubes

Seems like this'd be better on some other thing with a touch screen such as a...Wi- SMARTGLASS

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Sooty

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Amazes me how bad the graphics are, especially when that game looked bat to begin with.

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cjdunn

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Doesn't surprise me that the UX is poor on a phone. I'm near endgame playing on my iPad 3 and I've had a blast. It's been great aside from the occasional "you tapped here and we think you meant to tap at the bottom of world a million squares away". That happens in level with alien architecture.

So, did I hear that right, Brad never finished a game of XCOM? To me it's like Civ, you can play over and over again.

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avantegardener

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Tough level to show, given the heavy tutorialisation, for a phone version of x-com, pretty passable.

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xymox

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Edited By xymox

Hey, at least the overwatch button doesn't seem to change depending on what unit you have selected(?)

They should really patch that into the PC version.

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TorMasturba

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Edited By TorMasturba

I don't think I've ever gotten angry at watching other people play games but brad was really annoying me in this and I couldn't help but grind my teeth at him taking a shot at the enemy first with a really low hit chance percentage instead of going into overwatch just in case the enemy decided to move and runs into the open to give you a higher shot chance than if you'd shot at him guaranteeing a miss. I mean hunkerdown is much more useful than shooting with a low chance and most people barely use that ability, what does that tell you brad?

Play the long game, never use the whole turn for a single soldier on movement unless it's absolutely necessary, always move within the first movement boundary and use overwatch or shoot/ability/skill that guarantees survival as well as maximal inflicted damage wherever possible.

This's from a guy who managed to complete the game with all countries/areas still on my council and on completion of the game I had 3000 credits unspent and loads of other resources etc.

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Antihippy

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Brad: (not reading the tutorial tool tips) "I could just throw cautious to the wind... and fight!"

Jeff: "That's literally what the tutorial is telling you to do."

He already said that he could barely read it on the iPhone.

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aspaceinvader

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Plays really well on iPad 2 but don't expect the graphics to be great, they're functional and the gameplay is great. Think it was made with iPad in mind rather than iPhone. But it's well worth the price.

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MetalGearSunny

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You can change elevations by moving 2 fingers up or down on the screen, Brad.

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Beatus

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Edited By Beatus

This quick look was a bit rough. The margin of error I experienced on my cracked 4S display was signifigantly lower than on the iPhone 5 used in this video. Perhaps my experience with the iOS version is better because I use my index and middle fingers when playing instead of my thumbs. Overall, I'm quite enjoying the iOS version. It was certainly worth it for me.

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Justin258

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I'm curious about how well the iPad version works. The iPhone's screen is too small for this to work well, but the iPad version should be fine. I mean, it's kind of obvious in the first place that you should play the iOS version of this on the iPad.

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bigdaddy81

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Edited By bigdaddy81

Bring this to the Vita (or even the 3DS) and I'll be all over it. I own the 360 version but haven't been able to bring myself to resume my campaign. If I could play it on one of my portable systems I could easily see myself getting back into it.

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Jonny_Anonymous

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Never played XCOM

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DedBeet

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Edited By DedBeet

More Vita quick looks please!

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mrfluke

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@north6 said:

This is free on playstation plus right now.

is it still free? thought that ended and this month is different games.

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mrfluke

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Why even do the QL on an iphone guys? this game was your goty you should know this is more suited for an ipad.

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Cloak

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Yeah the quicklook on the phone is kind of pointless. I'm pretty sure they developed it with the ipad in mind first then phone. Also if I'm not mistaken, colour customization for the armor is actually a preorder exclusive.

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bigstupidface

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Edited By bigstupidface

3 gb for an iPhone game? Crumbs.

Sod playing this kind of game on a phone, it looks awkward and frustrating.

Edit: I take back the 3gb comment, I need to quit living in the past! My second point still stands, twice as hard after watching the first 5 minutes.

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Humanity

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Edited By Humanity

Jeff's chastising was priceless.

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xxNBxx

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Edited By xxNBxx

Brad you should totally go and finish Xcom: EU

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Edited By dazzhardy

I have no clue what Brad was doing at the start of this, but my chubby finger's have had no problem playing this on my 4S. It's definitely better on the iPad, and there's some hella jankyness during tutorial pop ups, but again, I've not had these problems.

Outside of that, this game has been great to play on breaks at work, and it has an iCloud save slot, so switching between my phone and my iPad has been great.

Edit: Oh, also, Armour customisation was a DLC thing on the PC, not sure about on consoles

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Milkman

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Hey, Brad, I'm not sure if anyone has told but you can move two fingers up on the screen to change the elevation. Hope that helps!

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Cybexx

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The two finger gesture stuff is very janky at the moment and the movement stuff is sketchy sometimes when dealing with buildings but it was also a little squirrely with a mouse on PC too. For rotating and changing elevations on iPad there is dedicated onscreen buttons that you can use instead. I imagine on iPhone those are probably hidden under that camera button.

I hope they patch these issues out but it only took me a couple missions to get used to the quirks.

Armor Coloring along with the Flat Top haircut were part of the pre-order bonus which was some pretty dumb stuff to cut for a pre-order bonus. It is dumb that they didn't just include that stuff with the iOS version.

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Edited By gregSTORM

@xymox: You can hit 'y' to use overwatch on any unit in the PC version.

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Pr1m8

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Edited By Pr1m8

holy shit this is infuriating. i have completed the game on my iphone5 i will agree that the 2 finger swipe is strangely inacurate but i never use it: just tap the camera icon and you can use rotation and elevation buttons. i think the game is completely playable and fun on the phone. its ludicrous to say ipad only.

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xymox

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@xymox: You can hit 'y' to use overwatch on any unit in the PC version.

Wait. That changes everything. Everything. Because abilities jumping around on different keys was one of the biggest problems I had with the game. Especially since the higher difficulties (seem) so dependent on overwatch.

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jimmy_p

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Let me reintroduce you two: Brad meet elevation, elevation meet Brad

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smokepants

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I finally got around to playing the PC version a couple of months ago. So overrated. All of that dice roll business doesn't matter in a game where you can save and load at any time. But the most annoying thing is that you're still turn-based when you're trying to find the enemy. So, you might trigger enemies on the first move of a turn or the last move of a turn and it makes a huge difference when you can kill them before they get a shot off vs when you can't.

Shots don't land? Reload. Guy gets killed? Reload. Enemies triggered late in a turn? Reload. So tedious. Game took about 3 times as long to get through as it should have.

And the base-building portion of the game has a lot of false depth. Once you understand it, it holds no interest. If I were to play the game again (fat chance), I would do all the same stuff I did before, but sooner and more efficiently.

This was Game of the Year? I guess people were just REALLY starved for this type of game.

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Edited By moonwalksa

@smokepants: You realize that there's an Ironman mode built into the game which disables savescumming, right?

Granted, it was a bit too buggy on release for Ironman to be totally safe to use, but either way you're basically blaming the game for people ruining their own experience. It's not really a valid complaint when the developers included an option that exists specifically to address the issue.

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cthomer5000

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One of the most painful quick looks I've ever watched. Dubious decision to go with the iphone version for the QL, and some painful controlling by Brad.

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rye256

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@smokepants: When I played through this game reloading my save to earlier in a battle did not change the outcome of actions I had taken before reloading a save. Perhaps you have reloaded saves to points before taking on a mission, but when you are far into a mission replaying that entire mission just because something didn't go your way is madness. If this is how you chose to play the game then you have ruined it for yourself. Also: Ironman. Use it if you don't trust yourself to not reload and replay sections to get a better outcome. Taking three times as long was your choice, no one made you reload to before the battle so your dice rolls or enemy positions would be different.

Brad mentioned his desire to reload when encounters went poorly in The Last of Us. Reloading after you have failed and died is fine, but living with your choices and dealing with the consequences is part of the experience. You cheapen it for yourself.

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Scratch

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Bought it and played on my iPad, seemed totally fine for me. Maybe folks should avoid playing the phone.