We’ve seen so-called open-world games several times before on the App Store, like Ravensword and parts of Avatar. However, there were always limitations like loading screens, set paths, or a general lack of depth. Xenome takes this concept to the next level by removing most of these drawbacks, creating an experience that sets a new standard for handheld open-world games.
Before we delve into our review, it’s important to note that the game only runs on the iPhone 4, iPad, and 3rd generation iPhones and iPod Touches. An update to make it run on second-generation iPod Touches is in the works. However, the developers have stated that other devices will likely never be able to run the game.
In Xenome, you play as “The Scientist”, a mysterious human who is unfrozen after 250 years only to find that the world has experienced an earth-shattering apocalypse. The second you walk outside, you are pulled into the fray of a war between two factions. As you proceed through the story, you’ll discover your identity, how the world came to be in its current state, and why you can read the mysterious story-ridden fragments scattered around Silica Flats. We won’t spoil the plot twists, but be prepared to do a large amount of reading.
The classic "which way do I go" situation.
Silica Flats is impressively large for a mobile game, clocking in at about the size of a small zone in World of Warcraft. There aren’t any loading screens, so you are free to roam throughout the desert wasteland. The graphics are pretty good and the draw distance is absolutely superb. While textures are quite low-resolution, the stylized art is well tailored to create a unified atmosphere. Some of the key landmarks include destroyed billboards, sunken cities, and broken bridges. In short, nothing feels tacked on.
More impressively, Xenome is a truly open game. There aren’t any invisible walls, so you can hop across the rooftops of huts to sneak into an enemy base or climb up cliffs. To alleviate travel times, there are "pingers" located around Silica Flats. Once visited for the first time, these allow you to instantly jump to any other pinger you've come across.
The variety of character customization is immense in Xenome. First is the wide selection of gear. Much like green items in WoW, many pieces of gear are similar with different stat boosters. There is also a shop where you can sell unwanted items and use money to purchase higher-end gear and weapons. Items purchased from the store often give The Scientist a bit of visual flair as well, such as shoulder pieces that spurt out streams of green gas behind you.
It's alive!
On the other end of the character customization spectrum lie your abilities. These come in two flavors: level-based and XNA. The former are active abilities for use in battles that unlock as you level up. However, more interesting is the XNA system. Certain enemies have a chance of dropping a keystone, and when given to a Chemist vendor along with some money, you can unlock special XNA talents. These are, generally speaking, the best in the game. Passive talents can be unlocked through this method as well.
One of the great things about the gear and talent system is that you can use them to benefit your style of play. For example, if you’d rather pick off enemies with a sniper rifle, you can boost your precision shot ability. On the flipside, physical brawlers can increase their damage or regenerate their health. While the system is deep, it's also very approachable, with tutorials worded so players at all levels of RPG experience can understand it.
The controls in Xenome aren't perfect, but they're handled decently. Controlling the Scientist is mapped out across two joysticks: one for walking and another for the camera. Next to the right joystick are the jump and auto-attack buttons. You can target enemies and NPCs by tapping on them, and untarget them by tapping elsewhere on the screen. A menu bar can be brought in and out of view through a button at the top of the screen.
This used to be a BP.
Now, we know you're likely thinking auto-attack is lame, but it makes sense for the game. Depending on your distance from the enemy, the game will automatically switch between ranged and melee attacks. You still have control over your talent bar, which is plenty enough to handle.
Xenome is does suffer some in the quest variety department. Many quests feel tacked-on, following the formula of “here is some story, but now while I have your attention, go kill X, find Y, then talk to Z.” There are some quests where you need to kill story-crucial bosses and collect fragment information, but generally speaking they doesn’t vary much beyond this.
Despite this, Xenome certainly doesn’t feel like a grind. With a rich storyline, about a dozen hours of gameplay, and a true feeling of freedom, there isn’t much not to like about this game. In fact, if this trend keeps up, the “iPhone’s WoW” may be coming sooner than we think. In other words, do yourself a favor and go buy Xenome now.
28 Comments
Seriously? No mention of the ridiculously low frame rates on 3G iPod/3GS? It gets to the point of being unplayable. The open world is a joke. It might be (somwhat) open but its also EMPTY. Whats the point of an BIG open world when there is almost nothing out there? I'd have much rather preferred a ravensword like beautiful, detailed world here with a few 'loading screens' instead of this low textured, ugly looking empty desert which runs at ~10 frames per second unless you are standing still and dont move at all. WTH.
"The controls in Xenome aren't perfect, but they're handled well enough"
WOW!!! I must be an idiot now coz for me controls were…. well.. absolutely uncontrollable. The right analog stick is completely crap. I have played dozens of dual stick games and not once have I felt the controls to be this bad. It was an exercise in futility to keep the player headed in the right direction.
And the auto attack isnt just lame its really really lame. Seriously? Just tap a target once and wait? Thats it? Thats all you can do? Why would anyone even play such a game? Is it even right to call it a game? It feels more like a story book to me. The gameplay elements are no where to be seen in this so called 'game'.
And yes, I do like the story here. Its the only good thing here. But its told in the form of huge blocks of texts where you have to strain your eyes to read on the small screen of the ipod. Xenome is seriously not a game, its a story book with an interesting story, BUT, with an absolute crap presentation.
I wish I could get the story in a nice ebook format so I could finish it without bothering myself to play this crappy looking, super ultra slow, lame game with one of the worst combat system I've seen. Ever.
After wasting almost 4 hours with the game, even the story couldn't keep me playing this game. Already deleted it from my iPod.
Oh and about that 4/4 rating and "Go buy xenome now" recommendation, I'm completely clueless here. You sure the review is for xenome episode one with version 1.0.6790 only? Coz thats the one I downloaded and played. May be you got a different build not available for us regular folks coz there is No Way in Hell this is 4/4, BUY NOW recommendation worthy. Absolutely ridiculous. I still cant believe this review. May be if they fix all the performance, controls problems, add a (lot) better combat system, change the story telling aspect etc it might actually be worth your time. But until then this deserves a 1/4 with "Stay Away from this Crap" warning.
Sorry for the big rant. I was really looking forward to this game and it really disappointed me. What a waste of 5 bucks. Cant believe it turned out this bad.
I'm very surprised you found it so terrible. I'll quickly run through the points you made:
- I tested the game on an iPhone 4 so the framerates may have been better for me because of that. The framerate wasn't a problem at all.
- There is a lot in the world, especially considering this is a game on a mobile device. If you think about a post-apocalyptic landscape, it would be pretty barren ;) It adds to the atmosphere. And yes, as I stated in the review, the textures are low-resolution, but the art style makes up for it.
- It takes a few minutes to get used to the control scheme, but it works just fine. You don't really need precision for this style of game so the slight clunkiness isn't a major issue.
- If you don't like auto-attack, you obviously dislike most MMO-style games as well. This is all a personal preference thing, of course, so you are perfectly entitled to your opinion of such a control scheme. However, there is certainly gameplay to be found. If you are using talents correctly (which you really need to if you want to live) and balancing ranged and melee attacks, you'll need to play actively. Same thing goes for WoW and other similar games.
- Agreed on the story =] I think the way its told is fine, and as I stated in the review there is definitely a lot of reading involved. Could they do some interesting things with voice acting? Sure! But as it is, I don't think its a problem.
All in all, this is a really impressive game. I'm willing to bet a lot of your issues with the game (framerate, controls, etc.) were due to the device you played it on.
shut ur mouth up.....whiny little.....XENOME is A GOOD GAME!!!
Hmm I was dissapointed it wouldn't run straight away on my 8GB iTouch 3G but it's nice they're adding some compatability. That said however while an empty barren world would certainly add to the post-apocolyptic atmoshphere I tend to prefer worlds with more stuff with them. I'll buy it when they update it but I still think Aralon looks like it will be better.
There is no 8gb 3G iPod Touch.
Ok, so the launch price and ambitious premise hooked me in. I have a 3GS (old bootrom) 16GB running 3.1.2 jailbroken with blackra1n. I have various mods done to enhance performance and RAM such as: shaved language packs, removed unnecessary launch daemons, SBSettings, and iMemory Enhancer. I launched the program with roughly 180Mb RAM free and no other Apps running or backgrounded.
So I bought the game and loaded it up. I am on the fence with this game...
1. Controls are somewhat unresponsive and limited - do not like the analog sticks. A setup more like NOVA or Eliminate Pro would work much better. Sensitivity control would be nice as well for both movement and camera
2. Frame rate can be slightly choppy at times - but I think this would be much more manageable if the controls were fixed. I opted to turn off sand effects to ease strain on the 3GS.
3. Everything else is nice - graphics are better looking in screen shots then in actual play. Game play is fun and mechanics are intuitive. Story line is intriguing.
Conclusion:
If you have an iPhone 4 get this game. If you have an iPhone 3GS and love this sort of game then get it! But if you are iffy then I would wait for a patch from the devs that addresses the control issues. Other than that I would give the game --
3/4
In addition - the HUD should be clear and have an option to set translucence for the various spells and options buttons.
To tack on one more thing - Ravensword runs smoothly and the controls are perfect. There are options to adjust controls and adjust transparency on the onscreen controls as well. The dev's need to buy a copy of Ravensword and copy them...
I'd disagree about Ravensword's controls. I don't think transparency is a must, but it would be a nice addition.
I have to say i agree with a lot of the people here.. the controls are the worst i've seen in a game so far, honestly, the control sucks. Someone mention that the controls should be more like NOVA, i want to add Ravensword as well, both games have excellent control - something this game lacks so i certainly hope they change it. Second is the framerate.. OMG tbh it sucks as well, but the option to turn off the "sand effect" did help.. but still a bit choppy in places.. besides these two points i'd love to add that the story and the over all gameplay and design was indeed very good and if a future release of this game is coming with better controls, like the one in NOVA or Ravensword, and the sucky framerate is improved.. im there to actually finish the game! :)
I guess to each his own, then. I sincerely didn't have a problem with the controls or framerate, but I recognize it may be an issue for others (especially on 3rd-gen devices).
Control sucks. The World sucks. I wont give this more than a 2 for the sheer boredom this is. Are you paid to write a positive review of this clear flawed excuse for a game because you seem to tolerate a lot of crap for what is an essentially a game about someone wandering/walking/running at a boring wasteland.
We don't accept money for reviews, period. I gave my honest opinion on the game and stick by every word of it.
Like he should...it gives an accurate review.
Wow... everyone in here must have some serious case of butthurt.
I can't believe people actually dislike this game, it's fun, it's addictive, and it's a reminiscence of Fallout and Morrowind. Sure, I have some framerate drops on my iTouch 32gb/3rdgen but they sure ain't game breaking. Really, the only time my FPS starts to go whack is when I start jumping forward like a maniac forcing my iPod to load zones non-stop. Other then that, it runs fine. I'm sure the devz of the game will optimize the game to run smoother.
Also, people. There's this thing a lot of people follow, specifically named "genres" if you're a first-person junkie and just want moaarrr FP games then this obviously ain't a game for you. I don't know why you fooled yourself into believe it would be anything like Eliminate or whatever else. The controls aren't even that horrible, they by no means are excellent though. If you don't like the game then just leave it at that, don't start a flaming bandwagon telling everyone this game is bad. For me though... I liek mudkipz... and I like this game. It does need some serious improvements though, but what game doesn't when it's first released? Annnnd... that was rhetorical.
Hey guy, calm down. Its mostly constructive critisism going on here. Most of us making comments like the game and are offering up our advise to make it better.
The main points are:
1. Change control scheme to reflect Ravensword's
2. Even with sand effects turned off, the game does not run silky smooth on iPhone 3GS and corresponding iPod touch. I'm sure this issue would dissipate if the controls were fixed.
I completly agree :)
Anyone try this on an ipad yet? Any issues? I'm sure it'll be speedy...maybe I'll just hold out for a possible HD version.
"This used to be a BP."
Love it!
Wow, this is by far the worst review I've read on STP. This game should get a 3 AT MOST for effort. This game is almost unplayable on 3rd gen devices due to its poor excuse for a frame rate. Seriously, how did this get a four? You guys criticized epagaluda for being unplayable on anything but the 3GS and this unplayable without an iPhone 4. I'm not seeing the consistency... You should seriously test this game on a 3GS of iPod 3rd gen to see just how big of a fail this game is. I am extremely disappointed in this game after anticipating its release.
My brother just gifted me this game. The game runs silky smooth on the iPad and looks pretty good on 2x mode. Pretty good game if your device can run it.
The combat being like a mmorpg combat system is prolly because they making xenome into an mmorpg. They have planned 2 episodes then they make the mmorpg. And they are working on the patch for it running on 2nd grn devices and an ipad version
To tack onto my suggestions
1. Sound EFX and Music need to be adjustable
- I have found that sound is way too low and SFX are way too loud
2. Keep my options settings upon close/launch
- I have to keep turning sand effects off every time I launch
I think the game is pretty good for a mobile device but I think they could put in more creatures and monsters it's empty and I'm killing the same thing over and over again
Personally I think this has turned out to be one of the best RPGs on the iPhone, and there are a lot of great ones. It feels to me like an offline MMORPG, and this is just the first episode. Kudos to the developer. I'm sure many of these minor fixes listed above will come in a future update.
I bought this game and it didn't said anywhere it was just for third generation ipods. It doesn't run on my first gen ipod touch. And sure, people can say "of course it doesn't! it is a new game" or whatever, but I can run almost ANY game that is coming out (iron man 2, etc) and they run fine on the 1st gen. I emailed the developers and had no answer. I tweet them and had no answer either.
It is a damn shame they aren't listening to their public. I'm buying an iPad this week and will not buy any of their games ever again, even if I can run them smoothly. I don't mind losing 5 bucks at all, I'm just pissed because it didn't said it was for 3rd generation devices on the iTunes page they put up, and they don't bother to answer me.
Shame on them.
You've already bought the game, so you can download it again onto your iPad for free when you get it. Then the game will run smoothly and you'll get to enjoy it. Problem solved!
nice review...i love this game...
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