The Verge - Hands-ons

iOS gaming grows up: 'XCOM: Enemy Unknown' approaches console parity

2013-06-20T09:37:34Z

The line between mobile and console gaming gets blurrier as time goes by, and today's release of XCOM: Enemy Unknown for iOS is one of the more compelling pieces of evidence to date. It's nothing less than a full port of the well-received turn-based strategy title that 2K Games brought to to PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 last year, and that Polygon gave 8.5 out of 10.

Recognizably the same game as seen on console and PC

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is based on 1994 sci-fi strategy classic UFO: Enemy Unknown, bringing that game's turn-based combat up to date with modern graphics and cinematic storytelling. On iOS, the visuals are dialled down a lot, but it's recognizably the same game underneath.

As a tactical strategy game, XCOM is played from an overhead perspective; there's little to tell the console and mobile versions apart at those times. However, the interstitial action scenes — triggered when characters attack or reach points of interest — are far less striking on iOS.

On an iPad mini, XCOM: Enemy Unknown is roughly in line with an above average PlayStation 2 game running at high definition. 2K does, however, say that a fourth-generation iPad will give the best visual results, and recommends quitting other apps before playing.

Performance is pretty solid

We'd go further than that — even after manually closing every app on the iPad, we weren't able to load a mission in XCOM without getting booted back to the homescreen. Restarting the iPad mini itself fixed the issue. It's also worth noting that XCOM is a hefty 1.86GB download, and we needed to clear around 4GB of space before the app would install.

Once in the game, performance is pretty solid; we saw the occasional stutter here and there, but we could say the same for the PlayStation 3 version. The game is functionally identical to versions on other platforms — while the graphics are significantly pared back, it's the same game in the way that Crysis 3 is the same game whether you play it on a $600 or $3,000 PC. XCOM's turn-based nature does mean that processing the action is less taxing on hardware than if it were simulating battles in real time, but as a proof of concept it impresses nonetheless.

And, while it may not stand up to visual comparisons with its PC and console counterparts, the iOS version of XCOM comes with advantages of its own. Chief among these is the control system — most PC gamers will always prefer a mouse, but the touchscreen controls are a vast improvement over the slightly clunky controller setup on console.

2K has also made the most of the potential for mobility. XCOM is a universal app for both iPhone and iPad, and can sync save files between devices via iCloud, making the mobile version a better option for anyone who wants to make progress in opportune moments throughout the day. The unskippable story cutscenes do mean that the game isn't quite as suited for on-the-go play as it could be, however.

Overall, XCOM is a technical achievement without many parallels on the platform. It's the first instance we can think of where a full price, current generation console game with high production values has made it onto iOS in such a short space of time. And it comes with a price to match — unusually for a game in the App Store, 2K is charging $19.99.

Premium price for premium content

That's half the price that you'd pay for XCOM on console, but you're getting a much less lavish production for your money. We'd also be remiss not to point out that the PlayStation 3 version of the game is currently available for free to PlayStation Plus subscribers.

But if the iOS version is your only option, you'll be unlikely to feel ripped off. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a great game wherever you play it, and represents another milestone in mobile gaming's march towards hardcore legitimacy.

Beach ball, no more: Chatology aims to fix OS X's messaging misfortune

2013-06-18T16:00:06Z

Searching for people or messages inside Apple's Messages for Mac can be downright unbearable. Typing anything into the app's search bar is liable to slow your computer to a halt, even after some tweaks Apple made in its latest OS X update. Flexibits, the maker of Fantastical, thinks it has a fix: Today the company is launching Chatology, an app for searching through all the instant messaging logs on your Mac. If you've hooked up iMessage, it will search through those messages, too.

A simple way to search for instant messages that won't crash your Mac

Poring through old IMs isn't something most people do every day, but if you often find yourself digging around for that conversation you had with a colleague over AIM, or those dinner plans you made with a friend over Google Talk, Chatology works very well. It plugs directly into Messages for Mac's conversation database, and offers a variety of features like the ability to export conversations to plain text, sort conversations by date, and filter the content of a conversation by text, images, or links. Effectively, this feature provides an easy way to view a complete history of images and links you've shared with someone, which is both useful and fun. Most importantly, the app is fast.

The biggest issue with Chatology is OS X itself, which does a poor job organizing your instant messages and iMessages. It's not uncommon to find duplicate and empty conversations with odd dates in Chatology, and unfortunately's there's not much anyone can do about it. The app also doesn't support Adium or any other third-party chat apps you might use on your computer, but Flexibits says it's considering adding compatibility. If you don't find yourself perusing old chat logs too often, it could be easy to forget about the app — but fortunately, activating it is as simple as pressing Command F to search inside Messages for Mac, just like you normally would. Still, the app's $19.99 price tag is out of reach for many, but if you frequently search for old messages on your Mac, Chatology is invaluable.

The Ascend P6 is Huawei's latest attempt at a flagship Android smartphone

2013-06-18T14:35:42Z

Huawei is in London today launching its new smartphone, the Ascend P6. The first thing you'll notice about the P6 is it's incredibly thin — Hauwei says it's 6.18mm thick, which is far thinner than Apple's iPhone 5 or the Samsung Galaxy S4. Huawei also claims it's the "world's thinnest" smartphone, but as is often the case with such titles, that achievement is set to be eclipsed by another Chinese competitor soon. The Ascend P6 is pretty light: at 120g, it weighs 10g less than the Galaxy S4. Despite its small shell, Huawei has managed to squeeze in what are essentially the internals of the LG Nexus 4. There's a 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 LCD with in-cell touch, an unspecified 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 2000mAh battery, and 8GB of internal storage (expandable via a microSD card slot).

Compared to Huawei products we've seen in the past, the Ascend P6 is definitely a step up in quality. Available in black, white, or pink, it's constructed mostly from plastic and doesn't feel cheap, but it's not exactly premium either. The sides are made from aluminum and have an antenna notch that'll be familiar to anyone that's seen an iPhone in the past three years. One odd facet of the design is the corners, which are rounded much like most smartphones at the top, but at the bottom curve round to meet the back of the phone. It's an strange design decision — the two styles don't work particularly well together in my opinion. Another niggling aspect of the design are the device's power and volume controls: they're a little too shallow, and there's no comforting "click" when you press them. Apart from that, everything seems well put together, and the display is good enough — it looks almost identical to the Nexus 4's screen.

The camera software has a 'beauty level' slider to make you more attractive

Huawei is making noise about the P6's photographic abilities. The rear-facing camera has a backside-illuminated 8-megapixel sensor and an f/2.0 lens. Huawei says the camera can shoot close up photos from as little as 4cm (about 1.5 inches) away. Its front-facing camera is also pretty special, on paper at least: it's a 5-megapixel unit, far higher than most smartphones. Huawei has equipped the front-facing camera with "Auto Face Enhancement," which comes with a "beauty level" slider that can apparently make you more attractive in your self portraits. When I tried it out, all it seemed to do was blur my face slightly and make my cheeks a little more red.

We took a few quick shots with the P6 and found the camera to be fairly capable. It definitely can't compete with Nokia's Lumia 920, and falls short of the iPhone 5 and HTC One, but from my brief time with it I could see myself using it regularly without too much issue. The same can't be said for Huawei's Android skin, unfortunately. Called the "Emotion UI," it's based on the latest version of Android, 4.2.2, but it's a pretty heavy skin that feels like an attempt to ape Samsung's love-it-or-hate-it interpretation of Google's OS.

There are a few good ideas in the skin, though, not least of which are granular controls over notifications and data access. Much like iOS' centralized settings for Notification Center, you can stop any app from creating notifications, and you can also prevent apps from using your mobile data. Another thing the skin has over HTC's and Samsung's efforts is the inclusion of on-screen buttons, so at least there won't be any irritating on-screen menu prompts within apps.

Huawei believes that its smartphone's quality, combined with a comparatively low price tag, will be enough to overcome its competitors' marketing budgets. The Ascend P6 isn't likely to ever make it to the US anytime soon as it doesn't have LTE connectivity built in — Huawei says an LTE version will come this fall. It's planning to launch the phone in the UK, mainland Europe, and Australia shortly, expanding to 100 countries by the end of the year. It'll be priced at €449 ($600) without a contract, which is quite a bit cheaper than most "flagship" products.

Adobe Creative Cloud apps now ready to download, including improved Photoshop (hands-on)

2013-06-18T12:12:07Z

Last month, Adobe dropped a bombshell on users of its Creative Suite apps: going forward, all of its apps under the umbrella, from Photoshop and Illustrator to Dreamweaver and After Effects, would fall under the umbrella of Creative Cloud, its monthly subscription service. While the decision has been divisive, one thing is clear: if you want new Photoshop features, Creative Cloud is your only way in. Today, Adobe is unveiling all of the updated apps it announced in May, and we took the opportunity to look at what separates Photoshop CC from its CS6 predecessor.

There are limits to what you can accomplish with Shake Reduction

From a photographer’s perspective, the headline feature this time around is Shake Reduction, which does exactly what you’d expect. First premiered at Adobe Max 2011, it lets you give Photoshop a shaky image and have it try to figure out the blur pattern, (ideally) returning you a nice, clear image. I tried using it on a really bad pan that I shot at 1/10th of a second and a handheld still shot at 1/5th (click images to see at full resolution, originals are on the left) and immediately discovered my 2012 MacBook Air isn’t the ideal machine for the job. Photoshop filters can be resource intensive, but this took over two minutes to render a full preview of a 24-megapixel image. It's a nice addition, but it's clear that there are limits to what you can accomplish with Shake Reduction. I didn’t get the sharp, natural results I was hoping for with my own images, but as you’d expect, results are best when there’s little camera shake to account for.

Smart Sharpen now figures out where your subject is

Speaking of sharpness, an improved Smart Sharpen now figures out where your subject is, applying sharpening selectively while leaving background textures soft. Zooming in on the precise areas you want to sharpen in the preview window lets you make sure that you’re only getting those sharp edges where you really want them. Of course, you could achieve similar results with layers and masking in previous versions of Photoshop, but it’s nice to have a fast, automated alternative.

Another notable addition in Photoshop CC is improved enlargements. For going really big, pros typically turn to dedicated solutions like Perfect Resize (formerly Genuine Fractals), but with Photoshop CC, Adobe is saying you can use its new intelligent upsampling algorithm to "enlarge a lo-res image for print, or start with a larger image and blow it up for use on a poster or billboard." A frequent problem we run into at The Verge is upscaling a smaller 640-pixel image to a 2040-pixel one for high-res displays, so I was eager to see what kinds of results it produced. Unfortunately, at that scale, the difference between the two enlargement algorithms looks negligible, even when zoomed in to 100 percent. Bigger enlargements could have more pronounced results. (Click below to see at full resolution, enlargements with intelligent upsampling on the right).

Lastly, Adobe Camera Raw 8 is getting some of the new editing features that were made available in Lightroom 5 — radial filters, straightening of distorted photos, and a new, non-destructive healing brush. These appear largely the same as their Lightroom counterparts, although there are some slight interface differences.

Access to single apps for $19.99

Much ado has been made about Adobe's decision to make its new products subscription-only, but the company is jumping through a lot of hoops to make Creative Cloud as affordable as possible. The monthly subscription ordinarily costs $49.99, but you can get access to single apps for $19.99, and that goes down to $9.99 if you’re an owner of CS3 or later. And that could get more aggressive still. Photo Rumors is reporting that Adobe has been circulating a survey asking if people would be willing to pay $9.99 a month just for Photoshop or $29.99 for the entire suite if it meant they would get a copy of CS6 at the end of three years and a commitment from Adobe to keep supporting future cameras and file formats, although it could just be testing the waters.

So is it worth making the switch? Photoshop CC adds a couple of useful features to Adobe’s flagship application, but it isn’t making a really compelling case for existing Photoshop CS6 users to make the subscription jump. Of course, the full benefits of Creative Cloud stretch far beyond Photoshop, and for professionals that use multiple Adobe apps, need the document syncing and sharing features, need to manage teams and large projects, or just want access to new features going forward, it offers a much different value proposition. If you want to see the new bells and whistles in Photoshop CC for yourself, Adobe offers a 30-day free trial that lets you check out the whole Creative Cloud experience.

Fantasia: Music Evolved at E3 2013

2013-06-15T00:28:46Z

Paul Miller takes a hands-on look at Fantasia: Music Evolved.

'Mercenary Kings' is 'Borderlands' meets 'Scott Pilgrim' on PS4 and PC

2013-06-14T20:11:24Z

There are plenty of big shooters coming to the PlayStation 4, from Destiny to Killzone: Shadow Fall. These games emphasize massive, open worlds, social connectivity, and incredibly detailed high-definition graphics. Mercenary Kings, an upcoming PS4 and Steam title from Tribute Games, goes a different route. It's a title that feels like the Metal Slug game that time forgot — a 2D shooter for a next-gen console.

Mercenary Kings is a run-and-gun shooter in the vein of Contra and Metal Slug. You play as a soldier of some sort, and you take on missions that mainly involving killing lots of dudes with really big guns. The gameplay is reminiscent of the classics, with simple platforming and an emphasis on action. But it also feels relatively open, letting you explore levels instead of simply moving from left to right. In the demo I played, the controls felt tight and the weapons satisfyingly powerful.

While it may sound like yet another retro-style indie game, Mercenary Kings has several tweaks that give it a modern feel. Chief among them is the insane amount of weapon upgrades at your disposal — much like in the Borderlands series, you can customize your guns by swapping parts, giving you plenty of freedom to build a firearm that works just right for you. You'll gather these bits and pieces with a Diablo-esque loot system that should provide added incentive for shooting bad guys in the face. According to the developers, there are more than 300 parts to collect and use. And though I played in single player, there will also be co-op play for up to four people, which should make a crazy game even crazier.

The over-the-top weapons and action are complimented by the big, exaggerated pixel art, which comes courtesy of artist and animator Paul Robertson, best known for his work on the Scott Pilgrim beat 'em up for PS3. Characters are cartoonish and exaggerated, and the bad guys explode in surprisingly playful splashes of blood and gore. The bosses are gigantic and the explosions even bigger. The classic gameplay and retro visuals may make Mercenary Kings seem like a dated throwback, but the customization elements and terrific art style help make the game feel modern. It's also the most fun I had playing a PS4 shooter at E3 — and it's coming to both Sony's console and Windows later this year.

An early look at Project Spark at E3 2013

2013-06-14T13:40:31Z

Paul Miller gets a hands-on look at Project Spark on the Xbox One at E3 2013.

The Oculus Rift was made for space battles: inside the virtual cockpit of 'EVR'

2013-06-14T12:30:03Z

Even as the Oculus Rift has gotten tremendous attention from the gaming world (among other things, Epic announced a partnership with it for Unreal Engine 4), designing a good game for it has proved difficult. Virtual reality throws a wrench in well-established genres like the first-person shooter, turning something as simple as aiming into a conundrum. Oculus itself has suggested things like exploration games, but EVE Online studio CCP thinks it's found another answer: send everyone to space.

At E3, I got a chance to try EVR, a dogfighting game built to take advantage of the Rift's capabilities. After strapping on the headset, you'll find yourself inside a tiny spacecraft's cockpit, virtual body manning the controls. The game pits two teams of three against each other in roughly five-minute battles, using a combination of gamepad and head controls. You'll move with a stick and fire fixed lasers with the right trigger, but it's the left trigger that's really fun: hold it down and look at another ship, and a missile will lock onto it and fire when you release.

Space combat: a natural fit for the Rift

Putting you in a spacecraft neatly sidesteps some of the Oculus Rift's biggest problems. If you walk in VR, you're looking around with natural head motion, but your body is still controlled with a stick, creating a weird mix of the real and artificial. Efforts to get around this are still working on getting people to walk in a straight line. In a virtual cockpit, the issue is completely moot: You don't expect to be able to do more than look around.

EVR is still running on the early, low-res version of the Rift, but even that is mitigated by the setting. I have no idea what being in space looks like, and it's not hard to suspend disbelief and imagine that you're wearing some kind of helmet. From there, you're free to concentrate on the exhilerating experience of soaring around asteroids and dodging missiles.

It's also one of the rare times when the Rift really seems like a natural form of interaction. I've pretty well optimized how I walk and aim in a shooter, and introducing head tracking can just confuse things. By contrast, I'm generally awful at figuring out the perspective in flight games. Allowing me to actually look around while moving didn't make me good, exactly, but I no longer felt lost. And aiming with your eyes is both awesomely futuristic and a pretty good way to zero in on a ship, especially because you can look away as soon as the missile has fired. Not having to align a "body" means you can lock onto something at any angle — above your head or to your side, for example.

A virtual body that doesn't respond is almost as weird as no body at all

Of course, there are still moments when playing with a Rift is weird and awkward. When you look down, you'll see a sexless body in a gray flight suit, hands resting on either side. While the real me shifted my legs or moved my hands on the gamepad in a fight, the virtual me... stayed completely immobile. And if you think jumping around in virtual reality is disorienting, try tumbling end-over-end in the vacuum of space. Fortunately, the spare environment means you aren't constantly reminded of how fast you're going, and the controls are forgiving.

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EVR is far from a finished product. CCP says a team developed it over the course of seven weeks, initially as a side project. The section I saw at E3 is essentially a proof of concept, though it's possible it will be developed into a full game and released for the Rift. When might we see that? The team wouldn't say, and the headset isn't anywhere near established enough to support a commercial game with its user base. But EVR's mere existence is a major point in the Rift's favor.

Office for iPhone: Microsoft delivers basic document editing, but no iPad version

2013-06-14T10:35:42Z

After months of rumors and speculation on Microsoft's Office plans for iOS, the software giant is finally delivering a copy for iPhone today. Office Mobile for iOS will be strictly iPhone-only initially, and Microsoft is only offering access to the application through an Office 365 subscription. When we first uncovered Microsoft's Office for iOS plans in November, we had heard basic viewing functionality would be enabled in the apps. Those plans have clearly changed, and to view and edit documents you'll need to sign into an account with Office 365. There's no free standalone version, nor an iPad edition.

No free version, no iPad edition

The basic application consists of four sections to access recent documents, SkyDrive folders, document creation, and settings. It's a lot like the Windows Phone version of Office, with support for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. You can freely create Word and Excel documents, but there are no options to create a PowerPoint presentation from the device. Loading up a Word document is straight forward, and you can quickly jump into edit options directly within the same viewing interface. The editing interface isn't as straightforward as it should be. Initially I was confused. I tried to highlight text using the familiar controls of iOS, but I was greeted with a comment notice. Eventually I discovered that you have to double tap on words to get the typical highlight controls. Once you've highlighted text it's easy to hit the edit button and gain access to formatting options.

Better editing than Windows Phone, but super confusing

The editing controls are actually a lot better than Windows Phone's Office version, once you get used to them. You can quickly undo changes and see them update in real time within documents. On the Windows Phone version it's difficult to undo your changes as the editing options display in a separate section. Apart from the initial confusion, I was quickly updating documents on my iPhone and seeing those changes reflected on Office Web Apps and the desktop version of Office.

Excel includes largely the same editing options as Word, but there are a few more specific options for spreadsheet data. If Word was confusing for editing, then Excel isn't much better. Highlighting cells was super frustrating initially, until you realize you have to highlight them in the very center and drag to highlight additional ones. Once you've highlighted the relevant data, it's easy to create tables and charts that you can insert into separate tabs in the spreadsheet. You can also apply basic filters, an AutoSum calculation, and column sorting for data. You can even change the formulas in single cells, making it useful for changing mistakes on the go.

PowerPoint is the most basic out of all three. You can edit text, and hide and move slides, but there's little other customisation here. A Slide Navigator view lets you quickly browse around a presentation, and a landscape mode provides full access to the PowerPoint with options to create speaker notes. Because you can't create PowerPoint documents, it's really designed for quick edits from your phone.

A basic app that needs an Office 365 subscription

Microsoft's offering for iPhone users here is really designed to be used in conjunction with SkyDrive. All document changes will sync up to Microsoft's cloud service, and they're fully accessible from Office Web Apps and the Office 2013 desktop applications. When you first load the app you'll be greeted with options to buy an Office 365 subscription or simply sign in. Microsoft had some issues updating its SkyDrive iOS application, due to the way subscriptions for additional storage worked in-app on iOS, but those differences have now been resolved. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Apple will take a cut on Office 365 subscriptions that are purchased directly from within Office for iPhone. Microsoft isn't revealing exactly how much, but if it's the same as other in-app purchases then it could be as high as 30 percent.

Overall the app is really basic, and designed for on-the-go editing. Microsoft says it's not planning to create an iPad version, noting that tablet users can utilize the Office Web Apps instead. We'd like to see some additional options for editing, including more clear options for text formatting and the ability to insert and change images, but it's a solid attempt for something you're only really going to use for editing in emergencies. Office for iPhone is available immediately for US users, and it will roll out internationally in the coming days.

Mad Catz hopes simplicity will sell its Android game console (hands-on)

2013-06-14T03:11:31Z

Unlike the Ouya, the Gamepop, the GameStick, the Wikipad, the Nvidia Shield, and practically every other Android gaming device that's coming out of the woodwork these days, Mad Catz has an incredibly simple pitch.The company's Project Mojo is a tiny lightweight box that plays the very same Android games and apps on your TV screen that you could get on a smartphone or tablet. There's no fancy controller necessary, no subscription required, and no proprietary store. Google Play and the Amazon Appstore are on board. "You buy the games from wherever you damn well please," says Mad Catz pitchman Alex Verrey. "We bring the hardware, you bring the software."

Of course, peripheral manufacturer Mad Catz would prefer that you buy more hardware than just the Mojo itself, and here at E3 2013, it's touting the utility of Bluetooth Smart. With the new Mad Catz Ctrlr, a gamepad which can connect to the microconsole and other devices using that latest version of Bluetooth, the company claims it can recreate a responsive feeling akin to that of an Xbox 360 controller. While the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii managed to shoehorn earlier versions of Bluetooth into excellent controllers, it's true that the Mad Catz peripheral felt more responsive than some of the cheap Bluetooth gamepads we've used in the past. Mad Catz is also building a mouse function into the Ctrlr — just flip a switch — to make up for the lack of a touchpad.

There are plenty of other options, though. With two USB 2.0 ports, you can plug in any input device Android supports, including a PC mouse and keyboard. "There's no secret sauce," says Verrey. The system will run on the latest version of Android and have a more powerful mobile processor than anything else on the market, Mad Catz promises. There's "no less than 16GB of onboard storage" and a microSD slot to add more, as well as microUSB, hardwired Ethernet, the all-important HDMI port, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and a headphone jack which could come in handy for bedrooms or dorms. It doesn't have a price yet — and with all this competition for cheap Android hardware, price could be key — but we're looking forward to seeing if simplicity will sell the Mojo when it arrives this holiday season. The Ctrlr will ship in summer, and will also appear later in a Mojo bundle.