UFO: Enemy Unknown, remake by Firaxis

Uberfrog said:

A very positive preview from RPS: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/13/hands-on-forty-hours-with-xcom/

I never played the original, so I can't comment on dumbing-down or any of the fun buzzwords like that, but I'm quite interested in it now.

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It sounds as though mission-wise they've captured a lot of the atmosphere (although the maps shown in the preview video all seemed much smaller than in the original games - sure, hunting down that last Floater who'd taken refuge in the corner of the map could get dull, but it's a worthwhile price to pay for bigger maps).

Still not at all sold on the class/upgrade system (or the mentioned abilities-by-base-location system). I prefer characters to optimise themselves for particular roles organically rather than to be straitjacketed into particular ones because of abilities you choose at specific game stages. And revisiting the original game, I realise all over again just how fundamental having different characters with different stat bars that change over time (not just as they level up, but throughout their mission history) is to the game's essential character. At least it seems that this new version will retain something of that organic stat development, rather than going for nonrandomised starting attributes and Diablo stat selection.

Also not sure how I feel about being given pointers on research direction - finding out what to research and when was also a lot of fun in the original games, even if tech progression could have been better-implemented (for instance, in Terror from the Deep you eventually get to a stage where there is nothing further to research until you've completed 12 identical but occasional, multi-level, and very difficult story missions, while in Apocalypse I seemed to run out of research options before finding out how to research the portal to Mars needed for the final game stage).

One final thing, also bearing in mind the Civ V experience: difficulty levels. This is particularly critical in a game like X-COM where it's a big selling point that missions can be very, very tough. Most modern games seem to have eased off on difficulty - in most cases it's not as extreme as Civ V, where someone like me comfortable playing on Prince or Noble in earlier instalments routinely plays on Immortal for a challenge, but to some extent this seems universal. I have a much harder time with the Starcraft campaign than the Starcraft II one, for instance. Going back to UFO, I'm struggling with the first terror missions at Experienced (the second difficulty level). I hope the new X-COM game will be as challenging.

Last night I had a dream that I was being chased by a Cyber Disk. I had shot at a bunch of times with a laser rifle (the best weapon to damage a Cyber Disk) so I think it was on it's last proverbial legs but it just kept coming.

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Replaying the original, I don't need to dream about it. I received my second terror mission before having researched any weapons technology (other than Alien Grenade), and the complete inability of rifles, autocannon and rockets alike to do substantial damage to a disc is very frustrating (in a good way) in missions where you face 3 or more. I lost the mission when my last surviving operative discovered that the last surviving alien was yet another Cyberdisc - a duel she had no chance of winning (even if she hadn't been on only 7 health following damage at the start of the mission).

Minor Annoyance said:

Last night I had a dream that I was being chased by a Cyber Disk. I had shot at a bunch of times with a laser rifle (the best weapon to damage a Cyber Disk) so I think it was on it's last proverbial legs but it just kept coming. Slowly but steadily. I ran through dark alleyways and climbed fences with barbed wire. Eventually I swam across the lake to Toronto (future site of Mega Primus). I was running over highways and through a hospital, and I hadn't seen the Cyber Disk for a long time but I had no idea if it was miles away or right behind me.

So I'm looking forward to the game.

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Dude... you might want to see a shrink.

Sent from my LG-C800 using Tapatalk 2

Further thought: from what we've seen, it looks like the role of the Geoscape has been drastically reduced, partly because of the one base thing. This would be a shame - there's a reason most X-COM clones follow the first two games' design rather than the Geoscape-less, one-base Apocalypse. It also looks as though terror attacks won't target specific cities, but countries (Panic in Russia etc.) - a cosmetic detail, but an important one thematically.

There was also a lot of strategy to the creation and placement of bases that it will be a real shame to do away with in favour of a simple "choose the special ability of your base" dichotomy - space limitations prompted specialisation towards military, science or engineering, you could decide whether to use bases as radar stations first and foremost or as core bases, and the all-important issue of donor income made it important to establish bases with an eye to maximising coverage of strategically valuable territories. Sure, you'd always want your first base somewhere in Western Europe because so many of the big donors were based there and large radar stations could cover much of Russia at the same time, but as time went on and donor income changed, the ability to place extra bases allowed an adaptive response to the progress of your game.

PhilBowles said:

Further thought: from what we've seen, it looks like the role of the Geoscape has been drastically reduced, partly because of the one base thing. This would be a shame - there's a reason most X-COM clones follow the first two games' design rather than the Geoscape-less, one-base Apocalypse. It also looks as though terror attacks won't target specific cities, but countries (Panic in Russia etc.) - a cosmetic detail, but an important one thematically.

There was also a lot of strategy to the creation and placement of bases that it will be a real shame to do away with in favour of a simple "choose the special ability of your base" dichotomy - space limitations prompted specialisation towards military, science or engineering, you could decide whether to use bases as radar stations first and foremost or as core bases, and the all-important issue of donor income made it important to establish bases with an eye to maximising coverage of strategically valuable territories. Sure, you'd always want your first base somewhere in Western Europe because so many of the big donors were based there and large radar stations could cover much of Russia at the same time, but as time went on and donor income changed, the ability to place extra bases allowed an adaptive response to the progress of your game.

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Relevant quote from the rockpapershotgun article (located Here) "First of all, new satellites and uplink facilities must be constructed. The satellites can then be launched over different countries, which reduces the panic level in that part of the world and provides a bonus from the ruling government. Any UFOs in the nearby skies will also now be detected and this is where the second part of geographical coverage comes in to play. Detecting UFOs is all well and good, but to bring them down you’ll need to station Interceptors, or more advanced fighters, on that continent as well. They can be transferred or purchased, and to stop the world from turning its back on XCOM, it’s necessary to expand coverage frequently and intelligently."

Edit: derp nevermind you already read it.

sirtommygunn said:

Relevant quote from the rockpapershotgun article (located Here) "First of all, new satellites and uplink facilities must be constructed. The satellites can then be launched over different countries, which reduces the panic level in that part of the world and provides a bonus from the ruling government. Any UFOs in the nearby skies will also now be detected and this is where the second part of geographical coverage comes in to play. Detecting UFOs is all well and good, but to bring them down you’ll need to station Interceptors, or more advanced fighters, on that continent as well. They can be transferred or purchased, and to stop the world from turning its back on XCOM, it’s necessary to expand coverage frequently and intelligently."

Edit: derp nevermind you already read it.

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Hmm, actually I appear to have missed that page - that's definitely reassuring. If it's not UFO, it promises to be a lot closer than most more recent games.

Given how much of a classic the original is, and how many features it introduced, it's strange that it never really spawned a genre, simply a lot of nostalgic clones. In the combat missions alone, the first post-UFO game that really captured the same level of detail and feeling of claustrophobia that I can think of is Company of Heroes (2006). For a game from the early '90s to include multilevel, effectively 3D buildings and terrain, almost fully destructible terrain, and effects governing everything from ammo supply and capturing items from fallen friends and enemies to the effects of smoke inhalation was more groundbreaking than the game's given credit for, notwithstanding that it included a dual strategic/tactical play system and tactical maps that (very approximately) mirrored the terrain of the strategic map six years before the release of Shogun: Total War.

I'm going to wait for the mods to come out

PhilBowles said:

It also looks as though terror attacks won't target specific cities, but countries (Panic in Russia etc.) - a cosmetic detail, but an important one thematically.

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The gameplay video linked earlier in this thread shows the cities being attacked are named.

The demo is out on Steam.

My demo review just got eaten by the forum. Oh well...

Edit after second demo playthrough:

The demo feels like it's 75% cinematics and cutscenes, 20% scripted events, and 5% actually controlling what's happening. Let me get the ugly stuff dealt with first.

The Ugly:

• Cutscenes are terribly annoying. I want to play, not watch a tedious CGI story. I really, REALLY hope this is just some introduction and tutorial stuff, and not something Firaxis thinks spices up the gameplay. I want to command the XCOM unit, not listening to "Hello, I am chief communications officer Blargh! My job is to tell you what to do..."
• Scripted events force linear gameplay. I really dislike scripted events in a TBS scenario. Even if I sense a trap ahead, the game forces me to trigger the trap in order to advance on the map. Again, here's hoping this is just a demo feature, and not part of the full game gameplay.

The Bad:

• The interface and controls are a bit quirky on the PC. It's not terrible, and maybe it's just a matter of getting used to. Sometimes it's tricky to see your squaddies on the map--with all the fog, shadows, the interface itself(!), and all the other visual noise.
• The one map that you get to play is very small. Not much room to navigate. Fairly linear.

The Good:

• The graphics are nice. I really appreciate the art direction. Nothing looks gimmicky or overdone. Although the male soldiers look a bit like hulks, I get a good feeling that these are just human soldiers. I know that if I got nothing to say about the graphics and animations, then they are spot on. The "action shots" work well too, and take me back to the 1997 title Incubation. It's rather subtle, but it adds to the immersion and especially the suspense!
• The different HQ locations confer a specific bonus to the base. This is an interesting approach that I quite like! The US get cheaper aircraft while Europe gets better research. This seems similar to choosing your civilization in that other Firaxis title.
• Random names for soldiers! I know, it's a very minor feature. But hell yeah! This is just like X-COM! And I can rename them if I want. Even change their looks. This is just hugely satisfying!
• The action point replacement system seems to work fine. The UI does a good job of making it intuitive. I wonder if the "heavy weapons guy" moves slower than the other classes. The full game will tell.
• The demo runs smoothly on my fairly old PC. With almost every graphics option set to "high".

The demo only showcases the tactical combat. And even then, it's pretty limited and not really revealing any advanced tactical gameplay. That's ok, though. It's impossible to tell if the game is going to be a fantastic remake or a linear nightmare of boredom. I'm going to pre-order anyway.

A little bit unrelated, but this thread is like a time machine of hilarious.

*Should keep improving CiV* They did.
*They will probably stop releasing DLC and patches* They didn't even 1 uped it.

I may be alone on this, but I'm a bit distrustful of games that are multi-platform. There's no such thing, few games can pull the PC and Console audience at the same time.

A couple things I noticed from the demo in response to some of Rubin's comments.

I think the linear scripting is just either for the demo, but more likely for a tutorial element to quickly get you to grips with the play system, the second part of the second mission is how it will work normally, i.e. you have full control of choice.

In terms of character speed, I noticed that the heavy and sniper are slower, the assaulter is obviously the fastest with his run and gun ability, but i don't know if the speed of each character is individual or linked to the character class.

Having seen that they are releasing a UFO2 as well, has me very excited, UFO1 (Not x-com series) had some cool elements in, but it never captured the Strategic Base element of X-Com, they seemed to have addressed this concept in their UFO2 but we shall see, two new games that I will be chomping at the bit to try

Just played demo. To my disappoint it was REALLY short. But playable part was good IMO.

Rubin said:

The Ugly:
Cutscenes

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I enjoyed this, but I'd rather not watch this after seeing once. Hope they'll add some options for this.

Scripted events

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I think that was part of tutorial. It teaches how you advance while using covers and how your mistakes can cost your soldier's lives, and how you fight with the enemies.

And I agree with your opinions on the bads and the goods. I'm definitely buying this.

If only the new UFO was 25% immense as the original one we would have the game of the year along with CIV 5.

I will soon give it a try, fingers crossed.

OrsonM said:

I may be alone on this, but I'm a bit distrustful of games that are multi-platform. There's no such thing, few games can pull the PC and Console audience at the same time.

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Alone ??

If I could I would wipe all the consoles from the world, I would also wipe all their lobotomized owners.

The demo was surprisingly disappointing. And not because of the cut-scenes and linearity, which are understandable in the introductory missions.

The design if very console-oriented, in ways that I find unappealing for a strategy game.

I'm no console hater. I own consoles and play on them. I do not hesitate to play PC ports of console games with my Xbox 360 controller if I think it improves the experience (e.g. the PC version of Dark Souls). And I don't mind, in these cases, that the game is not really playable with the keyboard and mouse.

But I don't know if I'm interested in a console-oriented tactical game like this one. There's a lot of stuff that I hate:

- The camera is hard to set and never quite shows what you want; you can't zoom in and out much and you can't turn around freely

- The camera gets even worse (!) when you are giving firing orders, as it tries to show both your guy and the target; in the demo (presumably the most polished part of the game, right?), I had a flying enemy that made the firing camera give me a crotch shot of the soldier I had selected; the game goes to this camera as soon as you move the mouse over the firing order and there's no escaping it

- The fact that buildings have multiple levels may be interesting, but it makes surveying the map a mess

- The glam shots of people running can f*** off

- Selecting and ordering people is unnecessarily difficult; it's especially annoying that sometimes the game seems to be trying to give you suggestions, which outright switches to a certain soldier and order (so, if the game thinks I should use a certain soldier to shoot at an alien, I am transported straight into the annoying firing camera mentioned above)

- It's hard to check what you can do, tooltips work badly when they work and you can't check out what possibilities the enemies will have on their turn

I wish they would have a PC-specific option for a no-bull**** overview camera, like the Original Dragon Age had. That camera allowed you to play Dragon Age like an old school RPG and worked well... They removed it from the sequel, so I never wanted to play that one.

The QC said:

The design if very console-oriented, in ways that I find unappealing for a strategy game.

I'm no console hater. I own consoles and play on them

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Weird, the worst aspect in your opinion is the " consolish " style and later you state that you like them.

I find it a bit contradictory.

gunter said:

Weird, the worst aspect in your opinion is the " consolish " style and later you state that you like them.

I find it a bit contradictory.

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I think the problem is that it's neither a console game, nor a PC game. Shogun: Total War is a PC strategy game and is great at it. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is a console strategy game and is one of my favorite games ever. This game sits uncomfortably in the middle. It has a level of complexity that seems closer to a PC game, but a control style closer to a console game.

Maybe that's not even the problem. Maybe the problem is that they wanted (needed?) to make it visually impressive and many of the design decisions started from that. The cameras, the multiple levels all come from a need to make the game visually striking and technically impressive.

I don't know. Maybe it's not even a bad game. The demo is not enough to make up one's mind. But it certainly dampened my enthusiasm.

gunter said:

Weird, the worst aspect in your opinion is the " consolish " style and later you state that you like them.

I find it a bit contradictory.

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It's definitely optimized for consoles, but generally it's not limiting - it uses mouse a lot, for example. And some console-inspired elements look like great find. For example - to do precise shot, you have to scroll between available targets and you see them from the eyes of the active soldier. Looks really good.

OrsonM said:

I may be alone on this, but I'm a bit distrustful of games that are multi-platform. There's no such thing, few games can pull the PC and Console audience at the same time.

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Steam is soon to move to televisions, presumably with similar controllers to console games, and for games that don't require much use of hotkeys there's no particular reason I know of (admittedly as someone who isn't familiar with consoles) that they shouldn't be multi-platform. The original X-COM games always could be played entirely with the mouse, so it's a reasonable candidate for a successful multi-platform game, at least.

The one map that you get to play is very small. Not much room to navigate. Fairly linear

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Downloaded but haven't yet played the demo, however from the shots we've seen of 'real' gameplay I'm also concerned that the maps generally seem small. Company of Heroes could pull off gigantic pre-scripted maps (possibly larger than most original UFO maps) with modern graphics, many more units, fully destructible terrain and no obvious lag - it should be possible for XCOM to do the same.

- The fact that buildings have multiple levels may be interesting, but it makes surveying the map a mess

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Does the UI let you look up and down a level the way the original does? In that game, you just click the ladder icon up or down to reveal everything you can see of other levels, which worked fine.

It has a level of complexity that seems closer to a PC game, but a control style closer to a console game.

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Not being familiar with console games, is there any technical constraint preventing them from being complex, or do they simply target a demographic that prefers simpler games? A turn-based game doesn't require hotkeys, so I'm not sure why it would be difficult to implement on a console however complex it was.

Maybe that's not even the problem. Maybe the problem is that they wanted (needed?) to make it visually impressive and many of the design decisions started from that. The cameras, the multiple levels all come from a need to make the game visually striking and technically impressive.

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The original game had multi-level buildings (up to 4 levels). And to be honest what I've seen of the new one doesn't look hugely "visually impressive" - human features are poorly-rendered and the cut scenes look more like zoomed-in game sequences rather than polished cutscenes as you'd find in, say, Company of Heroes or Starcraft 2 - the apparently permanent orange tint to everything looks odd as well. They really should focus on making an X-COM game, not trying to compete graphically when there are prettier games out there (there are still very few games, at least in the strategy game field, that approach 2006's Company of Heroes in that department).

I don't know. Maybe it's not even a bad game. The demo is not enough to make up one's mind. But it certainly dampened my enthusiasm.

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The price tag did that... I picked up 5 X-COM games on Steam for a third of that price, including all three original TBS strategy games. And if the new one doesn't add a lot beyond a graphical updates and generally detestable pseudo-RPG elements (scripted "classes" in place of the ability to tailor your troops organically depending on how their skills naturally develop, Diablo tech-tree levelling ... next thing you know the dreaded phrase "build order" will corrupt X-COM discussions as it has those in Civ) I can't see myself picking this up until it's on sale.

PhilBowles said:

Does the UI let you look up and down a level the way the original does? In that game, you just click the ladder icon up or down to reveal everything you can see of other levels, which worked fine.

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It does allow it, but it's a little wonky. You have buttons for going up or down, but it doesn't seem to move full floors, so you have to move them a couple of times to get it right. I also found it sometimes difficult to aim something on another level than my selected unit. It feels like the system that decides what you see tries to guess what you want to see, but doesn't always get it right.

It's possible that it becomes second nature after a while, but during the demo I was rather confused.

PhilBowles said:

Not being familiar with console games, is there any technical constraint preventing them from being complex, or do they simply target a demographic that prefers simpler games? A turn-based game doesn't require hotkeys, so I'm not sure why it would be difficult to implement on a console however complex it was.

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It's not technical limitations, but rather controller related ones. Real time strategy games don't work on consoles at all for this reason (in my opinion). Turn based games can work and there are some good ones, but generally they are based on depth (a small number of features that combine to create an interesting tactical challenge) and not on breadth (a large number of features; these require fiddly menus when you don't have a mouse).