How many of you guys play XCOM?
- Thread starter Chris3894
- Start date
Harv
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2008
- Messages
- 1,944
Are you talking about the original one from 1993?
The original is just awesome, but I think you have to be kind of 
to remember and appreciate it.The new one I played for a while, then went offline for a while and lost the validation from steam.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
I played every XCom. Even Interceptor. Even the Romanian rip-off.
I just started Enemy Within and am currently using a team made up entirely of leaders from Civ V so my team right now is Boudicca, Shaka, Dido, and George Washington haha I wish they had other languages to choose for your characters like some type of African language and Chinese and Japanese it's strange they would add Polish but not one of the many Asian / African languages
Harv
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2008
- Messages
- 1,944
Would that be Xenonauts?
ArneHD
Just a little bit mad
First X-Com game I played was Terror from the Deep, because that's the one my brother bought. After playing it for a little bit I discovered that I was really terrible at it, and was left wondering why anyone would choose auto-shot over snap-shot.
Gary Childress
Student for and of life
I was playing X-Com Enemy Within and really loved it until I realized maybe I was being unfair to Aliens.
Maniacal
the green Napoleon
I haven't played any of them yet. They're on my to do list once I finish my to-play list of games I already own.
PhroX
Deity
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2009
- Messages
- 2,677
Are you talking about the original one from 1993?
Well, if he's referring to both "XCOM" and "Enemy Unknown" it must be the new one, as the original was called either XCOM:UFO Defense or, more correctly, UFO: Enemy Unknown.
And yes it is awesome.
I have played it lots. Currently im going through the game again. I cannot recommend enough the mod for XCOM called the Long War. It gives you 8 classes to choose from rather than 4, and also sub branches out mechs, introduces a load of new weapons like the sawn off shotgun, and is just generally very very good. The game is longer, much more challenging, and much more fun. Here is the link:
http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88
Finish your play through, then install the mod, as it will ruin your current game otherwise.
http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88
Finish your play through, then install the mod, as it will ruin your current game otherwise.
rkade8583
Realism Invictus Player
I'm waiting for update 14... or maybe further. They've had a lot of bugs lately.
Ive been surprised by how unbuggy it is actually. Its also amazingly satisfying at times. I just had an abductor mission in my second month. It went something like this:
Turn 1 - 4 Chryssalids (killed all of them)
Turn 2 - 4 Seekers and 3 outsiders (killed all 4 seekers and left outsiders)
Turn 3 - (killed all 3 outsiders)
Turn 4 - 2 seekers 2 floaters (killed 2 floaters)
Turn 5 - (killed 2 seekers)
Turn 10 - 4 Seekers
Turn 11 - (killed 4 seekers)
I had every intention of aborting. But when the outsiders tripped outside the UFO and got themselves into such a position that i could kill all 3 (and did), i tried for the victory and managed it without anyone dying. Vanilla XCOM only rarely managed that level of intensity, whereas long war does it at least once a month because you usually get at least one mission that you arent supposed to win.
warpus
In pork I trust
I've been playing the remake, but recently gave up on it. I really like the tactical turn by turn action type gameplay, but the base part of it I've found lacklustre and lacking... or at least severely distracting from the gameplay that I do enjoy.
I also find it highly unrealistic that other humans are not fighting back at all. There's no military units, no militias, no standalone guys with guns.. not even in the southern U.S.! It's just aliens against my team of 12... while the rest of humanity sits on its butt and gets mad at me whenever I'm unable to fly to their neck of the woods, while I'm busy fighting aliens elsewhere.
The whole "get scientists/scientist points when you complete a mission successfuly" thing is a bit silly too. It takes away from the realism for me.
Maybe these things work like this because that's how the original used to work.. I'm not sure. I played it a bit, but that was a looong time ago. Maybe I'll give this game another chance at some point, but for now I'm moving on to something else.
I also find it highly unrealistic that other humans are not fighting back at all. There's no military units, no militias, no standalone guys with guns.. not even in the southern U.S.! It's just aliens against my team of 12... while the rest of humanity sits on its butt and gets mad at me whenever I'm unable to fly to their neck of the woods, while I'm busy fighting aliens elsewhere.
The whole "get scientists/scientist points when you complete a mission successfuly" thing is a bit silly too. It takes away from the realism for me.
Maybe these things work like this because that's how the original used to work.. I'm not sure. I played it a bit, but that was a looong time ago. Maybe I'll give this game another chance at some point, but for now I'm moving on to something else.
GAGA Extrem
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2008
- Messages
- 1,589
Nah, the original Enemy Unknown / UFO Defence didn't have any of that. It was just added to the new X-COM to streamline the gameplay, much like satellites and fixed loadouts.
In the original you had a bunch of countries that financed the X-COM project and at the end of each month you received money which you could use freely to buy new equipment, personel or base buildings (and ofc pay for the upkeep cost for existing stuff). So you could hire soldiers, scientists and technicians whenever you wanted, the only limited was the quarter capacity of your base.
Your monthly performance influenced your budged. Each successful anti-alien action improved your relations with the countries affected and some also had a global impacton all nations. Of course it also worked the other way around for failures. If your score with a nation dropped to low the aliens would send an UFO to negotiate - which caused the nation to resign from the X-COM project entirely. If your global score dropped too low, the X-COM project was cancelled completely and the game was over. Combat in the new X-COM just pales in comparison to that 10 year old game.
The cool thing in the original game was that UFOs spawned randomly and could be intercepted before completing their mission by either shooting them down or by sending a Skyranger with ground troops while they are landed. Of course you had to notice them in the first place, either via RADAR or by using airborne scouts (the latter was terrible inefficient, but I once managed to shoot down an alien base builder my Avenger stumbled upon while flying home). So the types of missions you had to deal with depended on the performance of your RADAR and interceptors.
Suffering a terror attack on a major city in the early game was horrifying - not only did you have to fight hordes of aliens with sub-par equipment, but you also had to save civilians - and the aliens often brought some extra nasty baddies for them. But you could have avoided that attack if you had shot down their UFO in the first place...
...in short: Don't bother with the new X-COM and get the old one from GOG instead. Not only is it more complex (and complicated), but it also offers a lot more freedom and randomness, which means each playthrough can turn out different. If you only want good tactical combat get Silent Storm. That game has amazing combat mechanics, an almost fully destructible environment and a decent physics engine.
Disagree totally here. The original, although a great game in its own right, had a number of significant negatives. Less is better in the new Xcom. It was incredibly tiresome in the original equipping your 16 soldiers before every mission with different gear. In the new Xcom, you have 6 soldiers max, so its much more manageable. You also get more attached to your soldeirs. This process is diluted significantly with more soldiers.
There was a lot more micro in the original. If you wanted to be successful, you had to work out the economy of building certain items, then constantly build them in your workshops, and then sell them afterwards. If your idea of fun is comparing the price of x with the market value being Y, then by all means. Personally i think this was a good design choice.
The combat is much better in the new xcom. It introduces a system of cover that wasnt really present in the old one (which relied on line of sight). It also avoids that horrible occassion when you have cleared everything and spend endlessly trying to find that one alien who has awoken after inhaling too much smoke. It is also a blessing that they removed time units. It was never any fun working out whether you had enough moves to make it to a certain point.
Also your part about being able to stop certain things from happening is only really true of terror missions and base attack. On alien infiltration (where the aliens try to sign a pact with certain countries), when they went for it, they often managed to get it. You would have at least 3 very large UFOs land in the target, and it was unlikely you would get all of them.
All that said, Xcom doesnt quite hit the mark in a number of areas. IMO these are:
No real base defence
Missions are not integrated well enough
Lack of strategy in base management
Lack of interceptor strategy (this was a fault of the original as well)
Game balance (its not bad, but its no perfect. Its very difficult at the beginning, then easy, then hard, then easy, then very easy)
rkade8583
Realism Invictus Player
Well (swear word). I thought it was more buggy than that. Grabbing. Thanks for the info.
BlackWizard
King
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2010
- Messages
- 673
Consul missions are quite boring in Enemy Unknown/Within. Aliens are always on same place. What's the point in that? Luckily terror and abduction mission have different spawning location for aliens
