I have not tried the demo, for the reason I will end this post with, but I have read through the comments here about people's impressions of it. The draw of the original game was that so much of it could be "personalized" to one's choices of playing the game. From the comments here, much of the player personalization seems to be absent from the new version. Namely the soldiers use class and level limitations, rather than earlier more realistic personal attributes. The game chooses the soldier's role, rather than the player. Their movement and shooting choices are now more limited, and less relating to real life. There is no inventory, choosing how to outfit the soldiers was always one of my favorite parts of the old game. My impression from the descriptions written here is that many things in the game are no longer a player chosen thing, but things the game selects instead. That is a retrograde step. Ironic that a new version of a game would be more restrictive of player choices than the original, given the vast improvement in computer power over the last 20 years. I would rather have seen that extra computing power go to an expansion of player choice and the removal of some the other restrictions.
I agree that it's a retrograde step (and have argued so at length), but it does have to be looked at in the context of the perhaps unfortunate reality of modern game design, which is standardised, rules-driven and mechanical - and as a result often feels very generic.
The difficulty in simply 'crying foul', other than relying on now-unrealistic expectations, is that the design decisions behind doing this are ultimately valid. If you go onto any RTS, say, forum, or a Diablo game forum or whatever, you hear one concern raised again and again: balance. Mechanical balance is essential in a multiplayer gaming world, as we're now in, and takes precedence over theme or simulation. In 1993 it didn't matter that you could get an X-COM soldier with incredible psychic resistance, 90% accuracy, a blaster launcher and the action points to use it a couple of times a turn - the AI aliens weren't going to cry foul. Balance ultimately means standardisation - the only way to approach true balance is to use restrictive, equivalent classes with similar types of abilities, and games that stray too far from this (say, Company of Heroes to use a recent example) are routinely accused of having balance problems.
So we're forced into these kinds of class-based straightjackets because the designers and testers can't evaluate how balanced more than a few combinations of equipment/abilities/etc. are.
The other motive is accessibility; the more games look like other games someone is familiar with, and the more they play similarly, the easier it is for new players to get into them. This is a less valid reason mechanically, but it's a commercial reason and so is hard to criticise from an industry that exists to make money from selling nonessential products. Company of Heroes is quite likely the best game released this millennium, but it's not user-friendly even to players of other modern-style RTSes; the more popular Dawn of War series by the same developers strips away a lot of the detail, replaces the innovative 'Company Commander' series with more familiar hero units, eliminates considerations of supply and the need for a tactical map, and for the above-mentioned balance reasons does more to standardise unit types and hero abilities/types across factions. While Blizzard has gradually been standardising the game interfaces for all three of its products, and its latest World of Warcraft expansion has dispensed with learning special abilities in favour of being granted them automatically and selecting from between them. The reason is likely that WoW is declining in popularity while Diablo III - which implements this system - has picked up new or lapsed fans for a WoW-type game. So making WoW even more similar to Diablo than it was before may be an attempt to bring in Diablo fans.
But given Firaxis' track record, they probably made the shooting cheats figure higher in the coding and boosted the role of mind control in the game.
The original AI really wasn't that bad - in fact replaying the game, it's probably comparable to most equivalent modern AIs. Likely better in some respects - I can't really see a modern AI handling options like grenades well, while the old game always seemed to throw them to maximum effect.
Mind control was what it was meant to be - very scary (when it was the aliens with it), and you quickly learned even before getting psionics yourself which of your operatives tended to be resistant. This is one of those things that really wouldn't work well in a multiplayer environment the same way it was implemented before, but a single-player game is about challenging yourself and balance isn't really a concern. Although Sectoids seemed to be a bit too capable of using psionics against targets they shouldn't be able to see.
Finally, the apparent lack of ability to kit out your troops. Im not sure this is the case. I just think that you do it before the mission. Admittedly you cannot pick stuff up from the battlefield. I did use to enjoy that aspect of UFO. I always used to just down the first etheral ship, shoot one with a stun bomb, pick up its stunned ass and stick it in my backpack, then set off for home leaving the rest. I guess you wont be able to do this now.
I think the only way to kit troops is with the laser/plasma version of whatever weapon they have by default - the Let's Play makes a passing reference to giving the squad lasers which are best against Cyberdiscs. But weapon options are plainly class-defined, and we already know that weapon and ammo types have been reinvented as character abilities.
I think adding boss elements to the aliens is a definite improvement. The commanders and leaders in the original were only marginally more powerful than their peers. And often the only noticeable difference was that they carried a different weapon.
Sounds like a class in the new version... I hadn't actually registered any 'boss elements', though presumably Sectoid leaders/commanders are still the only psionic Sectoids.
Finally the levelling system is a marked improvement in my view. The original only offered fairly moderate increases in your stats
All a soldier is is stats (and equipment). Any special ability you can give him is ultimately a stat improvement in one way or another, so why not just do it directly?
and the addition of special abilities is a good idea.
As I noted, my issues with this aren't in having special abilities, but with the implementation - the abilities we've seen so far are mostly just restricting certain abilities available to everyone in the old game to one or other class (only assault units can run and fire, rather than everyone, only heavies with certain upgrades have 'HE ammo' or the ability to fire twice, only snipers with battle scanners have electro-flare, and so forth), rather than adding a genuine new element. Secondly, tying them to levels is uninteresting and - again - I'd prefer the more organic character development of the original. Perhaps a character who has a lot of success firing at long range would get sniper-related abilities as he gains experience; someone who makes more use of grenades might gain benefits when using them. etc. etc.
I hope that a similar system is used for the aliens. Some people seem to be advocating a skyrim style system of improving your soldiers. I think this is a silly idea and that there is nothing wrong with levels.
There's nothing wrong with levels if seen in isolation. If this game is seen as a successor to UFO, however, levels look like a step backwards from the previous system.
Part of the fun of the strategic element of the original was picking the best spots for your bases to try and get maximum anti-alien coverage. I usually filled up all the base slots with half of them having assault teams, research and manufacturing capability, and the rest to provide better radar coverage and extra storage. Setting up the layout of the bases themselves to best resist alien attack was also fun.
