AlpsStranger
Jump jump on the tiger!
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Here: Take +5 crotchety classic gamer points. You don't have to keep begging for them
Pretty excited for the new one
UFO: Enemy Unknown, remake by Firaxis
- Thread starter Rub'Rum
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Here: Take +5 crotchety classic gamer points. You don't have to keep begging for them
Pretty excited for the new one
VoidTrooper2014
Chieftain
I am extremely excited about the new XCOM. Back in 1994 I actually managed to get my solution published - and back that meant in print ;-). Reading it today has me shake my head, of course.
Oh well, I pre-ordered both a PC and a PS3 version and for the first time I am prepared to upload videos of my gaming exploits. When I suggested on the 2K forum to set up a Impossible Ironman World Team Challenge, another member approached me why not to set up a small community site. We hit a nerve with that, I guess, within a few days we cracked the 100-member mark and in honor of this community here name it xcomfanatics.com (is it permissable to link to it?). I guess I am XCOM-crazy. ;-)
As for the difficulty levels I wouldn't worry. Normal difficulty certainly will be too easy for the "average" Civ player, but Classic Difficulty will be much more of a challenge, especially if you add the "half-difficulty upgrade" of Ironman (basically only one automatic save - permadeath really is permadeath - live with it).
And rumors (I try to avoid spoilers, I want the play the game myself) say there are more difficulty setting available in the game, something called 2nd wave, that I presume will allow you a second playthrough with much more enemies to annihilate.
Oh well, I pre-ordered both a PC and a PS3 version and for the first time I am prepared to upload videos of my gaming exploits. When I suggested on the 2K forum to set up a Impossible Ironman World Team Challenge, another member approached me why not to set up a small community site. We hit a nerve with that, I guess, within a few days we cracked the 100-member mark and in honor of this community here name it xcomfanatics.com (is it permissable to link to it?). I guess I am XCOM-crazy. ;-)
As for the difficulty levels I wouldn't worry. Normal difficulty certainly will be too easy for the "average" Civ player, but Classic Difficulty will be much more of a challenge, especially if you add the "half-difficulty upgrade" of Ironman (basically only one automatic save - permadeath really is permadeath - live with it).
And rumors (I try to avoid spoilers, I want the play the game myself) say there are more difficulty setting available in the game, something called 2nd wave, that I presume will allow you a second playthrough with much more enemies to annihilate.
ImperialGuard
Prince
Glad you mentioned your site here....count me in! I'll be signing up.
Hoping you'll have some multiplayer ladders/tournaments !
VoidTrooper2014
Chieftain
Yes. It's not me personally - my area is the AARs and the World Team Challenge, but one of our other admins is already busy putting together regions for a league. Currently the Aussies are leading - at least numbers-wise.
Reviews are starting to come in...
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/xcom-enemy-unknown/1226328p1.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2011...-review-terrifying-brutish-and-brilliant.html
Looks pretty positive from those ones. I know what I'll be doing after work tomorrow, that's for sure...
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/xcom-enemy-unknown/1226328p1.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2011...-review-terrifying-brutish-and-brilliant.html
Looks pretty positive from those ones. I know what I'll be doing after work tomorrow, that's for sure...
scratchthepitch
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Even though both of those reviews read like advertisements, the Gamespy one did have some useful information on how the scenarios quickly become repetitive (limited number of fixed maps and scripted missions) and also about some new facets of the game I didn't know about previously such as:
The more I find out about this new version, the more disappointed I become.
So far, everything I've seen about this game screams pc game dumbed down to console level using pretty new graphics in the hope customers wont notice the amount of things that have been removed from the game. Once real customers start writing up their impressions, I have a strong feeling those who played the original are going to be confirming this.
AlpsStranger
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Okay, and the original was riddled with truly absurd bugs and issues.
Let's not be silly here people. I hadn't played fullware X-Com until a few days ago, and it's hardly a problem free game. The new game probably has as many new features as it removed other features.
Yeah, it's silly that you can't recover the medikit, but no sillier than the fact that the most elite special ops organization in the world didn't have common night vision goggles.
Glass houses, stones.
Sorry, please proceed to burn me in effigy for daring to suggest that gaming wasn't absolutely utopian in the early to late 90s. It won't be the first time.
Let's not be silly here people. I hadn't played fullware X-Com until a few days ago, and it's hardly a problem free game. The new game probably has as many new features as it removed other features.
Yeah, it's silly that you can't recover the medikit, but no sillier than the fact that the most elite special ops organization in the world didn't have common night vision goggles.
Glass houses, stones.
Sorry, please proceed to burn me in effigy for daring to suggest that gaming wasn't absolutely utopian in the early to late 90s. It won't be the first time.
PhilBowles
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Yes, I understand medikits are now a class item; however fatal wounds appear to have gone, so they may also be less critical. No doubt new maps will be the primary way of selling DLC for the game...
Most reviews now seem to read like advertisements, but it reads at least as though the reviewers are familiar with the original one to a degree. I find it somewhat disappointing that 'Classic' appears to be one of the highest difficulty levels - sure, the classic game had a reputation for being tough even though only its easiest difficulty worked, but I'm already feeling a need for more of a challenge replaying it - although having said that I have now lost most of my veteran first squad in a couple of tough missions.
As for certain missions being scripted, this could well prove to be as frustratingly dull as the identikit scripted ship attack and story missions of Terror from the Deep, or alien base attacks in either UFO or TftD - but as those examples illustrate these have been part and parcel of X-COM games and hopefully won't be too common or too critical. The problem with the older scripted missions lay mostly in the fact that these were often larger or multilevel maps; it seems the reverse is true in this case from what the Gamespy review says.
The key test will be whether it plays in essentially the same way - the issues I've picked up on have been mechanical, but don't necessarily play down the feel of the game (although I suspect the loss of stat progression will). "pc game dumbed down to console level using pretty new graphics in the hope customers wont notice the amount of things that have been removed from the game" also described my feelings on my first couple of playthroughs of Civ V (and still seems to be a common impression among many Civ IV players - significantly, most of them admit to not having played Civ V more than three or four times before making that judgment), but it wasn't long before Civ V started feeling like the real thing all over again.
And the bottom line is that UFO has retained its reputation as likely the best computer game ever made for almost exactly 20 years. Even a "dumbed down" version promises to be a good game.
This is a false analogy. No one's criticising it on grounds that the old game was realistic, let alone on the basis that it's missing features that were also missing in the first game (such as night vision). The criticism is that it limits tactical flexibility in gameplay that was present in the original, and not obviously with good reason - you can't re-equip on the fly to make use of a dead soldier's or alien's kit in order to adapt to the situation. Take a case from a recent mission of mine in the original - the final Ethereal was on the second level of a building whose first level and stairs had been destroyed - and no, it's not realistic that the building would stay up. No one cared. I hadn't equipped area weapons because it was a small UFO and I had no need of live aliens. But I did still have a blaster launcher on the floor of the Skyranger, so could just pick it up and use it to take out the Ethereal (in fact I didn't, and lost soldiers who would likely otherwise have survived as a result). The new class-based system appears to offer very little opportunity cost - your heavy always has a rocket and it doesn't slow him at all, and everyone has a grenade (those too being easier to use on the fly).
And yes, the medical kit relay was a vital part of old X-COM. For much of the game it was much more likely you'd have soldiers wounded than killed outright, and they tended to bleed to death (and often lapse into unconsciousness shortly before doing so) if not treated.
scratchthepitch
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AlpsStranger
You post seems to be directed at me, at least partially and is pretty much unwarranted. I never thought the original was something extraordinary, nor that 90's games were "the heyday of pc gaming" and I never claimed either. Your post is about something in your own imagination.
PhilBowles
The new version looks like they captured much of the feel of the game, but I don't think it has the depth. Too many things are missing that gave the old game a lot of depth. That depth gave the original some replayability that I doubt the new one will be able to maintain. There is less a player can play with when setting up missions, and less things a player can do while on a mission. There is less that a player can do strategically with only one base and that base not getting attacked. The player only gets one strike team of a very limited number. Before they could build up as many as they could afford. There were times I had 3 teams intercepting 3 different landings at the same time in the original.
It looks like they may have improved line of sight, which was very poorly implemented in the original. And also, when you miss, the shot or grenade doesn't go absurdly wide, like in the original. Throwing stuff in the original was a real pain. There was no way to see where to put a soldier in order for them to get a clear toss. It was all trial and error, which meant a lot of tedious save and reloads to do something which should have been simple to do. The new version looks like an improvement there. The actions in the new version seem to be more intuitive than the original in that if it looks like you would be able to do something, it is easier to tell in the new version. That should remove some of the "false moves" tedium of the original. It would get very annoying trying to get a line of sight to fire or throw something in the original.
XCOM was never my favorite, I'd say it was somewhere in the middle. There was a lot of great innovation in it, but the clunkyness of the implementation, the repetitiveness, the AI cheats and some game aspects, like psionics, put me off. The new version seems to have got rid of at least some of that clunkyness, but looks like it might be even more repetitive than the original was, since the maps are not random generated and there is less variety of things a player can use or set up. And the new version still has psionics...
You post seems to be directed at me, at least partially and is pretty much unwarranted. I never thought the original was something extraordinary, nor that 90's games were "the heyday of pc gaming" and I never claimed either. Your post is about something in your own imagination.
PhilBowles
The new version looks like they captured much of the feel of the game, but I don't think it has the depth. Too many things are missing that gave the old game a lot of depth. That depth gave the original some replayability that I doubt the new one will be able to maintain. There is less a player can play with when setting up missions, and less things a player can do while on a mission. There is less that a player can do strategically with only one base and that base not getting attacked. The player only gets one strike team of a very limited number. Before they could build up as many as they could afford. There were times I had 3 teams intercepting 3 different landings at the same time in the original.
It looks like they may have improved line of sight, which was very poorly implemented in the original. And also, when you miss, the shot or grenade doesn't go absurdly wide, like in the original. Throwing stuff in the original was a real pain. There was no way to see where to put a soldier in order for them to get a clear toss. It was all trial and error, which meant a lot of tedious save and reloads to do something which should have been simple to do. The new version looks like an improvement there. The actions in the new version seem to be more intuitive than the original in that if it looks like you would be able to do something, it is easier to tell in the new version. That should remove some of the "false moves" tedium of the original. It would get very annoying trying to get a line of sight to fire or throw something in the original.
XCOM was never my favorite, I'd say it was somewhere in the middle. There was a lot of great innovation in it, but the clunkyness of the implementation, the repetitiveness, the AI cheats and some game aspects, like psionics, put me off. The new version seems to have got rid of at least some of that clunkyness, but looks like it might be even more repetitive than the original was, since the maps are not random generated and there is less variety of things a player can use or set up. And the new version still has psionics...
AlpsStranger
You post seems to be directed at me, at least partially and is pretty much unwarranted. I never thought the original was something extraordinary, nor that 90's games were "the heyday of pc gaming" and I never claimed either. Your post is about something in your own imagination.
PhilBowles
The new version looks like they captured much of the feel of the game, but I don't think it has the depth. Too many things are missing that gave the old game a lot of depth. That depth gave the original some replayability that I doubt the new one will be able to maintain. There is less a player can play with when setting up missions, and less things a player can do while on a mission. There is less that a player can do strategically with only one base and that base not getting attacked. The player only gets one strike team of a very limited number. Before they could build up as many as they could afford. There were times I had 3 teams intercepting 3 different landings at the same time in the original.
It looks like they may have improved line of sight, which was very poorly implemented in the original. And also, when you miss, the shot or grenade doesn't go absurdly wide, like in the original. Throwing stuff in the original was a real pain. There was no way to see where to put a soldier in order for them to get a clear toss. It was all trial and error, which meant a lot of tedious save and reloads to do something which should have been simple to do. The new version looks like an improvement there. The actions in the new version seem to be more intuitive than the original in that if it looks like you would be able to do something, it is easier to tell in the new version. That should remove some of the "false moves" tedium of the original. It would get very annoying trying to get a line of sight to fire or throw something in the original.
XCOM was never my favorite, I'd say it was somewhere in the middle. There was a lot of great innovation in it, but the clunkyness of the implementation, the repetitiveness, the AI cheats and some game aspects, like psionics, put me off. The new version seems to have got rid of at least some of that clunkyness, but looks like it might be even more repetitive than the original was, since the maps are not random generated and there is less variety of things a player can use or set up. And the new version still has psionics...
I have not played the game, so cant comment on that. But your post really is a depressing read. You are clearly a glass half full type. Nothing is ever perfect, and nothing is always designed as we would like it. I am somewhat encouraged that Firaxis appear not to have screwed it up. It seems we have a good basis for a game that im sure can be built upon (by the modding community or Firaxis). Games are different these days. The DLC is another means for developers to get more cash, and im sure that in the future many of these minor quibbles will be addressed. It certainly seems a lot more accomplished than civ 5 first was, and i think civ 5 now is actually a very good game (apart from diplomacy
).I posted this on the steam forums... here's my thoughts so far in the short time I've had to play the new game (this coming from someone played the original and sequels ALOT):
Thoughts:
- The graphics are very good and effective. I'm enjoying them.
- I thought I'd not like the over the shoulder follow cam... but it's quite fluid and really makes sense the way they did it. It sometimes adds to the suspense when you rush to a new position and it switches to the over the shoulder view as your soldier runs.
- In the battlescape, subtle changes have completely revamped the way you think about your tactics:
> One shot one kills seem less frequent and likely, but at the same time your soldiers take more hits overall. Just in the tutorial and the easier modes I'm taking on injuries. My soldiers are spending time healing after missions and I am swapping in rookies on necessity/availability. My roster of soldiers to rotate through so far seems sufficient for this dynamic though. As research progresses I am expecting this will make different armor types more important to use (e.g. Personal Armor vs. Heavy Plasma wasn't much better than no armor at all in the original).
> The smaller squad sizes means I am no longer employing the tactic of "elite soldiers" deployed with rookie cannon-fodder at the front of the Skyranger. Every soldier is more valuable and also useful.
> The soldier progression changes are a welcome change. Instead of simple stat changes, your soldiers gain more abilities as they gain rank. This makes them more unique and more familiar because you select their perks yourself (though I'd like to see more perks and abilities added). But some of these are changing how I use each Soldier completely. Tactical strategies change due to this and it's added another layer to missions that seems like it will keep them more interesting for longer. In the original game I'd ignore crashsite at some points if I didn't want to do them (and didn't need the elerium115, etc.)
- The geoscape was basically flipped around so that the one base things makes a little more sense (I need more time with this to get used to it, but I am wary about this change honestly). It's more like the main screen is your base, and the geoscape is one of the rooms that you visit as the commander. As a result this changes the way time passes in the game; so rather than sitting in the geoscape and playing with the passage of time speeds and then using the base view as a sort of pause button... it now works in an opposite fashion: You do stuff in your base and then go to the geoscape viewer to "Scan for activity", upon clicking that, the game basically fast forwards to the next thing that needs your attention. The positive of this is it streamlines some of the lulls (especially as the beginning of the game where your surveillance area is minimal). The negative tradeoff (it seems) is that gone is the ability to send out a Skyranger to watch an area; so the whole hunting for alien bases aspect seems gone along with landing a Skyranger on a completely intact landed UFO.
- The original implied you're the commander, this one is more interactive with it and sort of treats you as a character in the base, kinda neat IMO.
Some gripes:
- I can't seem to select the overall specialization for my soldier? Maybe I am missing an option somewhere, but whether he/she is Assault/Sniper/Heavy or whatever seems to be selected for me?
- It's minor but I'd like to modify the soldier's nationality in addition to their names, faces, and armor colors. It's the little flag on their back and I don't see where I can change it yet?
- The Interceptor screen. This is the only thing in the game that I've seen and thought: this is simply not a good UI and/or wasn't really thought through. It's even more simple than the original (which was not complex). It feels like this was an afterthought and needs to be expanded a bit.
- The repetitive midi music during missions of the original was somehow better and somehow more suspenseful. This one may make up for that though with better graphics and the techniques it uses with the follow cameras, etc.
I can't really comment on replay-ability yet, but first impression is very positive IMO. The gripes I have are minor. I've not progressed very far with research yet, but it looks solid overall and I am having fun!
Thoughts:
- The graphics are very good and effective. I'm enjoying them.
- I thought I'd not like the over the shoulder follow cam... but it's quite fluid and really makes sense the way they did it. It sometimes adds to the suspense when you rush to a new position and it switches to the over the shoulder view as your soldier runs.
- In the battlescape, subtle changes have completely revamped the way you think about your tactics:
> One shot one kills seem less frequent and likely, but at the same time your soldiers take more hits overall. Just in the tutorial and the easier modes I'm taking on injuries. My soldiers are spending time healing after missions and I am swapping in rookies on necessity/availability. My roster of soldiers to rotate through so far seems sufficient for this dynamic though. As research progresses I am expecting this will make different armor types more important to use (e.g. Personal Armor vs. Heavy Plasma wasn't much better than no armor at all in the original).
> The smaller squad sizes means I am no longer employing the tactic of "elite soldiers" deployed with rookie cannon-fodder at the front of the Skyranger. Every soldier is more valuable and also useful.
> The soldier progression changes are a welcome change. Instead of simple stat changes, your soldiers gain more abilities as they gain rank. This makes them more unique and more familiar because you select their perks yourself (though I'd like to see more perks and abilities added). But some of these are changing how I use each Soldier completely. Tactical strategies change due to this and it's added another layer to missions that seems like it will keep them more interesting for longer. In the original game I'd ignore crashsite at some points if I didn't want to do them (and didn't need the elerium115, etc.)
- The geoscape was basically flipped around so that the one base things makes a little more sense (I need more time with this to get used to it, but I am wary about this change honestly). It's more like the main screen is your base, and the geoscape is one of the rooms that you visit as the commander. As a result this changes the way time passes in the game; so rather than sitting in the geoscape and playing with the passage of time speeds and then using the base view as a sort of pause button... it now works in an opposite fashion: You do stuff in your base and then go to the geoscape viewer to "Scan for activity", upon clicking that, the game basically fast forwards to the next thing that needs your attention. The positive of this is it streamlines some of the lulls (especially as the beginning of the game where your surveillance area is minimal). The negative tradeoff (it seems) is that gone is the ability to send out a Skyranger to watch an area; so the whole hunting for alien bases aspect seems gone along with landing a Skyranger on a completely intact landed UFO.
- The original implied you're the commander, this one is more interactive with it and sort of treats you as a character in the base, kinda neat IMO.
Some gripes:
- I can't seem to select the overall specialization for my soldier? Maybe I am missing an option somewhere, but whether he/she is Assault/Sniper/Heavy or whatever seems to be selected for me?
- It's minor but I'd like to modify the soldier's nationality in addition to their names, faces, and armor colors. It's the little flag on their back and I don't see where I can change it yet?
- The Interceptor screen. This is the only thing in the game that I've seen and thought: this is simply not a good UI and/or wasn't really thought through. It's even more simple than the original (which was not complex). It feels like this was an afterthought and needs to be expanded a bit.
- The repetitive midi music during missions of the original was somehow better and somehow more suspenseful. This one may make up for that though with better graphics and the techniques it uses with the follow cameras, etc.
I can't really comment on replay-ability yet, but first impression is very positive IMO. The gripes I have are minor. I've not progressed very far with research yet, but it looks solid overall and I am having fun!
PhilBowles
Deity
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I suspect that all of this may be the case, but also that you're underestimating just how relevant the game's feel was and perhaps overstating the importance of depth. Most games are ultimately repetitive; a large part of UFO's genius was in personalising the missions so that the same situations, essentially the same maps (the randomness of the old maps is overstated - they randomised a rather small number of elements, and that often didn't work in favour of tactical depth since many maps were low on cover or it was distributed in a way that was of little tactical utility, while the spaceship interiors were identical for each type across all missions. With larger spaceship designs, most of the mission often took place within that pre-scripted map element), with preset numbers of aliens and a small number of hostile types felt very different. You remember the mission when your commander was zombified by a Chrysalid, even though in purely tactical terms it played more or less identically to any other base assault mission.
XCOM was never my favorite, I'd say it was somewhere in the middle. There was a lot of great innovation in it, but the clunkyness of the implementation, the repetitiveness, the AI cheats and some game aspects, like psionics, put me off. The new version seems to have got rid of at least some of that clunkyness, but looks like it might be even more repetitive than the original was, since the maps are not random generated and there is less variety of things a player can use or set up. And the new version still has psionics...
It was definitely my favourite, but almost all the complaints levelled against the new one in Gamespy - repetitive maps, scripted missions, short tech trees, essentially automated UFO combat and the rest - could quite reasonably be levelled against the old one. Hopefully mind control will be harder or Ethereals less ubiquitous in later game stages - I've had missions where I have to keep a strong but psychically weak soldier out of commission or not use blaster launchers for fear of possession, and while the game needs that element having it every mission is a bit much (in my current run-through, most of my primary squad's recent missions were Ethereal missions until Mutons started showing up). The maps are predesigned, but 80 is a large number and each can undoubtedlty sustain a few runs with different alien placements before getting stale - any number of modern games have only a couple of dozen maps to play with; they may also be more coherently designed than the random quadrants of the older game. And it's a different enough take set in the same universe (approximately) to be worth a look if I can find a way of freeing 20 GB disk space.
The reviews suggest this is selected for you and can't be changed.
My initial reaction is to say that this would seem flavour-breaking, since you get assigned your soldiers and it makes more sense for them to come with a nationality than to be able to change it at will. But then you can change names, and you say also faces, so why not nationality?
VoidTrooper2014
Chieftain
Some gripes:
- I can't seem to select the overall specialization for my soldier? Maybe I am missing an option somewhere, but whether he/she is Assault/Sniper/Heavy or whatever seems to be selected for me?
- It's minor but I'd like to modify the soldier's nationality in addition to their names, faces, and armor colors. It's the little flag on their back and I don't see where I can change it yet?
- The Interceptor screen. This is the only thing in the game that I've seen and thought: this is simply not a good UI and/or wasn't really thought through. It's even more simple than the original (which was not complex). It feels like this was an afterthought and needs to be expanded a bit.
- The repetitive midi music during missions of the original was somehow better and somehow more suspenseful. This one may make up for that though with better graphics and the techniques it uses with the follow cameras, etc.
I can't really comment on replay-ability yet, but first impression is very positive IMO. The gripes I have are minor. I've not progressed very far with research yet, but it looks solid overall and I am having fun!
The specialization is set randomly when a rookie advances to squaddie rank.
The nationality is also set randomly, supposedly to underline the internationality of the XCOM project.
The Interceptor screen was simplified, because the dev team thought it difficult to already make two different game types (strategic and tactical layer) mesh together for a good experience, so they basically took this out of the equation. Let's say its an attempt to not strain console gamers too much (I ordered XCOM on PS3 and PC, jfyi).
Today I have been following one of our (xcomfanatics) forum members (Widgits)on Impossible Ironman for some hours, on and off. He is failing badly and we are seeing starts again and again, and I am actually not bored. It's extremely difficult (you might say unfair) on that difficulty setting. Yes, there are a few glitches and I certainly expect those to be addressed in the near future, but I can't say that my excitement for Friday is diminished in any way.
It all looks good as far as I can see from the lets plays. Cant wait for tomorrow.
As an aside I cant understand why people are complaining about random maps in the original. Yes they were "random", but they were also pretty boring, and unless im mistaken, there were only ever 2 different sets of farm houses that I ever entered, and all petrol stations certainly looked the same.
Reading reviews, i think the following need to be implemented (I love how I think i can say this having not even played the game):
- Your base look should reflect how many soldiers, engineers, scientists, soldiers and aliens you have. When I come back from a mission with a stunned etheral, i want to see his ass be dragged from that skyranger and deposited in my alien containment centre. It would make your base feel more alive.
- I think some sort of base defence\attack ought to be implemented.
- You need to be able to pick up a medi kit if your soldier has dropped it. Either that or have it included with their standard armour or something.
- More variety in terror missions. There are literally hundreds you could have here: Ships; hostage situations etc. You could also tie them to your survivability. So the aliens attack a nearby power station, which you go and defend. If you succeed, you still have power, your labs still work etc. If you fail, your lab power goes down by 50% and your base defences are weakened.
Cant wait for tomorrow. Im seriously considering voting this as a 2 on metacritic simply for forcing me to wait. Grrrr.
As an aside I cant understand why people are complaining about random maps in the original. Yes they were "random", but they were also pretty boring, and unless im mistaken, there were only ever 2 different sets of farm houses that I ever entered, and all petrol stations certainly looked the same.
Reading reviews, i think the following need to be implemented (I love how I think i can say this having not even played the game):
- Your base look should reflect how many soldiers, engineers, scientists, soldiers and aliens you have. When I come back from a mission with a stunned etheral, i want to see his ass be dragged from that skyranger and deposited in my alien containment centre. It would make your base feel more alive.
- I think some sort of base defence\attack ought to be implemented.
- You need to be able to pick up a medi kit if your soldier has dropped it. Either that or have it included with their standard armour or something.
- More variety in terror missions. There are literally hundreds you could have here: Ships; hostage situations etc. You could also tie them to your survivability. So the aliens attack a nearby power station, which you go and defend. If you succeed, you still have power, your labs still work etc. If you fail, your lab power goes down by 50% and your base defences are weakened.
Cant wait for tomorrow. Im seriously considering voting this as a 2 on metacritic simply for forcing me to wait. Grrrr.
PhilBowles
Deity
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I wouldn't call that a terror mission, but that sort of objective-based mission that has repercussions other than score would be welcome - Dawn of War II's excellent map campaign implemented something like this (specifically including attacks on power facilities).
I agree with this. It was a tile-based system - the maps randomised the square tiles that made up the map, but not the contents of those. With terror missions I'm not even sure they did that - I'm sure I've battled over the same terror map multiple times. While spaceships and most alien base elements were fully scripted (and quite often the better parts of the map).
Huge fan of the original X-COM and Apocalypse. I have always held X-COM up, alongside Fallout, as my favorite games of all time. Having played the game a bit since release, I can say with confidence that it is very, very good. A few points:
1) Performance: It runs great, perfectly stable, no major bugs, and the AI is tough. In today's day when so many games are released broken, half-finished, or with nasty bugs and braindead AI, it is really refreshing to see a game released in such a polished state. There may be problems lurking, but so far I have not run into anything of note. The AI is tough without seeming like it cheats. The only two problems I have run into are a bug where your cursor sometimes 'flickers' when you are near the edge of a cliff or other slope, and this can cause you to send a Soldier to the wrong spot. Others have noted this problem as well. I have only run into it once. I also once ran into a situation where my lone surviving Soldier was facing off against a single Alien who kept running a pattern in and out of cover while my Soldier took potshots at him on Overwatch for about 6 turns. Aside from those two hiccups, everything else has been great.
2) Graphics and Sound: It looks and sounds wonderful. I like the art style, although it is going for a more stylized look than realistic, with oversized weapons and armor. However, everything comes together well. Sometimes you can get really atmospheric battles with rain falling on chaotic streets, forests on fire from a crashed UFO, etc. The sound goes well, and the chatter from your Soldier and support team add a great deal to the game and give some needed persoanlity to the organization. Customization of Soldiers is great. I also wish you could change nationality or select it when recruiting. I also wish you could set a default armor color / style for all Soldiers instead of doing it manually everytime.
3) Strategic Gameplay: Major changes here from X-COM, but so far I think it works so well. You have tons of competing priorities and no way to address them all. You will have tons of hard choices to make in terms of what to research, what items to build, what facilities to build, what part of the world to defend, etc. All of these choices feel like real, difficult priorities to select, not artificial constraints. I really like the fact that your support team (Lead Scientist, Lead Engineer, Operations Officer, The Council, etc) have distinct personalities and aren't just robotic minions. When you flub a mission, they actually seem sad at the loss.
4) Tactical Gameplay: Also huge changes, but again it really works so far. The squad size does start small, but it works for the size and scale of the encounters. You have a variety of tactical options, and as your troops gain experience and new equipment you gain more options. I feel like smart tactics are rewarded, and charging around without a plan is punished. Most of my losses have been due to my own careless behavior and sometimes bad luck. There are a good variety of maps and mission types, although only time will tell if the variety is really sufficient. It is however annoying that you can't pick equipment up off the ground, and that makes for a bit of an artificial challenge. Things like Medikits are so valuable and needed, and it is really annoying to have two guys go down, one dead with a Medkit the other set to bleed out in 3 turns...and the rest of your guys just have to stare at that medikit and watch their buddy die. This is especially silly because you get that equipment back at the end of the mission anyways, so why not during the battle?
5) Difficulty: This game is no joke. I figured all my experience with X-COM, Jagged Alliance, and other games would give me a big leg up. Nope. My first game on Classic difficulty (2nd highest), Ironman (no reloading saves) ended with me losing the game about 90 days in. I kept losing Soldiers on missions, which left me without any decent skilled veterans. I then started losing missions outright, which increased the panic level around the world until I started losing Council members. I improved my tactics on the battlefield, and my teams of Rookies were able to kill lots of aliens, but were overwhelmed in the end on most missions. I started losing funding, so I couldn't get enough new Rookies or better equipment, so I started losing even more missions and Council members. Eventually I was unable to even respond to missions, and larger UFOs were able to fight off my unupgraded Interceptors. I lost - and it was fun!
Overall, I really like it so far. I feel like it has plenty of depth and very little filler or down time. It in no way feels 'dumbed down.' Not being able to pick-up
1) Incorrect. UFOs will still sometimes land, and you will have the option of sending a team to attack them. These missions are really tough, just like the original, because you will be facing a full crew of aliens. I wish you could launch a cruise missile or something at them when they are landed because both times I have attacked them, I have gotten my squad killed.
2) You can get an upgrade in the Officer Training School (OTS) that starts your guys off as Squadies instead of Rookies, so I think you will see their Specialty right away. You sometimes will be offered a new Soldier with a higher rank and Specialty as a mission reward. It would be nice if you could order the exact Soldier you need. From a realism perspective, it seems silly that you can't say, 'We need a couple Snipers' instead of having luck of the draw.
3) It would be nice if you could select the nationality on recruiting from available Member Nations / Regions.
4) I think Interception works fine. You can research new equipment that will give you new tactics. I'm not sure how else they could have expanded it without distracting from the rest of the game. I think it works well and does what it needs to do.
5) I like the music. It has a kind of Mass Effect vibe to it (a good thing in my opinion since the music was generally one of the highpoints of the Mass Effect series).
EDIT: If anyone has any questions on the game, please let me know. I'd much rather be playing it right now, but at least I can check the forum and talk about it
1) Performance: It runs great, perfectly stable, no major bugs, and the AI is tough. In today's day when so many games are released broken, half-finished, or with nasty bugs and braindead AI, it is really refreshing to see a game released in such a polished state. There may be problems lurking, but so far I have not run into anything of note. The AI is tough without seeming like it cheats. The only two problems I have run into are a bug where your cursor sometimes 'flickers' when you are near the edge of a cliff or other slope, and this can cause you to send a Soldier to the wrong spot. Others have noted this problem as well. I have only run into it once. I also once ran into a situation where my lone surviving Soldier was facing off against a single Alien who kept running a pattern in and out of cover while my Soldier took potshots at him on Overwatch for about 6 turns. Aside from those two hiccups, everything else has been great.
2) Graphics and Sound: It looks and sounds wonderful. I like the art style, although it is going for a more stylized look than realistic, with oversized weapons and armor. However, everything comes together well. Sometimes you can get really atmospheric battles with rain falling on chaotic streets, forests on fire from a crashed UFO, etc. The sound goes well, and the chatter from your Soldier and support team add a great deal to the game and give some needed persoanlity to the organization. Customization of Soldiers is great. I also wish you could change nationality or select it when recruiting. I also wish you could set a default armor color / style for all Soldiers instead of doing it manually everytime.
3) Strategic Gameplay: Major changes here from X-COM, but so far I think it works so well. You have tons of competing priorities and no way to address them all. You will have tons of hard choices to make in terms of what to research, what items to build, what facilities to build, what part of the world to defend, etc. All of these choices feel like real, difficult priorities to select, not artificial constraints. I really like the fact that your support team (Lead Scientist, Lead Engineer, Operations Officer, The Council, etc) have distinct personalities and aren't just robotic minions. When you flub a mission, they actually seem sad at the loss.
4) Tactical Gameplay: Also huge changes, but again it really works so far. The squad size does start small, but it works for the size and scale of the encounters. You have a variety of tactical options, and as your troops gain experience and new equipment you gain more options. I feel like smart tactics are rewarded, and charging around without a plan is punished. Most of my losses have been due to my own careless behavior and sometimes bad luck. There are a good variety of maps and mission types, although only time will tell if the variety is really sufficient. It is however annoying that you can't pick equipment up off the ground, and that makes for a bit of an artificial challenge. Things like Medikits are so valuable and needed, and it is really annoying to have two guys go down, one dead with a Medkit the other set to bleed out in 3 turns...and the rest of your guys just have to stare at that medikit and watch their buddy die. This is especially silly because you get that equipment back at the end of the mission anyways, so why not during the battle?
5) Difficulty: This game is no joke. I figured all my experience with X-COM, Jagged Alliance, and other games would give me a big leg up. Nope. My first game on Classic difficulty (2nd highest), Ironman (no reloading saves) ended with me losing the game about 90 days in. I kept losing Soldiers on missions, which left me without any decent skilled veterans. I then started losing missions outright, which increased the panic level around the world until I started losing Council members. I improved my tactics on the battlefield, and my teams of Rookies were able to kill lots of aliens, but were overwhelmed in the end on most missions. I started losing funding, so I couldn't get enough new Rookies or better equipment, so I started losing even more missions and Council members. Eventually I was unable to even respond to missions, and larger UFOs were able to fight off my unupgraded Interceptors. I lost - and it was fun!
Overall, I really like it so far. I feel like it has plenty of depth and very little filler or down time. It in no way feels 'dumbed down.' Not being able to pick-up
1) Incorrect. UFOs will still sometimes land, and you will have the option of sending a team to attack them. These missions are really tough, just like the original, because you will be facing a full crew of aliens. I wish you could launch a cruise missile or something at them when they are landed because both times I have attacked them, I have gotten my squad killed.
2) You can get an upgrade in the Officer Training School (OTS) that starts your guys off as Squadies instead of Rookies, so I think you will see their Specialty right away. You sometimes will be offered a new Soldier with a higher rank and Specialty as a mission reward. It would be nice if you could order the exact Soldier you need. From a realism perspective, it seems silly that you can't say, 'We need a couple Snipers' instead of having luck of the draw.
3) It would be nice if you could select the nationality on recruiting from available Member Nations / Regions.
4) I think Interception works fine. You can research new equipment that will give you new tactics. I'm not sure how else they could have expanded it without distracting from the rest of the game. I think it works well and does what it needs to do.
5) I like the music. It has a kind of Mass Effect vibe to it (a good thing in my opinion since the music was generally one of the highpoints of the Mass Effect series).
EDIT: If anyone has any questions on the game, please let me know. I'd much rather be playing it right now, but at least I can check the forum and talk about it
I've run into these as well, but this is not what I meant with my nitpick: In the original I used to send out my Skyranger to areas I did not have bases yet to monitor. I used to watch the graphs in the original, if they had a spike in Activity, I'd send a Skyranger to that area looking for a Base and would usually find it. This game instead has "Panic Levels" for countries. I like the replacement for graphs, etc. but was nitpicking that I no longer send my Skyranger out for surveillance.
Nice - I had not considered that benefit of that perk yet. I've only been getting the increased squad size ones so far. The increased experience per mission one probably is next.
I'd rather just be able to change it to whatever I want. I like to name my guys after actors or sports stars, etc. (Remember the mod for XCOM:A that would put actors pictures in for the pictures of the soldier? I liked that). In the original, it seemed like I'd inevitably end up with a mission where everyone but one soldier dies and he's taking out aliens one by one towards the end; I'd rename him to John Wayne.
It's nitpicky, but the flags not being changeable just messes with that
Yup - after playing some more lastnight I now know there's more to this screen. I just had not researched enough in techs for the Interceptors!
Don't get me wrong, I like the overall delivery; the old music was more suspenseful though. This one's sound effects are pretty solid though - they did well with the Alien noises, growls from the dark etc.
Same!EDIT: If anyone has any questions on the game, please let me know. I'd much rather be playing it right now, but at least I can check the forum and talk about it
They don't let you choose the soldier class because they want you to "have to play with the cards you are dealt". You have to adapt your tactics to what you have available instead of having your squad composition set in stone.
I'm not far yet so I don't know how those upgrades play out. Started Classic / Ironman and getting my ass kicked. It's just a matter of time before I lose but I'm not going down without a fight
I'm not far yet so I don't know how those upgrades play out. Started Classic / Ironman and getting my ass kicked. It's just a matter of time before I lose but I'm not going down without a fight
PhilBowles
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They don't let you choose the soldier class because they want you to "have to play with the cards you are dealt". You have to adapt your tactics to what you have available instead of having your squad composition set in stone.
I'm not far yet so I don't know how those upgrades play out. Started Classic / Ironman and getting my ass kicked. It's just a matter of time before I lose but I'm not going down without a fight
You couldn't choose the stats of your old soldiers, so it doesn't make sense to choose the classes this time - I actually like that.
Getting more interested in picking this up soon, but still short of gigabytes...
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