UFO: Enemy Unknown, remake by Firaxis

[sherbz]

I reverted to a save two (ingame) weeks earlier.

I shall try and say this as simple as I can:

"PLAY WITH IRONMAN MODE"

 

[sherbz]

Im bumping this up the thread in view of the release of the expansion. Being a poor, desolate european, i am not good enough to have the game the same time as my North American friends. So what are your initial thoughts?

From reviews i expect it to be tougher early on and in the mid game, but even easier than it was before in the late game. Looking ahead, maybe another expansion to deal with something late game might be on the cards (although thats quite far into the future i think).

 

[cephalo]

I dunno if I can buy into the concept of a third faction. What makes XCOM scary is the alien invasion that all humans must band together to resist. The idea that there is a group of humans that want to be a bit of both is just kinda sad and pathetic, like maybe its better to just let the aliens win if we can't even agree on whether we should exist in our current form.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

i didnt get the expansion but xcom installed a decent sized patch to my steam version last night. i should probably check to see if it changed anything significantly. i was pretty much done with it after 4 playthroughs.

 

[Pikkis]

Enemy Within has been discussed here. As another European, I am eagerly waiting for the release.

A lot of reviews have criticized the easier endgame. I wouldn't want to see even more polarity between the second and third acts, but I do think that what some may consider anticlimactic in the ending is a natural part of the game's 'true' narrative: becoming better than the aliens at their own game.

 

[GrayingGamer]

Is the end-game easier for people who are playing a less-than-perfect ironman game?

Or are "easy end-games" a result of save scumming your way to a squad of demi-gods?

 

[coanda]

Is the end-game easier for people who are playing a less-than-perfect ironman game?

Or are "easy end-games" a result of save scumming your way to a squad of demi-gods?

I ended up with a squad of demi-gods without save scumming. If you've got Titan Armor and plasma weaponry, most of your squad is decent rank, and you don't assume you're invincible and recklessly charge forward... you'll have no trouble keeping everyone alive and ranking up further until you end up with a whole pile of Colonels kitted out in end-game gear.

 

[GrayingGamer]

If you've got Titan Armor and plasma weaponry, most of your squad is decent rank

Yeah, the key is getting to that point in one piece...

Maybe you need to up your difficulty level.

 

[coanda]

Yeah, the key is getting to that point in one piece...

Maybe you need to up your difficulty level.

... you asked whether it got easier in the end, or it was just people save-scumming. I answered that no, it actually does get easier in the end.

Difficulty doesn't go up from where I play; I suppose I could tinker with some second wave settings, but I find I/I to be just about right.

 

[Arakhor]

... but I find I/I to be just about right.

I see what you did there.

 

[PhilBowles]

So far most of what I've noticed are improvements that I suspect have more to do with the patch than the expansion - aliens now move rather than teleport if in sight and not activated, levels in multi-level maps and targeting of area effect weapons have been improved, there are now at least some new starting positions on old maps, and there are a few cosmetic changes.

I played aggressively anyway, and so far meld seems a bit gimmicky, much too early and too common, without changing anything much substantive in the way I play - save that I'm starting to find having every mission play basically like a bomb disposal mission already results in a lack of variety. The new maps I've run across are mostly similar to the old, except for the welcome urban UFO maps.

I haven't yet met EXALT (the game seems tougher on Classic than it used to be, even with nothing new at this stage except Seekers - which I have so far only met once and weren't a problem - and my team was wiped by Thin Men in the Council mission that introduces the "new threat").

The medal system is gimmicky, with its gamey "choose an option" effect and the immersion-breaking results it can throw up (medals becoming available when you have no surviving soldiers to award them to).

Obviously I can't fully evaluate the expansion when I have yet to encounter its headline features - EXALT, mechs and genetic upgrades - but so far I'm playing much the same game with a few added bits of polish that really should have been there a year ago. My only gripe (but it's a big one) is that Enemy Within is treated as a separate game from Enemy Unknown, so that your unlocked Second Wave options don't carry over. I don't particularly fancy playing through a whole Impossible campaign just to re-unlock those SW abilities.

The new languages feature is welcome (though accents would have been better than languages - how many military outfits have soldiers reporting in half a dozen different languages?), but the selection is missing some key languages for nationalities that turn up frequently (particularly Arabic, Chinese and Japanese) - Arabic at the very least should have been implemented, since it's spoken by several game-supported nationalities (unlike Polish, a rather strange choice for language support as it's not an especially common in-game nationality and no one speaks it outside Poland). The implementation of the languages that are there is poor - the voice actors are recognisably the same as those doing the American English voices, and there is little effort to adopt the appropriate accent: the words sound like the native words spoken in an American accent. The lack of regional English accents for Britain, Scotland (for some reason treated separately in game nationalities), Australia and South Africa is disappointing (Canadians could get by with American voices).

 

[rkade8583]

I like EW. It's far more difficult. You gotta EARN your dead foes!

 

[Sonereal]

By the sound of it, I'll be getting it for the winter sale to keep up with my tradition of getting XCOM games during the winter holiday.

The tradition is relatively new.

 

[PhilBowles]

I like EW. It's far more difficult. You gotta EARN your dead foes!

I still can't get the Exalt survivor out of the "Portent" council mission alive (or the rest of the squad, come to that - it seems to be designed with the intent that you'll already have mechs by that point) on Classic. I dislike how heavily-scripted that mission is, though - all the aliens always start in exactly the same place, unlike other Council missions. Plus it's always in France so you always know you get a 'free' panic reduction there at some point during April. It is a lot like the standard game on Impossible in terms of the aliens' superior flanking behaviour and the general deadliness of Thin Men.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

grr, i forgot how screen-punchingly angry the rng can make me. i havent played since earlier this summer and decided to see what was different from the patch without having bought the DLC. (when its under $10 i'll grab it.) i started a Classic game (not IM) as Asia. i havent really noticed the changes but the only one that angers me is the lack of Autosaves. I thought that was only a thing in Ironman but as Classic w/a couple 2nd wave options (for random soldiers) I wanted to replay a turn when my favorite soldier got waxed on a ridiculous crit. But I didnt have the turn save to go to. Anyone know why?

 

[Pikkis]

Download finally started 2:21 AM local time. Should be a great night.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I'm not very far yet (just leanrd in-game about the existence of EXALT) and I think I'll have to abandon my current game due to poor resource management (wanted to get MECs and gene mods asap and neglected other things), but I'm loving the game so far.
As I suspected it's not easier at the beginning since you don't have the cash for all the new toys, and the new council mission seem to be harder than the old ones. The one on the island (with the sharks, you know what I mean) was positively nerve wrecking and I'm proud beyod words that I (barely) made it out with all of my troops alive. I don't think I would have made it without my MEC.
MECs are awesome and worth getting early, but they have enough draw backs (poor primary weapon, price tag) to be balanced. I haven't used a lot of gene mods yet, but they seem to be too expensive to invest in before you have at least lasers and skeleton suits. Hyper-reactive pupils on a heavy with bullet swarm served me pretty well though. Starting another game now with more focused investments now.

 

[PhilBowles]

I'm not very far yet (just leanrd in-game about the existence of EXALT) and I think I'll have to abandon my current game due to poor resource management (wanted to get MECs and gene mods asap and neglected other things), but I'm loving the game so far.
As I suspected it's not easier at the beginning since you don't have the cash for all the new toys, and the new council mission seem to be harder than the old ones. The one on the island (with the sharks, you know what I mean) was positively nerve wrecking and I'm proud beyod words that I (barely) made it out with all of my troops alive. I don't think I would have made it without my MEC.
MECs are awesome and worth getting early, but they have enough draw backs (poor primary weapon, price tag) to be balanced. I haven't used a lot of gene mods yet, but they seem to be too expensive to invest in before you have at least lasers and skeleton suits. Hyper-reactive pupils on a heavy with bullet swarm served me pretty well though. Starting another game now with more focused investments now.

I think the key thing adding difficulty is that soldiers promote so much more slowly - you're unlikely to have an officer training school before the month 2 Council mission (which seems to come early most of the time).

 

[Pikkis]

After a few early-on failures I have finally got one game going on strong (Classic, Ironman). I'm in the middle of the second act and thanks to MECs, I've done something I've never done before: skipped laser weapons altogether. (Read: I think MECs are OP.) I did run into problems during and after the second Slingshot mission, but eventually normalized the situation.

I think the key thing adding difficulty is that soldiers promote so much more slowly - you're unlikely to have an officer training school before the month 2 Council mission (which seems to come early most of the time).

This is very true, and because of this the option of taking a Sergeant at the second (third if you count starting mission) abduction is much more interesting now. I had big trouble adjusting to this, but beelining MECs finally opened up the critical possibilities.

I like how Firaxis has overall polished the game a lot and added variety to it. Operation Slingshot also fits the big picture better now (although I liked it in the past, too).

 

[PhilBowles]

This is very true, and because of this the option of taking a Sergeant at the second (third if you count starting mission) abduction is much more interesting now. I had big trouble adjusting to this, but beelining MECs finally opened up the critical possibilities.

I ended up losing Portent (got one soldier out alive, but not the EXALT member) - I presume it will show up next month as with failed Slingshot missions (though I actually hate that mechanic - if you lose a mission the consequence should be that you lose your chance at Slingshot for that campaign).

Prioritising missions that have soldier rewards helped me somewhat (though both my reward soldiers died during Portent... I'm seriously thinking of turning Damage Roulette off after some pretty dire rolls); I've used my first MEC but was reckless with it, hoping to use its flamethrower to take out a cluster of aliens in the UFO. It couldn't quite get close enough to kill more than two, was critically wounded, and I couldn't safely reach it in time to save the soldier.

I like how Firaxis has overall polished the game a lot and added variety to it. Operation Slingshot also fits the big picture better now (although I liked it in the past, too).

It definitely is more polished - the expansion is bugless as far as I can tell, except for some stuttering with the action graphics (kill shots sometimes visibly missing the target - but at least they aren't now firing in completely the wrong direction, or through walls).

I'm still inclined to think meld could have been handled better - counters are set pretty high on the whole, and I find that I can usually grab them with a fairly slow creep forward, and the always-two-canisters-each-with-10-meld setup is boring (better would have been a fixed timer, with a fixed amount of meld degrading per turn, rewarding you for prioritising it, and more randomised canisters).

I love a few of the new maps, especially the UFO-and-ruins maps, but the key issue limiting variety - aliens always spawn in the same few places - is still there.

How is Slingshot handled now? Will it always turn up at the same point in the campaign, as before, and like Portent, or is its appearance randomised among available Council missions?

i havent really noticed the changes but the only one that angers me is the lack of Autosaves. I thought that was only a thing in Ironman but as Classic w/a couple 2nd wave options (for random soldiers)

I've noticed the save icon appearing during the campaign, so I presume autosaves are still there - I'm not sure how to access them, but not having them on the same menu as other saves is a huge improvement. It was annoying having to play Ironman merely so you don't get endless autosaves popping up and having to scroll down to points where you actually want to return to. But autosaves never triggered during missions as far as I can recall, only during campaign play.