XCOM Enemy Unknown

[ButchinMelancholy]

That's a matter of sensibility I guess. I love the raw and brutal style of Fallout's (originals) executions, which indeed takes me to the guts, but all those current "look at me" effects are bad taste to me. I don't feel involved, I feel like the game tries to impress me, covering my face with that ludicrous and generic spectacular scene...
There's a difference between expression and demonstration.

[Drool]

Well, I also liked all the action slow-downs in 300, so maybe I just have poor taste.

[ButchinMelancholy]

No it really depends on the subject and the way it is done as I previously said. I'm not saying that those artifices are fundamentally mediocre, but most of the time inappropriate and tasteless.

[ffordesoon]

FYI, you can turn off the killcams in XCOM if you don't like them, along with the cinematic camera as a whole. You can turn off the voices too.

I tend to get sick of killcams pretty quickly, but I quite liked the way they were only occasional in Skyrim.

[Woolfe]

FYI, you can turn off the killcams in XCOM if you don't like them, along with the cinematic camera as a whole. You can turn off the voices too.

I tend to get sick of killcams pretty quickly, but I quite liked the way they were only occasional in Skyrim.

Agreed, they are a nice touch, but when you get into serious play these sort of things tend to be a distraction, and sometimes an annoying one. They should ALWAYS be optional IMO.

[Wanderer]

New XCOM combat system looks great, but killcams become repetitive and tiresome very quickly. Thank God they are optional.
In case of Wasteland 2, killcams would be a waste of budget.

[Zombra]

Yeah, I think killcams are scheduled to be put in right after they hire Nicole Kidman and Antonio Banderas to do the VO work for 35 hours of cinematic cutscenes.

[Wanderer]

Yeah, I think killcams are scheduled to be put in right after they hire Nicole Kidman and Antonio Banderas to do the VO work for 35 hours of cinematic cutscenes.

Good one

[ffordesoon]

Gotta say, I kinda love the idea of Antonio Banderas doing every single voice, male and female. Like, he just makes his voice sound high-pitched for the female characters, so it ends up sounding sort of like you're talking to the Jennifer Lopez hand puppet from South Park.

[eastc]

XCOM is great. I wouldn't say it has the same magic as X-COM from two decades ago but two decades of gaming will put a certain patina on game systems that most (not me) wouldn't tolerate today. Yes, I still play the old one too.

It's certainly not "dumbed down". There's a fair amount of depth tactically. In fact, I would say there is quite a more depth tactically in XCOM than in it's forefather now that I've just about finished the game and gone through just about everything the game has to offer. In fact, as I played the end game and my soldiers had picked up a myriad of new abilities and were fighting on larger maps with more enemies that were stronger I often thought to myself, "I wish combat was simpler like in the old X-COM where it was just point and shoot."

There are certainly console effects to complain about. I would not necessarily say they affect gameplay much. They affect UI more. For example, the use of fonts so large that in some windows the names or phrases of items need to pan left and right inside of the allotted window. Key mappings are somewhat weak. Inability to name save game files. Lack of information in the UI (although, this might have been a design decision to allow players to see more of the rendered environments -- some players prefer minimalist look and feel). The mechanics of combat and the strategy layer of country management don't seem as if they have much influence from their concurrent console release. (I'm just glad it's not like the Thief3 PC port -- that game _forever_ swore me off console ports and I just about stopped buying PC games after that until after reviews or demos).

On the whole, however, an excellent game in it's own way. Wasteland 2 would do well to modernize itself as well. There are many systems and implementations of mechanics and UI that weren't really thought of back in the day or weren't possible with compute available at the time. The charm in Wasteland, after all, wasn't picking shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, and watching the scrolling combat UI, or digging up the booklet to read paragraph 25. It was the imaginative setting the players were placed in.

As long as the mechanics inXile puts together doesn't bog the players down (much like combat in XCOM is less bogged down than in X-COM) then I think most players will be quite pleased. I certainly would be. However, Firaxis/2k worked for years iterating on XCOM. inXile has a much tighter timeframe and rpgs by nature are ludicrously complex (maybe not more complex than XCOM -- that game is complex in a different way) so, I'll be unduly impressed if they're able to crank out a high caliber game on short notice. I certainly expect at least a good game out of them though...

I'm not sure that last paragraph came out right. I blame Monday for it's lack of diplomacy.

[Zombra]

Oh come now. You can't say that the paragraph book had no charm

But overall I agree. XCOM is a very good modernization of a classic. Not perfect, but very good. Outside of combat it's a little oversimplified for my tastes, but I hope inXile is playing it and checking out the design, especially the combat design.

[eastc]

All right, the paragraph book did have it's own charm... back in the day! And, to be honest, if they said "print out this paragraph book" as a features of Wasteland 2 I would probably do it and enjoy it.

I'm surprised you think the new XCOMs combat is more simplistic. I think the perk interaction is far more complicated than TU. TU boiled down to "how much I can shoot in a turn". There's a lot more "what can I do" with the perk system. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong but I see the old X-COM's "complexity" as math (e.g. TU - shooting = how far I can move). The new XCOM is more of assembling a puzzle (e.g. What can I possibly do so the 4 cryssalids, that cyberdisk and that sectopod don't kill someone this round -- that actually happened -- nobody died, the rng gods were kind).

[Woolfe]

All right, the paragraph book did have it's own charm... back in the day! And, to be honest, if they said "print out this paragraph book" as a features of Wasteland 2 I would probably do it and enjoy it.

I'm surprised you think the new XCOMs combat is more simplistic. I think the perk interaction is far more complicated than TU. TU boiled down to "how much I can shoot in a turn". There's a lot more "what can I do" with the perk system. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong but I see the old X-COM's "complexity" as math (e.g. TU - shooting = how far I can move). The new XCOM is more of assembling a puzzle (e.g. What can I possibly do so the 4 cryssalids, that cyberdisk and that sectopod don't kill someone this round -- that actually happened -- nobody died, the rng gods were kind).

The combat is very simplistic.
You can't shoot at anything, Only bad guys. So no using beam weapons to clear obstacles anymore
The movement is too simplistic. I move 1 space and that is the same as moving 7 or 8? And if I fire I lose the rest of the move.
Oh it has good points. The cover system seems to work well. The perk system is not too bad, probably could be even better.
The TU system had its faults as well, but overall it was a better mechanic. It could have been tweaked to work better rather than being "streamlined out"
And the complexity was math, but so is what is happening in the new x-com. Its a computer game. It works on math and math alone, don't ever forget that. Its Logical

[ffordesoon]

Based on what I've played of the new game, which admittedly isn't much (my first full run through Torment is occupying the majority of my gaming time at the moment, and I'll probably beat Dishonored before I really dive into XCOM), the three things I genuinely miss from the original are free aim, random maps, and base invasion. I'd also like to have more detailed base management, but I'm withholding judgement on that until I get further into the game. I know it's still not quite as detailed in terms of base management as the old game, but we'll see how much that actually affects my experience.

That being said, it's absolutely a worthy successor, and I like some things about it more. The attack-move system in particular is a terrific addition that makes combat move much faster without dumbing it down significantly, and the tradeof of more movement in exchange for no attack accomplishes the chief goal of TUs while feeling much more elegant. The lack of player-controllable stances is a little annoying, but I actually like that your dudes decide for themselves, and it makes cover more vital. There are other things I like so far, too, but I don't feel comfortable adding them to my list of likes until I get further into the game and really put those features through their paces.

Gotta say, I'm surprised by how much I enjoy interacting with Drs. Shen and Vahlen. Corporal Tutorial McCorduroy, I could do without, but he's supposed to largely recede into the background once the tutorial is over, so I'm good with that.

Also, giving all my rooks pretty pink princess armor and then upgrading them once they're promoted is super-fun, and being able to rename the Heavy that survives the first mission Cragg Rockman made me giggle. I don't understand why they gated so many of the customization options behind a pre-order bonus - I mean, I do, but it really does feel like a shitty thing to do to the people who get it late. I'm sure it wasn't Firaxis' call, but I hope it'll be released soon as DLC. Given that it's published by a Big Publisher, it's probably too much to hope that it'll be free (especially when there'll be legions of pre-orderers who'll moan about it because "I thought this was EXCLUSIVE content for EXCLUSIVE people! RAWR!" Which a Bioware-loving friend of mine actually does believe, and it truly breaks my heart every time I try to hear him justify what is a naked EA-driven ripoff, as he did when ME "Trilogy" was announced and it turned out that they're not including the DLC for 2 or 3 with it, and he was like, "How would including the DLC be fair to the people who bought it originally?" And I just wanted to scream, "BECAUSE EA CREATED THAT PROBLEM FOR ITSELF SO THEY COULD RIP YOU OFF, AND YOU GOT TO PLAY IT EARLY ANYWAY!" But this "parenthetical aside" is getting to be longer than the paragraph I stuck it in, so anyway). Still, at least it would be available to anyone then. RPing my commander as a fan of utterly humiliating his soldiers is just hilarious to me, and I hate the idea of anyone missing out.

BTW, the best review of XCOM I've seen so far isn't a review at all. It's this. In addition to actually being funny, which most gamer-centric humor misses the mark more than, um, a thing that misses marks, it completely sells you on the joy of XCOM (and X-Com, by proxy) even if you know nothing about the game.

[Zombra]

Just for the record ...

I'm surprised you think the new XCOMs combat is more simplistic.

I said ...

Outside of combat it's a little oversimplified for my tastes

Free aiming for all weapons is noticeably absent, especially with so much destructible terrain ... but overall the combat is fantastic imo.

[salesninja]

I fele like it strikes a good balance between overly complicated and accesible. Sure there are little tinngs i woudl change, but they are little. I feel this is a good game model to shoot for, tactical decisions, depth, without being overly clunky.

[Drool]

the three things I genuinely miss from the original are free aim, random maps, and base invasion.

Personally, I hated the base invasions. Maybe I should look into this.

[Woolfe]

the three things I genuinely miss from the original are free aim, random maps, and base invasion.

Personally, I hated the base invasions. Maybe I should look into this.

Really, I always found them tense and enjoyable. Well until I learnt how to prevent them in the first place. I sometimes used to let my secondary base get attacked just so I could play the base fight.

[Mandemon]

Damn, didn't remember we had this one here too! So here is my take on it:

Game is awesome. If micromanagement was your thing, then go play OG. New one has taken otu excessive fat and made game accessible AND streamlined, without dumbing it down.

Some minor complains are there, true, like loss of free aim for all weapons, but it's nothing I miss really.

I take the new UI over the old any day. So much better and personally, I never had any problems with it. Sound like people complain for sake of complaining about it.

Economics has been fixed. No more LAZORS R US bullshit. You actually need to do a good job to get the funding you need. You are actually fighting a losing fight, a fight where you are racing against the clock.

AS for only single base, no complains for me. Reason why anyone really build secondary bases was to set up radar/interceptor base. Here, interceptor bases are already there, just need interceptors. Radars have been replaced with satellites, which works better than in OG.

All in all, it's a great. It's a game, that truly feels like X-COM, without being a soulless clone of the original, ala Xenonauts or UFO: Alien Invasion.

[Woolfe]

AS for only single base, no complains for me. Reason why anyone really build secondary bases was to set up radar/interceptor base. Here, interceptor bases are already there, just need interceptors. Radars have been replaced with satellites, which works better than in OG.

Satellites are the one thing that I absolutely hate in the new game.

Oh look I can launch a single satellite and cover ALL of Russia, or I can launch on and cover the UK.

WTF.

The original Radar concept was much better, you had to select the right location to ge ther best usage from your Radar. In some countries you needed multiple radars to cover, but then other areas a single radar could cover several countries.

Europe is a perfect example you could cover most of it with a well placed radar (my memory is fuzzy on how much you could cover.
And because of the way the have done the satellites, they don't seem to do the alien ship arrival. In the OG, once you had the coverage you could virtually track the alien vessel from when it turned up, to when it landed and then left again. Which makes sense. As opposed to the Oh look we have satelites everywhere but can't seem to track an alien spacecraft.

And what about all the other nations of the world. Do we not give a damn if the aliens are invading in the middle of Africa? Or most of the middle east, etc. Sats could have been done as replacement to the radar, but instead they are the worst element of the new game.