X-COM Firaxis - XCOM: Enemy Unknown + Enemy Within Expansion

[Shadenuat]

maybe something for TC, Trash?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8zZsecTRfM

What a calm, well speaking and intelligent man that Julian. It's so far away from today's shouting about awesome buttons. I wish we had more developers who talk like that.

 

[Infinitron]

maybe something for TC, Trash?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8zZsecTRfM

"We played turn-based games because the technology couldn't handle stuff happening in a real time."

Yeah, no.

To clarify, it's the host who says that, not Gollop or Solomon.

 

[Lorica]

To give them both credit, both designers point out that turn-based is a "purer" kind of game (Gollop) where players don't fight the clumsy UI, but the games system as intended (Solomon).

I still think Solomon looks a little quietly guilty, definitely until Gollop begins to talk a bit about how much he didn't hate the new game. Behind some marketing speak and momentary vapidness ('turn-based is the only way to get players to actually care about their characters dying' derp turns into a decent point about turn-based games), Solomon seems to be someone who actually likes X-COM who didn't have the ambition or the power to make a game to compete with it. It almost sounds like he views it as a baby step back towards what X-COM is supposed to be after the real time disasters (well, never played Apocalypse, to be fair) of the past.

It's fascinating to hear a little more about the development process from Gollop. I'm actually surprised to admit that I'm happy Microprose tried to crowbar a 4X on his tactical game. X-COM without the Geoscape and bases would be much diminished. Who'd have thought? A games company actually improving the work of a games auteur.

 

[cvv]

It's fascinating to hear a little more about the development process from Gollop. I'm actually surprised to admit that I'm happy Microprose tried to crowbar a 4X on his tactical game. X-COM without the Geoscape and bases would be much diminished. Who'd have thought? A games company actually improving the work of a games auteur.

This is much better, I didn't know this guy at all but now I really like him.

http://www.gamespot.com/shows/gamespot-live/?event=classic-game-postmortem-x-com-20130328

 

[felipepepe]

Solomon is a nice guy with the heart in the right place, he just doens't have the power and independence to say and make what he wants.

 

[Fart Master]

I wish this game didn't exist so I could actually do google searches on XCOM and not get gamefaqs threads about this turd.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Most of the problems and restrictions stem from the UE3 (console shooter engine). If they ever get around making a sequel, I hope they make it with their in-house Civ5 engine, and PC exclusive. It would outsell all three EU SKUs together if they market it right (i.e PC master race).

 

[spectre]

Ok, the technical issues can be blamed quite safely on Enreal Engine.
But hold right there criminal scum, how is linear and frankly very boring geoscape related to UE3?
And how about the way alien spawns are handled (that and the free turn they get)?

 

[Horus]

Soo how many of you are still playing this game?

For me it was one of the biggest disappointments of 2012. Doubly so because it was not a complete disaster I could just laught off and forget. It had potential. But the art style, the UI, the dumbed down movement, the art style, the stupid RNG system, the art style, the wonky production values, the cutscenes, the art syle and the generally lobotomized nature of the thing was just too much.

Played it once, uninstalled, will never go back, unless Firaxis fixes it the same way they fixed Civ5 with Gods and Kings. Fat chance though.

So what did you think about the art style?

 

[sea]

Most of the problems and restrictions stem from the UE3 (console shooter engine). If they ever get around making a sequel, I hope they make it with their in-house Civ5 engine, and PC exclusive. It would outsell all three EU SKUs together if they market it right (i.e PC master race).

What problems and restrictions?

Better random map generation would be difficult, but not impossible in the engine - no harder than any other. The maps in XCOM are already pretty good, they just need more variety and difference in props and objects - something you could easily do in scripting and by having a larger asset pool. I'll take the quality hand-made maps over hit-and-miss random ones anyway. Quality random maps depend on quality scripts to arrange all the pieces and having enough art assets to fit things together smoothly, not the engine you are using itself. I'm not 100% sure if Unreal has only static terrain, but it does have dynamic object, collision and pathfinding systems, so you could theoretically make the game world out of static meshes and forgo the terrain and geometry systems entirely - there would be a performance hit for this but in a turn-based game I doubt it would be too significant.

AI limitations? Considering Firaxis had to impose a turn-based gameplay system on the engine even though it's made for real-time interactions, I don't see how they would in any way be limited by this. Maybe there are console limitations involved (limited memory making stuff like wandering AI difficult) but I kind of doubt it. Either way I don't think this is really an engine problem.

Bugs and glitches? Please. That's not the engine's fault either.

About the only thing you can blame Unreal for in this game is the plasticy look to the soldiers' skin. And even that fits the art style, so it's not a big deal.

Picking Unreal was not a great decision and almost certainly done because the publisher had a license for it and Firaxis didn't want to spend time porting the Civ V engine to consoles, but the blame lies with Firaxis for not being able to make the most of the tools they picked for the job. I don't think Unreal is any worse for what they want to do than, say, Unity would be either.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

UE3 does not support random map generation. And this is certainly not a trivial feature to be implemented on top of some middleware. Overall XCOM just lacked variety and depth. Every map was handcrafted, which was both a blessing (quality) but also a curse (repetition, no sense of surprise once you played the same map x times). UE3 was just a terrible choice, and mostly driven by the fact that Firaxis didn't had much console experience and thus chose a solution that was already out there and proven to be reliable. Also graphics whore kiddies.

Also that stupid Elite Soldier Pack was a one big cheating DLC. Lol playing Ken Levine and Sid Meier Supersoldier that tramples over sectoids? Where's the fun in that?

Despite these shortcomings however, it's still one of the better games out there in the genre (not that there's much of choice).

 

[sser]

Dunno how XCOM can be looked at as "good". It came out average and has steadily declined from there with time. Nobody cares about it now, what we will think of it in five years? It's a completely forgettable game.

 

[cvv]

Dunno how XCOM can be looked at as "good". It came out average and has steadily declined from there with time. Nobody cares about it now, what we will think of it in five years? It's a completely forgettable game.

This.
I guess the mostly positive critical reaction was due to the relief that Xcom:Eu didn't completely bomb like every Xcom game since TFTD.

Ultimately though it was the Jagged Alliance: BiA all over again - a legend made streamlined and more "accessible" to pander to tards with controllers. In the end of the day though, PC crowd gave it the one-playthrough/uninstall treatment and the tards didn't hear it rang through the eks-pluh-shuns in CoD.

 

[felipepepe]

Most of the problems and restrictions stem from the UE3 (console shooter engine). If they ever get around making a sequel, I hope they make it with their in-house Civ5 engine, and PC exclusive. It would outsell all three EU SKUs together if they market it right (i.e PC master race).

What problems and restrictions?

I remenber them talking about how UE3 is responsible for the issues you have with multi-level areas, especially when flying around with the jetpack..

 

[damicore]

So, I have yet to finish a complete playthrough of the original (which i've barely scratched the surface of).
Should I keep playing this one or will it spoil me too much of the "plot"? It's just that the original's "emergent" plot seems to work so much better than these cuttscene ridden piece of crap
I'm still kind of enjoying this one, the UI in the original was sort of a pain in the ass. But I'm afraid this one could spoil me on the plot too much as to ever go back to the original.

 

[Zeriel]

There is actually less of a plot (imo) in the new one than in the old one. They're only tangentially related, insofar as they touch on the same subject matter.

 

[damicore]

But won't it kind of ruin the lore perhaps? That process of discovering the lore in the first one through research?

 

[Gord]

The plot in the new and the old one only grows more different with ongoing game time, so don't worry.

 

[cvv]

But won't it kind of ruin the lore perhaps? That process of discovering the lore in the first one through research?

No, most enemy creatures are different. The new plot is also completely different (retarded) as well as majority of researched technology. There's no spoiling of anything. When you get around to playing the original again, you'll see how much more dumb, limited and repetitive the new one is.

Also:

the UI in the original was sort of a pain in the ass.

: x

 

[damicore]

Well, having to reequip every squadee before a mission was not exactly fun.
It still is a miles better game but I'm having some fun with this one.

 

[Zeriel]

I'd rather have the complexity and emergent gameplay of an inventory system with some added tedium than no inventory system at all.

 

[lophiaspis]

Well, having to reequip every squadee before a mission was not exactly fun.

You may want to check out OpenXcom, which just relased a basically complete 0.9 build. Haven't played it yet but I'm pretty sure they fixed that issue among others.

 

[Gozma]

Make sure you take the time to lose X-Com at least once. The bad ending nearly killed child me

 

[20 Eyes]

But won't it kind of ruin the lore perhaps? That process of discovering the lore in the first one through research?

The only thing it'd really spoil is some of the alien types, which actually is pretty significant. Playing UFO Defense, one of the more memorable parts is seeing a new alien and thinking 'WTF does that thing do?', only to have it mercilessly slaughter your squad the next turn.

 

[damicore]

Well, having to reequip every squadee before a mission was not exactly fun.

You may want to check out OpenXcom, which just relased a basically complete 0.9 build. Haven't played it yet but I'm pretty sure they fixed that issue among others.

You just made my day, I think I'm passing on the remake now
I had read about this earlier but I thought it would have new age indie sprites and shit and I just found out this uses data from the old game.
I can't express my gratitude with the codex in a sufficient manner now