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

[Gord]

A lot of nice stuff, but it raises the question whether they manage to keep the challenge this time, or if late game gets even easier with all those upgrades to your soldiers and weapons.
Also it doesn't really seem to address most of the bigger issues of the game.

 

[felipepepe]

Looks decent but if fucking TotalBiscuit is playing it on Classic and considering it easy, shit's as popamole as can get.

You can enable or disable "Slingshot" DLC in expansion

Makes sense, expansion was shitty and gave you powerful stuff too early on.

 

[Jaedar]

Looks decent but if fucking TotalBiscuit is playing it on Classic and considering it easy, shit's as popamole as can get.

Yeah, and classic was already too easy.

Now for some reason I actually watched that video and.... did the rng seem rigged to anyone else? Did he miss a single shot? I would not put it past Firaxis to fudge the dice so game journos have an easier time.

 

[felipepepe]

He did miss one of two shots, but I I think it's not due Firaxis riggin' the dice, but because of power creep. A lot of those upgrades do increase chance to hit.

I was more upset on how the mectoid at the end was dumb as fuck. It was near death, surround by enemies, yet all it did on it's entire last turn was go into overwatch.... very dumb AI, especially considering that they can fire twice per turn.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Looks decent but if fucking TotalBiscuit is playing it on Classic and considering it easy, shit's as popamole as can get.

Yeah, and classic was already too easy.

Now for some reason I actually watched that video and.... did the rng seem rigged to anyone else? Did he miss a single shot? I would not put it past Firaxis to fudge the dice so game journos have an easier time.

Personally, if I was a developer, every review code sent out to professional review sites would be modded so that regardless of what difficulty option they pick, the game auto-selects a hidden setting below 'easy' called 'game journalist', in which all the player's shots are critical hits, the player cannot take damage and every NPC tells them how awesome they are.

 

[Raghar]

Looks decent but if fucking TotalBiscuit is playing it on Classic

TotalBiscuit isn't bad gamer, he is only bad journalist.

Did he miss a single shot?

Yes he did, he missed with that sniper girl. So perhaps there are some hidden skill values, because that girl missed a lot. Or it could be some help from RNG to break bad streaks. (In game where size of squad is artificially limited and there isn't an inventory system, bad streaks can alter a lot.)

 

[Gozma]

He did miss one of two shots, but I I think it's not due Firaxis riggin' the dice, but because of power creep. A lot of those upgrades do increase chance to hit.

I was more upset on how the mectoid at the end was dumb as fuck. It was near death, surround by enemies, yet all it did on it's entire last turn was go into overwatch.... very dumb AI, especially considering that they can fire twice per turn.

There are old AI bugs with enemies that are out of cover while overwatched/suppressed. There is some high priority imperative for them to move to cover that then checks whether they are overwatched. If they are, they don't move and then the AI shits the bed, and this happened even with enemies that don't use cover like Cyberdisks. In the original game they would overwatch themselves or more often just do nothing at all. Looks like they didn't fix it.

This looks like total shit. The canned missions all use the terrible "drop out of the sky out of cover" mechanic to put enemies on the field, which is so, so much worse than the teleport patrol thing that gets more hate. Also there are canned missions at all.

 

[Gord]

Did he miss a single shot?

Yes he did, he missed with that sniper girl. So perhaps there are some hidden skill values, because that girl missed a lot. Or it could be some help from RNG to break bad streaks. (In game where size of squad is artificially limited and there isn't an inventory system, bad streaks can alter a lot.)

I think he missed several shots with his heavy guys using their miniguns in the first mission he showed.

 

[Disgruntled]

ehh, dont know about this expansion... I suppose enough content has been tacked on for another run. A bit too samey for my tastes unless something drastic happens at endgame.
Feels like it will be half going through the motions, half enjoying some new shiny bits.

Id still prefer a stand alone campaign or a drastic change to the existing one. Without the unknown factor, a lot of the anticipation falls flat.
Toss up if I give em $30 or wait it out.

 

[Average Manatee]

Don't really like these additions thematically. It's obviously drawing a lot from Apocalypse, what with totally-not-Brotherhood-of-Nod, cyborgs, and mutants (through genemods). The trouble is that Apocalypse represented humanity nearly 100 fucking years after first contact with aliens, and even then mutants and cyborgs were looked down upon. The idea of aliens arriving and then suddenly mecha humans and half-alien crossbreeds and worldwide religious cult conspiracies springing up overnight is absurd.

On a gameplay level it looks like the new additions are mostly band-aid fix attempts for the more abusive intelligent ways to play the game (meld forcing you to rush, stalkers forcing you to keep snipers close). Which is just skirting the point of the problem, which is that people played in those fashions because the game system was inherently set up to force you to play that way. Also they add more goodies to make the mid and late game easier which is exactly what X-Com 2 didn't need, since the difficulty is already so front loaded in the first place. The first 2 or 3 missions on Impossible are already harder than anything else in the game, no need to make it more so.

 

[Gord]

I don't know, I liked to push forward steadily, using special abilities of assault and support troopers. Of course, having one or two snipers with squad sight made live so much easier.
Still, much more fun than relying overly on overwatch and only advancing by 2 or 3 fields each turn.

 

[suejak]

I love the variety of the expansion. There's so much new stuff and so many new choices. So many new mission types.

It's definitely too easy, but hopefully that can be adjusted in time.

 

[Average Manatee]

Don't really like these additions thematically. It's obviously drawing a lot from Apocalypse, what with totally-not-Brotherhood-of-Nod, cyborgs, and mutants (through genemods). The trouble is that Apocalypse represented humanity nearly 100 fucking years after first contact with aliens, and even then mutants and cyborgs were looked down upon. The idea of aliens arriving and then suddenly mecha humans and half-alien crossbreeds and worldwide religious cult conspiracies springing up overnight is absurd.

I liked X-COM Apocalypse a lot, its a classic "flawed gem" game that tries to reach high, fails but nevertheless remains brillant. I like a lot the idea of a smaller-scale X-COM game where you fight a alien invasion while inside the politics of a cyberpunk futuristic megacity. I would love to play a proper remake of it that had all these awesome features they could't put into it before, but then again Firaxis would probably also abstract the Cityscape into pressing a buttan and waiting until the aliens come out of the dimensional portals.

Next to any game other than X-Com it would have been considered excellent. I actually only played it for the first time last year since I could never really understand some of the controls and wasn't too interested in playing the "black sheep" of the trilogy, but it really is quite good.

Now the UFO After-x series, those are hilariously bad. But they seem to be judged a lot less harshly on average because they were only spiritual sequels.

 

[Jaedar]

I love the variety of the expansion. There's so much new stuff and so many new choices. So many new mission types.

It's definitely too easy, but hopefully that can be adjusted in time.

Have you played it?

 

[Brinko]

http://xcom.wikia.com/wiki/XCOM:_Enemy_Within#Gameplay_and_Interface_Changes

Training Roulette: After a Soldier receives a Class and their first ability, additional ranks can grant randomized abilities from a pool of the all the Class abilities sets minus any skills that are dependent on a specific weapons (which are still Class locked). So you could have an Assault with Sprinter or a Heavy with Deep Pockets.

This seems like a mod idea that got incorporated into the game. I can see this being really the only true game changer besides some bullshit like more expensive this or not being allowed to do something else that devs love to shove in games rather than actually making things truly difficult or different.

 

[Heresiarch]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/23/enemy-within-preview/

I can't wait for this shit

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Difficulty increase through HP sponges, what a surprise

 

[Hobbit Lord of Mordor_]

I just watched a walkthru video of this shit...

-'squad' of four soldiers
-pregenerated maps
-map looks like 2-3 buildings and the open space between them
-mission is over in 3/4 turns
-four item limit per soldier
-two 'actions' per turn, any action takes the same time
-sectoids like to huddle around in small groups like gollums/something from a zombie game and get a free move during your turn when you bump into them
-art style looks like X-Men or some superhero thing

-On the strategic side I also read that you can't choose where to place your base, you can only have one base which the aliens never discover or attack


I can't understand the positive reviews this game got including at places like StrategyCore and old X-Com forums

Seems a lot of the 'fan base' really think X-Com was some kind of care-bear LARPing simulator, where you could feel 'emotionally attached' about your randomly generated 2D units

I am sure the new X-COM does do better at that, since they have animated faces and custom hairstyles etc but I don't get it

Is This Version Better Than The Original?

1. Doesn't Even Come Close. (4 votes [12.50%] - View)
   
   
2. It's Close Enough to Brand It An XCOM Title (11 votes [34.38%] - View)
   
   
3. The Equalizer (13 votes [40.62%] - View)
   
   
4. Better Than The Original (4 votes [12.50%] - View)

 

[Gord]

Good morning!
You only found out about that stuff now? Where have you been in the last year?

Anyway, a lot of the things get loosened up by leveling the soldiers - basically you get special abilities that bend or break the basic rules a bit.
And you have 6 soldiers max. Most missions take longer, too.

However, while it's good fun for 1 or 2 playthroughs (unless you need hardcore tactics, but you don't really get those in the original either), it's nowhere near the quality of the original game, indeed.

 

[Hobbit Lord of Mordor_]

Good morning!
You only found out about that stuff now? Where have you been in the last year?

Busy with other things. I assumed new X-COM would not be my thing and didn't follow it but didn't think it would be this bad

Anyway, a lot of the things get loosened up by leveling the soldiers - basically you get special abilities that bend or break the basic rules a bit.
And you have 6 soldiers max. Most missions take longer, too.

However, while it's good fun for 1 or 2 playthroughs (unless you need hardcore tactics, but you don't really get those in the original either), it's nowhere near the quality of the original game, indeed.

How is 6 soldiers and all these other limitations an improvement on the original? The crazy thing it always comes back to is that the original was created in 2 years (?) by two programmers, a designer (one of the programmers) and a couple of artists/freelancers and a tiny budget even after 1990-2010 inflation

And where did anyone get the idea that the original was about becoming emotionally attached * to your soldiers? This is worse than Bethesda, at least Bethesda games are supposed to be RPGs where you're 'playing a role', they put you in the POV of a character you created in a fantasy world, the LARPing is understandable

* Tom Chick RPS review and mentioned in every positive StrategyCore post

 

[Gord]

How is 6 soldiers and all these other limitations an improvement on the original? The crazy thing it always comes back to is that the original was created in 2 years (?) by two programmers, a designer (one of the programmers) and a couple of artists/freelancers and a tiny budget even after 1990-2010 inflation

And where did anyone get the idea that the original was about becoming emotionally attached * to your soldiers?

Who talked about improvements? Which games improve on older ones nowadays (except graphically)? Not many.

It's more like a board-game variant of the original game.
As I said, it's good for one or two playthroughs, after which you have seen almost everything in the game and there's not much reason for another one.

Don't know about emotional attachment. Of course you get somewhat attached to your experienced soldiers that have been around a long time. But wasn't that the case in the old game, too?
Before the power creep kicks in too much (around mid-game), losing soldiers isn't uncommon in the new game, either, so having some rotation in your team to train more than just 4-6 default soldiers makes sense.

 

[Gozma]

I had emotional attachment to the soldiers in the original X-Com before I had played it so much I had ground it down into a fine mechanical powder. Not because I'd imagine the story of a particular guy but I would remember like "this is the guy that was the one that survived storming the first UFO that I ever shot down, he just got facefucked by a crysalid... bummer." There was a reason they took the time to do stuff like have a decent international name-generator/race template matcher; it was for narrative. Of course now if I play X-Com I use a program to rename everyone to their statlines, so emergent narrative is sllllllightly weakened.

 

[Hobbit Lord of Mordor_]

The point is that stuff like having random names, different genders maybe even a simple race classification (and blondes/brunettes) can be nice. I just think it's so weird to reduce it to saying that was the main thing about X-Com, and that therefore the Firaxis remake is just as good as the original because it still has that

The 'personalization' idea is also obviously an excuse to have fewer more overpowered troops, smaller maps etc. In the original I would have 30+ troops mid-game and still regularly lose 3-5 of them each mission which I think is the way it was designed to be played

I've watched a few other Firaxis playthrus, like the Biscuit guy's and it seems like losing even a single troop would be a noteworthy/dramatic event in new X-Com

I just don't see how that's fun, or how you'll get situations where you lose 8/14 of your squad in a few turns, 3 more guys are panicking and have just 3 left to either risk completing the mission or retreat to save the skyranger... (is that an option any more?)

 

[Gozma]

Yah, you can still retreat, I've done it in the mid-late game after I lose a couple of guys and decide I can't risk losing more high ranked characters. TPKs can lead to a true strategic level game loss in the new one in a way they don't in the original.

It's totally not a horror tactics game like X-Com (original) is, I've never seen a game critic acknowledge that because they are all stupid. The RPG stuff does make it so you can't meatgrinder. It actually is still quite dangerous (lots of stuff can kill you in a single crit for a long time) but the ranked-up soldiers are so much stronger than rookies that you play in a risk-averse roguelike way that is facilitated by the ruleset. I had fun with it for a classic ironman and an impossible ironman run before I understood too much of the game.

 

[Hobbit Lord of Mordor_]

Yes that seems like a massive change. Original X-Com soldiers were at most an extra 1 maybe 2 shots away from dying if equipped the same as a rookie. Equipment investment was where most of the gradually accumulated advantage came from. Been looking at the video with Mech-people and genetic enhancements and it seems a modified character can have 15 hp (enemies seem to have about 5).

The Mech also regenerates +2 health at the start of every turn which is something else that must completely change the dynamics. Medikits AFAIK only prevented bleeding (additional health loss) or fixed broken limbs so a soldier was not completely useless but mostly it was making a difference between losing a soldier entirely or for 2 weeks or months. In other words you'd heal for long-term strategic reasons and only minimally to help out with in an ongoing battle