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

[Gord]

Honestly I don't think anyone can deduce that much from the demo.
It's horribly short and only contains 2 heavily scripted and cutscene-laden levels from the tutorial.
It completely fails as a demo.

While it may be absolutely likely that the final game will suck, too, I still think it will be much better than this demo.

 

[Darth Roxor]

It's k guys, mods will fix it 10/10

no where's my ign paycheck

 

[good little toastboy]

I think you are exaggerating the similarities there.
Yes, they share the same tiles, yes there will be parts that are similar. Still the layout seems different enough to me.
Also, it was pretty much the same in the originals and it never bothered me there.
Of course, there's also the RPS article that admitted that the maps in the new game generally don't feel as good as in the old one.

Since I apparently don't have anything better to do, the first one is from the Totalbiscuit video, the second from the OXM one:

Looks exactly the same to me. I really am to lazy to do that for the other 3 parts of the map though. Of course in the originals you saw the same barn on pretty much every farm map. But those maps were how big? 6x6 of those tiles vs. 1x4 we have here. It just that one shitty design decision leads to another. They give you 6 soldiers at most, so obviously the maps have to be smaller especially narrower. Smaller maps lead to infinitely less different permutations of the available tiles, which leads to missions playing out the same much more often. But I'm now (again) fairly certain they don't even shuffle their tiles around, so arguing about this is pointless. So what will they do to counter this? Make 200 maps, hoping you don't get the same one too often, or make 50 maps and make the game take 20 hours to beat, hoping you don't get the same one too often and maybe release a DLC mappack?

 

[Gord]

It's still a different map, only using the same tiles. This flavor ("docks") is made up of crates, containers and other dock stuff. So there will be permutations of that stuff.
Doubtless they will do the same with city maps, farm maps and whatever else they do.

From what someone wrote in the other thread, a designer has stated that there will be ~80 different, hand-crafted (so no random ones ) maps, but you shouldn't see all of them in one playthrough.

 

[sser]

From what someone wrote in the other thread, a designer has stated that there will be ~80 different, hand-crafted (so no random ones ) maps, but you shouldn't see all of them in one playthrough.

The fuck.

 

[Morgoth]

If that's true then the scope of the full game will be even smaller than I first thought. Kinda like what Civ Revolution was to Civ 4, now XCOM to X-COM.

 

[Gord]

Yeah, I somewhat get the impression that you are supposed to follow a certain path/story, without dicking around much.
In the original that probably meant you were going to fail horribly because the alien invasion got out of hand. Here it might not be possible at all.
On the other hand that RPS article said, the full game won't be linear, so who knows.

 

[bonescraper]

Honestly I don't think anyone can deduce that much from the demo.
It's horribly short and only contains 2 heavily scripted and cutscene-laden levels from the tutorial.
It completely fails as a demo.

While it may be absolutely likely that the final game will suck, too, I still think it will be much better than this demo.

Listen, i understand you're trying hard to stay positive. But that demo tells you everything you need to know to judge the final game. That's because you can experience how the combat mechanics work for yourself. They're the core of this game, and they're SHIT. You can't change your stance, you can't change your firing mode, you can't change your facing because you have a 360 degree overview of the map anyway. The cover system blows since it doesn't really cover anything, it just reduces your opponent's chance to hit by some arbitrary number. The move-shoot mechanic completely kills any deeper tactical thought, because it limits you to 3 options: move-move, move-perform action and perform action. Bullets and other projectiles are mostly just graphical effects, they don't exist in the game's "physical" environment. You can't miss and accidentally hit another object or enemy. Yes, projectiles can destroy anything on the way between you and your target, but that's it. Every new rookie has the exact same stats and equipment as the other one. And seems like combat boils down just to the chance to hit, weapon damage, criticals and hit points. Smartphone games have more depth than this PoS.

Its' not a tactical strategy we're all used to. I honestly don't even think it's a base upon which you could build one.

 

[Morgoth]

Now I decided to play that bugger myself, and here's my short and humble assessment of the demo:

Pros:

-Nice production values
-M+K controls not entirely as horrible as I anticipated, but still annoying

Cons:

Too easy; but okay, that's maybe just the tutorial
Feels clunky; annoying camera
Not enough "breathing room" in terms of assessing tactical placement
Reeks of linear story-driven game

Overall, it feels like a castrated X-COM. Maybe worth for ~15-20€ but no more, but only under the condition the full version opens up.

 

[Jaedar]

So I was watching that fifth OXM video of the game. Enemies dropped in from nowhere. This is DA2 all over again :/

 

[IDtenT]

So I was watching that fifth OXM video of the game. Enemies dropped in from nowhere. This is DA2 all over again :/

Do you have a problem with AWESOME?

 

[Volrath]

When does Xenonauts come out?

 

[SuicideBunny]

prolly monday next week in aod time.

 

[IDtenT]

When does Xenonauts come out?

They want to release a playable beta in October to those that have pre-ordered. Unlike the alphas it should be playable as a completed game.

 

[bonescraper]

When does Xenonauts come out?

Pre-order it and you can play straight away (the alpha version ;p).

 

[Volrath]

Oh, so still pretty much vapourware. Kthx.

 

[Gord]

There's always UFO:AI available for free. I understand that you can complete it since 2.3 (it's on 2.4 now).
Not too shabby, imho.

 

[IDtenT]

There's always UFO:AI available for free. I understand that you can complete it since 2.3 (it's on 2.4 now).
Not too shabby, imho.

Yeah it's okay. Does suffer from open source syndrome, however. The GPL license just isn't meant for games.

 

[Raghar]

Looks exactly the same to me.

IQ a lot (aka I don't wanna feed wyrmi) visual genius here. These maps looking completely different.
BTW I know how they are making these maps. Quite primitive, but urban environment doesn't allow that much freedom in algorithm creation.

Did anyone notice that earlier images had hexes, and the release has square grid?




That OXM video was a quite show of incompetence. He did at least two very bad actions.

 

[good little toastboy]

These maps looking completely different.

Are you fucking kidding me? It's the same shit only rotated 180°.

As D is partly in the fog of war it's a bit harder to tell and one crate seems to have a different model in the console version but it's still in the same spot.
I could probably do the same with the other 3 parts of the map. The house that with the plank that leads to the freight container being part G, the thing in the screenshots part O, the part with those boats is R and the warehouse part G. Just because you traverse it GORD in one mission and DROG in the other doesn't make it a different map.

 

[KoolNoodles]

I think one of the most painful aspects of all this bullshit we have in our hands now, is the promise of MAYBE getting a good game. It's Firaxis(honestly not a bad company), the lead dev actually played and liked the original and sounded very enthusiastic. Then, they tried to make it "next-gen cool", and lo and behold, another shit game for ADD kids hopped up on mountain dew and prozac. I'll bet my hat the missions are designed to be played through in 10 minutes or less. CLICK MOVE, CLICK SHOOT, CLICK MOVE, CLICK SHOOT, CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE A BAD ASS XCOM.

And the strategic layer? One base, too hard to remember or think about managing more than one. If the science is any indication it will be toned down as well. Can't have too many paths and techs in my face, I have a CoD lan party to go to in half an hour.

 

[Dickie]

That OXM video was a quite show of incompetence. He did at least two very bad actions.

At least this demonstrates that you can't just herp derp your way through a level.

 

[Raghar]

These maps looking completely different.

Are you fucking kidding me? It's the same shit only rotated 180°

No I don't. They are different. I just spend half hour to watch these crappy videos, and yes there are differences. If you posted different images, I would have doubts if they bothered with supertiling. But, don't worry these maps will not be exactly identical.

 

[good little toastboy]

But we do agree that there is basically one square of difference between those areas that are in both screens, right? You're telling me that these are 2 out of ~80 "different" maps then (note that when I see map, I'm only speaking about the terrain, not enemy placement, starting location)? This would actually be worse. Now, that I've rewatched a bit of those videos, I still fail to see real differences but don't have the time to do screenshot by screenshot comparisons. Maybe on Monday, when I'm back home. In one there are barrels on those freight containers, in the other those are boxes, but they are still in the same location and of the same heights. But whatever. Maps are at least stunningly similar, much moreso than just using the same tileset.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

HAY BRO I HERD THAT THE ORIGLINAL XCOM RECYCLES SPRITES! FFS DUMBING DOWN MAH GAME