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

[bonescraper]

Why won't you just skip that UFO:ET PoS and wait patiently until tomorrow?

Spoiler

For the Xenonauts beta?

 

[Raghar]

Because I don't play betas.

 

[bonescraper]

Beta or not it's still way better than that smelly Czech turd.

 

[Raghar]

Does it have AI? If it would have worse performance in AI that UFO:ET, it would be tragedy.

 

[Wulfstand]

I'm pretty pumped for this here puppy, this and Dishonored are pretty much the only games that I'll be playing in the foreseeable future. It had better not disappoint.

 

[Raghar]

Well this has issues, and Dishonored is short. So plan for another game as well, these two will not be enough.

 

[UncleJimb0]

From the IGN review

Within the framework of what XCOM is trying to do, there are really only two serious missteps in the tactical game. The first is that the enemies don’t seem very mobile until they see or hear you, meaning they won’t ever really surprise you. They simply sit and wait for you to get into their line of sight before moving to attack. This makes most of the levels in the game feel a bit like haunted houses, where the scares just sit and wait for you to come by. You’re generally free to reload and heal up in between taking on these small groups, which lessens the mission’s tension. To cheat around the possible exploitation of the aliens’ immobility, XCOM actually gives them a free move phase the first time they’re discovered. It’s an inelegant solution to the problem of predictable enemy placement.
The lack of elbow room compounds that problem. Instead of letting players exercise their tactical muscle through maneuver and exploration, here the tactical decisions are heavily weighted towards just picking the right abilities and managing your cover. This tendency leaves you essentially playing an RPG that feels more like a cover-based shooter than a strategy game. To be fair, position matters and you can flank enemies and destroy their cover, but there’s never enough room to really get inventive with your tactical positioning.

They gave it an 8.2.

...not like I give a rip about the COD-hype mill.

I guess a high-def easymode version of Final Fantasy Tactics with suppressive fire won't be that bad...wish they would have named it something else.

AT least it won't be like the Syndicate reboot.

 

[Trash]

Does it have AI? If it would have worse performance in AI that UFO:ET, it would be tragedy.

From what I saw on the forums it doesn't even have destroyable ufo hulls on the maps, still a shit AI and they don't know how to implement ufo interiors atm. Plus they won't make the promised Beta deadline and in fact are releasing it as another Alpha update. It's all looking rather underwhelming really.

Oh, and they're thinking of implementing two stage missions to deal with ufo wrecks now. Possibly because of that not knowing how to deal with ufo interiors thingie. Sigh.

Seems that old 90's original is still the best contender.

 

[Gord]

From the IGN review

Within the framework of what XCOM is trying to do, there are really only two serious missteps in the tactical game. The first is that the enemies don’t seem very mobile until they see or hear you, meaning they won’t ever really surprise you. They simply sit and wait for you to get into their line of sight before moving to attack. This makes most of the levels in the game feel a bit like haunted houses, where the scares just sit and wait for you to come by. You’re generally free to reload and heal up in between taking on these small groups, which lessens the mission’s tension. To cheat around the possible exploitation of the aliens’ immobility, XCOM actually gives them a free move phase the first time they’re discovered. It’s an inelegant solution to the problem of predictable enemy placement.
The lack of elbow room compounds that problem. Instead of letting players exercise their tactical muscle through maneuver and exploration, here the tactical decisions are heavily weighted towards just picking the right abilities and managing your cover. This tendency leaves you essentially playing an RPG that feels more like a cover-based shooter than a strategy game. To be fair, position matters and you can flank enemies and destroy their cover, but there’s never enough room to really get inventive with your tactical positioning.

So there indeed aren't freeroaming aliens?

Wow...just...wow.

 

[Trash]

At least there now is confirmation that shots that miss do still hit and damage walls and stuff. Was afraid they'd even miss that staple.

 

[Helly]

Eurogamer – 9/10
CVG – 9.2/10
Videogamer – 9/10
OXM – 9/10
Game Informer – 95/100
Destructoid – 9/10
NowGamer – 9/10
OPM – 9/10
Kotaku – ‘Yes’
Gamers.at – 92/100
Joystiq – 4.5/5
Strategy Informer – 9/10
Lazygamer – 9/10
Polygon – 8.5/10
Machinima – 9/10
The Average Gamer – ‘Great’
PC Gamer – 87/100
Gram.Pl – 9.5/10

 

[Gozma]

There are patrols, and it probably will come down to the map and the difficulty level to see how much impact they make. But they for sure don't converge on you like JA2 or something (not that that doesn't cause other exploitable problems)

I haven't seen anyone in a stream or video using the obvious strategy of, "Keep everyone just far enough apart to keep AI from throwing grenades, only the first mover every turn should reveal any more map, almost never dash, never split up, stand still to heal and reload any turn you aren't actively fighting until you are full power before you move again." Instead they have assault dudes run and gun like 15 tiles into unknown territory to get one good shot and reveal 5 more aliens. I dunno if the "creeping blob of guns" strategy will be the general solution for the tactical layer or what

I think the strategic layer actually looks like it will be fun to explore, but it also looks very "solveable" like when you start a new game of X-Com and you rearrange the home base to be defensible and do all the other correct shit for 15 minutes before you can do anything dynamic.

 

[good little toastboy]

From what I saw on the forums it doesn't even have destroyable ufo hulls on the maps, still a shit AI and they don't know how to implement ufo interiors atm. Plus they won't make the promised Beta deadline and in fact are releasing it as another Alpha update. It's all looking rather underwhelming really.

Oh, and they're thinking of implementing two stage missions to deal with ufo wrecks now. Possibly because of that not knowing how to deal with ufo interiors thingie. Sigh.

Seems that old 90's original is still the best contender.

I tried Xenonauts again for the first time after they switched to Desura and it still is in pretty sad shape. The amount of UFOs that appear on the geoscape is absolutely bizarre right now. Played one month and detected more than 100 contacts (consisting of up to three UFOs) and completed more than 20 ground missions, all of them piss easy, due to the low amount of aliens, both being species that either are horrible shots that can't even hit my tank or die in one shot and very basic AI. No challenge just a horrible grind. I've only got one tileset (industrial) so far and there is basically one map per UFO type right now (only the Chinook facing and part south of it actually is random). The farmland tileset should be complete as well, as I remember it from an earlier alpha, there is just very little farmland to be found on the geoscape. A lot of objects aren't fully implemented, you can run through cars for example, others cause graphics glitches like things that should be behind your soldier appearing in front. Sniper rifles are by far the best weapons IMHO. The tech tree seems pretty good though and I like the air combat bits, even though I basically use the same tactics every time. At least both jets and all the weapons have their purpose as the bigger scouts already are too fast for your F-17s and the MiG's lack of a cannon make it bad at shooting down fighter squadrons. Fighters also attack your Chinook and the planes that transfer your stuff between bases. I haven't gotten to manufacturing stuff but due to there being so many UFOs I'm already swimming in Elerium and alien alloys (if I sold all of them I would have more than 30 000 000 credits, with base facilities costing a few 100k each). So to conclude balancing is pretty horrible in all areas.
Not really following the forums but to me it feels more than a year away still. The originals will remain the only games in that style worth playing for another while. Having watched more videos of the Firaxis game, I feel my demo suspicions confirmed. OK Tactics JRPG (or whatever that genre is called) maybe even worth a replay (ironman and those new game+ mutators someone mentioned), but in the end forgettable and not worth full price. Probably will pick it up during a sale.

 

[Volrath]

If you are inclined to feel that there is simply no good reason to not replicate all that made X-COM great, I am inclined to believe that you simply will not abide XCOM, with all its alterations, omissions and new explorations.

Thanks for saving me the bandwith

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Yeah, as Gozma mentioned enemies do patrol and it's impacted by difficulty. Was watching a guy (Absolutely terrible at the game, lost a campaign twice on easy with savescumming) the other day streaming it and there were times when aliens would wander up. They still get the aliens spotted animation and the free short move, though.

 

[Gozma]

Eh, I think there is a lot of shit wrong with X-Com. I also don't think "XCOM : The Boardgame" was the only solution but it was a way to approach the design in the 2012 3ED+/MTG/JRPG style with few enough UI interactions that it can be managed with a gamepad.

 

[bonescraper]

Does it have AI? If it would have worse performance in AI that UFO:ET, it would be tragedy.

Ok, you got me. The AI is pretty much still brain dead

So there indeed aren't freeroaming aliens?

There are, but the game is designed in such a way, it doesn't really matter. Every time they exit the fog of war, they receive a free turn, just like those who stand still. And since everyone in this game has a 360-degree vision, neither you nor the aliens can be really taken by surprise.

At least there now is confirmation that shots that miss do still hit and damage walls and stuff. Was afraid they'd even miss that staple.

But you still can't hit aliens or your squadmates that way.

 

[UncleJimb0]

Just read the RPS review here:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...otgun/steam+(Rock,+Paper,+Shotgun:+Steam+RSS)

I am encouraged. The reviewer seems pretty honest about the differences between the original and this one, as well as how he feels about the repetitiousness/shallowness of a lot of the game. However, he definitely makes a good case for the game as well, and I'm genuinely excited to be playing it when I get home from the shift this morning.
/fanboy

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Just what I've been saying all along.

SV uber alles

 

[Bulba]

has anyone heard of this game http://www.ufo2extraterrestrials.com/?

 

[Raghar]

Just compiled necessary DLL, and will see if it would be enough or not. Wine users said only about this problem, thus there is some chance, it would be enough (to play pirated version under Linux).

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

http://xcom.nexusmods.com/

Only a matter of time until all the aliens have dicks and the skyranger's landing gear is replaced with massive throbbing cocks.

 

[sea]

http://xcom.nexusmods.com/

Only a matter of time until all the aliens have dicks and the skyranger's landing gear is replaced with massive throbbing cocks.

Is mod support even confirmed for the game?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

http://xcom.nexusmods.com/

Only a matter of time until all the aliens have dicks and the skyranger's landing gear is replaced with massive throbbing cocks.

Is mod support even confirmed for the game?

Nope, but since it's UE3 people are hopeful I suppose.
Unpacking the preload as I type! ITZ HAPPEING

Edit: "Happeing"? MULTI-HEADED COW HAS PANICKED

Edit 2: It's time! I'M COMING FOR YOU ALIENS!

 

[Grunker]

Eurogamer – 9/10
CVG – 9.2/10
Videogamer – 9/10
OXM – 9/10
Game Informer – 95/100
Destructoid – 9/10
NowGamer – 9/10
OPM – 9/10
Kotaku – ‘Yes’
Gamers.at – 92/100
Joystiq – 4.5/5
Strategy Informer – 9/10
Lazygamer – 9/10
Polygon – 8.5/10
Machinima – 9/10
The Average Gamer – ‘Great’
PC Gamer – 87/100
Gram.Pl – 9.5/10

Hey, at least they are giving those scores to a turn-based game...