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

[Grunker]

codex verdict on this shit game?

Ulm: It's shit bros

sser: It's k bros

MHC: It's good bros

 

[Kane]

codex verdict on this shit game?

Ulm: It's shit bros

sser: It's k bros

MHC: It's good bros

Ulminati, sser and Multi-headed Cow want to write a joint-effort review of the game, you say?
I'll be able to read it by tomorrow you say?

 

[Infinitron]

I want to be a Ken Levine

http://www.destructoid.com/bioshock-creator-ken-levine-is-playable-in-xcom-236428.phtml

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Why does a shooter miss at point blank?

 

[Ulminati]

That's yet another thing that kinda rubs me the wrong way compared to the old XCOM games. No ammunition. Not because I love micromanaging inventories (well, I do) but because bringing Plasma weapons in UFO meant you were burning through elerium. And if you got stuck in a downward spiral it wasn't feasible to maintain a full-plasma squad. Not to mention losing equipment if your guys went down and you didn't recover it.

Here you just make 1-2 of an item and you're set for life. Also, instant production is a weird choice considering you have to wait for everything else and slowly rolling out upgrades for the squad over a couple of missions means you gotta choose which men get the cool toys.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

I like it how mongs who haven't even played the game are calling it shit. Stop LARPING as Skyway.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Not because I love micromanaging inventories (well, I do)

We all do bro.

 

[Infinitron]

Josh Sawyer is playing XCOM? http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...rid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=192#post408416612

I think he's been lurking on the Codex too much.

 

[Kane]

Not because I love micromanaging inventories (well, I do)

We all do bro.

I don't see what's wrong with micromanaging inventories. But apparently that's "too complicated" for the average player.

 

[Kane]

I think he's been lurking on the Codex too much.

Literally Hitler is as old as they get get, for an SA term. Goonfleet's slogan n Eve Online is "SOLODRAKBAN is literally Hitler"

 

[Infinitron]

I think he's been lurking on the Codex too much.

Literally Hitler is as old as they get get, for an SA term. Goonfleet's slogan n Eve Online is "SOLODRAKBAN is literally Hitler"

Ah I see.

 

[good little toastboy]

That's yet another thing that kinda rubs me the wrong way compared to the old XCOM games. No ammunition. Not because I love micromanaging inventories (well, I do) but because bringing Plasma weapons in UFO meant you were burning through elerium. And if you got stuck in a downward spiral it wasn't feasible to maintain a full-plasma squad. Not to mention losing equipment if your guys went down and you didn't recover it.

Here you just make 1-2 of an item and you're set for life. Also, instant production is a weird choice considering you have to wait for everything else and slowly rolling out upgrades for the squad over a couple of missions means you gotta choose which men get the cool toys.

I don't remember if it has been fixed but in the version I played as a kid you could just remove the clips from your guns before the mission ends and you magically wouldn't lose it. The absence of exploits like this and laser cannons'r'us makes the strategic layer pretty good even though it has been dumbed down to one base etc. The research system seems pretty cool too, it adds quite a lot of incentives to capture live aliens, which can potentially fuck you over. It sure feels more boardgamey but this boardgame-ness makes it 100% clear if you are flanking the enemy or not. Once you get a few levels on your soldiers and with that some skills and a squadsize of 6 the RNG will play a much lesser role and I found the combat more and more enjoyable. I guess I have to eat my own words, I'm on the edge of buying this one full price. I haven't tried impossible and therefore can't comment about losing the game despite never losing a mission. On classic it might be the most enjoyable game I've played of this popamole generation.

 

[Gord]

Strangely right now this one seems the better choice than Dishonored.
Still undecided, maybe I'll wait for a sale on both.

 

[kris]

So I started a classic game without the tutorial. Mission one - two casualties. Mission two with a small UFO taken down - complete failure, first three of my squadmembers were obliterated by sectoids, then this energy guy flanked and murdered the fourth one. I'm completely hooked; probably will restart on normal to get a hang of the game and learn some nifty tricks and then restart on classic once I feel ready.

you can change difficult during a game. I did. Started two missions with normal, changed to classic.

 

[Surf Solar]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/10/h...el=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0

Using certain soldier names in XCOM: Enemy Unknown will activate XCOM Heroes – pre-designed super soldiers such as Sid Meier and Ken Levine. Before activating a Hero, a pop-up will warn you that they’re too damn amazing to allow you to continue the game with achievements turned on, and you cannot modify a Hero character after summoning it. If you decide to use one, do avoid killing him with some bull-headed tactical screw-up — we’d kind of like BioShock Infinite to be finished.

 

[Grunker]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/10/h...el=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0

Using certain soldier names in XCOM: Enemy Unknown will activate XCOM Heroes – pre-designed super soldiers such as Sid Meier and Ken Levine. Before activating a Hero, a pop-up will warn you that they’re too damn amazing to allow you to continue the game with achievements turned on, and you cannot modify a Hero character after summoning it. If you decide to use one, do avoid killing him with some bull-headed tactical screw-up — we’d kind of like BioShock Infinite to be finished.

Why is that bad? It's just a cheat. A pretty creative one at that.

Too few games have in-game cheats these days.

 

[Surf Solar]

Didn't say it's bad, was just a bit surprised. Reminds me of Fallout, naming the PC "Buffy" etc.

 

[Gozma]

That's yet another thing that kinda rubs me the wrong way compared to the old XCOM games. No ammunition. Not because I love micromanaging inventories (well, I do) but because bringing Plasma weapons in UFO meant you were burning through elerium. And if you got stuck in a downward spiral it wasn't feasible to maintain a full-plasma squad. Not to mention losing equipment if your guys went down and you didn't recover it.

Here you just make 1-2 of an item and you're set for life. Also, instant production is a weird choice considering you have to wait for everything else and slowly rolling out upgrades for the squad over a couple of missions means you gotta choose which men get the cool toys.

Man no one ever ran out of heavy plasma clips in UFOD

Reloading in EU has much more average gameplay impact than clips did in UFOD. The stuff that makes things like inventory cool are generally "emergent" situations, like when you have a guy run out of ammo 90% of the way through a base mission and he has to grab more off an alien's corpse.

This is why I referred to the game as a "rogue like."

Makes sense to me, I love roguelikes and I don't find the probability wrangling in this offputting. UFOD is even more extreme probability-wise (every shot can do from 0-200% base damage), it's just that you care about the individual mans less.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Cool Cover Bro.

Yes i killed them through a mountain.

 

[Gord]

I guess that the higher granularity in the original (time units instead of 2x move, 1x move & shoot or just 1x shoot) and different fire modes, together with more soldiers made it possible to offset the RNG to some degree. It was still very much there, though. A few bad rolls could screw a mission, esp. when the first psionic aliens showed up.

fizzelopeguss:

Seems like an obvious bug to me. Ironic one, though.

 

[Raghar]

It kinda reminds me about the lack of collision detection in Drakensang. Looks like collision detection and raycasting is something impossible for new game developers.

 

[Kane]

It kinda reminds me about the lack of collision detection in Drakensang. Looks like collision detection and raycasting is something impossible for new game developers.

Collision detection requires considerable amounts of CPU power that are already being used up by particle effects and other fluff.

 

[spectre]

In case somebody gives a shit, just had some time to dick around with the kernel dll replacement fix for win xp, I repasted a few pages back.
Unfortunately, doesn't work on the pirated version. Will see if it works on the demo (it should), won't be buying the full game to test it.

 

[KoolNoodles]

At first I was going to be an apologist for this game, you know, "it's good for what it is". Or "it's fun", or some other feel good phrase like that, but my sister said something that completely turned that around for me, for all these new games.

She's not a huge gamer, but grew up with nerds in the family, so played XCOM growing up, Civilization, Myst, Doom etc. etc. Some good old classics. She's a lawyer so doesn't have much time for games, but still enjoys them from time to time. I recently got her a copy of Civ5 so she could check it out, because it's one of those franchises you just stick with. She was disappointed to say the least, and went back to Civ4.

Then, just a few days ago she sent me a link to a preview of XCOMEU they had on Hulu, and asked if I knew about it or if it was good. I didn't say whether it was "good" or "bad", I just told her about the demo, the combat, the geoscape, things they had removed or replaced from the original, etc.

All she replied was: "It's a sad world when even nerdy PC games get dumbed down."

 

[Raghar]

In case somebody gives a shit, just had some time to dick around with the kernel dll replacement fix for win xp, I repasted a few pages back.
Unfortunately, doesn't work on the pirated version. Will see if it works on the demo (it should), won't be buying the full game to test it.

I already said pirates screwed up crack by making it Vista+ only.

 

[Ulminati]

All she replied was: "It's a sad world when even nerdy PC games get dumbed down."

God bless that marvelous specimen of femininity