f13.net

The FPS.


 :facepalm:

(http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/1847/1271219991903.jpg) (http://img100.imageshack.us/i/1271219991903.jpg/)

Remind me, didn't this idea fail miserably once already?  Twice if you include Interceptor?

Seems like an attempt to do something like what Bethesda did with the Fallout franchise.  Unfortunately they've got the Bioshock 2 team on this rather than the Bioshock 1 team so I'm not really optimistic.

 :uhrr: :ye_gods:
 :heartbreak:
 :facepalm:

1. Pick a random game series that was popular some time in the past
2. Create an FPS game based on it
3. ???
4. Profit?

Sigh.

Completely expected, verging on parody, but still  :uhrr:

YES JUST WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR IN A NEW XCOM GAME MOVING MY CURSOR OVER A DUDE'S FACE AND PRESSING RT TO HEADSHOT HIM! GREAT WORK GUYS YA NAILED IT!

Lulz. Maybe they can call it a sequel to X-Com 2 and re-use Bioshock assets. A least System Shock to Bioshock made a little sense. "Suspense filled narrative." In X-Com. Yeah.

It's somewhat funny that the first thought I got when I read this news was "I hope they won't fuck us over with DRM", followed by "I hope they won't fuck us over by making the game filled with consoleitis", and only THEN "...I wonder if this'll even be fun".

I'm having trouble seeing how they'll make this actually work, but I suppose it'll become something like the C&C FPS spinoff, i.e. mediocre but fans of the series will lap it up anyways.

I thought we were fans?

Hm. What does it take to be counted as a "fan of the series"? I loved Enemy Unknown and Terror from the Deep, while I absolutely detested Apocalypse and Interceptor.

I'm just glad they didnt sneak in the term "reboot the franchise"  :awesome_for_real:

Gut reaction was snark, and while the tiny optimistic part of me says they could make a decent SS2 style FPS with heavy RPG and strategy elements to it (including the base building and research), the much larger jaded gamer part of me is busy chuckling at the re-skinned FPS we will end up with and pantsing the optimistic sucker that lives in my brain.

Enemy Unknown is probably my favourite game of all time, so I guess being a games enthusiast that must make me a fan?

Oh and this is a heinous way to cash in on the franchise, fuck 2K.

Actually, to be fair, the multiplayer in C&C Renegades was a blast. You had to protect the harvesters as the went out harvesting and then you could use the cash they collected to buy veichles. Actually somewhat original and really good fun.


This idea for Xcomn is fail.. ok yet another franchise where we run around shooting aliens... joy...

I'm personally looking forward to Tetris the fps.

Ok, did I sleep through the announcement of what irrational is working on or is that still hush hush?

If it is a TFTD sequel, minimal reskining of Bioshock 2 will be required.

I'm going to guess it won't be turn-based.

It's kind of sad to go back to Enemy Unknown these days.  Back in the day the version on floppies that I had back in the day was (I only found out recently) was bugged in that all the difficulties were really the easy difficulty, it didn't matter which you checked.  So I have all this nostalgia on being able to beat the game on one of the highest difficulties, only to come back to the game now and get my ass stomped on the 2nd easiest difficulty.

I hope they let us control our SunBlaster projectile with a first person cam. :drill:

I'm not really raging over this even though X-Com: UFO defense is one of my top 5 game.  There's not enough corpse left to fuck.

Fuck you guys and your FPS hate, it's going to be all about the atmosphere and crazy UFO shit. If they manage it it'll be great, even as a shooter.

Replace "random game series" with IP and you've got what they did with Shadowrun.  Worked out pretty well, didn't it?  :awesome_for_real:

This isn't about hating on fps, well not for me I like a lot of fps games, but XCOM the fps isn't XCOM. It's a cash cow.

I don't think cash cow is the right expression.

Mother fuckers taking my Shadowrun and turning it into some bastardized FPS that... $&%@!
:mob:

I still have XCOM and TFTD on my HDD (I've diligently copied everything over every time I've upgraded).

That said, I think it would be fun to rappel out of a Heli, hunt alien scum through a farm, find the crashed ship and go all Gears of War on it's dark, dimly lit corridors.

I have the original XCom on my cellphone. So nyah!

There really is nothing more to say - that pic pretty much captures it all.

(and thanks for the lulz)

Also available on Steam, btw.

Original is still fun as hell. I would buy a reskin of it with an updated UI and better graphics today. Hell, I bought the original from Steam over the holidays. A FPS? So many better ones to choose from- why would I bother?

This is such bullshit. It's the same kind of crap they tried with Fallout 3. Not only was that one of the worst games of the year, but once I installed it, fallout 1 and 2 wouldn't even run on my system anymore.

Bah.

Strangely, I didn't mind Fallout 3.  I even....liked it.

Would I have preferred something more like the original ?  Yeah, don't be daft.  Course I fucking would.  However, as a game, 3 wasn't bad.

With this, it strikes me as being LESS of a plausible concept, but my mind keeps floating back to Dungeon Keeper and the way you could zoom in to FPS it while at the same time building your base up.

Things that make you go hmmm.





Yeah, it'll probably suck balls.

 :headscratch:

If they leave the strategic/base building part alone and replace the tactical parts with a Rainbow Six-style FPS it could work.  If the tactical parts have random maps.... it could be very cool.  It they limit the number of pauses, or reward you for using fewer pauses, that would be nice also.

If they make it multiplayer and have co-op and alien-versus-human options... well, ok, they won't do that, but it would be fun.

If its all just FPS shooter I can't see it not blowing goats.

You must have exquisitely bad taste in games, because FO3 was one of the best games of 08.

A lot of people went to FO3 expecting the same tone as F01&2, which is a mistake. FO3 is awsome, but its a different tone an humor. That said, as an FPS, from a mechanics point of view, it blew radioactive goats.

I think you guys fell into Goreschach's sar-chasm.

When shooting for sarcasm, it shouldn't look like the nonsense I'd typically see here.  Hey, but at least I didn't run with it.  :awesome_for_real:

It gave me a giggle at least.  Reproducing Fallout 3's success will be difficult though.  I'd feel safe betting more on Shadowrun than Fallout 3.

Hmmm, this is in the press release, boldedpart makes it seem like there is some sort of strategy game there:

"XCOM is the re-imagining of the classic tale of humanity’s struggle against an unknown enemy that puts players directly into the shoes of an FBI agent tasked with identifying and eliminating the growing threat. True to the roots of the franchise, players will be placed in charge of overcoming high-stake odds through risky strategic gambits coupled with heart-stopping combat experiences that pit human ingenuity – and frailty – against a foe beyond comprehension. By setting the game in a first-person perspective, players will be able to feel the tension and fear that comes with combating a faceless enemy that is violently probing and plotting its way into our world."

...but maybe I'm just too optimistic that they aren't trying to crap all over memories one of my more cherished gaming moments.

This steaming pile of dog shit makes me so mad if I could I'd flaming shitbag their CEO right now.

I LOVED the first two XCOM games.  Wasted way too much time playing them...then they buried the name with the further sequels, allowing me to come once again blinking into the light of the world.

To take a game like XCOM, and make it into an FPS is an abomination of nature and they should be shot dead for daring to defile the name XCOM.  (for the record, I feel somewhat the same way about Fallout 3 as it was a HUGE letdown over Fallout 1 and 2, just not to this extreme)

Seriously, I don't care how good of an FPS game it is, or how good the story is...why the FUCK call it XCOM other than a blatant marketing strategy to try to rope in the fans which will only be up in arms over the fact that you took everything good about the game (cause let's be honest, there's not a whole lotta story there) and shat all over it.

/soapbox

Thanks for listening.

After reading Yegolev's post I'm convinced someone should try to make a turn-based FPS.

A wise move. If you're correct, you just validated your opinions. If you're wrong, you can be pleasantly surprised.

But yeah, I'm betting on another Shadowrun.

Personally, I'm betting on Daikatana as a best case, or maybe at worst it'll be X-Com Enforcer 2.

Let's do the devil's advocate thing for a second here.

A well done half life twoesque shooter with a solid cover system, intermixed with overarching story, base building and economic sub game that translates in to 3d bases you play through and also provide tech upgrade options for new weapons, etc.

Sounds ok to me.

Except you know that's not what this is going to be.  They're strictly trying to cash in on the name, again, having not learned their lesson from the last batch of horribly failed games to try to do that, in the wrong genre.  If you're going to make an alien themed fps, just name it something different, is it really that hard?  This is not the game fans of the series actually want, but the odds of anyone actually making an official sequel are slim to none.  Thankfully other game companies have picked up that ball, with mixed results.  I've pretty much accepted since X-Com Enforcer and Interceptor came out that the franchise is more or less done in name.

Eye of the Beholder, Magic Missile.  Wish I had thought of it.

Well, it's sort of already been made.  Kind of.  Valkyria Chronicles easily could have been, but they made the combat more accessible for the audience that was likely going to be playing it.

This doesn't have to suck. I'm sure it probably will, or at least, it won't be anything like X-Com and they'll be dry-humping the corpse of the original series. But it doesn't automatically suck, unless they are deadset on the shooter aspect of the FPS moniker.

Calling it now. 5 hours SP, drm-infested out the wazoo, filled with suck.

Prove me wrong, bitches. I dare you.

I think my brain just collapsed.  :ye_gods:

I seem to recall this German Aliens ripoff shooter/strategy game from the 90s that was pretty close.

What FPS hate?  It isn't like people saw 'XCOM TO BE SHOOTER" and were all, "man, Area51 was balls". 

There have been lots of first person perspective turn based rpgs, in particularly in the 80's.  For instance Bard's Tale or Might and Magic.

In the future, all games will be FPS titles.

Shit, I liked Area 51. It was the best shooter I had for my PS2. That and Black I guess.

Welcome to my EotB joke.

Oh, right.  I forgot there was a PS2-era game of that name.  I was thinking Blacksite: Area 51.

Zomg! It's a screenshot!

If it's X-Com with an FPS interface so you command your squad in real time during missions, I might not be full of nerdrage.

If it's just an FPS set in the X-Com universe, well fuck that shit.

Somebody still needs to pick up the torch and give us a turn based squaddie game with modern graphics and shit.

What year do you want your graphics from?  Of varying quality, so buyer beware, or at least do your research first.

2003
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/ufo_aftermath

2005
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/ufo_aftershock

2007
http://store.steampowered.com/app/7500/

2010 (although really around 2007)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/37030/

Basically feel the same as the majority here.

I'm pissed because I just want a new X-com Turn based strategy game with better graphics, interface, more weapons, more strategy, etc..

On the other hand, they could make a very neat game with base building and Rainbow 6 style combat (I loved spending a half hour before each level of rainbow six, meticulously plotting out the paths and actions my squadmates would take).  I dare say what I just described sounds like an awesome game to me, even if its denying me a good turn based game.

But we shall see I guess.

FO3 was the only one of the fallouts I could be assed to finish.  The rest took too long getting to a point I could hit shit without being dead in 2 rounds.  The FPS aspect enhanced it because I could rely on my own (shitty, but better than the RNG) aim skills until such time as the VATS system made much more sense.

I don't expect X-COM to get the same treatment.  It will also lack the supreme fear of running out of enough APs to fire off a snap shot, watching that fucking Chryssalid run up behind you and knowing you're about to lose one of your best men.  Also; the joy of watching him resist the implant until your next turn.
S'ok man.  I got the joke, it was good.  Also, bring-back turn-based rpgs, bitches.

And you would be right to think that, I was thinking along the lines of them milking the fps genre but wrote it in a hurry out the door and it briefly made sense.

If it's something like SWAT 4 tactical squad shooter level of difficulty and depth, I would heartily approve. but on Console? Fuck no. It's modern warfare vs aliens all over again. I bet the White House will get blown.

Have you played them? Are they any good?

I actually don't really get why there was this huge fucking period of fucking suck gameplay sometime right around my adolescence.  It's like every drooling halfwit decided to go into business making something real-time that had no fucking business being real-time.  I think that's why I like Final Fantasy Tactics, and hate almost every other Final Fantasy.

I totally think pausable real-time a la Bioware is much better than turn based.

Probably a direct result of an increase in game console / pc computing power.   Turn based games were the norm early on because most likely it was a bitch to try to code something "real time ish" that wasnt a complete memory hog.  Once shit became capable of processing all those simultaneous actions at once, everyone jumped on the "real time" bandwagon because they could.

(http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h292/ahoythematey/SMALL___Blasphemy___Shelly.jpg)

They're all shit.  Except that last one.  Not tried that yet.

Although I think the idea of an XCOM FPS is a bit stupid, the rest of the thread makes me feel like I just walked into the old peoples' home. "Real-time??? BAH! In my day, you had to wait 15 minutes real-time for the computer to work out its moves, then watch the outcomes before you could take your turn! That was real gaming! And we didn't even have a mouse - it was all done through keyboard shortcut commands!"

Its no evolution, its a different kind of game.

Compare Nethack to Diablo. While both are fun, the removal of Turns makes a strategic game where you can ponder your next move (1hp left, should I drink this unidentified potion and hope for healing or cure poison, or should I pray and hope my god isn't mad at me) into an action rpg where you open loot pinatas. While both are fun, they are fun in a different way.

I honestly don't see that much of a difference between the different games, and I don't really care that much about what graphics look like.


Hell, I'm happy to fire up this, because I think it's a fun game.
(http://games.softpedia.com/screenshots/Jagged-Alliance-2-Patch_1.jpg)
Not pretty, fun. It gives you enough information to make decisions, and it gets the job done. And it takes a long time to play through one campaign. Today's games still seem to be going for graphical glitz (fair enough, but not the holy grail in and of itself) and returning a lot less actual gameplay content for each dollar invested (both for the developer AND the consumer).

I'd actually start looking more seriously at some of the older games out there if it wasn't for the fact I'm usually spending most of my time in EVE these days, simply because I'm getting disillusioned both by the majority of today's games for their own sake (lame gameplay, lame controllers, consoleitis), and because the publishers keep on upping the DRM in an effort to "curb piracy".

The last 2 years of gaming releases makes me feel old, simply because I can say "I think games were better back in the day", and mean it.

Yeah.  That.  When games design and development was more unfettered and free, it was far more creative and fun.

Far more.

I have nothing against FPS in general, but I can't think X-COM FPS without thinking of the phrase "ENFORTH thothe alienth!!!!"

I Really enjoyed Afterlight.  It added quite a few new elements to the whole x-com theme that I really enjoyed.  Not sure why you thought it was shit.

About the UFO series, I only actually played the demo for Aftermath and it was entirely shit.  I mean that inventory bugs were immediate and obvious in the demo.  This was patched, of course, but I never got around to trying the rest of the series because of that (pay attention here, devs!).

UFO: Extraterrestrials, I know nothing of this.  Is it of the same series as the UFO: After* games?  Let's forget this FPS nastiness and resurrect talk of the X-COM clones.


You're steppin' on me begonias!

The curse of being young is turning into the people you are mocking.  The problem with being old is nostalgia.  Insurmountable.  I have played too many games for too long to put up with a half-ass but shiny X-COM clone.  The gameplay has to evolve, not devolve, otherwise I'm sitting there directing pretty soldiers and wondering why they are missing entire sets of gameplay mechanics that I remember from the original.  One that bothered me just this week was while playing Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup.  I wanted to dip a dagger into a potion, but I don't think DCSS will let me do that.  I will have to read the manual some more, or go back to Nethack.

Some games are more fun and tactical turn-based vs real time.  The mention of final fantasy tactics is an excellent one.  Would that be better as a RTS game where you're managing your squad of 8 characters?  Will X-Com the FPS even be able to hold a candle to X-Com the TBS?  

Also, some of us simply have never had the right mix of reactions and micromanagement to do RTS very well and so we don't enjoy them.  I keep hearing how the *craft series or other RTS games are fun, immerse and challenging.  I get my ass stomped in 20 mins on easy difficulty without cheating, so I wouldn't know.  My mind is such that I actually focus TOO MUCH on one thing and lose sight of others. I have a huge number of lists to track stuff IRL so I don't forget to come back to them while doing other things.  The result is the games are not for me.

Bioware's pase-based RPGs are almost the best possible mix of turn-based and real-time RPGs.  It lets you walk places without pausing every few steps and keeps the combat much more tactical. If I could actually get my characters to stay in one place when I want them to, like in TBS games - without having to completely turn off all character automation - they'd be perfect.

UFO: Extraterrestrials is more of a direct remake with new graphics and kept all the gameplay and everything intact. The After* games are spriitual successors which added onto/changed some of the gameplay. I think different studios made each.

Count me in the old people's home waxing nostalgic over turn based strategy games.  Just being turn based opens up layers of complexity and strategy you just cant get in a real time setting.  Hell its one of the reasons modern pausable party based RPG type games keep having the party size shrink.  3 people? Hell give me 6 to 8 plus summons and crap.  A 7 year old can beat me consistently in an FPS on reflex speed alone; screw that, let me use my brain.

Yeah, RTS is supposed to be a mixture of brain and reflexs, but i just never got into them.  Nowdays i see so many RTS games that i wish were turn based it's not even funny.  Starcraft/Warcraft et all is fine for lots of folks but I just dont enjoy them.  HoMM/Disciples/Civ? Yes please, and of course MtG that still is tragically not capitalized on for a killer MMO.

XCom is like Master of Magic.  Kept on the hard drive of any computer i've owned since they came out.  Still enojyable, despite the dated graphics and having to use DOSbox and such.  How many FPS games can you say that about; how many folks are playing the same FPS they enjoyed 5 years ago? Or even 2? FPS games tend to last about as long as a carton of milk in terms of long term replayability (course that's an argument in favor of developers to make more FPSs so they can keep selling new ones I know, but im a consumer damnit).

I played Doom and Quake for 3-5 years straight, but that's because it was moddable. Hell, I even did my fair share of modding (trying to make a model of my parents' house for example), but the point still stands, FPS games these days tend to tell a story, and once that story's told, that's it. The game's consumed, and there's not that much of a reason to replay it. Maybe if it's a deeper game like mass effect etc, but that still only adds a few replays to the game.

Hell, I still sometimes (seldom, but it happens) fire up the good old Last Ninja from the C64, because I used to play the fuck out of that when I was much younger.

Go play Resistance/2/Gears of War/2?  :why_so_serious:

http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1468290/usercomments
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41591
http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0861907/

I love those games. Except the end of GoW2. It's shit.

Don't they know there are no asteroid fans left? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Safran)

In response to what people are saying about how the best way to revamp the x-com series without botching into oblivion, a la UFO and other failed attempts. The closest I got was in Silent Storm but it was still buggy as hell and all it managed to do well was to mimic the turn based engine somewhat nicely. There's a few things every remake missed out on and probably thought was uneccessary, throwing light beacons to reveal blind spots being a major example. I'd say most remakes where like why do we need to add that it only slows you down from getting to what's really important killing aliens and getting shiny. This is not true cause what (I reckon) was really important in XCOM was the mood & the tension, throwing lights around in the night missions really added to this. Also I always found the AI was weirdly unpredicatable, not sure if this was down to good or bad programming, every so often it would throw you a curveball and catch you out.

So if you sat down with people and said, "What was really fun about X-Com? Why do you continue to class it as one of your favorite games ever?"

I think you'd get the following:

1) The theme
2) The base management and tech-tree advancement
3) Skilling up soldiers, identifying with your troops as they get better
4) The different abilities of the aliens and the way that they progressively get revealed as a game session goes on

Ok. So far, I guess you could try to capture that in an FPS.

But then, I'm almost certain everybody would also say:

5) The beautiful match between turn-based, squad-based, isometric display combat and all the aforementioned attributes. E.g., what made the theme (desperately overmatched Earth UFO-fighting agency trying to deal with mysterious alien incursions) work in part was the way that a turn-based and squad-centered mechanic made every fight a tense exercise in managing your movement, controlling chokepoints, and sometimes having to leave a squaddie exposed in order to work up a solid attack or capture in the next turn. What made the skilling-up great was the focus on individual squaddies and the way that the combat mechanic necessarily put them at risk (as opposed to the typically disposable, abstract units in your average FPS). What made the progressive reveal of different aliens interesting and tense was the mechanics. Etc.

So yeah, this is a case of folks just not understanding what it is that they've bought, or understanding perfectly well and buying just to snatch a name that they think has some reputational value. It's stupid.

6) The TBS engine was designed really well. Shooting through walls and windows, the build up of tension, the oh shit it's a trap moments. The AI was well programmed in that the states were used quite effectively, like the aliens chillin in their ship and you have to break in and blow them all up through one door without getting killed upon entry. Plus the usage of lighting and the aliens could always see that little further than you meaning you had to use a bit of strategy to sneak up on them using light posts as cover etc.

Also the tension in knowing that if you walk around the corner the soldier you skilled up could be one shotted, or even turned into an alien (those black aliens always made terrorist missions so extremely stressful, in a fun way though)

*edit* oh yeah they turned you into zombies, that then morphed into another crystalis (or whatever it was called) when you killed the zombie.

Don't forget destructible terrain and cover that meant a metric fuckload, something FPS games haven't really gotten right yet.

Christ.  Seeing that JA2 screenshot up there makes me want to reinstall that shit.  I think I will.

Yes to destructible terrain.  I remember the glee when I found out that the alien pistol I had confiscated could shoot holes in the fucking houses.  Yeah, who's the bitch now, eh?  I'll perforate this whole neighborhood if I have to!  What?  That was a load-bearing wall?  ARGH!!

Yeah, I loved the destructible terrain.  I always couldn't stand losing one of my leveled up guys, so I'd always restart if one of the bought it.  This lead to me playing the game like Team America.  My strategy on most missions was to have everybody armed with rocket launchers (or later, the alien rocket launchers that basically shot the mini nukes from Starship Troopers).  I'd then proceed very cautiously around the stage, leveling half of it with high explosives.

"I saw an alien move by the window in that house!"  *several rockets collapse the house* "Ok, good."
"Hmm, there could be an alien behind that hedge."  *rocket salvo*

I loved the alien rocket launchers that you could control the flight path of.  I'd basically stand out side of any UFO and launch salvo's into them, destroy every room before running in.

I'm not old.  There's just a good fucking reason that humans haven't invented real-time chess yet.

You're old. (http://www.tempestchess.com/)

:awesome_for_real: I'm so playing that right now.

I hate you and everything you stand for.

That was a terrible game thus proving TBS>RTS.

That's probably nostalgia talking to some extent. There is also some extent of consoles dividing the market based on what you can play (so that you either need all consoles and a PC to play the best games of each, or you miss out on some titles... although arguably that's been happening since the 2600 as well). Plus it is also hard to view the classics of right now until probably a few years have passed and the chaff gets filtered from the wheat. Outside of the relatively major issue ( :awesome_for_real:) of limited publisher diversity, gaming is very strong, with a pretty good range of titles to suit most people.

I liked XCOM, never played the sequels based on word of mouth. I also remember the howls of outrage over Fallout 3 going 'real time' and how that ended up. As for XCOM the FPS? We'll see. If you can pause it and flip between members of your unit, plus the AI on both sides isn't retarded, it could do a lot of the things mentioned above. Add in a destructible environment and it'd be golden.

... or we might get XCOM: Gears of Halo.

:awesome_for_real:

Not really. I'll admit that old games like commander keen, wolfenstein, doom etc would probably be a bit boring by today's standards, but that has to do with the fact we're more demanding now than back then. However, games like JA2 are still as fun now as it was back then, same goes for civilization, sim city, openttd, and probably moo3 (although I haven't played that one). None of those have what I would call "stellar graphics", and are far from new.

And very few of today's attempts at basing themselves in these general niches have ever expanded on the featuresets. They've got better graphics, sure, but the underlying mechanics always seem to be simpler, with less to do.

I'd love to be proven wrong, though, since that would mean there's been new games which are actually worth replaying. I just generally don't feel that's the case these days.

Developers who are basically thrown these projects probably haven't the first Iota what made these games good, Civilization is safe cause it's still supervised by the original creator, XCOM isn't. You will likely have a bunch of hairbrained developers who go, oh there's this game called XCOM that everybody loves its about "shooting aliens" and setting up bases so you end up with this micro managment heavy half assed attempt at the original that has an RTS engine with about as much strategy as "Whack a mole".

you definitely meant "moo2" because moo3 SUCKED AND KILLED THE FUCKING FRANCHISE.  Motherfucking morons... but I'm not bitter!

I can see that. :grin:

I honestly have no idea about any of the MOO games, since I never played any of them, I just remembered somebody said they were good. But actually, now that you mention it, I do remember having a conversation with a friend of mine, where he mentioned that moo3 sucked.

Probably should give moo2 and 3 a try myself, just to see if it is as bad as I'm sort of starting to fear.

Try moo1 and moo2.  They are both very different takes on 4X.  MOO1 focuses on massive numbers of units and diplomacy.  Very much a emperor-level vies of a space empire.  MOO2 focuses on customized ships, heros and tactical combat.  Very different experiences.  Both are fun.

If you are wondering how moo3 plays, open a spreadsheet and take a nap.

JA2, though, is fun not just because it's squad-based turn-based tactical, a sadly underrepresented genre even at the best of times, but because the personalities of the mercs and how it meshes with the management of a mission team is so fucking awesome. That dimension of gameplay, I have to say, can be found in some later games, though not nearly as often as it should be.

Which games have that dimension of gameplay? I haven't seen many of them, except maybe mass effect and other bioware games)

Somehow I never played JA2, but I still remember stuff that happened in JA. The personalities and interactions were pure gold, and as you say, the game was really suited to it adding to the gameplay.

 :heart: Fidel's temper

http://www.xenonauts.com/

Much better looking IMO.

And they're adding strategic flight combat as well!!! WOOOOOO!

It really doesn't need reinvention or reimagination. Just new graphics and UI. Shut your ego off and collect the money.

Also, in dev for 9 months and releasing this year by a Crysis mod team, what could go wrong?

You know, maybe if Kael was doing it, I might retain hope. But in most lights, that doesn't look promising.

So is EVE Online what moo3 should've been? :why_so_serious:

There's no media  :uhrr:

I meant conceptually. :) 

Supposedly media is coming soon.  They announced sooner than they wanted that they were working on it because of all the hubbub about 2k's game.  Premature still if you ask me, but there was so much coverage about the FPS version I think they wanted to get word out that there will be an announcement.

I wonder if they will soon have the game up for pre-presale?   :why_so_serious:

Great, so this thread made me install X-Com.  It's fun and all, but I'm up in the middle of the night and one of my men took out the other 3 that weren't dead/unconscious while under mind control with a laser pistol in THE SAME TURN!  I should have just capped him when I had the chance instead of trying to stun him.

This game is just as good as I remember.

Bastards.

If I do this, then I'll end up doing it ALL, up to and including Silent Storm.

BASTARDS.

Well, if today's games don't provide it...

Turn to the old side. You know you want to. :grin:

Yeah, once a squaddie has shown himself vulnerable to mind control you want to get rid of him as soon as possible there really is no saving them at that point.

Remember the mechs.  You would end all of this with a couple of retarded mech levels.

Galactic Civilizations is, especially the second one and its expansions.

There's a fan mod to get the mechs out.

Which I used after the FIRST time that one of the mechs shot up a fucking ladder and trapped my whole squad in a hole in the ground.

That's the trouble with fully desctructable terrain and no fucking 'climb' command.

 :awesome_for_real:

Dang it, now I want in on that :( I have wanted to be part of a x-com game for a while.

"Preview" on NeoGaf (I don't know what NeoGaf is, it was linked on Blues) ... What the hell?! (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=21010996&postcount=825)

That "preview" is just text.  It describes something that is clearly not XCOM.  Why did they even bother grabbing the IP?


I think why he laughs is because they played a lot of XCOM, then they went on to develop a game that had virtually nothing to do with XCOM.  Actually, that is pretty funny.  Sad, but funny.

That sounds absolutely nothing like anything to do with X-Com. Why bother?

(http://imgur.com/bUe73.jpg)

NeoGAF is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) message boards devoted to video games.  As mentioned at the top of the post you linked, the preview is actually in the June issue of OXM (Official Xbox Magazine) and runs for 7 pages, so presumably it's not just text.  This is just a forum poster summarizing the preview.

Quoting the first reply because it was clearly not xcom right from this point in the thread.

There are only two xcom games. Everything else always has been and always will be designed from the ground up as mental torture for our people. You will all live happier lives once you come to accept this.

(I thought X-Com Apocalypse had its moments. At least it was pretty faithful to the basic concept of the series.)

Trailer (http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14252327/x-com-project/videos/e32010_xcom_e3trailer_60910.html?show=hi) is up. Looks like Bioshock with vintage and a bit of alien weaponry. Snore.

The writeup in game informer makes it SOUND like Bioshock, as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYXYmYq3kWc

^ Yeah, that. ^  :uhrr:

When the fuck did the X-Com aliens turn into the black oil from X-Files?

Their own press releases make it sound exactly like Bioshock. You can replace X-Com with Bioshock in them and they read exactly the same if not better.

They are really trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole here. Explore the exciting narrative and mystery of Rap- err we mean aliens and shit!

Someone will release a mod that turns those aliens white, then we can have a Radicalthon involving attacks from overly aggressive semen.

Utter Wank.

Pass.

I don't understand why they decided to tie this to the X-COM license?  Just so people could go, "That's not anything I liked about X-COM."?

Name it pretty much anything else and they would have a better reaction.

But, you know, NOT X-COM.

Very much agreed. It doesn't look like an inherently bad game, but XCOM to me is resource management and 3rd person tactics, not FPS twitch reactions.

Meh, whatever. I have all my xcom games on steam, I'm happy.

And we have a title!

More than that, it doesn't even look like an FPS set in the XCOM world.  Nothing about that trailer has anything to do with XCOM.  They could have titled it anything else.  They basically spent a bunch of money to be able write a certain name on the box.

The only thing slightly related to XCOM is the research part.

Could have called it Stargate and cashed in even more.

I can't wait for this game. Vitachamber in the car trunk would let me respawn when killed right?  :awesome_for_real: