Pissed about an X-Com FPS? Firaxis hears ya...

[Tannhauser]

I believe the fighting is turn based in a VATS like sort of system. Or full on (3d)FPS.

Bureau's fighting is like Mass Effect.  You have two NPC and yourself and can pause the battle and bring up a combat wheel to issue orders. From the trailer on the Steam website.

[Jade Falcon]

Anyone venture to try it yet? Month or two will it be 10$ on steam?

[Samprimary]

Not exactly, it'll be $25, but if you have several workshops chained together the rebate takes it down to 10

[kildorn]

I believe the fighting is turn based in a VATS like sort of system. Or full on (3d)FPS.

Bureau's fighting is like Mass Effect.  You have two NPC and yourself and can pause the battle and bring up a combat wheel to issue orders. From the trailer on the Steam website.

Pause-ish. It's probably the only neat thing in the game. It slows time when you go into the menu, then gradually increases time to keep you from basically just using it to scout (since you can see everything in it)

Anywho, my verdict is: will be cheap in a month or two. Will probably be worth a random run through then since the setting is kind of fun. But the gameplay and pacing are kind of shit. I don't actually hate it for being a shooter. I dislike it for being a really poorly done shooter and the assets feel like they were supposed to happen in another order but all the redesigns scattered shit into an obnoxious mess.

I'm only slightly annoyed that Enemy Unknown and the FPS don't seem to be even slightly playing off the same canon lore. So while the enemies are the same visually the motivations and tech and everything else just makes no sense between the two. Whoever is managing the XCOM license really doesn't seem to care about it as an IP.

[Phildo]

I played it for about 30 minutes and was pretty disappointed.  Movement felt a little slow, and the combat was sort of jerky with all the pausing.  There's also a dialog wheel a la Mass Effect, although I only made it through one conversation so I'm not sure what impact that actually has.  Worth it for the preorder bonuses, maybe, but otherwise you should wait for a major price drop.

[Megrim]

Guys, guys, stop talking about the crappy fps, and talk about this instead!

RPS article here.

[Trippy]

That's *so* last page.

[Megrim]

Er, oh. So it is.

Well.

Fuck YOUR shit sir.

[Ingmar]

Have some gameplay, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GCSoqdOZ0-M

[Fabricated]

Mech troops look hilarious.

[satael]

Mech troops look hilarious.

That actually reminded me of Silent Storm which I enjoyed right up until the panzerkleins came into play and made all the previous stuff useless. 

[Morat20]

I'm okay with punchsploding aliens.

[Segoris]

Same, especially since it does damage to the terrain a few squares behind.

[Samprimary]

I'm guessing that the mech units are going to be the quintessential assault platform - they will have tons of HP, possibly some damage mitigation/reduction, but will be completely unable to benefit from cover.

Best used to punch a hole in a standoff and let regular troopers in to murder away/have squadsight

[Fabricated]

In the interview thing I watched that was pretty much the idea. They don't use gear; they have upgrades. A power melee, a big gun, a shield that lets them mitigate a huge amount of damage for periods of time, etc.

You can also buy genetic upgrades for soldiers that let them do stuff like regenerate health when critically low, or scale buildings without a ghost or skeleton suit.

[Merusk]

The Human Sectopod.

[Fabricated]

Enemy Within is out and it owns.

Stuff:
-Haven't gotten to use meld yet sadly.
-You now earn medals for various things (not sure what the conditions for the ones I got are outside of map selection), you pick from two powers, assign it to that specific type of medal (permanent), then you can give them to soldiers to make them better. Minor bonuses (+5 aim on targets in cover, +5 defense in cover, etc), but neat.
-Meld in the field is kinda stupid; I don't think it starts counting down unless you spot it? The meld canisters I didn't spot never detonated.
-Tons of new maps and tweaked old ones, which is honestly the best part of the game.

Game also feels like it looks/performs better too. I kinda feel like they should've made the campaign take longer however...it feels like it moves along at the same pace (i.e. you still kinda have the same 'hard' time limits to get shit done before the aliens start outpacing your tech early on) but they crammed all this neat shit in that I'd really like time to appreciate. Yeah you get the ability to start using meld early but it feels like they expect you to spread yourself even thinner than usual to play with the new toys.

[koro]

I've been playing through EW (Classic, non-Ironman) and I really like it. Some observations:

Research takes a longer, and labs are far more useful now because of it. I'm in month three and still using conventional weapons because everything takes so damn long to research now without a lot of scientists.

MECs are pretty great. They have a ton of health, can be fielded within a few weeks, and their weapons are insane. My flamethrower MEC has trivialized more than a couple missions. There is no reason to ever build a SHIV anymore.

I haven't gotten to do much gene-modding of dudes yet, but the few I've unlocked are really good. I have a close quarters-focused Assault who takes less time to heal in med bay and regens 1 HP per turn, for instance.

Even though the tech tree has expanded, research now takes longer, and there is a lot more stuff to spend your money on (the arsenal has blown up, with a ton of new inventory gadgets), the amount of funding Council nations gives hasn't changed, and you still have the overwhelming burden of having to prioritize satellite coverage over everything else. This was the weakest part of the original game and Enemy Within does nothing to address this, aside from arguably making it worse.

Even though I'm well into the third month, I still haven't encountered the new EXALT faction. This is kind of unsettling, since I was expecting to run into them a lot sooner. I'm soon going to be out-teching them in a big way when I finally do run into them, and that may not be fun.

From what people who've played the expansion pre-release and beaten it have said, the campaign is more or less a lot harder in the early months, but actually much easier in the post-alien-base months than in the original game.

Edit: MELD in the field counts down while you're out running about, but it does it much more slowly. I don't think it can detonate until you spot it though. I've uncovered a few canisters that had only 1 turn on them. Nevermind, it can be lost even when not spotted.

[Teleku]

Awesome, I'll have to get ahold of this.  All of the additions sound really good, and the pacing issues seem like they can easily be fixed by a fairly simple mod.

[Jeff Kelly]

I've really enjoyed XCom and I've replayed the campaign three times (twice on the Xbox and once on my iPad). That being said I have zero interest in buying and playing the expansion. The core mechanics of XCom are just to limiting and repetitive for me to think I'd enjoy the expansion much.

[Fabricated]

If someone makes a mod that basically doubles the length of the game in terms of time you're allowed to kinda spend doing the usual things (shooting down UFOs, invading landing sites, abductions, council missions) between major milestones/plot turns I think I'd never stop playing.

I want time to play with my toys. I don't want to skip tons of research; shit I know it's probably sacrilege but I NEVER have built or upgraded SHIVs. I don't play Ironman or Impossible however.

In my head a game extension mod would do something like make some of the new events "milestones" like the Alien Base/First Terror Mission/First Etheral confrontation + Device seizing/Gollop Chamber/Temple Ship and pad the time frame in which you are expected to get your shit together for each.

So like maybe First Contact -> First Downed UFO -> Alien Containment/Arc Thrower -> First Terror Mission -> EXALT introduction -> Capture Outsider/Alien Base -> XCOM base invasion -> much longer later game where you deal with EXALT who interferes with you teching up to find AND down the Ethereal's ship -> Late Game "Shit Gets Real" stuff where the tough aliens/EXALT start showing up as you have to find your Psionic soldier -> Gollop Chamber/End

Maybe accomplish this through making the non-picked abduction sites gain panic slower (or increasing panic units from 5 to 10 or something so you can slice/dice it better), maybe add ways of lowering panic that aren't perfectly defeated terror missions or major council missions. Make Satellites more expensive or require you to use interceptors to defend them so your fancy and expensive air to air tech gets used some more.

I dunno; I want more GAME so enjoy the MORE STUFF.

[Ingmar]

I've really enjoyed XCom and I've replayed the campaign three times (twice on the Xbox and once on my iPad). That being said I have zero interest in buying and playing the expansion. The core mechanics of XCom are just to limiting and repetitive for me to think I'd enjoy the expansion much.

I can't reconcile your first and third sentences.

[Hoax]

@Jeff & Fab.

Mods exist for this game despite Firaxis' best efforts. I personally have only played Long War campaigns so far but its pretty much exactly what you want Fab, in addition to have max squads of 8 and 8 classes in the game along with a bunch of other stuff. I tweak it pretty heavily myself to my own preferences. If you want to get into stuff like that the first steps are Resource Hacker and Toolboks. You can find all of it on nexus just like you would with Skyrim mods.

[Morat20]

I'm looking forward to trying this. :) Sadly, my current budget is not sufficient.

[Ingmar]

This is really, really good.

[Fabricated]

The expansion is really great. I'm working on getting a psionic right now to open up the temple ship and it's awesome. The problem is again it feels like the time table the game wants you on is way too short for all the new shit.

I finished off exalt and made a mec early on (which is bad I guess since doing it at higher levels helps their stats) and my mec is still 2-3 levels off max and kinda feels weak compared to my gene-modded soldiers. Meld is definitely a finite resource; I've only missed like 4-5 canisters max and I think I only had enough meld to make 1 maxed out MEC and ~13-14 gene mods total. I imagine classic games will take a LOT longer and thus provide more meld, but given the lost investment if you lose a genemodded soldier the second heart mod might be necessary on higher difficulties.

Also the XCOM base invasion is very, very mean and you could easily be handed an unwinnable situation depending on who the game decides to pick out of your roster.

[koro]

Heh. My friends in IRC got kind of mad at me when I showed off that I did the  mission on Classic, not just without a dead soldier, but without anyone taking any med-bay-worthy injuries.

[koro]

Also, if you don't like the lack of armor sleeves that gene-modded soldiers get:

http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/411//?

[Fabricated]

That is kinda annoying. I wish I could swap between the sleeveless look and sleeved look.

Game owns though:

[Jeff Kelly]

I can't reconcile your first and third sentences.

Well, when I bought it I played it once on normal and once on classic difficulty. The second playthrough was done to apply the stuff I had learned the first time. The iPad version I' never really finished. I bought it because I wanted to support real and somewhat normal priced games on iOS. The game also fits really well with iOS and touch based controls.

The problem for me is that the combat is stripped down to the absolute core mechanics which means that there is not that much variety. You move to overwatch and focus fire enemies. The strategy layer doesn't really lend itself to 'base building' since at first you're just rushing for satellite coverage and once you've survived that the game sets into a really glacial pace where you just run missions to finish the tech tree, because you wait for the psionic lottery to give you wins and for levelling up your dudes.

The pacing of the game is off and the three core systems somewhat fight against each other. It was fun for two playthroughs but by the time I finished classic I was already bored. by the lack of variety. The iOS version came late enough that I had fun starting another game but by the time I had full coverage and was in month three of 'waiting for the psionic chamber to give me gifted personal and then levelling them' I gave up.

It's a fun game but after 2 1/2 playthroughs I find that it has not that much replay value and I fear that the expansion is just more of the same.

[Tebonas]

In that regard I'm having a blast with my MEC mixing it up. Walking up to Chyrsalids and punching them through a wall is tremendous fun, although that fun almost cost me my MEC in the  mission. Luckily my sniper selflessly gave his live to cover his retreat before he got swarmed (don't look at me that way, MELD is precious).

[Ironwood]

Fuck it guys, stop talking.

I NEED this now.

[Khaldun]

That Newfoundland mission is like

Uh oh
UH oh
UH OH
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
I NEED RIPLEY TO COME THROUGH THE WALL IN A TRANSPORT RIGHT NOW

Though I actually got out of it with only one guy down, and that was a heroic sacrifice intended to get everyone else away.

[Fabricated]

I can't reconcile your first and third sentences.

Well, when I bought it I played it once on normal and once on classic difficulty. The second playthrough was done to apply the stuff I had learned the first time. The iPad version I' never really finished. I bought it because I wanted to support real and somewhat normal priced games on iOS. The game also fits really well with iOS and touch based controls.

The problem for me is that the combat is stripped down to the absolute core mechanics which means that there is not that much variety. You move to overwatch and focus fire enemies. The strategy layer doesn't really lend itself to 'base building' since at first you're just rushing for satellite coverage and once you've survived that the game sets into a really glacial pace where you just run missions to finish the tech tree, because you wait for the psionic lottery to give you wins and for levelling up your dudes.

The pacing of the game is off and the three core systems somewhat fight against each other. It was fun for two playthroughs but by the time I finished classic I was already bored. by the lack of variety. The iOS version came late enough that I had fun starting another game but by the time I had full coverage and was in month three of 'waiting for the psionic chamber to give me gifted personal and then levelling them' I gave up.

It's a fun game but after 2 1/2 playthroughs I find that it has not that much replay value and I fear that the expansion is just more of the same.

They use a carrot to get you to not do layered overwatch in the form of meld, which is required to make MECs and GeneMod soldiers; you get so many rounds to either finish the mission or collect it on the map before it self-destructs. Also there's some new enemies that punish you for using lone-wolf squadsight snipers at the end of the map. There's a LOT more maps, lots of new council missions, EXALT, dozen+ new usable items (Reaper Rounds which boost conventional weapon power at the cost of range, decoy beacons, needle grenades which have a big explosion but don't destroy cover, combat stims now are unlimited use and don't suck, gas nades, etc), and so on.

Genemods are hilariously powerful; mimetic skin in particular is borderline broken.

[Merusk]

Damnit.

I can still hold off until the X-mas sale.. Really. I can!