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

[Mrbloodworth]

Or UFO: Alien Invasion.

[Yegolev]

[Mrbloodworth]

lol.

[HaemishM]

Follow-up to the Gameinformer preview - again with screenshots

SPROING again.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yes, it looks good. I even like the UI in that.

HOPEFULLY! There will be less "Round One: Open ship door. Entire team just died to a grenade" moments.

[bhodi]

I am eager for a whole new generation of people to learn the harsh lesson "Thall Shalt Not Fire a Blaster Bomb Whilst In The Skyranger.".

[Ironwood]

Why.  Why would you do that ?

Sure, trees get in the way and sometimes walls and buildings, but in the plane ?   

Mad.

[taolurker]

Yeah because the aliens never used mind control and made one of your characters do that killing half your team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF1Ug2UDhnM

[UnSub]

I finished XCOM (or XCOM 2, perhaps) by mind controlling one of alien guards and shooting the Queen. Ahh, good times.

[KallDrexx]

I am eager for a whole new generation of people to learn the harsh lesson "Thall Shalt Not Fire a Blaster Bomb Whilst In The Skyranger.".

The best part is when the rocket goes off, and the mouse stops moving for 30-60 seconds.  You can just imagine him just screaming "FUCK" over and over again 

[Ironwood]

Yeah because the aliens never used mind control and made one of your characters do that killing half your team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF1Ug2UDhnM

You find out the Psionic defense with training and anything below 90 gets labelled 'Fodder'.

My Commander was 90/90 + and went into alien bases with nothing but a pistol and a psiamp.

Good times.

[Merusk]

Heh.  Reminds me of a game I watched my roomate play.  He had a guy with absolute *shit* scores that he hadn't gotten around to sacking yet for reasons I don't quite remember.   Bravery below 20, crappy strength, accuracy was something ridiculous like 30 and no throwing skill.  Shit ton of movement and endurance, though. 

Base invasion: Sectoids. There's only 4 or 5 guys in the base, including Mr. Chickenshit.  Sectoids manage to MC a few of his guys who off each other, leaving only Mr. Chickenshit with a laser pistol and a psi-amp and someone who panics, despite having a bravery of 50.  Mr. CS proceeds to clear the damn base himself, resisting all MC attempts and panic attempts while also managing to MC several Sectoids.   We're both in awe and he runs the guy through psi training to discover - hey - he had a natural psi ability of 80. 

Things like that are what I miss in current games and why I wait eagerly for this reimagining.

[Trippy]

Yeah because the aliens never used mind control and made one of your characters do that killing half your team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF1Ug2UDhnM

You find out the Psionic defense with training and anything below 90 gets labelled 'Fodder'.

I wouldn't know, none of my guys ever died in my games

[Mrbloodworth]

XCOM: Enemy Unknown first look - in-game footage and interview

[Tairnyn]

XCOM: Enemy Unknown first look - in-game footage and interview

I am now officially excited. 

[koro]

So instead of an AP system, it basically uses a D&D/Tactics Ogre/Final Fantasy Tactics-style system where you can choose to forego an action command to do a double move instead.

I'm cool with that.

[HaemishM]

XCOM: Enemy Unknown first look - in-game footage and interview

Saw that this morning. Gamer boner the size of Oklahoma.

[Mrbloodworth]

I really like the refinements. They seemed to have knocked off not only the obvious rough edges from the original, but found some more to boot.

All I see watching that is X-com. This is a good thing.

[Malakili]

XCOM: Enemy Unknown first look - in-game footage and interview

Saw that this morning. Gamer boner the size of Oklahoma.

Wow that looks amazing.   Instant buy.

[Merusk]

Still not out 'till next year, right?  The Mayans will have killed those of us who remain after the rapture with black holes and Higgs-Bosun particles through our cell phones before that.

[Ironwood]

Holy Fuck.

That looks really, really, really good.  The Base stuff in particular was really nicely done.

[jakonovski]

Everything in the video seems really...superficial.

[Ironwood]

In what sense ?

[Mrbloodworth]

Everything in the video seems really...superficial.

Your face is superficial!




 

[Sky]

Well, he is correct. But superficial in a sexy cam alien headshot is awesome kind of way.

I'd rather have the time unit resource management, but lol console gamers are retards.

Still looks awesome, just doubtful it'll be very deep.

[tgr]

I'm hoping that can be switched off.

[Tairnyn]

Still not out 'till next year, right?  The Mayans will have killed those of us who remain after the rapture with black holes and Higgs-Bosun particles through our cell phones before that.

Says Fall 2012 at the end of the video, so hopefully we'll get a few months of fun before sweet, sweet rapture.

I can only pray they don't cannibalize the game and remove shit to make it DLC. Get an edge on the greys and save the world in style! $10 for extra Action Points for all squad members! $15 at release for 3 new mission types and the formidable Alien Plasma Rifle!

[MrHat]

I'm hoping that can be switched off.

Same.  Or at least a slider that lets us chose are level of vanity.

The Bunker stuff looked great.  I wonder how much 'choice' we'll have in a campaign setting, more limited options and increasing difficulty to add to replayability.

[koro]

I don't really think switching from an AP system to more of an SRPG-style system means it'll be a shallow gameplay experience. Carefully inching forward so you don't end a movement with 22 TUs when you need 23 to make a reaction snap shot (or with JA2: "Hrm, it takes 4 AP to run to this wall, but it takes another 4 to jump up and two more to crouch again, but what if the game turns me a certain way I don't want to be facing when I get to the top? Then I have to spend another AP to turn, so how will THAT affect me...") can add just as much tedium as tension, in my opinion.

I don't see anything wrong with ensuring that you can still take an action after moving.

[Thrawn]

Am I the only one that has never played the original X-Com? 

Looking forward to this game, looks interesting.

[Bann]

Never to late Thrawn! You can pick it up on steam for 5 bucks, it runs on my win 7 machine. The Fiancee got sucked into it for an entire sunday about a month back. She certainly seemed to enjoy it, having no prior exposure to it (but alot of love for SRPG games in general.) The graphics are obviously what they are, but the sound design holds up remarkably well.

*edit* If you do end up looking to pick up, Id caution against getting the pack. The first is by far the best, Terror from the Deep is like what FFH is to CIV4 - a total reskin and added content, but essentially the same game. Everything after that is not good at all, in my opinion.

[Thrawn]

Never to late Thrawn! You can pick it up on steam for 5 bucks, it runs on my win 7 machine. The Fiancee got sucked into it for an entire sunday about a month back. She certainly seemed to enjoy it, having no prior exposure to it (but alot of love for SRPG games in general.) The graphics are obviously what they are, but the sound design holds up remarkably well.

*edit* If you do end up looking to pick up, Id caution against getting the pack. The first is by far the best, Terror from the Deep is like what FFH is to CIV4 - a total reskin and added content, but essentially the same game. Everything after that is not good at all, in my opinion.

I already have the pack from like two holiday sales ago, just never played it. 

[Tarami]

Everything in the video seems really...superficial.

Instead of being negative about it, you can be positive: "So the game already was great and didn't need much fixing, so here's what we're doing instead."

See, that was pretty easy.

[koro]

Giant Bomb also has a nice writeup. Some interesting bits:

To correct a common misconception, it's worth noting that both of these XCOM reboots/re-imaginings have been in development for nearly the same amount of time. Firaxis has been hard at work on Enemy Unknown for more than three years, and the two teams, while not collaborating directly, have often communicated back and forth to give each other a sense of what the other is doing. Basically, if you think that 2K suddenly brought out Enemy Unknown as a response to some of the more rancorous criticism coming from Internet commenters, then you're officially not giving Firaxis nearly enough credit.

Combat maintains the turn-based design of old, but eliminates time units. Instead, on their turn, players can maneuver soldiers into a nearby zone and have them perform one of their attack abilities, or they can move them further away and skip out on combat for a turn. It's a simplified version of the risk/reward system of old, which some old school players may gripe about, but nonetheless looks perfectly sensible in practice.

Perma-death is typically viewed nowadays as a rather harsh punishment in games, but in the context of XCOM, it was never a question of if it would make it into Enemy Unknown, but rather a question of how.

"It's different," said Foertsch. "It makes it harder. It's a pillar of XCOM. There was never a question about whether we should take it out. It was always a part of the design."

One serious question I see brought up again and again by fans is how, exactly, XCOM can be easily transported to consoles. The answer? It can't be. Not easily, at least. One thing that's helped is that development between the console and PC versions of the game has occurred in parallel.

And then there is the subject of personality, or perhaps a slight lack thereof. The units look pretty great, in that over-exaggerated action figure-y way, but the vocals assigned to each character are of that bargain basement action hero variety that all-too-often permeates any game with guns and things to be shot. I heard at least a few kill-celebrating one-liners cheesy enough to make even the Gears of War team blush. With any luck, that's just temporary audio. Please, let that be temporary audio.

[tmp]

XCOM: Enemy Unknown first look - in-game footage and interview

Saw that this morning. Gamer boner the size of Oklahoma.

Indeed. At least ten inches and day one buy.