Firaxis making XCOM: Enemy Unknown

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Well, granted, horror tracks wouldn't have fit well with this aweful art direction anyway. Still, this is definitely the sort of games that would have benefited enormously by staying PC exclusive.

No worries though, the livestream commenters all slurped it up with delight. "Awesome music! Take my money!"

Because we send the message that the original was shit. Don't you realize how significant you and your opinions are?

X-Com has borderline incompetent Rob Liefeld art and people that play it for the first time now still find it scary. It's scary in the mechanics.

They'll know, SS. They'll know.

Particularly if you pay for it.

I guess that was an unintentional troll . . . Of course we're all insignificant.

Damn, the small scale of the game really shows in a bad way. 5 units is laughably small, even on such small maps. Thanks for that, sexbawks.
Still, I like the maps pretty much, they look atmospheric and filled with nice little touches like scurrying animals and stuffies.
It's disappointing that they didn't show a proper PC UI yet, although from what it looks like, it should be serviceable and it seems to provide a decent amount of feedback.

pre-ordered!

I thought the gameplay looked great. I don't understand the complaining that the game is now cover based. Let me axe you this... how did you play the original?! I ducked behind everything I could in that game. EVERYTHING. Usually it was behind the landing gear at the beginning of the mission. If you didn't take cover, what did you do besides lose soldiers?

I liked the flanking mechanic.
I liked the suppressing mechanic.
I loved the memorial wall.

The guy was only playing on normal and the game supports iron man mode. I think this looks very promising.

I don't think it's autoshit now I just think they made a lot of choices in the beginning that are pretty incompatible with X-Com UFOD/TFTD basics. Not just one or two to rejuvenate the formula either. It's like remaking a Street Fighter game without fireballs. It's not an elaboration or a refinement, it's just got the same name.

It has too small tactical maps, and I guess there would be problems when experienced troops would be killed in late game.

Rookies exist to die. Those that survive are made stronger for it. Those that don't can be replaced.

And besides, the original game was more about managing line of sight, lines of fire, and reaction fire than staying behind a wall. Yes, it's basically taking cover, but its a bit more engaging(at least to me) than just sticking someone behind a knee high wall and then gaining full benefits.

If you don't take cover, you hope you've left enough ticks to take a snap shot before the enemy . . . High reaction soldiers with decent aim and enough ticks to make a firing line is a pretty good way to keep your soldiers alive if you can't get them to cover immediately.

Smoke grenades are _even_ better. They make night missions a pleasure.

Use them.

They actually made a really smart nerf of smoke grenades in TFTD - they only fill one tile on the first turn they exist.

I think the worst thing for me is complete loss of atmosphere from old UFO/TFTD... Instead scary, tense and horror we got gears of war/mass effect supermarines and retarded aliens.

Yeah, you're right. I guess I'll give it a try. Hope they make a proper pc "port".

Damn I was not following this much at all until this week but now I watched some old Firaxis hype videos with Solomon and it is pretty hard not to get sucked onto the hype train. If I write off horror and parsimony as a basis for the game it does look good. Polished up turn-based tactics is pretty enticing even if it is larded up a bit.

I agree. The GoW'ish style may be boring as fuck and flogged far past undeath, but it is nowhere near as horrifying as the spandex-fetish-sucky-80s-comic look of the original games.

Where we disagree, is on whether that's a bad thing. Admittedly, if I was Firaxis I would have tried for something like H.R.Giger. But as tired as the GoW shit is, it really is nowhere near as bad as the revolting assault on the senses that passed for style in the first two games.

The parsimony Gozma mentioned was the beginning and end of tension and horror in the first games. If Firaxis has somehow managed to preserve that, this new game will be just as full of dread and tension as the first. Or at least, the first games prove beyond the most unreasonable doubt that style and presentation has fuck-all to do with whether an X-Com game just looks horrible, or feels like a horror game.

The first game had atmosphere and tension, but no fear unless you are a mamby pamby scared of his own shadow.

The game to me still looks like it has a lot of tension and atmosphere, have to see what the final game has of course, but so far I am optimistic. As for all the other stuff, you STILL have lines of fire and overwatch (the snap shot replacement). It still looks plenty tactical.

I wish they went with this style:




Instead we got this:

Despite the somewhat smaller scale of the battles they showed, I liked the tension of that terror mission. Not so much the first one they showed. I'm hoping the harder difficulties live up to the expectations Solomon talks about. I just hope the strategic part is too messed up and simplified as well(I know, one base, etc.).

PAX livestream now live

They're also going to show the PC UI later for the first time, after the multiplayer match.

Have any of the X-Com knockoff games ever just implemented X-Com plus a good UI and non-faked 3D? Like for example explicitly showing you the LOS of a soldier as a cone or showing proper grenade arcs? Without fucking up destructible terrain or anything else?