Xenonauts shaping up nicely

[GarfunkeL]

I haven't scoured the ends of their forums for all the gritty details but you might want to take few moments of your life and read this:
http://www.xenonauts.com/game-overview
and these
http://www.xenonauts.com/combat
http://www.xenonauts.com/soldier
http://www.xenonauts.com/base
http://www.xenonauts.com/technicaldetails

Though, as I said, I'm not up-to-date with their forums so not sure how much of that stuff is up-to-date.

Oh and notice this part:

Finally, we're keen to get the game onto Steam. We'll be selling the final product via digital distribution (assuming that we don't get a generous offer from a publisher), and Steam is our first choice. If the contract is non-exclusive, which would appear to be likely judging from the market, we'll also make it available on other download services too.

I sincerely hope that it's non-exclusive!

 

[CrimsonAngel]

I have never heard that STEAM demands exclusivity.

 

[Lunac]

I wish them luck. I will keep an eye on this, no preorder though. I need to see some gameplay videos and shit. Anyway, I've had my UFO:Extraterrestrials copy sitting on the desk for over six months now, sealed in cellophane and everything. Mostly I'm just too busy these days, weekends included, but I also hate to be disappointed yet again by a shity clone of an awesome game. God damn, pretty much every game in the 00's sucked with few exceptions which you can count on the fingers of one hand. Decline everywhere...

...
..
.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I've had my UFO:Extraterrestrials copy sitting on the desk for over six months now, sealed in cellophane and everything.

The day you try it, if you ever do, make sure to install Bman mod unless you have the "Gold" edition of UFO:ET which already contains it. I'm absolutely not one to suggest mods for the first playthrough of any game, but the fact that the official developers decided to include it in the "Gold" edition makes it clear that the game is incomparably better with it and should be played that way.

I also hate to be disappointed yet again by a shity clone of an awesome game.

That would be the general idea about UFO:ET around here. I personally thought it was good enough to be enjoyable, if inferior to the original X-Com games, no doubt about that.

 

[ravinhood]

This is nothing more than yet another worthless X-Com CLONE. If you want to play X-Com play X-Com the origional and the best. Stop wasting your money on these reskins of old games.

 

[Achilles]

Yeah, on the other hand maybe we could drop this edgy attitude for a minute and give this game a chance? If you follow the forums you'll see that the developers are not just trying to create a clone, they're also attempting to balance the basic formula and offer something even better.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I wish someone would make an X-Com-like whose action happens on one level of command.

 

[Cuntfish]

This is nothing more than yet another worthless X-Com CLONE. If you want to play X-Com play X-Com the origional and the best. Stop wasting your money on these reskins of old games.

 

[Sitra Achara]

What bothers me the most, is that the developer aims for a release this year. That seems extremely naive to me, given what's presented in PC GAMER (no UFO tiles yet? explosions go through walls? random map generator being rewritten? tile blending yet to be done?...)

I hope it doesn't go through the same process UFO:ET went, where the release date was constantly pushed back (this went on for about 2 years), and the end product still lacked polish. And yet, I highly suspect it will...

BTW, does anyone have any idea what's up with UFO:ET2?

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

BTW, does anyone have any idea what's up with UFO:ET2?

It goes through the same process UFO:ET went, where the release date was constantly pushed back...

It's now september 2011.
Official site

 

[tuluse]

So they have a "beta candidate" out now for backers who got alpha access (maybe all backers? idk).

It's playing pretty well now.

Oh yeah, finally get to use this:

 

[DeepOcean]

So they have a "beta candidate" out now for backers who got alpha access (maybe all backers? idk).

It's playing pretty well now.

Played enough for a initial impression?

 

[tuluse]

Played enough for a initial impression?

Alien AI is working now. It's not very good, but it is working. They're favorite strategy is to shoot, run away, and set up in overwatch. The aliens have longer view range than humans, so it's rather effected.

All the maps I've seen so far in this build have been hand made, not generated, but I'm pretty sure they had generated maps before, so I'm not sure what's going on with that.

Air combat is kind of annoying. I appreciate that they wanted to make it more involving, but most of the time I wish I could auto-resolve it.

Combat is very dangerous. I think it might be too deadly right now. If you're in close range and not behind cover, you're pretty much dead because the alien will kill you with return fire from overwatch almost every time. This has made shotguns useless.

I made it about 2 months into the game. I was doing pretty well (only one causality) until I got to a city terror mission. I got wiped despite killing 8 aliens (previous high in one mission was 5).

The only serious bug I've run across is that sometimes you can walk through the cockpit section of the troop carrier as if it wasn't there. I don't know what causes it.

 

[Zero Credibility]

A question for those that played the game recently. I've been very interested in this game, but one thing that I didn't like was the "hidden movement" screen that would flash on and off repeatedly many times during alien turn. Do they still have that?

What's the point of that? I can understand nostalgia, but either:

a) some of my soldiers heard that movement, in which case give some indication of where they think the sound is coming from - centre the screen there or give some kind of cue on the direction of the sound - don't hide the game screen.

b) none of my soldiers heard the movement, in which case don't give any indication that anything is wrong - just move the aliens silently and without fuss - but again, don't hide the game screen.

As it is, it's just annoying.

 

[Gozma]

I would think X-Com gameplay with aliens that see farther than you would be like X-Com night fighting without electroflare abuse... basically meaning you suicide Zergrush your guys to run out their TUs from taking reaction shots until you can spot them.

Might be cool if you have to play that way for a month or two before you get some "even the odds" tools, but whole game it would be pretty dumb.

 

[tuluse]

Smoke grenades are implemented. You can also build remote control vehicles which can take more punishment than a person.

 

[Gozma]

I thought of smoke but if it works like X-Com then it won't actually help with enemies that have longer base vision than you. If it's just a hard vision-wall that would be pretty cool.

 

[tuluse]

Well you can use the smoke to move up to cover. The human weapons have better long range accuracy.

I'm also only about 2 months into the game, so I don't know what fancy techs there are.