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X-COM Firaxis - XCOM: Enemy Unknown + Enemy Within Expansion
- Thread starter Peter
- Start date
It's got a truckload of hilariously dumb design decisions, and while it's not like shitshitshit horrible, it's still very lacklustre and I don't see any reason to play it over the classic UFOs or JA2.
It's a great game.
PosledniKovboj
Scholar
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2010
- Messages
- 196
... and Im none the wiser 
I am a glorious Danish mastodon, while Roxor is a puny, polish potato. Who do you trust more, mortal?
I am a majestic Polish Hussar, while Grunker is a rainbow danish sodomite. Who do you trust more, dudeguy?
PosledniKovboj
Scholar
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2010
- Messages
- 196
Well, Poland has nice porn, but Denmark has Legoland. Damn.
Eyeball
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2010
- Messages
- 2,541
I think I'm more or less done playing this. Gameplay's enjoyable enough, if a bit popamole with the hard-to-decipher cover mechanic, but the "encounter" system is simply too fucking faggoty for me to put up with and seriously hampers the type of tactics you can use. I simply can't risk moving forwards most of the time for fear of triggering another multiple-muton spawn. What is this, a fucking MMO?
If it weren't for the shit encounter mechanism, the game would be excellent.
If it weren't for the shit encounter mechanism, the game would be excellent.
Cassidy
Arcane
Grunker brought Codex to Facebook. He's a blatantly obvious collaborateur of the Decline, quisling and race traitor. His opinions on games are as worthy as the opinions of average GameFAQs users, and maybe less.
Unless you're really desperate to pop a mole in turns, like all quislings, instead of doing something better, don'tbuy rent this.
Unless you're really desperate to pop a mole in turns, like all quislings, instead of doing something better, don't
Awor Szurkrarz
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2009
- Messages
- 21,899
We need more race traitor tags 
.
.
Yesssssssssssssssssssssss. I feed on the butthurt.
I'm on the brink of ragequitting because of this as well.
I mean, what the hell. On the whole, this game is actually easy as all shit. The only two ways you can lose any dudes are:
1. If you do something pants-on-head retarded (duh).
2. If you move one step ahead, and suddenly, BAM, you encounter 3 fucking mobs of aliens. And they all get free move. Which effectively leaves you surrounded already during your goddamn turn, with at least half your dudes getting flanked, and you can do fuck-all about this. This is supposed to be a tactical game, but you can't use any tactics to counteract this crap. Unless you do something retardedly cheesy and pack 5 snipers with squadsight and one spotter, but that's hardly a "valid tactic".
This is not even "difficulty". This is just unfair design that deliberately assigns unpredictable cheats to your enemies in order to stop you from completely steamrolling through the game. This issue is probably the most clearly visible in the alien
Dead Guy
Cipher
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2012
- Messages
- 281
I can't believe the game hasn't been called out more on the fact that your guys can't see more than fifty feet in broad daylight. It's laughable that a sniper rifle can't fire longer than that without someone spotting. But hey, game balance, right?
The best thing is when you spot a Berserker and its free move "to cover" ends up letting it run to within a few squares of you in your turn. Great stuff.
The best thing is when you spot a Berserker and its free move "to cover" ends up letting it run to within a few squares of you in your turn. Great stuff.
spectre
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2008
- Messages
- 5,450
I got mine for slightly less than than 30$, a full playthrough lasted about 20 hours (not counting the few games where I was learning the ropes), and I am planning to do at least one more. Could get more mileage out of it once mods start rolling. I feel it's just about good value for the money since I was starved for turn based tactical.
Stuff I miss from the OG (although it's pretty pointless to compare, these aren't in the same league):
Flexibility in inventory management - why can't I decide to forego the assault rifle for an extra grenade or two?
Air combat - even though they're equally shitty in the new game and OG, the OG minigame felt more stylish.
OG has more crafts and more management depth due to alien ships running on elerium and you can choose two different weapons per craft (not that you have to have to past certain point).
in both games, once you get plasma beam, the minigame is pretty much "solved", although its a nice touch that you can swap plasma for emp to get more out of the wreckage.
Some options from the tactical combat - ability to shoot at terrain (now you have to use explosives if you wish to make some room and destroy cover), proper autofire, different types of ammo - you unlock soldier abilities at levelup, there's a bunch of tactical options coming from just that.
Proper night missions - currently, there's no difference between day and night ops.
More gameplay complexity on the geoscape - you can't have multiple skyrangers, you can't send more than one interceptor after a ufo, you cant send craft on patrol to find ufos and bases (because there' only one, ever), and you can't shoot down ufos to prevent terror and abductions (despite having a magical show all ufo traffic device).
Different ranks of aliens commanders, technicians, terrorists, medics - this means you only need to capture one for interrogation, unless you need free plasma weapons (and you don't need too many)
Randomized stats on soldiers - it's no longer possible to sift through dozens of recruits to discover hidden gems of accuracy and grenade throwing talent.
Unit facing direction no longer matters.
Things that It hought would be shit but ultimately aren't:
Base management - even though the toted ant farm thing is just that: a gimmick and it's a shame to see base defense missions go, the gameplay around it is decent - you have to scrounge for each and every penny to get the finances straight, and they've thankfully gotten rid of the whole idea of manufacturing motion scanners/heavy lasers en masse to earn some good money.
Nice upgrade options from the officer school and foundry. They fucked up research though, you don't need to build any labs whatsoever.
The scale of the game - map sizes and squad size feels awright in practice, though I wouldn't mind if the squad size cap were 8 or even 10 - they would hae to up the number of aliens per mission though.
The designs of aliens - I feared that mutons would feel too orky and sectoids would be too monkeyish - thankfully, the aliens still feel enuinely threatening, and I'd hazard saying that some are better than the original (cyberdisk, sectopod, floater).
Difficulty level - the AI will kick your ass on classic, at least until you gain some experience under your belt and reach the endgame (which, unfortunately is trivial when you have levelled up snipers and psionics...but the original was pretty much the same). Yeah, it gets trivial if you savescum, so don't.
The good stuff:
Hey, let's be fair, a bunch of the stuff actualy got better, not a lot, but there's some:
Psionics - I like the way it rolls now - you have to screen your squaddies to see if they're gifted (it's one downside is that it takes 10 days to test 3 guys) , which unlocks one basic, but usefu lability. As you practice psi-ing in battle, you unlock two more skills from the psi upgrade tree.
New mission types - it's not just about killing all the aliens now, you now have to actively search for civilians in terror missions to save them, you also get bomb defuse missions and escorts which spice things up nicely (although they come with their own set of flaws, like fielding thin men only). One good thing about these new mission objectives is that they force you to get on the move, so you can't turtle your way through it on overwatch.
In short, if you had hoped for a second Enemy Unknown... you should have dropped that delusion long time ago.
Not a horrible game though. Depends on how much you'd want to forgive it. I'd say pirate first, unless you want XP support. It's two biggest flaws is the free turn for enemy spawns and the two action system, so it's your call if you can live with that.
Though I admit, overwatching every few steps so as not to disturb more than one behive at a time is annoying and gamey as fuck.
I've made one interesting observation though, it seem that if there's one alien left standing from the group, he tends to call for help which activates the nearby spawn points.
Stuff I miss from the OG (although it's pretty pointless to compare, these aren't in the same league):
Flexibility in inventory management - why can't I decide to forego the assault rifle for an extra grenade or two?
Air combat - even though they're equally shitty in the new game and OG, the OG minigame felt more stylish.
OG has more crafts and more management depth due to alien ships running on elerium and you can choose two different weapons per craft (not that you have to have to past certain point).
in both games, once you get plasma beam, the minigame is pretty much "solved", although its a nice touch that you can swap plasma for emp to get more out of the wreckage.
Some options from the tactical combat - ability to shoot at terrain (now you have to use explosives if you wish to make some room and destroy cover), proper autofire, different types of ammo - you unlock soldier abilities at levelup, there's a bunch of tactical options coming from just that.
Proper night missions - currently, there's no difference between day and night ops.
More gameplay complexity on the geoscape - you can't have multiple skyrangers, you can't send more than one interceptor after a ufo, you cant send craft on patrol to find ufos and bases (because there' only one, ever), and you can't shoot down ufos to prevent terror and abductions (despite having a magical show all ufo traffic device).
Different ranks of aliens commanders, technicians, terrorists, medics - this means you only need to capture one for interrogation, unless you need free plasma weapons (and you don't need too many)
Randomized stats on soldiers - it's no longer possible to sift through dozens of recruits to discover hidden gems of accuracy and grenade throwing talent.
Unit facing direction no longer matters.
Things that It hought would be shit but ultimately aren't:
Base management - even though the toted ant farm thing is just that: a gimmick and it's a shame to see base defense missions go, the gameplay around it is decent - you have to scrounge for each and every penny to get the finances straight, and they've thankfully gotten rid of the whole idea of manufacturing motion scanners/heavy lasers en masse to earn some good money.
Nice upgrade options from the officer school and foundry. They fucked up research though, you don't need to build any labs whatsoever.
The scale of the game - map sizes and squad size feels awright in practice, though I wouldn't mind if the squad size cap were 8 or even 10 - they would hae to up the number of aliens per mission though.
The designs of aliens - I feared that mutons would feel too orky and sectoids would be too monkeyish - thankfully, the aliens still feel enuinely threatening, and I'd hazard saying that some are better than the original (cyberdisk, sectopod, floater).
Difficulty level - the AI will kick your ass on classic, at least until you gain some experience under your belt and reach the endgame (which, unfortunately is trivial when you have levelled up snipers and psionics...but the original was pretty much the same). Yeah, it gets trivial if you savescum, so don't.
The good stuff:
Hey, let's be fair, a bunch of the stuff actualy got better, not a lot, but there's some:
Psionics - I like the way it rolls now - you have to screen your squaddies to see if they're gifted (it's one downside is that it takes 10 days to test 3 guys) , which unlocks one basic, but usefu lability. As you practice psi-ing in battle, you unlock two more skills from the psi upgrade tree.
New mission types - it's not just about killing all the aliens now, you now have to actively search for civilians in terror missions to save them, you also get bomb defuse missions and escorts which spice things up nicely (although they come with their own set of flaws, like fielding thin men only). One good thing about these new mission objectives is that they force you to get on the move, so you can't turtle your way through it on overwatch.
In short, if you had hoped for a second Enemy Unknown... you should have dropped that delusion long time ago.
Not a horrible game though. Depends on how much you'd want to forgive it. I'd say pirate first, unless you want XP support. It's two biggest flaws is the free turn for enemy spawns and the two action system, so it's your call if you can live with that.
Hold right there, criminal scum. there's a pretty "tactical" option avaialble called overwatch, and it counteracts this pretty nicely. Use it.
Though I admit, overwatching every few steps so as not to disturb more than one behive at a time is annoying and gamey as fuck.
I've made one interesting observation though, it seem that if there's one alien left standing from the group, he tends to call for help which activates the nearby spawn points.
duDEz EnogUgh ArCHErs CAn DEStory A tANK inN CiVIZlization suCh a SHit gAme!!!!!!1
Roxor's criticism is legitimate up to a point, I can't really argue that the "free move" bullshit is particularly good design, but that right there is just fucking stupid. It's like when DraQ hates on proper XP system because learning by doing is more realistic.
Eh, tension as you move forward? As in the original?
oh
Anyways, without the limited range of vision in stuff like X-COM and Xenonauts the whole thing would be just plain ol' tactical combat, not this tense, ball-wrecking experience where you are afraid to take each step. The problem is the randomized outcomes with little player control that can arise from the "free move". Not the limited range of vision.
kris
Arcane
The only real "correct" way to counter this is to always move first with your guy furthest forward and only make the halfmove. That way you got all tactical options still open when you "start up" your enemies. it is quite a boring tactic though as it takes time.
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2012
- Messages
- 3,876
Hmm, so this game has psionics? Interesting, that's one thing the old game lacked for your guys...
Heresiarch
Prophet
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 1,451
Ditto. Show me ONE good game that don't have limited vision range. Fucking JA2 has it. Fucking XCOM1 has it. Even fucking Baldur's Gate and Fallout and MORROWIND have it.
Dead Guy
Cipher
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2012
- Messages
- 281
Oh no, the moronic analogies. They are too strong. Seriously, chess? That's your realism argument?
In the OG you could see far further than now if nothing was blocking your view. It was still tense moving forward. Since enemies could see you from far off as well, closing the distance to them so you could hit them became a part o the game, too. My point is just, you can see such a short distance that uncovered enemies land in your lap when you move down a street. I think that's bad. What does my join date have to do with that?
In the OG you could see far further than now if nothing was blocking your view. It was still tense moving forward. Since enemies could see you from far off as well, closing the distance to them so you could hit them became a part o the game, too. My point is just, you can see such a short distance that uncovered enemies land in your lap when you move down a street. I think that's bad. What does my join date have to do with that?
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