Hello all. I have never played OG X-coms back in the 90s, even though some of my friends were into it (the person who would talk about x com the most was a real creep type and it sort of put me off by association :\). In any case, I got interested in the original games after playing Firaxis versions, then discovered XCF around 0.9ish days, and this had become my go-to gaming experience ever since! I just wanted to mention my background to make it clear there is 0 nostalgia clouding my judgement when it comes to the original game
What had really impressed me is that many of the things this does well, it does really well - better than most AAA games, in my opinion. So, I wanted to mention stuff I really like, and to express my gratitude to everyone who has made/is making this happen!
- Art “direction”, and pixel art consistency in its look-and-feel. I feel this had really come together in the last couple of years. This is something that’s probably hard to manage, with a lot of assets coming from other mods/games.
- Mix of player-driven progression and randomness. This really nails that “open world” feel where I have to design and execute my strategies, but I am also forced to react to something completely unexpected every so often. I think this was a big part of original’s game success, and something Firaxis left behind completely in the modern iterations. It is really awesome to see the mod community pick up the torch and develop this further, with both the engine platform, and all the mods on top of it
- Music selection. It really works, and it feels like every theme/song was selected with care
- Tools to develop your agents into specializations/“classes”, without the game strong arming you into specific choices. This is my big gripe with Firaxis games (and most modern games) - they force me into nice shiny boxes, and I have so little room to do my own thing. I think that agent transformations and the new ability to get pre-trained agents really helped to keep this going in mid/late game
- Continuing evolution/refinement of storylines. It is exciting to start every new playthrough, as I am guaranteed to see/read something I had not seen before. I also appreciate much more nuanced take on X Com universe politics, compared to any of the official games.
- Map improvements over time! For example, Zombie caves were… frustrating experience, they are so much better now. Some of the current small town/post industrial terror/strange life form maps make me want to just zoom out/scroll around to appreciate the scenery and the ambience, especially on the missions where it is not clear what is going on, right away, and there is this feeling of tension and unease as your agents deploy…
I understand there had been some controversy that got some of the older maps removed/remade, but the newer maps more than made up for it. The only old (pre-2018/19?) map I miss is the old red dawn HQ/spider infested base one, where there would be an underground base partitioned by trenches (rivers?)
Thanks again, to everyone who had contributed to this. I am really looking forward to seeing more of what X-Com files has to offer.
