I like EW a lot more than EU, but I still don't really consider the game to be a true successor to X-COM. Just like The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. They're in the same universe, but really have not a lot in common. But I do enjoy playing through EW on occasion, my current game is in...I want to say year 6 lol. My soldiers all have over 800 missions and at least that in kills. I like long games :-) But like I said, I completed it on the hardest difficulty the first day it released; it's just not a challenge. Some of the mods people have come up with really add to it, like more/larger alien spawning pods, I get large UFOs that have crews of like 60 lol. Love it.
But it just doesn't beat the awesome feel of the original (Or OpenXcom in this case). One of the things that absolutely drives me up the fucking wall in EU/EW is that sometimes aliens will 'teleport' from where they originally spawned and end up behind you. This is most noticeable on Battleships. Work your way to the command center, kill everything along the way, kill the final guy...and find out there's now a squad behind you.
And to go along with that, Aliens don't actually exist in the game until you can SEE them. For example, and I know this has to do with the EU/EW engine that just doesn't allow such a thing, but in OpenXcom, when you miss the alien you're shooting at, the bullet will continue to travel, and if there happens to be an alien somewhere along its path, even if you can't SEE it, you can hit it. Not so in EW. The aliens just don't exist on the map until you uncover their spawn locations, or they move into view. I also don't think the engine allows stray shots to hit other aliens (or XCOM soldiers, if the aliens miss).
In other words, in OpenXcom, the aliens are on the map at the start of the game, and it is entirely possible to hit and even kill them without even knowing they are there. in EW, I could launch a fusion missile into a UFO (outside of my viewing range) and it will annihilate all the doodads, but not a single alien will take damage. Then move the UFO into range, and aliens scatter. You launch a blaster bomb into a UFO in OpenXcom, there's a good chance you're going to take out a few aliens.
However, Xcom/OpenXcom isn't without it's...well, I call them flaws, but it's just how the game was done. It is IMPOSSIBLE to have all of your base slots filled with, well, actual BASES, because everything just costs so damned much. You can make them 'interceptor' bases, add a hyperwave relay, and that's about it. We are talking about a defense force tasked with defending the WORLD from aliens; having one 'main' base seems like a seriously bad design flaw. If that base goes down, what then? There should be independent bases the world round that can function perfectly fine if your original base goes down. Redundancy. I have spent almost all of the time I've been modding OpenXcom just trying to find a happy balance of monthly expenditures so that I can actually have a good base setup. I still have farm UFOs, sell parts, etc, it isn't a cakewalk, but at least I'm not going -20 million every month.
I like the fact in EU/EW (and Xenonauts) that there's a chance to get back a soldier who was 'killed' on the field. There's nothing I hate more than having to constantly replace good soldiers. Again, I know this is just how OpenXcom is designed, it's just that I've gotten used to the more upgraded side of things. And along with that, seemingly no way to reduce hospital time? You'd think out of all the alien tech we research, they'd find a way to make humans heal faster. They do it in other games, why not this one?
Something that annoys me about pretty much all of them (although UFO: ET really made me nerdgasm) is the whole "Ballistics -> Lasers -> Plasma" and that's it. Three tiers of weapons. It's like this in almost every single X-COM clone out there. Same with armors. You get maybe one more tier of armor than you do weapons, but it's basically just "jumpsuit -> Flimsy armor made of new alien materials -> ultimate armor". I just want MORE. in UFO: ET, with the Mod that comes with the Steam version (and possibly part or in whole, the base game, I have never played it without the mod so I don't know), there are probably 10 or more tiers of weapons, and close to that for armors. There are more tiers of aliens, too. You also research things like personal shields, or mind shields, etc. Yes, I know we have mods that DO a lot of this, I use the Final Mod Pack myself for this reason, and it really extends the game. But it's fan-made, I want something officially supported.
The original X-COM (actually TFTD) is my absolute favorite, the structure and playstyle of the game just has no competition. But there are so many other 'upgrades' that have been introduced along the way by clones that would really do some awesome things for the original game. I know a lot of it simply isn't possible because of the file and code structure of the antiquated game, but I just wish someone would make a FAITHFUL remake of X-COM, just...more modernized. Not this "re-imagined" bullshit that they did with EU/EW. Great games, but not what we've been looking for. Xenonauts is the closest thing I can find to a more updated version of X-COM while still remaining almost completely faithful to the original, but it was coded on a shitty engine and has lots of behind-the-scenes issues and limitations.
I love OpenXcom, because it brings back the nostalgia and allows for easy modding, so you can change and add things so it's really never the same game twice. But nostalgia can only be ridden out for so long.
