shocking news: XCom: Enemy Unknown by Firaxis

[hsbckb]

XCOM Enemy Unknown's Floater Re-Imagined:



Actually, I do not like the new design


Here is the full news for Games On Net:

https://games.on.net/article/15503/Exclusive_Reveal_XCOM_Enemy_Unknowns_Floater_Re-Imagined

[Volutar]

Agreed, crappy "floatinger", I refuse to call him "floater".
This game seems to become another after-ufo-like-shit.

[moriarty]

I#ll reserve judgement until later... really, if you think about the original floater, he was kind of a lame enemy. his "floating" didn't give him that much of an advantage, and in the new XCOM, which is a lot more dynamic, anything closer to the original would have been way too much of a sitting duck.

this one sounds to me like someone read the ufopaedia text and inferred that the surgical altering described there makes him a cousin of the Bio-Drone - an organism that has been forcefully fused with a machine and that is now a strong and utterly mad beast. yes, it deviates quite a lot from the original, but I don't know if that's a bad thing. If you want to play the original, stick with openxcom

[Volutar]

If they decided to deviate quite far from original concept, they should be getting new names for those creatures. By getting old names they are mixing them up and actually messed up all UFO concept.

[moriarty]

true. well, they already introduced the thin man as a new enemy, they might as well give this one a new name... since it doesn't float. it's more like a rocketzombie. perhaps someone should mail firaxis and tell them

[moriarty]

release date has been published, and more information is leaking...

https://www.2kgames.com/blog/xcom-enemy-unknown-release-date-special-edition-and-more


...and if I'm not completely mistaken, I see zombies here:

https://downloads.2kgames.com/2kgames/uploads/images/community/xcom_eu_e3hr_006_blog-15321-cropped.jpg

and something that might just be their version of a chryssalid here:

https://downloads.2kgames.com/2kgames/uploads/images/community/xcom_eu_e3lr_003_blog-15331-cropped.jpg

[Zharik1999]

Are you sure it's a new chryssalid? It looks like ant or something like this. Will it have the same features as the original chryssaid?

[moriarty]

just saw a new preview video on a german computer magazine site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=h1gl0LFGieY

yes, they are the new chryssalids, and yes, they can infect and reproduce in their victim's bodies... around 2:33 minutes in the video above you see a nice close-up of that

[Zharik1999]

So, guys what do you think about these new chryssalids?
As for me I was shocked that one of them was killed by one auto-shot! What a mess!!

Also, did you notice that the new floaters look something like Stroggs from Quake 4?

[moriarty]

it appears to me that they have been changed from a one-alien-army to something more of a swarm-insect type of enemy. less tough, greater numbers. even in the intro video for the tutorial you see at least two of them. having them appear this early in the game suggests that they are a lot less tough than they were in the original. that's just assumptions, though. will have to play the game to be sure

I don't know if I like that or not. I think with the ability to reproduce they were a little bit too tough in the original. I mean, tough to kill, deadly-even-to-heavily-armored-soldiers in hand-to-hand-combat AND multiplying like hell was just a little bit too much. looks like they took the hand-to-hand part and turned it into a new alien (the berserker). it's no small change, true, but it might be a good one.

[radius75]

New video, battlescape gameplay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1VP4YmExQAE

[moriarty]

yeah, I watched that one live on the 2K Livestream. There's more streams this weekend, live from PAX, like this one showing off the multiplayer gameplay

[michal]

Is there any mirror of that video for non logged users?

[moriarty]

1) which one?
2) what do you mean by "non logged"? (all the videos on 2k's twitch channel are free, you just have to confirm that you are old enough by entering your birthdate.)

[SupSuper]

They also finally showed off the PC UI, which even has the classic "cube cursor" and grid-like Battlescape control, pretty cool.