shocking news: XCom: Enemy Unknown by Firaxis

[SupSuper]

I wish there were some better details on the abilities you could give you units too. I give my sniper the ability to take shots for free (can't remember what it's called off-hand), but sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I'm assuming there's a rule to it, but it's not very clear IMO

Ufopaedia's got your back (some abilities are better explained in the Battlescape help). If you're talking about Double Shot, it's a bit finnicky sometimes, but I think the rule is if you take a shot you get another one for free as long as there's something else to shoot at.

Anyways I finally finished my first game, and I throughly enjoyed it, it's been a while since I've had that much fun with a new XCOM game. I'm shocked so many people around here hate it and nowhere else (ok it's not that shocking given OpenXcom attracts the purists ). I'll write a review on it later.

[pmprog]

No, I was talking about "In The Zone", but thanks for the link. I hadn't realised that Ufopaedia added the new XCOM (which makes sense, I guess I just didn't look)

I was a little disappointed that 60% of my recruits ended up as "heavies". I've not finished yet, but I think getting close. Given my watchings of Metal Canyon's playthrough.

I've enjoyed it too. I am struggling to manufacture things, I never have enough alloys, and my aircraft seem woefully inadequate at handling any UFOs. Once I finish this game though, I'm going to see if MetalCanyon releases his mod (or even look at other mods) for the next game.

[moriarty]

I am enjoying it, too I only play every other week, but I like a lot about the game. Of course it's not the same, it's much less sandbox-y, rather more story-driven than the original. I guess the original was actually supposed to be story-driven, too, it just wasn't possible at that time


about "streakiness": I'd rather see something like a "sustained fire bonus", I think Space Hulk (from the warhammer 40k universe) had something like that: If you take shot after shot at the same target, your aim should increase. that's only for uninterrupted shooting at the same target, of course.
(in RL, if your first shot misses to the left, you will of course correct your aim to the right for the second shot. and if that is still too far to the left, you will correct again... and so on.)

as long as neither the target nor the firing unit moved, the to-hit probability should keep increasing. this should be especially true for aimed shots! watching the point of impact and correcting aim is what snipers do all the time.

[pmprog]

as long as neither the target nor the firing unit moved, the to-hit probability should keep increasing. this should be especially true for aimed shots! watching the point of impact and correcting aim is what snipers do all the time.

Hmmm, I don't think that'd really happen in XCOM though. It seems quite rare to get two consecutive shots at the same target without one moving.

Also, a gripe of mine is Squad Sight, which says "Allows firing at targets in any ally's sight radius". That's not true at all. There's plenty of times my sniper can't shoot at anything where they are visible to my other units. Anyway...

[SupSuper]

Hmmm, I don't think that'd really happen in XCOM though. It seems quite rare to get two consecutive shots at the same target without one moving.

Also, a gripe of mine is Squad Sight, which says "Allows firing at targets in any ally's sight radius". That's not true at all. There's plenty of times my sniper can't shoot at anything where they are visible to my other units. Anyway...

Well obviously it won't let him fire through walls or something. Mind you a sniper is pretty much useless without Squad Sight.

[pmprog]

That I could understand, but I've had them jetpacked in the air, and still not allowed to shoot something on the ground. It bugs me a bit, but doesn't put me off.

I've just downloaded XCOM Meddler, so I'm thinking on aborting my current game (meh, I've never "finished" a game since, urm, maybe pre-2000 anyway), and fiddling with the game.

Shame you can't just rip the game apart using the UDK. Then I could have tried to put in the hit streak bonus

[moriarty]

Hmmm, I don't think that'd really happen in XCOM though. It seems quite rare to get two consecutive shots at the same target without one moving.

oh, yeah, sorry, that was meant to be something for openxcom, not for XCOM:EU. you are right, that would rarely happen in XCOM:EU because the "turns" are much shorter

[Daiky]

I'm not a fast gamer, so I only finished my game on normal difficulty last night. But I must say it was really great towards the end. Like other people here, I really enjoyed every bit. Very addictive once you get sucked up in the story, and you really want to beat them.

The different psionic skills are fun. The class and skill system is fun. There is enough variation in the missions. I actually regret I did the end mission so soon, I wanted to do some more battles, cause I didn't really test out the flying armor and the higher level SHIVs yet.
I'm certainly going to play this game some more, what hardly ever happens with modern games once I finished them (if I even finish them before getting bored)

[pmprog]

I've not played this in an age. I can't even remember where I got up to now - definately not up to Psionics though

[Postmo]

https://www.polygon.com/features/2013/1/31/3928710/making-of-xcoms-jake-solomon-firaxis-sid-meier
Not sure if anyone's seen this yet, but there's a great article here about the development of XCom: EU. It includes some footage of the pre-alpha, which was more or less a 1:1 remake of UD. What's interesting is that the devteam really wanted to make a very close remake, but was forced to simplify and cut a bunch of features out of fear of not being greenlit by 2K and lack of resources. Hopefully, now that the game's proven to be a commercial success, the expansion that Firaxis has been hinting at will expand the depth of the game, especially since they scrapped the second DLC to focus on it.

[pmprog]

https://www.polygon.com/features/2013/1/31/3928710/making-of-xcoms-jake-solomon-firaxis-sid-meier

Ooooh, thanks for that. I'll watch that when I get home. I love game post-mortems

[SupSuper]

Thanks for that link, it's a terrific read. Pretty fun to see what goes on behind the scenes of development, specially in something as bold as X-Com.

It's interesting to see that implementing all of original X-Com's features with today's technology is actually a whole lot harder, not easier (I'm glad we're not doing this in 3D ). And that even professional developers can make the same mistake as fan developers: Their first prototype was a lot truer to the original (TUs, equipment, disembarking off the skyranger, etc), but if you just take the original and pile all the cool new features you've always wanted, you're just gonna get a mess. This is what happens with most remakes. You always need to redesign from scratch to see if everything is still fun or not, unless you're just trying to appeal to a niche audience like us.

[Sharp]

Yeah that was a great article.

I actually really liked that combat pre-visualisation video. I like the new XCOM game but I still prefer the original and OpenXCOM overall but I would have liked the new one a lot more then I did if it was more like the pre-visualisation video, but then again I would also like it more if it wasn't so damn buggy a.k.a. god-damn sectoids stop teleporting into my squad and then shooting at them!

[bulltza]

Hi guys, I found this game thanks to this thread. I have played it and finished it yesterday.

I had like many of you, very mixed feelings while playing it. First of all I think that none of us will ever feel the same than the first time we played the original XCom, mainly because of the feelings of the Unknown. XCom was the first game, we did not know the different races of aliens, when you killed one you really wanted to go to the laboratory and research it to find out more. I remember taking a body of an alien myself to the skyranger and abort mission!!

Anyway, this remake was very nice to play. At the begining it was a little bit messy. I started playing like "ironman" but the game was very unstable and lost too much time with a couple of crashes. I liked the new "turn based" mode, it was easier to calculate distances and possibilities to shoot (not at the begining), however it also added undesired secondary effects but I must admit that looked like a "modernized turn base" strategy. I liked mostly all the remakes of the alien razes. The fact of being story driven also was good, however some missions became repetitive (the original xcom was much more repetitive though xD), other xcom related games had a more dynamic line story making the game a little bit less boring. The base handling was not very useful I guess, you don't really need more than one interceptor, you will not reach some UFO's but you can live with that, also all the abilities of the soldiers were not very clear unfortunately there were too many in very few missions to test. It is funny that the original XCOM was much more complex in possibilities and things to learn, however you can finish the new XCOM without understanding half of the abilities or some of the dynamic of the game, however in the original XCOM even if it was more complex with more possibilities you finished the game being an expert on all the available options.

I was very happy to find small references to the old XCOM, like testing the new rifles against a picture of a muton of the old xcom. Also the music when the Psi laboratory had new results I think it came from the old XCOM, etc. I hated the new geoscape, the megaunrealistic size of the ships, distances were no longer important, etc, I guess that this is because I am an aerospace engineer and I hate seing these things wrong. I did not like the ending of the game, no problem if they wanted to completely change it, but I did not like it. It is always very difficult to find a nice/credible ending for a story like this though. That's life I guess!

In general I was very pleased with the game, I had a very good time, I am sure people that did not play to the original might feel the same that we felt in 1994... Or at least I desire them that.

And after this... I can only think of how the hell did they manage to get a such a complex game with it wonderful flexibility in 1994. The first time I played was a demo, a terror mission, I played it like 50 times. Amazing, first game (in "3D") and a world to explore. Amazing...