i WORRY about them alreayd talking about patching to balance the game. Its saving grace is its turned based so lag shouldn't hurt it too much from excessive patching.
Never played the original but if I had friends to teach me the tactical basics, I would be interested in giving it a shot. Getting tired of COD run n gun fast-twitch and memorize the bullet type games. Altho i really liked Max Payne. But I like the story driven tales and lean to the single player/RPGs. Mass Effect 3 left a bad taste in my mouth with the 5,000 multiplayer cheevo. sigh...
Played the shit out of originals back in the day so this is day one purchase for me. Steam has a demo and Kotaku has a great preview where they are giving it all kinds of praise. Oh and PC all the way for this one for me of course.
So I have about 3 - 4 hours in so far I think. I started on Normal with the Tutorial option. The tutorial is really long but it is you playing the game and it teaches you how to do stuff (it’s not a bunch of separate shit you do outside of the game / story etc.).
The game is really good and really hard I guess that’s good. Lost what was my best sniper last night and nearly cried but I have another sniper climbing the ranks so all is good now (had to go a few missions without a sniper after I lost my initial one).
You level up your soldiers and give them specializations (tech trees) and select load outs for them. You can assign names, outfits, hair helmets etc. to your dudes – eventually they get nick names.
You base build (just one giant base) to give you more opportunities to do research, capture and contain aliens, train soldiers etc.
You can take aliens alive so your scientists can study them and you can use that knowledge to research and build new equipment (weapons, armor etc.).
Countries have missions and they start getting panicked if you don’t help them – and if they get too panicked they just leave the xcom project and you lose their money / support – so picking which mission to do sometimes is stressful.
Environment is totally destructible (rocket launchers and grenades make nice holes in everything).
Very similar to Valkyria Chronicles (can’t compare it to the original XCOM because I never played that) in a lot of ways. VC seemed to have a more defined story but I’m not far enough in XCOM to have been exposed to much “story” if there is any.
The game is really good and fun – I’m not a super huge fan of some of the camera movement (i.e. if you want to “pan” around the battle field the camera just moves from static point to static point giving you a different angle and what I want is a just a free camera pan). The game actually plays better with a 360 controller than with a mouse and keyboard – it’s just seems to play smoother with the controller.
I haven’t played multiplayer yet (believe it is only 1v1) but I’ve watched some people playing and it looks great. Once I know some more about the units / weapons etc. I’ll be giving that a go as well.
I've put in a good 3 hours or so thus far, and this has been my experience:
I'm playing on Classic difficulty with the Ironman setting (ie: No reloading previous saves), and the game has been kicking my ass! Most of my budget has gone to recruiting more troops to replace those I loose on my missions. The game punishes you for any mistake you make, as death can come swiftly. And since the game features perma-death, be prepared to tear your hair out when you loose some of your top recruits! The margin of error is razor thin (at least in the early game while troops are at low ranks with basic gear), but I really like the sense of accomplishment that comes with high difficulty. Watching a squad member climb the ranks, only to die because I forgot that something could be behind me, doesn't leave me with a sense that the game is "cheep." Rather, I know every casualty has been my own fault, or just plain bad luck (a 95% chance to miss still leaves that fluke 5% chance to hit).
As much as I enjoy strategy games, they can get a little slow and complex. So far, XCOM seems to avoid this. The battles I've been in have not turned into long, drawn-out affairs (of course my high casualty rate certainly suggests that I should slow down a bit!), but move at a satisfyingly brisk pace while retaining strategic depth. Controls (on PC anyway) are spot on and easy to pick up, though I'd prefer a more freely moving camera to the 90 degree set rotation that it currently does.
Overall, I can see myself plugging many, many hours and potentially sleepless nights into this game! And beyond that, I may even do some random multiplayer games as well (random MP sessions being something I avoid like the plague usually). Strategy fans will not likely be disappointed. Anyone on the fence about it, should take a look at the steam demo (not sure if there's a demo for other platforms or not) to see if it's up your alley.
Well I still own the original game in it's packaging, tried a bit of this new game last night and dug it immediately; now if this plays anything like the original at all, here are some quick tips on making lots of cash:
- I use to do research on something, and then have my engineers (every single one) mass produce an item, weapon, etc; then I sell the shit out of the stuff, you could always manufacture plasma weapons for example and sell them to other countries for mucho dollars.
- Same thing use to apply with deceased alien corpses, if you've done research on a particular kind, then sell bodies to other nations; this always brought in major funding for me.
Like I said I just tried out the game last night, so I have absolutely no idea if any of the old tricks I use to do will in fact work on this new version of X-Com?? but if they work, I'll definitely let everyone know for sure.
I want to get this .... drooling
i WORRY about them alreayd talking about patching to balance the game. Its saving grace is its turned based so lag shouldn't hurt it too much from excessive patching.
it also gives everyone the same point value to face off with each other ...
Looks incredible. Like MP Valkyria Chronicles....with aliens and shit :) awesome.
www.xcom.com/enemyunknown/article/xcom-enemy-unknown-previews
looks very promising
I picked this up ...
So, what do you think so far, ATC?
I meant to say I pre-ordered it since it doesn't come out till october 9th here in the US and October 12 in EU
already have it pre-ordered, i loved playing x-com way back in the day.
This looks great. Xbox or PC...that's my dilemma.
I never played original,but I'm on board for this one.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/7760/?snr=1_7_suggest__13
$5, but it regularly goes on sale. A lot of people liked Terror from the Deep better.
These days, compared to other games, it is quite difficult.
You can find newbie guides online that will make things easier.
I am going 360
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/08/28/here-watch-this-hour-of-xcom-gameplay/
Content starts at 3:58.
I don't understand why they don't edit that crap out.
Terror Mission starts at 40:00. I can feel my blood pressure.
Never played the original but if I had friends to teach me the tactical basics, I would be interested in giving it a shot. Getting tired of COD run n gun fast-twitch and memorize the bullet type games. Altho i really liked Max Payne. But I like the story driven tales and lean to the single player/RPGs. Mass Effect 3 left a bad taste in my mouth with the 5,000 multiplayer cheevo. sigh...
Sent you a PM, Marine1Ten.
There is a PDF manual with a newbie guide, I think for XCOM. And you'll need it. There's no mouse roll-over tips in this one!
http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/7760/x-com%20ufo%20defense%20manual....
Yeah. Page 16.
Man, I miss game manuals..gif "68")
There is a PC Demo on Steam for XCOM now.
Yeah I'm going to check that demo out....Oct 1.....I'm close to my bandwidth limit this month and that demo is 6+ gig I heard!
Played the shit out of originals back in the day so this is day one purchase for me. Steam has a demo and Kotaku has a great preview where they are giving it all kinds of praise. Oh and PC all the way for this one for me of course.
pre-purchased and installed - ready for the drop on Tuesday! (PC) w00t!
today is tuesday and so can't wait to play with some of y'll on Xbox ...
Put in ~2 hours this morning before work :) going through the tutorials on Normal and then I think I'll restart on Classic difficulty.
Alright, so I dug in last night on 360 and so far it is enjoyable.
I did start on Normal as I wanted to get a feel for the upgrades, base and other management stuff.
I recommend it to all strategy fans out there.
So I have about 3 - 4 hours in so far I think. I started on Normal with the Tutorial option. The tutorial is really long but it is you playing the game and it teaches you how to do stuff (it’s not a bunch of separate shit you do outside of the game / story etc.).
The game is really good and really hard I guess that’s good. Lost what was my best sniper last night and nearly cried but I have another sniper climbing the ranks so all is good now (had to go a few missions without a sniper after I lost my initial one).
You level up your soldiers and give them specializations (tech trees) and select load outs for them. You can assign names, outfits, hair helmets etc. to your dudes – eventually they get nick names.
You base build (just one giant base) to give you more opportunities to do research, capture and contain aliens, train soldiers etc.
You can take aliens alive so your scientists can study them and you can use that knowledge to research and build new equipment (weapons, armor etc.).
Countries have missions and they start getting panicked if you don’t help them – and if they get too panicked they just leave the xcom project and you lose their money / support – so picking which mission to do sometimes is stressful.
Environment is totally destructible (rocket launchers and grenades make nice holes in everything).
Very similar to Valkyria Chronicles (can’t compare it to the original XCOM because I never played that) in a lot of ways. VC seemed to have a more defined story but I’m not far enough in XCOM to have been exposed to much “story” if there is any.
The game is really good and fun – I’m not a super huge fan of some of the camera movement (i.e. if you want to “pan” around the battle field the camera just moves from static point to static point giving you a different angle and what I want is a just a free camera pan). The game actually plays better with a 360 controller than with a mouse and keyboard – it’s just seems to play smoother with the controller.
I haven’t played multiplayer yet (believe it is only 1v1) but I’ve watched some people playing and it looks great. Once I know some more about the units / weapons etc. I’ll be giving that a go as well.
I've put in a good 3 hours or so thus far, and this has been my experience:
I'm playing on Classic difficulty with the Ironman setting (ie: No reloading previous saves), and the game has been kicking my ass! Most of my budget has gone to recruiting more troops to replace those I loose on my missions. The game punishes you for any mistake you make, as death can come swiftly. And since the game features perma-death, be prepared to tear your hair out when you loose some of your top recruits! The margin of error is razor thin (at least in the early game while troops are at low ranks with basic gear), but I really like the sense of accomplishment that comes with high difficulty. Watching a squad member climb the ranks, only to die because I forgot that something could be behind me, doesn't leave me with a sense that the game is "cheep." Rather, I know every casualty has been my own fault, or just plain bad luck (a 95% chance to miss still leaves that fluke 5% chance to hit).
As much as I enjoy strategy games, they can get a little slow and complex. So far, XCOM seems to avoid this. The battles I've been in have not turned into long, drawn-out affairs (of course my high casualty rate certainly suggests that I should slow down a bit!), but move at a satisfyingly brisk pace while retaining strategic depth. Controls (on PC anyway) are spot on and easy to pick up, though I'd prefer a more freely moving camera to the 90 degree set rotation that it currently does.
Overall, I can see myself plugging many, many hours and potentially sleepless nights into this game! And beyond that, I may even do some random multiplayer games as well (random MP sessions being something I avoid like the plague usually). Strategy fans will not likely be disappointed. Anyone on the fence about it, should take a look at the steam demo (not sure if there's a demo for other platforms or not) to see if it's up your alley.
The biggest limiting factor appears to be money, so be frugal.
MMMM .... I am loving it ...
Well I still own the original game in it's packaging, tried a bit of this new game last night and dug it immediately; now if this plays anything like the original at all, here are some quick tips on making lots of cash:
- I use to do research on something, and then have my engineers (every single one) mass produce an item, weapon, etc; then I sell the shit out of the stuff, you could always manufacture plasma weapons for example and sell them to other countries for mucho dollars.
- Same thing use to apply with deceased alien corpses, if you've done research on a particular kind, then sell bodies to other nations; this always brought in major funding for me.
Like I said I just tried out the game last night, so I have absolutely no idea if any of the old tricks I use to do will in fact work on this new version of X-Com?? but if they work, I'll definitely let everyone know for sure.