XCOM: Enemy Unknown

kingtiger

sweet Jesus I just spotted on IGN that there is a remake of my favourite game of all time XCOM: Enemy Unknown being released on on October 9, 2012 on the PC

how did I miss this

Reading about it looks like its not going to be dumbed down in anyway

anybody else looking forward to this release?

degrassinoel

i'd heard about the new XCOM fps, but enemy unknown i've not heard of at all, cheers

kingtiger

degrassinoel wrote: »

i'd heard about the new XCOM fps, but enemy unknown i've not heard of at all, cheers

they can stuff their FPS, this is just old school turn based combat

ahh it looks great :cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U88EcjtDnyE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX9r0S77Vh0

Gunmonkey

Been following since the moment they announced it, cant bloody wait.

More gameplay vids:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFSXUk3QVSs

Skip to 2:45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISGvkdzBn3Q

Also had a MP mode announced last week, seperate from the main game. 2 players get credits to buy and upgrade units from both Humans and Aliens and duke it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIgxX39JCN4

marshbaboon

This is one of the few games I've been following closely. It's being developed by firaxis, lord of the TBS game.

In the interviews you get the impression that the developers are huge fans of the original & any changes they're making are really in the spirit of the game. I was very happy indeed when I saw that they're keeping permadeath.

Any of the footage looks incredible. If they deliver on this game It's going to be a must buy from me, and I'm going to make everyone I know who likes strategy games buy it.

kingtiger

I see they changed the old movement point system, how does the new one work?

Gunmonkey

You get 2 actions a turn. Can either move and shoot/use item(I think, not heard much on items)/activate ability or sprint which gives you twice the move range. The "hardcore" fanbase have been throwing a hissy fit and screaming "consolization waaaaagh" but lots of tabletop games use a similar system and it works very well, need to prioritise your actions especially with the reduced squad size.

Cant really say for certain until get me mitts on the game, but a lot of the early previews have been quite positive. Also if it removes the f*****g annoying tendancy to miss click a selection in the original and send your selected unit wandering to oblivion with his back turned to all the aliens....good :mad:

marshbaboon

Gunmonkey wrote: »

You get 2 actions a turn. Can either move and shoot/use item(I think, not heard much on items)/activate ability or sprint which gives you twice the move range. The "hardcore" fanbase have been throwing a hissy fit and screaming "consolization waaaaagh" but lots of tabletop games use a similar system and it works very well, need to prioritise your actions especially with the reduced squad size.

Cant really say for certain until get me mitts on the game, but a lot of the early previews have been quite positive. Also if it removes the f*****g annoying tendancy to miss click a selection in the original and send your selected unit wandering to oblivion with his back turned to all the aliens....good :mad:

I personally really like the change, and I'm a hardcore fan of the original. I still boot it up on dosbox from time to time. It will really help the flow of a game, which was a problem in the original. You tended to get bogged down with actions & shooting.

kingtiger

thanks I will reserve judgement until I see it in action, but hope I don't miss the movement point system

on another note, if your itching for some good old turn based fun and have a smartphone, take a look at the following

Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land

Manic Moran

Pete (Guy interviewed in Gunmonkey's first video) recognised me at PAX East and made sure I got brought in on the demos. The Comicon demo with Sid one is the same one they were showing at E3. All were scripted. I'm not making Gamescom this year, so I'm not sure what they're showing right now (I'll check with one of my colleagues there who's checking out XCOM specifically tomorrow), but assuming they're at PAX Prime, I'll touch base (I emailed him today, as it happens), to make sure he's around.

I am very much looking forward to this one. Aliens are now very nasty, even the humble sectoid has a few tricks up their sleeves. I'm OK with the time unit allocation simplification: It does have pretty much the same end effects. A lot of the tactics that you may have learned in the original will now have to be re-thought. You are no longer, for example, the only side to be able to simply choose to remove an obstacle between you and your target, and some of the special abilities such as grappling ropes add an interesting additional dimension.

Hopefully the Ant Farm works out OK. Building your base in a defensible manner, with only one way in or out, was pretty integral to my survival in the original. Seems this is likely to be harder with the new multi-level version.

Now, what should I do with my iron-on XCOM badge...?

NTM

Gunmonkey

Manic Moran wrote: »

Hopefully the Ant Farm works out OK. Building your base in a defensible manner, with only one way in or out, was pretty integral to my survival in the original. Seems this is likely to be harder with the new multi-level version.

There is no base invasion in this, probably due to you only getting one base. Kinda feeds into the idea they have of the only "Lose Condition" you can achieve is losing over half the countries for funding. So having your base be blown up and sitting watching aliens take over while not able to do anything would be no fun :pac:

What you do get similar to the multiple bases in the original are satellites to increase your radar coverage. But these can be identified and destroyed by the aliens.

Popey32

I’ve been following this game and other xcom remakes for a while .The thing that concerns me most is the limited number of soldiers that can be brought on a mission. Hopefully 2k know what they’re doing.


Im also very interested in Xenonauts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenonauts#cite_note-1 which looks to be a closer is some ways successor to Xcom

Downloading Call of Cthulhu for the phone now looks cool kingtiger

Wetbench4

This is brilliant news but im a bit worried that it might change too much. The original format was a perfect balance. I still have the psone version on disc and i was only playing it again about 6 months ago on the ps3(was also living in hope of a psn/psp re-release). The only issue i had then was the graphics which, tbh, didn't look great on 40inch telly, everything else was perfect. So im hoping they do a good job.
I remember the underwater sequel, Terror from the Deep, wasn't as good imo, because they slightly changed the format.

Manic Moran

Pete emailed back, he's at Gamescom. They say they have a playable version on the floor now, and will have one at PAX, so I guess I'll check it out in a couple of weeks.

degrassinoel

Some excellent playable demo footage here, looks great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VP4YmExQAE

Manic Moran

See also the other thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=80595718&postcount=25

hal9000

Its available to pre order on steam now, but wow! I think ill go with gamestop.ie because of price!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/200510/

Gunmonkey

Currently on Amazon for £30 (bout €37) but wouldnt get it till the week after launch.

wayne040576

Gunmonkey wrote: »

Currently on Amazon for £30 (bout €37) but wouldnt get it till the week after launch.

I'll throw more confusion into the mix here.
You can get it on Amazon.com (download code) for $44.99 which is about €35.
You can order those if you give yourself a US billing address.
I've ordered a couple of games from them that way.

http://www.amazon.com/XCOM-Enemy-Unknown-Pc/dp/B006WQR3OM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347059999&sr=8-1&keywords=xcom

Gunmonkey

Looked around and ShopTo has it for £28 (round €33) and think it delivers for release date, anyone used them know when their stuff arrives?

Grimebox

I'm going to assume its going to be rubbish to not get my hopes up

This studio has only made Sid Meier games so far. The base building side of things will be fine, but I am sceptical of how the missions will be. I predict they will **** it up

degrassinoel

the missions, at least the ones i've seen on youtube look great!

kingtiger

degrassinoel wrote: »

the missions, at least the ones i've seen on youtube look great!

can wait it looks very good

this just may ween me off my World of Tanks addiction

oh and @ Grimebox

less of the negative waves man

Manic Moran

kingtiger wrote: »

degrassinoel wrote: »

this just may ween me off my World of Tanks addiction

I just started a new game of the original. Still have time to get my WoT daily doubles though.

DarkJager

Demo is now up on Steam, but it's a hefty 5.8gb. Downoading now

djkeogh

Keeping my fingers crossed that this is as good as the original. I freakin loved that game

Gunmonkey

Up to half way through the download...WOOOOO.

Sure hope this game does well on all the systems, current consoles have a massive gap when it comes to strategy games. Though I imagine most people who buy this will be like "I thought it was a shooter like Gears of War, this sucks" "Why are my guys just standing there, why dont they shoot?" "No base defenses...WAAAAAH" (that last one is from my older brother).

omerin

The beauty about the original game was its simplicity and its shear addictiveness, for me it was up there with the earlier Championship Manager games. This looks too polished and I could see myself playing a half an hour and shelving it

quarryman

omerin wrote: »

The beauty about the original game was its simplicity and its shear addictiveness, for me it was up there with the earlier Championship Manager games. This looks too polished and I could see myself playing a half an hour and shelving it

That's an interesting point. A game being TOO polished. I agree, I wish some remakes were more straightforward high resolution versions of the originals with more levles rather than than being overdone in 3D engines that try to reinvent the game itself.

If I come up with an example of what I'm referring to I'll add it...

Stev_o

Played it. Bear in mind the demo is 30 minutes at tops for a 6 gig download eek. I enjoyed it looking forward to release.

pixelburp

6Gigs?? Jee-sus. I hope there's some form of sync for those who download the demo & then buy the full game; I'd hate to think I'd have to download those assets all over again if I choose to purchase the main thing.

omerin wrote: »

The beauty about the original game was its simplicity and its shear addictiveness, for me it was up there with the earlier Championship Manager games. This looks too polished and I could see myself playing a half an hour and shelving it

No disrepect, but that makes no sense to me & sounds a bit nuts; how can a game be 'too polished'? I certainly don't see how simplicity & addictiveness is somehow mutually exclusive with a game having polish, or a slick presentation. I'd be fairly confident that if the technology existed back in the day, the original X-com devs would have had no problem using what's available now. So if someone's making a game with the complexity of yesteryear, coupled with the gfx tech of 2012, they can have my money right now.

omerin

pixelburp wrote: »

6Gigs?? Jee-sus. I hope there's some form of sync for those who download the demo & then buy the full game; I'd hate to think I'd have to download those assets all over again if I choose to purchase the main thing.



No disrepect, but that makes no sense to me & sounds a bit nuts; how can a game be 'too polished'? I certainly don't see how simplicity & addictiveness is somehow mutually exclusive with a game having polish, or a slick presentation. I'd be fairly confident that if the technology existed back in the day, the original X-com devs would have had no problem using what's available now. So if someone's making a game with the complexity of yesteryear, coupled with the gfx tech of 2012, they can have my money right now.

Lord forgive him for he knows not what he is saying

The new version is too much Hollywood for my liking. As the saying goes all fur coat and no knickers, most of the new releases depend on their shiny graphics and gameplay is an after thought or maybe I'm just getting old :eek:

Gunmonkey

Finished the demo, pretty much a "dragged by the nose" tutorial of 1 mission & some basic base management (promote soldier, assign research, choose next mission) and then one more mission where your given free control of the action. Didnt show a lot of the depth I hope the real game has (base building, decisions on who to help and who to ignore).

pixelburp

Uh, well that didn't take long. 6gig download, about 30 minutes gameplay. I definitely hope they sync the demo with the full-game cos I feel a tad cheated. Thoughts? Well clearly it's a tutorial portion of the campaign & focuses on the ground-missions (there's 2 you can do)

The mission gameplay seems like X-com to me, just an evolution of the core ideas with some newer graphics and more 'cinematic' approach to showing your moves (or fook-ups) in action. A couple of new elements such as the different height-levels, but the basics are still there. My biggest concern was that the UI wouldn't be a happy experience, but it seems like the PC version was tailored specifically for the gaming uber-race

There wasn't enough of the base mechanics to make a fair judgement on it;you choose your base, upgraded your soldiers and started some research before being pushed into your second mission. It seemed like all the mechanics from before were there.

omerin wrote: »

Lord forgive him for he knows not what he is saying

The new version is too much Hollywood for my liking. As the saying goes all fur coat and no knickers, most of the new releases depend on their shiny graphics and gameplay is an after thought or maybe I'm just getting old :eek:

Well from what I saw of the demo it seemed the core elements of X-com are there, so maybe the mature thing to do, if you're talking about being old (though if you're younger than 32 you can definitely stfu there ) is to try it out first before dismissing it because you don't like how it looks & have a prejudice against the idea that games can look good and still be deep (even if ironically I said the demo lacked depth to give people a good idea of the game)

Sarky

Gah, neeeed unexploded PC! Want X-COM!

Grimebox

When is it suposed to be out?

degrassinoel

11th october

Kazuma

Was terribly disappointed by the demo - NOT by the gameplay, but by the amount of it in it. 6GB and I don't even get a real chance to get a feel for the game (even a 1 hour timelock or something of the sort would have been better, and I hate those with a passion).

However, what I did get to play was great, pretty much what I expected. I would recommend to people that they use a 360 pad to play it (sacrilege!), as I played through the demo twice, once with mouse and once with controller. Enjoyed the controller much more, oddly enough felt more precise and didn't accidentally issue incorrect move orders with it like the mouse.

Was planning on pre-ordering soon enough anyway, but saw GreenManGaming have further improved their deal for it (in NA anyway) so picked it up for $32. Dear baby Jesus please let it register on Steam as normal. If not I will pirate the hell out of it (as I have paid :pac: )

VinLieger

Kazuma wrote: »

Was terribly disappointed by the demo - NOT by the gameplay, but by the amount of it in it. 6GB and I don't even get a real chance to get a feel for the game (even a 1 hour timelock or something of the sort would have been better, and I hate those with a passion).

However, what I did get to play was great, pretty much what I expected. I would recommend to people that they use a 360 pad to play it (sacrilege!), as I played through the demo twice, once with mouse and once with controller. Enjoyed the controller much more, oddly enough felt more precise and didn't accidentally issue incorrect move orders with it like the mouse.

Was planning on pre-ordering soon enough anyway, but saw GreenManGaming have further improved their deal for it (in NA anyway) so picked it up for $32. Dear baby Jesus please let it register on Steam as normal. If not I will pirate the hell out of it (as I have paid :pac: )

Yeah was similarly annoyed by the size of the demo and the lack of an actual demo.
Keep us informed if it registers on steam been looking for a good deal for this

degrassinoel

Interactive gameplay trailer here, pretty nifty..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ3B7XPpPmI

and about an hours worth of new gameplay footage here..
http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-ex-xcom-enemy-unknown/17-6601/

Grimebox

Meh, gonna wait rather watching that to be honest

Azza

First review I've spotted for this 95/100 from Game Informer.

Nody

Azza wrote: »

First review I've spotted for this 95/100 from Game Informer.

Early reviews tend to be over positive and then go down from there but it's a promising start for sure.

Cravez

I was skeptical about this at first, although playing the demo changed my view on it and I pre-ordered . I think the new move system is nice bridge that caters for the more experienced turn based strategists and also makes it user friendly for new turn based strategists.

My only concern about the game which I didn't really get to see in the demo is more of the micro management aspects such as the bases and solider customization. I know you can specialize your soldier but I'm more concerned about how to manage and equip each soldier (is there weapon variations, armor variations, tools etc)

degrassinoel

I think that works out as class specific, based on your soldiers class you can equip specialist weapons and their upgraded/researched variants, ie:sniper rifles, heavy machine guns, assault rifles etc..

There's another review here btw
http://kotaku.com/5949522/xcom-enemy-unknown-the-kotaku-review

Cravez

Yep I get what you mean, I just meant if there are more variations of weapon types like if there are more than one type of sniper rifle to choose from etc. Or if there are different Armor types (e.g like in x-com apocalypse you had Megapol Armor, then Marsec Armor and then you could create X-com armor)

Azza

Lots more reviews in.
9/10 on Eurogamer.
Seen about half a dozen reviews. All 9/10 and one 5/5.

Will pick it up on Friday. If I get RE6 finished in time I'll trade it in for this.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/372036/xcom-enemy-unknown-review-round-up-the-sequel-weve-always-dreamed-of/

super_furry

Any console reviews or indications how it plays? My laptop isn't going to be up to playing this properly unfortunately.

degrassinoel

Michael Cravez wrote: »

Yep I get what you mean, I just meant if there are more variations of weapon types like if there are more than one type of sniper rifle to choose from etc. Or if there are different Armor types (e.g like in x-com apocalypse you had Megapol Armor, then Marsec Armor and then you could create X-com armor)

Not sure tbh, going by what i've seen (or not seen) i think it's just cookie cutter weapons, could be wrong though..

marco_polo

super_furry wrote: »

Any console reviews or indications how it plays? My laptop isn't going to be up to playing this properly unfortunately.

NowGamer have a review for each format. Overall feedback is very good on all platforms with plenty of kudos for the controller interface.

Not a great piece on Forbes, but says the same really PC and XBox versions both very impressive.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2012/10/08/should-you-play-xcom-enemy-unknown-on-pc-or-console/

Gunmonkey

Michael Cravez wrote: »

Yep I get what you mean, I just meant if there are more variations of weapon types like if there are more than one type of sniper rifle to choose from etc. Or if there are different Armor types (e.g like in x-com apocalypse you had Megapol Armor, then Marsec Armor and then you could create X-com armor)

Weapons

go from ballistic -> laser -> plasma with research and aquiring alien weapons as far as I can see, could be extra stuff in there not shown yet. Think ammo types are in too, not sure if added straight to weapons or are an inventory item.

Armours

depend on your class, have seen ghost armour for stealth, sniper grappling suits, archangel is just the flying suit, tank/high HP style armour for heavies, again not seen everything the game has.

While not massively expansive there is still a good bit of choice later on. Think a good chunk of the items and avantages they give have been folded into class skills, such as the heavies rocket launcher.