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[Thexor]

Having watched (suffered through?) the demo, I have the following two comments:

* Had the developers not mentioned the word "Elerium-115", I would never have guessed this to be an X-Com game. The gameplay is totally different; the story is totally different; the setting is totally different (1960s).

* Had the developers not mentioned the word "Elerium-115", I would have guessed the game to be a poor-quality Mass Effect ripoff. Technically a poor-quality Mass Effect 2 ripoff. Seriously, let me describe one of these games, and you try to tell me which one I'm describing:

The game focuses around a hub-based mission system, where you select which mission to undertake from a large map. Missions focus on scripted storyline missions, revolving around recruiting additional team members with specialized skills to stop an army of sentient robots from consuming all life as we know it. During missions, you take a squad of two other characters with unique abilities, who are largely AI-controlled but can be given specific orders from a pause menu; this menu also allows you to target your squad member's powers on specific locations or enemies. When not actively on missions, your hub serves as a safe location where you can chat with various characters to learn more about the world, as well as research new equipment and upgrades to take with you into the field.

So, yeah. It's ME2 with (considerably) less polish, and set in the 60s instead of the future. 


...you guys got any more room in that pact?

[inteuniso]

Why commit suicide when there's homicide right around the corner? /macabrejoke

Anywho, it's not X-Com, but it does look like a decent FPS. That being said, there are approximately 200,000 FPSes on the market, most of them the same game.

I feel like they took an FPS they wanted to make and slapped the X-Com name on it to make a few more dollars.

[Sonlirain]

Reminds me of how X-COM Apocalypse got flamed for not being X-COM.
In this case seeing as the game is nothing like the old X-Coms (with the exeption of some details) i can only guess the producers only want to milk the franchise name... evolving a game to fit into a whole new era of gaming is one thing but changing the genre is pushing it a bit.
Shouldn't they learn that lesson after Interceptor and Enforcer?

[drkpaladin]

I didn't automatically hate the new xcom when I heard it was going fps, but seeing the demo there made me lose any hope at all.  It doesn't look original at all, it looks like a clumsy mash of things that have been done before in other FPS games. Pew pew pew.  Oh noes, push x to revive your buddy.  Oh noes, use a perk to shield myself.  Oh noes, world in danger, but alien bullets bounce off Americans.  It doesn't even look good on its own as a fps.  I'm thinking that slapping the Xcom name on it wasn't to squeeze money out of Xcom fans, it was to deflect attention from the gameplay and onto the name of the game.

Guessing at spoilers, aliens shoot JFK!

[Shadowlord]

Aliens? Everyone knows that was

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mason

[Tilla]

Why commit suicide when there's homicide right around the corner? /macabrejoke

If I post about the homicide before hand it ruins a lot of my plausible deniability later.

[drkpaladin]

I guess another problem I have with it is that I can't even appreciate the new setting.  I'm an american, but part of the charm of the original Xcom game was that XCOM was a multinational organization.  Marketing got ahold of it and decided that the Kennedy era is "in".  I was seriously trying to be optimistic about it until I saw the demo there. 

They had a chance to sell me on FPS Xcom, but the main character wasn't pissing himself in the corner after being issued a pistol and stun rod, with exiting the helicopter something akin to storming normandy, surviving by any means possible in order to drag an unconscious alien and his weapon back to the helicopter while being forced to kill a mind controlled squadmate on the way back.  After dropping off the precious cargo in the helicopter? Well, maybe he leaves to go try and rescue some of his friends who have freaked out by knocking them out and bringing them back too. Partially successful until the main character is shot in the gut and dragged back to a UFO slowly... watching the copter leave without him before being strapped to an alien operating table. 

Mission F*ing success.  Next mission, pick a new character, heres another pistol, that energy weapon that was captured? Oh, it'll be at least a month before human hands can operate it.  The alien? Just a foot soldier, doesn't know much useful that isn't related to how screwed humanity is, better luck next time.  By the way, one of survivors was this guy that flipped out, shot at his teammates and then dropped his weapon and ran away crying, showed some real gumption and thinking outside of the box we decided to promote him, he'll be leading the next mission.  Oh, more good news, last month's research finally paid off, here is a box of band-aids.

[Untouchable]

Another thing, a cover-based shooter would have nothing to do with X-Com. One of the key things that you can do is create your own entrances and such which, using a laser rifle let alone a Plasma, was easy as hell. So how can you have a cover system in a game like that?

[kerlc]

Having watched (suffered through?) the demo, I have the following two comments:

* Had the developers not mentioned the word "Elerium-115", I would never have guessed this to be an X-Com game. The gameplay is totally different; the story is totally different; the setting is totally different (1960s).

* Had the developers not mentioned the word "Elerium-115", I would have guessed the game to be a poor-quality Mass Effect ripoff. Technically a poor-quality Mass Effect 2 ripoff. Seriously, let me describe one of these games, and you try to tell me which one I'm describing:

The game focuses around a hub-based mission system, where you select which mission to undertake from a large map. Missions focus on scripted storyline missions, revolving around recruiting additional team members with specialized skills to stop an army of sentient robots from consuming all life as we know it. During missions, you take a squad of two other characters with unique abilities, who are largely AI-controlled but can be given specific orders from a pause menu; this menu also allows you to target your squad member's powers on specific locations or enemies. When not actively on missions, your hub serves as a safe location where you can chat with various characters to learn more about the world, as well as research new equipment and upgrades to take with you into the field.

So, yeah. It's ME2 with (considerably) less polish, and set in the 60s instead of the future. 


...you guys got any more room in that pact?

here's the deal: NOT EVERY GODDAMN SHOOTER WITH RPG ELEMNTS IS A ME2 CLONE! but XCOM just takes the collectors plot ant takes off.
the basic difference: XCOM (the new one that is) is just the mar sara mission played all over again.

but otherwise, it seems OK. the XCOM is (alot like fallout 3, wich was under RAAAAAAAGEEEHHHH!!! beacuse being in first person, but was overall good.) is just trying different things.

just think about it, making a turn based game and expect a full price for it is nowadays considered a financial suicide. and i don't buy that game is bad just by looking at a couple of trailers. XCOM is (in my point of view) a murder of the franchise's setting and system, but it feels necessary (for me at least) to look at the ashes, and perhaps a phoenix shall arise from them. i have played X-COM since i was a kid (although, here it's called UFO) and loved it, both 2 parts. just a couple of months ago i got meself the 3rd part (apocalypse). sure it was weird at first, with the city and all, but i have felt the core to be X-com. the tactical shootouts etc.

don't criticise the game BEFORE it came out. that's what i learned from fallout 3. i have played fallout 1 before, loved it, and when i found out that the 3rd part was going to be an FPS i immediately joined the FULL CAPS RAGEEEEEEEHHHH!!!!! on some of the forums, but when i played the game i loved it. the atmosphere, etc. the only problem i had with it was the story, but let's let that drop.

so far (judging by the trailers) the only thing that bothered me was the american setting. BUT. otherwise it seems okay. who knows, maybe in the full game you'll have a retaliation or something and will se the aliens planet. oh, and the aliens weren't that great too. but that can be forgiven. i forgave that the combat was too reliable at ME2, but that did not ruin my fun.

maybe i'll be proven wrong. maybe the finished game will just feel like a ME2 ripoff (also by the point of choosing what mission you'd like to play (hub), mario had it (some of them), so ME2 is not that new in that department) and will just be bad. but maybe not.

so PLEASE, PLEASE, DO.NOT.CALL.A.GAME.A.RIPOFF.OF.ANOTHER.GAME.UNTIL.YOU.GODDAMN.PLAYED.IT.


p.s.: cover based shooting would have a lot to du with x-com, since in real, tactical world battles (just like x-coms so far portray them, just with, you know. aliens) cover has a whole friggin bunch to do with X-com. that is all. i do not want any flame wars over this post.

P.S.S: I MEAN IT.

[Untouchable]

p.s.: cover based shooting would have a lot to du with x-com, since in real, tactical world battles (just like x-coms so far portray them, just with, you know. aliens) cover has a whole friggin bunch to do with X-com. that is all. i do not want any flame wars over this post.

P.S.S: I MEAN IT.

I meant along the lines that the basic Alien weapons could tear through walls in a single shot, a cover-based shooter would be highly redundant since the cover can barely take a single hit.

And where are the recognisable aliens? Sure, Mutons looked goofy and Sectoids are generic nowdays but compare these wannabe husk things with the Chryssalids and it is completley different. Imagine having to explore a town that a single Chryssalid had gotten into and just spread and spread until its killed everything.

What about a single Etheral commander that forces your own guys against you or tricks you into backing into an area where a Sectopod can tear you apart with laser fire.

What about Floaters that set up ambushes from the rooftops while Reapers attempt to maul you.



However, at this rate none of this will be likely. When the person who did the linked demo said that X-Com: Enemy Unknown was overwhelming between missions, that made me lose any hope for the project. X-Com has a lot going on in it but it's fairly easy to figure out. The fact that they need to dumb it down for the masses makes me regret liking the series if the guys who own the intellectual rights to it would chose to do something like that.

[Virtz]

For me Fallout 3 sucked for reasons I've stated before. It's not a good example of switching genres (from cRPG to FPS-RPG) to me at all.

Also, in real world combat you'd get pelted with grenades (that have a greater effect radius than 2 meters) or suppressed and flanked if you were outnumbered. Not to mention cover penetration with high calibre weapons. In shooters you're generally playing a pop-a-mole minigame, taking cover to recover health and fighting against AI using WW1 trench level tactics. It's not any more realistic than games without cover mechanics and it sure as hell ain't as fun.

[kerlc]

Also, in real world combat you'd get pelted with grenades (that have a greater effect radius than 2 meters) or suppressed and flanked if you were outnumbered. Not to mention cover penetration with high calibre weapons. In shooters you're generally playing a pop-a-mole minigame, taking cover to recover health and fighting against AI using WW1 trench level tactics. It's not any more realistic than games without cover mechanics and it sure as hell ain't as fun.

all of your statements are true, but let me ask you this: what's more fun: getting grenade spammed at CoD, or exchanging bullets?

neither are that all fun, but grenade spamming? day ruiner. but you are of course right. games should just lose the cover systems. (unless it feels right, i.e. GoW. or maybe the new Deus Ex, where the weapons are not all that high caliber(deus ex only)) THIS is why i play doom. on a modern computer.

p.s.: cover based shooting would have a lot to du with x-com, since in real, tactical world battles (just like x-coms so far portray them, just with, you know. aliens) cover has a whole friggin bunch to do with X-com.

I meant along the lines that the basic Alien weapons could tear through walls in a single shot, a cover-based shooter would be highly redundant since the cover can barely take a single hit.

And where are the recognisable aliens? Sure, Mutons looked goofy and Sectoids are generic nowdays but compare these wannabe husk things with the Chryssalids and it is completley different. Imagine having to explore a town that a single Chryssalid had gotten into and just spread and spread until its killed everything.

What about a single Etheral commander that forces your own guys against you or tricks you into backing into an area where a Sectopod can tear you apart with laser fire.

What about Floaters that set up ambushes from the rooftops while Reapers attempt to maul you. (kerlc's note: that is fun, chalenging, etc, and all that a game should (or could) be. because it requires quck response etc. 

i accept your opinion, and am glad taht someone had brought this up. i have mentioned that aliens are unreckognisable. and yeah, they are pretty much generic husk copies. but let the game surprise you! that is what i do with all the games i play. maybe the aliens will have their own identity (not likely thus far, but hey! just maybe)


and nowadays, EVERY GAME is dumbed down. just sayin.

[Aklyon]

i have mentioned that aliens are unrecognizable. and yeah, they are pretty much generic husk copies. but let the game surprise you!

If it was a sci-fi shooter, I would, and I might play it at a friend's house.
But they want to say its X-Com, So I expect Chryssalids or Floaters in it, or at the very least things that aren't just black blobby things or generic husks that all look basically the same.

[Mephansteras]

The new aliens don't actually bother me that much. It's not like ANY of the three original X-Coms had much in common beyond a little bit of lore, alien-wise. So fighting a new alien menace is par for the course.

The whole 'capture alien tech' aspect is cool, and the 'use it now' or 'save for research' option is pretty cool. As is the fact that it sounds like missions can be failed with some consequences. Which is very X-Com like.

So far, actually, it fits X-Com pretty well other than being an FPS/RPG hybrid.

What I don't like, though, is that it lacks any sense of terror or lethality. The guys in that video were getting shot left and right, but there wasn't any worry about squad death or not getting hit. It was all super-close-up action. Sure, it was cover based, but those alien weapons sure didn't seem to hurt much when they got shot. Oddly, they seemed to rip those NPC people apart in no time...

In my opinion, it should have been more like ARMA II. Squad members should die. Getting shot by super powerful alien weapons should suck. A squad mate who gets seriously injured should require medical attention immediately to stabilize them, and after that they should be a lot less effective. And in general you should probably be ordering them out of the combat area. That would make it really fit in with X-COM. You're not a group of super-soldiers who can blast your way through anything. You're a group of elite agents, yes, but you're mortal and fighting a very powerful force. Three guys shouldn't be mowing down dozens of these aliens with basic human firepower.

[ZebioLizard2]

I like how when everyone hates on this games aliens, they don't hate on X-com apocalypse or even mention it's aliens being completely NEW, that isn't even related to the old games ones by any measure.

Also, why are everyone just wanting the first games characters? Tentuclats were far scarier than Chryssalids and much more cool looking! (I'm sorry, but those..teeth, the chryssalid looks a bit to happy for someone who's goal is to impregnate people.. Or that makes it creepier, unsure.