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[BFEL]

So in honor of how close we are to Enemy Within, I thought we should all share our "Volunteer" stories.

My first game of XCOM gave me my current only win, and I even managed to do it without losing any countries!
I credit my foresight of looking up walkthroughs and getting the idea firmly planted in my head that SATELLITES=WIN.

But enough about that, you want to hear the story of the woman who saved humanity.
You want to hear about Alice Evans.

Alice was one of the first soldiers to join the XCOM program. She hadn't been a part of the first contact, but she quickly established herself as the premier assault trooper of the program.
Now around the time of the first major assault on an alien base (the one with the sectoid commander) the XCOM Project had a "go-to" team that Alice was part of. The names of the other soldiers during that time were unfortunately lost to history in a unfortunate fire (I totally fucking forgot ) but what IS remembered is that Alice had been in a relationship with the team leader, a gruff older veteran Support soldier. Now during this time all the soldiers had access to were Carapace Armor and Laser weaponry. The prototype for the "Titan" armor was in production during this period, and the team leader was naturally selected as the first testing candidate.
Unfortunately, he never got to wear it, or even see it finished.
The base assault went off without a hitch, but the mission afterward was when everything changed.
The SecCommanders became a real battlefield presence, and showed what they really could do during this mission.

They took control of Alice.

This mission, a simple UFO crash had become a bloodbath. The controlled Alice had gunned down most of her squad, including her beloved. Luckily a sniper got a lucky shot and killed the controller. After Alice cleaned out the rest of the aliens on site, the team gathered their casualties and left for base.

Alice was never the same.
Her life after this point was apparently guided solely by vengeance, and she donned the "Titan" intended for her lover.

After that point there were no more failures, a few close calls where she was once again controlled, but each time she recovered before any real damage was done
and each time simply made her angrier.

This was when the Psionics program came into Alice's life. She saw an opportunity to get revenge on the aliens, to take control of THEM for a change, and she took that opportunity.

Alice was the first soldier with The Gift. (Along with a sniper chick who stole her cutscene. Bitch.)

The rest of the story involves Alice growing in power and mind controlling lots of Aliens.
Then she became "The Volunteer" and the rest is public record. (and was making my computer go one letter per minute, jeez )
 
(Also note that I changed her nickname from "Sock" to "Harbinger" after her psionic awakening, due to ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL becoming such a huge part of her life )

[Remalle]

So it seems base defense missions are indeed back.  To a certain extent, anyway.  I must say I'm really looking forward to this.

[Kydrasz]

That's awesome. But now I'm a bit upset that I can't set up a killzone with my base since it's randomly genned, wonder how the base workers are going to play into this.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, kinda sad about the pre-genned base defense. Not that I'm surprised, given the engine they're working with.

Also...I forgot that it was coming out so soon! I now know what's going to be sucking up my free time this week!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The guy who attacks Bradford has his eyes rolled up in his head, so probably psi, yes. Exalt having psi should be a surprise to nobody, as they seek to take all the aliens have to offer in changing humanity.

[Mageziya]

Here's a video of base defense gameplay.

[umiman]

Escapist has gotten really, really trashy recently so I wouldn't blame you.

I watched about 30 seconds of that video before I turned it off. Too spoilery.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Escapist has gotten really, really trashy recently so I wouldn't blame you.

I watched about 30 seconds of that video before I turned it off. Too spoilery.

Only guy I normally watch on the escapist is Yahtzee.

Because watching him insult games is humorous.

Agreed.

[EnigmaticHat]

Got the expansion tonight, stayed up later than I should have playing it.  My first impressions:

• The expansion comes with a new glitch, of course!  The game lags horribly for no reason.  Restarting the program fixed it, so I don't really care.
• There are a lot of small changes.  The AI no longer cares as much about overwatch, so goodbye locking down an entire squad with your pistol.  Weapon accuracies have changed; the shotgun's damage dropoff is less sharp.  My assault had 98% at spitting distance, and 33% mid range at partial cover.  There are also new maps, including UFO missions in farms.  I've only played two new maps but they seem to have more verticality to them.
• The order of the day seems to be soldier customization.  We all knew about meld, but there are also medals.  Each medal provides one of two bonuses, that you pick, and can also be renamed.  The squad as a whole earns medals and then you award them to soldiers.  In a bitter irony, I gained a medal that could make soldiers immune to panic from allies being shot... after the assault panicked and got the heavy killed.
  
• The two branches of enhancements are completely different things.  Genetic enhancements are up to five small buffs that don't take any abilities away from soldiers.  Cyborgs are actually a 5th class, which retains one passive ability based on the old class (and maybe more stuff, I haven't made a cyborg yet).  This means that, if you use cyborgs, you effectively get to "opt out" of using classes you don't like, while still using your soldier.  For me it will probably end up being snipers.  Oh, and did I mention that cyborg soldiers have their arms and legs removed?  There's a helpful little infographic in the lab.  Squick.
• Both the medals and the cyborg passives can provide defense boosts.  Prior to the expansion, the ONLY defense buff humans could get was smoke grenades, but now you can give +5 defense to anyone in the squad with medals, or +10 in an AOE around MECs who used to be support.  This is going to be a major part of how people play ironman.  If the AI does take defense buffs into account, you can use them to control who gets shot.  If they don't, well you can just stick your toughest soldier out in front in heavy cover, and provide an effective 10 (or more) aim penalty to the aliens.

[umiman]

There were defense buffs before. Assault had a few in immunity to crits as well as increased defense as more hostiles appeared. But yeah, that was about it.

[Mech#4]

Does the game still allow the aliens free movement when they've been discovered? I remember being annoyed that they could duck into cover rather then being caught out in the open.

[Dohon]

I have only one hope for the new expansion: no more teleporting aliens. It didn't happen often, but when it did ... Nothing more frustrating than sweeping a section of the map and then suddenly, a squad of Mutons appears right behind your lines and proceeds to butcher your freshly-promoted-colonel. Firaxis admitted that it was a glitch, but they didn't seem to get it fixed completely. I hope the expansion does.

[BFEL]

There were defense buffs before. Assault had a few in immunity to crits as well as increased defense as more hostiles appeared. But yeah, that was about it.

You're forgetting the Ghost suit defense bonus.

[Majestic7]

The expansion seems interesting, but is, in my opinion, far too expensive for the content it provides. Especially when comparing to stuff like what Paradox does or the free expansion coming out for FTL. I'll buy it when it is -75% in Steam sale. I don't want to support milking money with DLCs.

[EnigmaticHat]

Heh, I would forget about the defense bonuses.  So yeah, probably not that important to Ironman if they already existed and people didn't pay attention to them.  Still, I think I might try stacking a bunch of defense bonuses on a single assault.  You can do it within the first month if you really try.

The expansion seems interesting, but is, in my opinion, far too expensive for the content it provides. Especially when comparing to stuff like what Paradox does or the free expansion coming out for FTL. I'll buy it when it is -75% in Steam sale. I don't want to support milking money with DLCs.

I prefer to support this kind of DLC, which I consider an expansion pack.  Its better than, say, Mass Effect 2 pulling all the weapons out of the game except 2-3 of each type, and charging 3 dollars for each of them.  Or games that like to sell single missions as DLC.  Plus, there are a lot of little updates obviously based on fan feedback, so its evident to me that most of this content was new, instead of being simply withheld.

All that being said, since I haven't spoiled myself I can't say for sure if it was worth it, as I haven't met any new enemies or gotten to use many enhancements.