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[MaximumZero]

I really hope that they'll change that, and that was just something the devs put in for giggles in internal gameplay. It's...really juvenile.

Well, then - I guess I'm juvenile. I like it.

Maybe I'm just getting old. Hell, I don't know anymore.

[Werdna]

Of course, I did have a problem with everyone being overweight or near weight capacity, and I'm not sure if that slowed their reactions at all. Most of the others I shot myself rather than reaction fire taking care of them.

It does explain why you got little reaction fire.  Chance of  reaction fire is a function of current TU's, and encumbered agents have fewer TU's.

Sorry, I screwed up - being encumbered does lower your TU's, but the reaction fire formula indicates that your total TU's don't matter, its the ratio of current TU's to total TU's.

As for the gameplay link, I'm excited to see 'suppression' added, although I likewise hope it is more of a detrimental modifier as opposed to a "can't move" effect.  I'm surprised though that noone's mentioned the use of a rocket launcher to "allow the sniper an unobstructed shot".  What happened to smoke?  In the original I really liked the fact that if you chose to use high explosives to just blast  your way to the aliens, that the drawback was an area full of dust and smoke that left you in suspense - did you get them?  Was there more behind them?  Do you send a guy in to the smoke, to potentially come face to face with survivors?  Who can forget chucking grenades into those small spacecrafts, and the tense search through the smoke afterwards knowing that because the mission hasn't ended, there's got to be one left somewhere in all that smoke.  The smoke helped balance the more powerful weapons, I thought.

[Domenique]

I hope this was just a miniature battle for demo. I mean, EVERYTHING looked nice, but the mission was more of a killing a few stray mutons rather than really doing anything interesting. I mean, they face more threat arresting crack barons than this, and we're talking about the aliens.

[Aqizzar]

Something I didn't even notice until I looked at the screenshots again.

Does anyone else find it a little morbidly funny that the price signs on the gas-station would be cheap right now?  Gas got like twenty cents a gallon more expensive since they made those textures.

It also raises a question - that was a great design for a cartoonishly retro gas station in the United States.  Will the graphics be different depending on where in the world the mission is?  It would be pretty dumb seeing checker-tile neon-googie gas stations with pricing in American dollars per Imperial gallon in Kazakhstan.

[Delta Foxtrot]

It also raises a question - that was a great design for a cartoonishly retro gas station in the United States.  Will the graphics be different depending on where in the world the mission is?  It would be pretty dumb seeing checker-tile neon-googie gas stations with pricing in American dollars per Imperial gallon in Kazakhstan.

I'm going to pointlessly speculate that we will see roughly localized graphics. One each for North America, South America, Europe, Russia(kizhtans), Asia and Africa. This would strike a fairly decent line between every country getting one and all the world having one.

It would indeed feel dumb to have good old US of A showing up in northern India and the like.

[Strange guy]

Turns out part 2 is available. Still doesn't appear to be any links to it on the part one page, which is a little odd. Then again it does say 'news by Ben Reeves on January 28, 2012 at 01:00 PM' so apparently XCOM have loaned them some time travel equipment.

[Mephansteras]

That was pretty cool. It lets us know that the suppressive fire doesn't prevent units from acting, just reduces their ability to do much. Which makes sense, that's what suppressive fire is for. As long as actions like moving through safe cover aren't  penalized, that could be a really cool mechanic.

[Sirus]

Turns out part 2 is available. Still doesn't appear to be any links to it on the part one page, which is a little odd. Then again it does say 'news by Ben Reeves on January 28, 2012 at 01:00 PM' so apparently XCOM have loaned them some time travel equipment.

Two things I like based on those screenshots:

1: The car's windows shattering, and the Sectoids apparently shooting through them. That's pretty slick.

2: Three words: "Alien Reaction Fire". Nice to see that Firaxis seems to be keeping that mechanic.

[Aqizzar]

The "Heavy is locked down" by gunfire part has me worried.  Sure, it makes sense that a guy should never charge out into where he could be shot, but X-COM is X-COM and sometimes you'll want to do that.  I hope he just means he knew there was no reason to move the guy out, not that there's actually a gameplay mechanic to prevent you from walking into a killing field.

So, this is confirmed then.  Well that's just great.  I'll have to see what it means in practice obviously, but I'm suddenly a bit concerned about the general direction of development.  I can't think of a wargame that used "status effects" like pinning and such, wherein the effects were not an easy crutch to get around AI design.

[ZebioLizard2]

*Insert Fry Shut up and take my money meme"

When is this coming out? This looks quite good for a tactical game, it's not exactly a perfect remake, but hey it looks good and I haven't played any good ones in such a long time.

Though the Mutons look interesting now, instead of silly. Any other character modifications to make them more scary?

[Sowelu]

The "Heavy is locked down" by gunfire part has me worried.  Sure, it makes sense that a guy should never charge out into where he could be shot, but X-COM is X-COM and sometimes you'll want to do that.  I hope he just means he knew there was no reason to move the guy out, not that there's actually a gameplay mechanic to prevent you from walking into a killing field.

So, this is confirmed then.  Well that's just great.  I'll have to see what it means in practice obviously, but I'm suddenly a bit concerned about the general direction of development.  I can't think of a wargame that used "status effects" like pinning and such, wherein the effects were not an easy crutch to get around AI design.

Clearly you have never played the excellent Close Combat series, whose per-unit AI was revolutionary for modeling psychology in ways that hadn't been done before...including morale effects and, yes, suppressive fire.  It was designed with realistic psychology in mind, won awards, and played GREAT (as well as very believably).

[Raddish]

This looks better and better the more info I see for it.  And I agree that there have been games where status effects like suppression were added effectively. 

And I don't see it confirmed that the suppression was stopping anything from moving, and even if it does how is that a bad thing?  I like the idea of my soldiers becoming pinned down by enemy fire if I over stretch them to somewhere I can't support them.  But I guess each to his own..

[Tilla]

The "Heavy is locked down" by gunfire part has me worried.  Sure, it makes sense that a guy should never charge out into where he could be shot, but X-COM is X-COM and sometimes you'll want to do that.  I hope he just means he knew there was no reason to move the guy out, not that there's actually a gameplay mechanic to prevent you from walking into a killing field.

So, this is confirmed then.  Well that's just great.  I'll have to see what it means in practice obviously, but I'm suddenly a bit concerned about the general direction of development.  I can't think of a wargame that used "status effects" like pinning and such, wherein the effects were not an easy crutch to get around AI design.

You're imagining it, nowhere in the preview did it say he couldn't move - just that it would be a terrible move that would result in his death and that he is greatly disadvantaged at offensive maneuvers.

[Thexor]

The "Heavy is locked down" by gunfire part has me worried.  Sure, it makes sense that a guy should never charge out into where he could be shot, but X-COM is X-COM and sometimes you'll want to do that.  I hope he just means he knew there was no reason to move the guy out, not that there's actually a gameplay mechanic to prevent you from walking into a killing field.

So, this is confirmed then.  Well that's just great.  I'll have to see what it means in practice obviously, but I'm suddenly a bit concerned about the general direction of development.  I can't think of a wargame that used "status effects" like pinning and such, wherein the effects were not an easy crutch to get around AI design.

You're imagining it, nowhere in the preview did it say he couldn't move - just that it would be a terrible move that would result in his death and that he is greatly disadvantaged at offensive maneuvers.

They're referring to the recently-discovered part 2, where it's outright stated that

Our Heavy foregoes a standard shot on an individual Sectoid, and instead unleashes a devastating area Suppress ability. This won’t kill the aliens, but it will pin their movements and reduce their offensive capabilities.

And a few pictures later...

The Sectoid suppressed by our Heavy is still penalized, so his shot misses and our Assault unit makes it safely to her destination.

So, yeah. It pins movement (not clear whether it prevents any movement, or just movement out of cover) and reduces accuracy.

[Raddish]

Doesn't say it pins him.  It could do anything from removing the ability to move to just decreasing how far they can move or something.  Like in effect slowing their movement.  All that quote actually confirms is that the aliens accuracy is reduced while it is suppressed.

We have still only seen 1 situation where it is used and with only a couple of pictures to work from it's not possible to work out what it's effects are just yet.