Today's report won't be for a few more hours, but I figured I'd post this. It's an early combat concept trailer by Firaxis that shows some interesting things, like X-Com soldiers communicating and idle fighting during turns.
Holy crap! That's awesome! I mean, varied action cams, combat that feels like a movie, melee combat (including a soldier killing a muton in a knife-fight)...why the hell did they change it?
Well, it's just a concept trailer, and a lot of those elements did get in in some format. You can notice how young it is by the menu that comes up, it has a lot of Old-Com style options because Firaxis hadn't found their grounding yet (to make you even more jealous, Firaxis actually made a
tactical boardgame for Enemy Unknown because they had no idea how to make combat happen, but alas, this remained an in-studio tool). Action Cams did make it in, albeit not as varied. The idle combat remains in the form of Suppression and Overwatch. And as for melee combat, it took until Enemy Within, but now we have Kinetic Strike Modules (complete with unique kill animations for large enemies!).
By the way, I read a great name for a sequel today: Enemy Beyond. Though I would hope any sequel to Enemy Unknown/Within would continue to expand upon the existing theme of "oh fuck, X-COM has crossed the Rubicon" in regards to humanity. Centuries if not millennia of technological advancement within the space of just a few years is not something that happens without problems. As Shen puts it, nothing will ever be the same after the invasion; the old world is gone forever even should humanity defeat the aliens.
Edit: I'm probably not going to get to play anymore today, so I'll deliver my report for day four of the Normal run. Not much got done, and I'm without screenshots.
-EXALT is gone. While I liked the final mission, I'm a little let down by EXALT as a whole. More could have been done with them. For one, the game barely expounds upon them. While I'm a dedicated enough fan to know that EXALT are looking to cause a Singularity with alien tech, and are basically only different from the aliens that they want this to happen on their terms instead of the aliens', this isn't explained well. EXALT should have been given a cutscene or two, perhaps some propaganda broadcasts. Another aspect is how EXALT is "going too far" with gene augs. This is a good idea, except the Elite EXALT augs aren't very different from what X-COM fields, so it comes off as silly. EXALT should have had a third tier, employing plasma weaponry and truly posthuman augmentation (genetics, mechanics, psionics, the whole shebang). The kind of thing you would look at and go "oh god what the fuck". The kind of thing you'd have to autopsy. And that would be when Vahlen should have given her opinion that X-COM should never go that far.
-I've finally hit the wall on what MECs are capable of, my MEC being downed by a trio of Elite Mutons who all crit. She ultimately survived thanks to some speedy xenocide on my part, but now near the end MECs are clearly no longer solo beasts. SHIV-COM is almost ready to roll out.
-I'm having some worries that I might have to shake up my A-Team to use Psi, as two have been tested and come up negative, and one is a MEC. Hopefully testing will go better during SHIV-COM.
To-do list for tomorrow:
-Murder EXALT
-Reprimand Chinese Council rep
-Shoot down the Overseer
-Mindjack an Ethereal
-Top off tech tree and foundry tree
-Convince Vahlen to stop replaying the recordings of her interrogations over the base speakers
-Prepare for the return of Sectopods
-SHIV-COM
-Gene-hack everybody during SHIV-COM
-Inform the Alliums they came to the wrong fucking planet
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Topic: XCOM: Enemy Unknown (New by Firaxis) (Read 972269 times)