Here’re the first impressions I did a while back: http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/07/13/new-x-com-revival-is-playable-and-awesome/
Bottom line: it’s nearly everything you want it to be. My biggest wish is that they’d create a skirmish mode for multiplayer where you can equip some high-end tech without having to rope an opponent into a 12-hour game and research it from scratch. The only part of X-COM I’m interested in playing multiplayer is the tactical mode, so let me do that with minimal hassle.
Wasn’t there some other remake or mod that let you do exactly that?
Wow, this is very cruel to have Civ 5 and this in the same week. So much for getting anything done, ever.
= It’s dead, folks!
It actually plays pretty well right now and a lot of what they are adding is reworked features from the original game. All that blog post said is that they have stopped adding new things, such as the sniper rifle they made, to the game because they lack a lead artist. That doesn’t mean the programmer has stopped working on game systems and bug fixes, which I think is all a lot of people care about anyways and definitely does not require an artist.
Indeed it’s definitely not dead but they need an artist to continue the work + need to get started on sound and music.
I think it was time for them to stop expanding the game and nailing down what’s in it so far, the sheer amount of new ideas, improvements and additions would become overwhelming.
They’ve done a tremendous job so far, especially when it comes to making the alien side playable and re-balancing weapons.
I’d never played X-Com before, and it sounded like it’d be right up my alley, but wasn’t really in the mood to slog through interface issues on a dos game for hours. This seemed like a really great way to try out that game.
I’m pretty smitten so far, but christ is this game hard! I keep getting attached to my little dudes, and after about two hours, the Aliens seem to have increasingly powerful weapons and units, and my guys are still armorless and slinging assault rifles. If the numbers balance isn’t just right when I land, it’s pretty much a guaranteed slaughter.
One mission I sent out my first scout, and he is immediately hit with a fucking rocket. Any who follow are pretty much getting swept up like it’s target practice, so I reload my save at the beginning of the battle, and just keep doing it until that initial rocket misses and my guy has a chance to at least return fire. I managed to clear out the ground around their ship, and only lost oh, about half my squad.
I’m in what I think is the home stretch when what I think is the last alien (one of those serpent type dudes) slinks out, and manages to cap 3 squaddies in one burst. “Ok,” I think, “This is the price of a major battle, I can take the losses and still come home with this being a plus on my record.” Next thing I know, about 6 or 7 slugs come out of the gate, my 3 remaining soldiers panic, including my Sergent, who I’ve been grooming for 10 plus battles.
I finally reloaded that first save and hightailed it without so much as sending out a scout. Anybody have any advice on getting my dudes some damned armor? I feel like most battles are going to be hell until these guys can take more than a round or two.
Dammit Gabe. Stop talkin all that sweet talk or I’ll have to load up X-Com yet again.
~mink~
research spoilers
VVV
Alien Alloys -> Armor
Armor + UFO Power Source + Elerium-115 -> Power Armor
Power Armor + UFO Navigation -> Flying Armour
Laser Weapons -> Laser Pistols -> Laser Rifles
You really want laser rifles. Like, immediately. Regular armor looks sort of cool but is almost totally useless against plasma, power armor is pretty good though.
Gabe: first of all I’d switch to different weapons if I were you. I never cared much for assault rifles; early on I’d recommend auto cannons, a few rocket launchers and even some sniper rifles if those are still in the most recent update of the game.
Add a few grenades for extra blasting power, especially if you’ve opened the door of a UFO and see too many enemies to shoot in 1 go. Remember though that it takes time units to prime and throw a grenade.
As soon as possible, research up to laser rifle (laser weapons > laser pistol > laser rifle).
From the top of my head I don’t know what to research to get to body armour…
In the original game I usually added 1 tank; even if they are expensive they make great cannon fodder… erhm, I mean great scouts to move out of the skyranger first. I prefer spending nearly 500,000 on a new tank rather than losing a good soldier.
A lot of deaths can be avoided by:
Don’t hesitate to ask more questions. Early on it’s not an easy game and later on you’ll come across far tougher enemies, so it’s good to get some advise from people who’ve been there before, that’s exactly how I learned to play the game.
Who needs flares when you can bring an autocannon with incendiary rounds?
one of my favorite mental pictures is watching a crysalid do the “x-com shuffle” while bathed in flames from incendiary rounds. good times.
Resurrecting this thread rather than dilute the intense discussion of agent’s hair style which is going on in the other XCOM thread…
I had a chance to check my downloads and found a copy of version 0.99 of this, from before the downloads got pulled. As far as I can tell from the website, 0.99 is the final version before development was stopped.
I am very interested in getting my hands on that if possible.
If you happen to upload it someplace, maybe you could drop me the link, too?
I always intended to wait for the final version before really trying this - but I guess, there won’t be a final version now. :(
I can’t really follow their line of reasoning, but it’s not the first remake I see fall/fail, so I guess I got used to it.
rezaf
I don’t think copying a game is legal, even if you recreate the graphics. So this project is doomed from the start. Perhaps may continue forever if require the original game to installed and pretend to be a mod, but as standalone is doomed.
Well, you can say that about basically ALL fangames.
But do you really think this case would be more serious than the Sierra Adventure remakes, for example?
Their reasoning about suddenly realizing this all could somehow not be perfectly and 100% legal is utter nonsense - like you write, it’s clear from the start that this is a gray area.
However, making a separate, real company for stuff they want to sell would’ve had them on the safe side - even IF a C&D would’ve arrived at one point - which was relatively unlikely, at least before Firaxis’ XCOM was announced.
rezaf
Grid Wars was so way better than Geometry Wars on so many levels.
And you can’t claim copyrights to Robotron.
But we know where that leads to…
They were probably right in shutting the project down. Now that 2K are rolling out a fake x-com game they probably would’ve taken C&Ds against them for making a game too close to the original (and, in their dumb minds, that might take sales away from their new shiny phony pony).
We’ve seen similar companies engage in such llamahzery in the past, after all.
Just one more reason why SOPA/PIPA/ACTA should never be allowed to manifest.
i think the TTS team are being a bit paranoid. if they would just change up the art assets they’d probably be golden. there have been several commercially released x-com clones. they were bad enough that the creators probably deserved to get sued, but didn’t. those mediocre clones are still on steam even post 2k Xcom reboot announcement, with no pending legal action reported.