Oh, and I’d be willing to bet that UFO:ET has sold better than most games Matrix has sold online. And, as Kunikos said, it’s not in stores yet AND the presentation blows. You may not need super-awesome graphics, but shit graphics are going to sink you.
Hey I said that! Well the first part anyway :)
I wouldn’t mind all these new X-Com clones that try to “enhance” the gameplay, except that these “enhancements” generally detract from the core experience. I just want a high-tension turn-based squad-tactical game with opportunity-fire, destructable terrain, and meta-game components like base-building and research.
For all the misgivings towards TFTD, it did a couple of things right: no ammo-less weapons, and the ability to open doors without stepping through. as mentioned, there are a handful of other changes that would make the game better, but they’d mostly be aesthetic changes like introducing more civilian-types during terror missions, etc.
As for aesthetics, I’m all in favor of high-res graphics, but I’m a bit annoyed by the retro-future type graphics of X-Com Apocalypse. I guess I’m hoping for something a bit more near-futurish, with guns and uniforms that don’t look like props out of a B-movie.
The only thing I didn’t like about TFTD was that some of the missions were ridiculously long to finish the bug-hunt, where a single panicked alien just ran around the decks of the cruise ship all day.
The whole underwater/above-water deal was kinda cool, except it sometimes sucked when you forgot to re-equip your squaddies with appropriate weapons.
Anyone know if anyone sells UFO:ET via digital distribution internationally?
Maybe. There’s also a good chance that it would get panned for being too much like the original or for deviating too much from the original. There’s a realy fine line you’d have to walk between too much and too little innovation to keep fans happy.
You know, over the years I’ve had discussions with other writers, developers, etc. in the industry on the topic of just what is the essence of XCom that makes it so much more than the sum of its feature list. That probably is another thread, but it fascinates me. If you just look at the feature list, there have been numerous games that should have far surpassed it. So what’s the “soul” of XCom that lifts a relatively simple turn based strategy game over all that followed (including its own two sequels - perhaps that’s the best example of XCom the original having something unique - or did it? Are we making it more than it was?)
I think it’s because we can relate to it. Contemporary setting, military units we identify with, soldiers we can name. Every “sequel” has either drastically changed the setting (underwater, outer space, alien planet, what have you), ruined the art direction (ugly soldiers and faces), and generally lost that aspect of feeling you’re a part of the world you recognize.
There have of course been games that got the tactical combat right and done it even better than x-com. The Jagged Alliance series being my personal favorite.
What hasn’t been done right is the base building/research half of the game, and that’s the half that really made x-com shine. I think the most important factor there is not the specific mechanics, but balancing the game so that part remains fun and interesting all through the game. In X-Com it was great to discover new techs and whole branches of technology, they managed to keep it interesting through the whole game. It’s something really hard to get right. TFTD didn’t do this quite as well in my opinion. It may have been sheer dumb luck that made the original work so well. Hopefully a team like Firaxis, BHG, Blizzard, etc. which understands the value of really polishing the gameplay will one day put in the effort to recapture the x-com experience.
Yeah, that whole thing with the alien invasion. It’s like I’m playing my own life!
Edit: Yes, I know I’m taking your quote grossly out of context, but it amused me to do so.
Greetings:
Okay, rant #2 for today. Don’t stop me, I’m on a roll.
First off, as other people pointed out, it’s a hard sell to convince people in marketing and sales that an X-Com remake would be profitable. You can point to Civ all you want, but show me a turn-based PC RPG/Strategy game that’s even in the same ballpark. HoMM? Don’t think so. GalCiv? Nope. Now that’s just a straight “can we make a profit off this” question. Now, for bonus points, convince them that they’ll make more money off of doing this than doing another game for the same money, say a console racing game, or a God of War style beat-em-up, or a futuristic shooter, you know, things they can concretely point to as being popular with today’s audience.
Like many other niche audiences, the X-Com folks are fanatical about their love for the game and see limitless potential in updating it, but it’s a very, very niche audience. A lot of people know what X-Com is, but that doesn’t mean they’ve played it, and that doesn’t mean they’d pony up $50 for a new version. And to anybody who doesn’t know what it is, it just isn’t sexy. I can demo God of War in five minutes and get people hyped about it. What are you going to show in five minutes of X-Com?
If Irrational has really convinced folks to fund this, then bully for them. That’s one hell of a hill to climb.
Bzzzt. Wrong again. For one, realistic can actually be cheaper than stylized; with textures, for example, you can modify reference rather than inventing each one out of whole cloth. But, if you went too far away from the original look, all those fanatical niche folks would ride you to death for having done so.
Two, licensing a half-decent engine is going to run you 250-750K. That’s before you do a lick of actual game logic programming.
Three, random maps are actually much easier to do in 2D. Tiling is always harder than generating specific content, but it’s a bitch in 3D. What’s that, you say, you’re going to do it in 2D? Bzzzzzt. Sorry, you’ve just lost the part of your potential audience who believes it would look/play/feel better in 3D. Oh, and you’d better figure in the costs not just in producing higher-res models and textures, but also animations, effects, lighting, and physics. You are going to have physics, right?
Four, your costs for testing, balancing, and tuning programattically generated content are at least as much as, if not more than, doing the same work on pre-generated maps.
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner, folks. What’s the secret sauce, you say? What’s that elusive spirit of X-Com that’s been missing all these years? It’s the experience of discovery, of gradually unfolding the mechanics, the dynamics, the progression, the events. When you played X-Com back in the day, it was new, it was fresh, it was a revelation. That’s why you’re so fanatical about it, right?
Even the most faithful recreation can never capture that experience. Only a game that’s as new, as fresh, as dynamic can do that, and even then, it will probably never compare to how you felt about games back when they were wonders of infinite imagination. That’s nostalgia for you.
Or, as Mr. Hot Tub put it,
You lie. You lie like a dog. Or, maybe you’re just mistaken.
First, you wouldn’t buy it, you’d take your review copy home.
Second, when’s the last time you reviewed a game that was essentially a re-hash of a pre-existing game and gave it a 90+ rating? You see this in reviews all the time. It’s “while fun, this game felt old, like I’d already played it before” or “I give them credit for capturing the feel of game X, but surely they could have improved on the formula after all these years” or “Developer Y should be sued for shamelessly copying a pre-existing game, and it’s not even as good”.
Even if it’s not a re-hash, it still gets slammed if it’s too close to someone’s nostalgic sacred cow. Take Titan Quest, for example. It seemed like no one could review the game without mentioning Diablo II. Fair enough, there are a lot of similarities (although it would have been nice if people had given us credit for the things we did invent and improve on). But it’s infuriating to see a reviewer say something like “The game is fun, compelling, I played for hours on end and couldn’t stop, but it’s completely derivative: 75%”.
Reviewers are jaded, cynical bastards. You could hand them X-Com 2 on a silver platter, and if it was called Earth Defense Force and was by some unknown studio, they’d shit on it for not being X-Com 2 by the original X-Com development team (how HoMM 5 got a pass on this, I do not fully understand).
Third, great reviews did not help Psychonauts or Beyond Good and Evil to be commercially successful.
Yep, you me and about 10,000 other people.
It’s right up there with MoM, and I’m waiting with bated breath to see how Brad & co. do with that.
[/rant]
Best,
Michael.
My opinion of what would have made a X-Com sequel work
Overall
[ul]
[li]It was the layer strategy element of the game that interocked so well
[/li][li]They loveing created loading screens, music, strategic engaments, ufopedia, all carefully created to add to the atmosphere of the title. Unlike so many clones it wasnt just thrown together, its clear they spent love and care and thought on how to make each element the best, instead of focusing on the “main aspect” of the game
[/li][li]The game evolved as you continued to play, you were slowly introduced to new threats and situations.
[/li][li]They nailed it when they created a modern theme that borrowed from nearly every source at the time for alien and alien conspiracy…no matter who you were as the game progressed you could at least relate to some aspect of the alien lore stepped in the game, little green aliens, tripods, Camerons Aliens, X-files, ect…all were represented and detailed in the ufopedia and in play[LIST][/li][/ul][/LIST]Strategic
[ul]
[li]Strategic wise it was it was its own decent strategy game, it involved base management, base creation and modification, research, production, kitting vehicles and recruting of soilders, balancing the budget and at a rudementary level keeping the world goverments happy as you expanded…easily this level could have been a strategy game in its own right.[/ul]Tactical
[/li][ul]
[li]RPG like characterics and devlopment of your squads. Done well in some of the clones
[/li][li]X-Com had mult level/floor combat somehting rarely seen at the time, and often passed over or glossed over in clones we’ve seen
[/li][li]X-Com modeled dynaimic maps where characters fought inside and outside buildings on the same map, buildings would have multiple floors so sometimes you would have to deal with a sniper on the 2 or 3rd floor. This was never seen before and almost NEVER done since (whether clone or not). Again almost never done in the X-Com clones as well were the buildings, which often felt like a after thought… X-Com made these maps, and the locations you fought in convey something familar, detailed (for the time) and relatable to our world, rather than a bunch of generic one level buildings randomly placed around a map
[/li][li]Completely destructable enviorments, this is starting to become popular finally these days mainly as eye candy, but in X-Com it actually added to the complexity and fun of the engagements! Take down the building or clear it room to room from the inside. Again this is is almost never done in ANY game, including X-Com clones.[/ul]The things I wanted from the sequel besides a updated look were
[/li][ul]
[li]More Civillians and even sometimes armed and panicing or taking the fight to the aliens (I really feel this would allow those memorable moments that gamers would talk about)
[/li][li]Police will they work for you, get in your way or will the aliens mind control them and force you to kill these civil servants, what are the repercusions if they are killed by you?
[/li][li]Miltary, local militia stomping in, sometimes helping you, however with hostile countries you are facing a war in two fronts.
[/li][li]Semi random news events throughtout the game (like MOO2 news events), and often summeries of your battles in populated areas and their impact to your organization, the world, and/or country it occured in
[/li][*]Like to have seen animals like dogs, and cows wandering around farmland, maybe dogs in city.[/ul]This would allow some fleshing out of the weakest aspect of X-COM, national relations and diplomacy. Create a CIV like diplomacy model where negitotations and relationships on strategic level are possible so you could repair damaged relations. maybe they would have ocassional demands ect. This one would also give you more flexability for tying impact to tactical missions, lots of property damage, killed military or cops? Your rating with them would drop, they would make demands, or ask for money to pay for damages and resititution
Michael, I agree with nearly anything you’ve said, except two crtical points.
What’s the secret sauce, you say? What’s that elusive spirit of X-Com that’s been missing all these years? It’s the experience of discovery, of gradually unfolding the mechanics, the dynamics, the progression, the events. When you played X-Com back in the day, it was new, it was fresh, it was a revelation. That’s why you’re so fanatical about it, right?
Even the most faithful recreation can never capture that experience. Only a game that’s as new, as fresh, as dynamic can do that, and even then, it will probably never compare to how you felt about games back when they were wonders of infinite imagination. That’s nostalgia for you.
I agree that the experience of discovery is a great ‘fun factor’ in the game and discovering that in X-Com was a component of that fun. I dont think a remake will necessarily need to lose that completely. After all keeping the very same design principal that worked in the first game you can now weave in the last 20 years of media created ‘alien’ mythos and culture to create a new feel to the evolution of the game progression.
I also want to point out my post highlights unique features and design elements that were ‘created’ by this title, that still (heaven knows why) are not present except partially in a few exceptions (which btw are all critical sucesses in thier own right…duh)
The fact that ALL those feature and elements have never been brought together in the LAST 20 years means that not only will old fans return but new ones will come to see the convergance of so many great design ideas into a single title and get to discover “the experience of discovery”. Same can be done with research in the game.
“Second, when’s the last time you reviewed a game that was essentially a re-hash of a pre-existing game and gave it a 90+ rating?”
er I’ve read your website, you got brain power to spare and I suspect this be one of the rare times I outright completely and totally disagree with you. Examples of re-hash getting great reviews (and sales) Civ series, Pirates, half the RTS titles that copy each other almost virbatem, BG Series, and oh so many times in the past its crazy!!!
The reality is if people want something and its not being provide they look for substandard subsititues or whereever they can get it. If there is a glut then people get more discerning since they have selection. That’s supply and demand.
A few X-Com clones have hit over the past few years, but as I outlined they pretty much suck at sticking to the source formula for design. But the fans buy them anyway, because of the complete absence of supply…
In fact if you really examine the market, the only license that comes close to capturing most of the sum of X-Com’s features (not theme) is the Total War series…which is gasp a success. As a aside Silent storm also captured every single aspect of the tacitcal combat from X-Com (also did pretty good and spawned a # of spin offs), but didn’t even touch combining the strategic and tactical layers like X-Com did.
If you can name a title (side gallop brother creations) that combined all those core features in the last 20 years (sans theme) let me know Ill shut up…after all I’ll be going on ebay to buy it…because as far as I was aware it doesn’t exist!
FYI I so wanted to see this core game design principal used again… I actually wrote several of my own high concepts for game design including interface mock ups, game flow charts, and full back stories.
One was a Vampire hunter game (better than it sounds), the other a Time Travel strategy game, and. of course, the sequel to X-com :) It goes without saying that as close as I got into the bussness was journalist, beta tester…and finally reaching my pinnacle I was editing a game manual and dong some work for Prima Publishing in the strategy guide arena. So…I finally grew up and got a real job and been working for the leader in chip design for the past 8 years. :)
Yeah, I agree with this. It seems to me that a lot of people would like to play games with a rich strategy layer combined with a graphically nice tactical layer, but most games seem to be one or the other exclusively. Some RTS games have tried, like Rise of Nations or Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, but by and large their strategy layer is pretty thin.
What about multi-platforming it? Turn-based strategies still seem relatively popular on the consoles. However, most of those are fantasy fare that probably have more exaggerated effects to show off how cool they are. It’s really hard to sell tension in a 30 second spot. Do you think the X-Com fans would rebel if it was released for the Xbox 360 and/or (cough) PS3? How do you think they would feel about a DS/PSP mobile version?
How about the fans around here? What would you think of a non-PC version?
I think X-COM would work OK on a console. Not perfect, but OK. I would, however, rebel if I detected the slightest bit of dumbing-down or screwing up of the interface for the sake of the consoles.
I agree with Dan, as long as it didnt resort to dumbing down, I’m happy to see it multi platform
I would only add… equally emersive and challanging tactical layer… and where actions in either carry over to the other.
Developers have grown increasingly fond of inserting mini games into their designs, but not as dilegent in making the outcome carry over to the regular game and visa versa. Logically, allowing impacts to ripple both ways through the games, gives the mini games real signifigance (instead of just a diversion or gimmic) and create a situation where the sum of a game is more than its individual parts. Just a little more of a bitch to code :)
Ah, thanks for the in-depth reply Michael!
Granted, there are no other real blockbuster TBS series besides Civ. But is there no weight to the argument that X-COM started in the same era as Civ and was just as popular until the sequels started drastically altering the gameplay, it consistently ranks just as high if not higher than Civ in the critics’ lists, and it hasn’t really been tried in the same way in more than a decade? It’s virtually untested in today’s mainstream market. I agree it wouldn’t be easy to sell publishers on the idea, but what’s easy that’s worth doing?
Without access to sales numbers and budgets, I’m not gonna have much luck arguing with this one. But what I would say to a prospective publisher is this:
Yes, you can spend multiple millions trying to compete with the Half-Lifes, the Crysis’s, and the Halos of the world, or spend even more and try to compete with WoW. Either seems like a crazy idea to me, unless you’ve got a team of crack devs with a track record of success and/or a killer IP. Or, you could go with a game that, if done with a lot of respect for the original game and a little bit of finesse, would have a built-in fanatical fan base, instant support from the press, and a strong overseas market, all for a relatively low overhead. Potential profits are lower than with a hit shooter, but a modest profit is probably more likely with the level of investment required.
I guarantee you, each and every X-COM fan would pony up the standard retail price for this game in a split second. Hell, if there’s anyone here who considers themselves a fan of the original that WOULDN’T shell out for a decent-looking game critics hailed as the legitimate successor to X-COM, let him speak now. cue crickets chirping
And as for the general public, well, if you can’t count on the positive press you’d certainly generate with a good game, you’ve just gotta hope your box art is good, you’ve got some good endorsements on the flap, and that word of mouth spreads like wildfire. 'Cause what else moves copies? What brings a new customer to the Civilization series if not that?
I don’t think it would be that hard to put together a presentation of X-COM footage, combining gameplay and cinematics, that would get some excitement going. In my head, I see elaborate effects for high-tech weaponry, exploding and collapsing buildings, and death animations (show an alien getting shot, blown up, vaporized, immolated, frozen, electrocuted, etc based on what weapon he’s hit with). And there’s always a demo of the real-time element on the geoscape that shows UFOs being shot down. The kids love the real time.
The original look is so pixelated there’s really no way to move too far away from it-they pretty much could’ve been wearing clown suits. However, were it MY project to run, I’d insist on something that paid homage, remained grounded in real-world tech (for the early game) and didn’t go batshit crazy for the later stuff - though I would definitely have MORE options for things like armor, ships, and aliens than the original did, which would allow for plenty of deviation.
Isn’t that less than it would cost to make your own, though? I’m not suggesting you make this thing with pocket change.
I’d have lost myself if I wanted to go 2D - you’d absolutely need the rotatable, zoomable camera. I stand corrected on the difficulty of randomly generated maps, but I’d still push for it on account of the massive replayability it adds to the game. And hey, even if you get the occasional errors in a randomly generated map where things get in your way, everything would be destructable, so you can just blow it up.
And yeah, I was thinking about all those costs… but those have to be in pretty much any game that comes out these days, right? So we’re still in the realm of relatively inexpensive development.
What’s old is new again. No one’s made a game like this in a decade (at least not one that’s tolerable). Besides, the fact that I can still fire up the original game and have a blast seems like evidence to the contrary.
Oh, I think you underestimate my fanaticism. First I’d buy a copy for me, then I’d buy some for my friends. Then I’d relentlessly hound everyone else until they bought it. It would be like the Firefly DVDs all over again.
That’s easy: C&C3. Well, that was just a 90… so maybe it would be Supreme Commander, which got a 91.
Huh, I’d have thought being compared favorably to an enormously popular game in the same genre would be considered a good thing. To our credit, I think the only thing that kept TQ out of ed choice territory was a game-stopping bug we ran into in the review build that was probably patched later.
Well, guilty as charged for being jaded and cynical, but only in the real world… games are another story. I don’t think anyone shat on UFO: ET for that reason - in my review I knocked it for having crap graphics, interface problems, bugs, immortal soldiers, etc. Nothing in there about how it wasn’t made by the Gallops. I still gave it a 70%, because it’s the closest thing to X-COM I’ve played in years (and it’s $35 instead of $50).
Nope, but they probably didn’t hurt any. I don’t think anyone’s really nailed down what went wrong with those games-they’re just proof that nothing in this business is a sure thing, and you might as well take your chance with a niche game instead of a console platformer.
Funny. We did some similar things. One of ours was actually a fantasy game. Knights on dragon-back going to stave off the hordes of demons infiltrating the kingdom. Bring back specimens to the wizards back home who would research new spells and magic items to use against the infernal menace.
Come to think of it, you could have a kick-ass “remake X-Com” contest. You could lay down some ground rules for file types to allow you mix and match assets afterwards, as well as make it accessible to modders.