3961

Random thing that’s bullshit: if you have a hacked drone at the end of a mission, he’ll self-destruct once all the other enemies are dead. Unfortunately, his self destruct does 3 damage in a small radius, and I happened to have a severely injured soldier in this radius, which means that I kill the last enemy, get a “Major. X is bleeding out!” message. I’m lucky he wasn’t killed, but the will penalty was crap, too.

For various reasons, Ironman is the only way to really play the game, but there are all sorts of little things that really make it hard to want to.

3962

Right. You should play on normal until you get an idea of what you’re supposed to do in the research and manufacturing part of the game. You’ll cripple yourself until you figure it out.

3963

I have one of those special (and rare) gaming moments yesterday night and I’d like to share the story with all of you.

Colonel Fernandez used to be one of the top snipers that XCom ever had. He has saved more lives during his tour of duty than any other assaults and heavies until one day, in an extraction mission when the team saved a VIP who then joined he team as a Captain. Captain Brian was also a sniper and he had one advantage over Colonel Fernandez. He was able to snipe from a mile away because of his second sight ability and ever since he joined the team, he outshot Col Fernandez in every mission. Naturally, the team preferred Cap Brian. He got them out of many difficult situations with his accuracy. As he progressed and made Colonel, he could do a banished a heavily armoured Elite Muton with just one clip, with a double tap to take out another Muton. He’s the Commander blue eye boy, so to speak.

Fernandez became the under dog of the team, relegated into a second choice when all other soldiers were in the sick bay. A fall from grace, really. His salvation came when the team completed the Alien Base and researched the technology to enable humans to have psi power. Among the 20 soldiers in XCom, only Fernandez and another assault have the will for the rigourous training. After a few days of confinement and mind blast, Col Fernandez was ready for the field.

He noticed a strong acumen and sensitivity to his environment. Every sound is amplified in his mind, bombarding him with pain and distraction. He found that his sniping abilities are affected as he wasn’t able to focus. He missed in almost every shot, even when the onboard computer system tells him that he has 80% hit rate. That created chagrin from his Commander, up to the point that he noticed he was being instructed to scout in ahead. Isn’t that a job of an assault? He suspected that his Commander is sending him to his death but fortunately he was able to get our of tricky situations through his mind blast and ghost armour (at least Commander Habibi was kind enough for that!)

Then came the call for one of the most crucial business: a Overseer class type of UFO was gunned down by the new Firestorm interceptors and a team had to be sent in to investigate. This UFO has cloaked by invisibility technology and the lead scientist believed that it is also captained by a new alien life form. The instructions is clear - he want to capture the new alien alive and to extract the cloaking technology. Most of the other assault and heavies are in the medical bay as they have just finished a terror mission in Sao Paolo, so Commander Habibi had no choice but to send in Fernandez, and of course Col Brian, and another sniper, Captain Lee. 3 snipers, one support and 2 assault. But 3 snipers? On a downed UFO mission! Did he really doubt Col Fernandez ability?

After 30 minutes of a major battles with Elite Mutons and that two legged AT-AT like monster, the team managed to capture the new alien life form, which Col Brian has the intelligence to name Ethereal. It was no surprise to Fernandez that he was sent to scout most of the time and sadly, that he has again validated the Commander’s opinion of him by missing most of his snipe, even against hulks like Mutons and AT-AT - what’s your excuse, Colonel, he imagined Commander sneering at him. “It’s the damn laser rifle and the noise from the burning trees, dammit!” he could screamed inside him. Yes, they don’t even allow him the plasma rifle and let Captain Lee carried it, simply because of his second sight training. His mind blast was useless against the Elites and the AT-AT. He’s here to die, really, a cannon fodder to flush out the new alien life form. But he lived, thank his lucky star.

As the team was exiting the damaged UFO, suddenly the team heard a whirl of a chain-gun powering up and before they know it, one AT-AT bore down on them and took out Colonel Brian, the support guy and Cap Lee! It happened in seconds and the remaining team had to dive for covers! They were careless, thinking that they had cleared the area. He glanced around and saw that Brian and Lee were not dead, just incapacitated but without the medikit from the support guy, they can’t be revived. He could imagine his Commander wincing and thinking of turning back time (ha! as if that technology exist!. He saw that one of the support threw an alien grenade at the machine and damage it’s plasma turret. It’s now or never. Fernandez placed the laser rifle on his outstretched arm, took an aim (69% accuracy), focused his mind to filter out all the distraction, this was his only chance to show them, to get back his glory, to redeem himself in the eyes of his Commander. He took a deep breath, pulled the trigger and…

3964

Thought people around here might be interested in this: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-28-x-communication-julian-gollop-and-jake-solomon-on-xcom

Julian Gollop finally weighs in on XCOM.

3965

I’m enjoying the game. My biggest gripes are the lack of maps and no base invasions. DLC and the mod community should add some replay value, but I don’t see a lot of replay in the game as shipped.

Firaxis did make a lot of great decisions, though. And there’s certainly enough gameplay to warrant the box price, though at this point if you wait for a sale you should be able to get it for $25-30.

3966

My bloody iron man game hung itself…and that was many hours wasted

3967

shit man what happened?

3968

Did you try killing the program and reloading? I was able to recover from a couple hung iron man games that way.

3969

I have tried…the combat hangs and I can’t continue…

3970

The latest update was supposed to fix this. I guess it’s still not foolproof.

3971

That sucks. Has there been any new from Firaxis regarding the next patch/DLC? I haven’t heard anything since the initial preview. I was hoping that we would see more information about upcoming patches and the supposed “second wave” options by now.

3972

I’ve read on the 2K forums that the next patch is supposed to focus on the numerous multiplayer bugs. I’m not sure exactly what Firaxis is planning to address, though. (Edit: I should add that this is just rumor.)

No new information on the Slingshot DLC.

3973

Not quite the 30- and 60-day DLC as hinted at in the config file, is it? :)

3974

Full details on the Slingshot DLC.

  • 3 Council missions
  • New soldier: Zhang

Complete the first Slingshot mission and your Triad buddy joins XCOM as a Heavy. He’s just like any other soldier save for the fact that his name and appearance are locked. You don’t even need to bring him along on the two Slingshot missions that follow, though his high stats might compel you to do so anyway.

Dec 4th. $6.99/560 MS points

Blech. Pass.

3975

Meh, I’ll buy it, but yeah I expect it’s not the type of DLC most of us were hoping for.

3976

I’m sure I’ll pick it up. Running through a few new missions will be fun. Hoping for better DLC down the line, though.

3977

Another generic ufo mission in order to get a soldier with preset graphics for $7? Pass.

3978

I’ll wait for the inevitable 75% off sale. Actually, I’ll probably wait until sometime well into the new year when there’s either several DLC packs or the mod community has added content. I just don’t see playing through it again when I’m already tired of many of the maps.

3979

I would totally buy this … for less than a dollar.

At $6.99 I’ll start throwing about terms like “cash grab,” “not in the spirit of X-Com,” and “modern equivalent of horse armor.”

3980

I dont need dlc that makes the game easier, I won’t try iron man again