WarrenD
4281
Yeah I love this game, but that last mission was lame I must say.
I’m finding myself very torn these days. I want to keep playing Bioshock Infinite, but I keep splitting my limited gaming time between Infinite and XCOM. Giving away XCOM for free with Infinite was evil. They’re both very good, but in different ways.
I’m currently on my third playthrough. (Normal Ironman, all three). The first two were disasters. I love that failure in a game like this is so incremental, you don’t really feel it, until several hours and several missions later when countries are panicking, some of your best squad mates are dead, you can’t afford to hire more or build any more facilities that will help your cause, and you stare into the abyss that is the alien invasion engulfing you. It’s dire, and it’s addictive to start over and try again, thinking about what you can do differently.
Such a great game. And totally unexpected. After reading the lukewarm reaction here at Qt3, I just wasn’t expecting this.
Giaddon
4283
XCOM was Qt3’s game of 2012.
There are complaints, sure, but it’s a stunning game. :)
Glad you’re enjoying it.
Wolff
4284
Lukewarm=3 posters didn’t like the remake and posted 100 times about how the game was wrong when they hadn’t even played it :D
Can’t disagree with any of your criticisms, though I liked it well enough to play through entirely two more times. That’s a fair point about the Temple Ship not offering many tactical options. I mostly disliked it because it’s very, very predictable the 2nd time you play, so I hadn’t thought too hard about how much it forces you into a set path the first time. You’re not entirely without options, but the options are mostly “do I stay high or go down into the lower hall?” which is anemic compared to your usual wealth of choices.
The only positive thing about the Temple Ship is that the 2nd time, you know exactly what to expect, so you can run through it very quickly with the right team. Knowing where the Cyberdiscs and the Sectopods spawn makes them fairly easy to handle.
It’s a great game, it really is, and I think much of the discussion here is overly harsh. What’s said isn’t exactly wrong, it just doesn’t harm the game as much as usually depicted.
True, but I remembered that only 15 people voted for it as their top game out of a lot of people who voted. Over 180 people I think. So I just got the impression that it wasn’t a game that inspired much passion even in its supporters, as most people had it on their list, but lower than the number one position.
But to be fair, it could just be because it was a really great year for games. I know I had a really tough time making up my mind this year.
It’s a great game, once. Replay value is really low, though, since there’s exactly one strategy that works on the strategic layer (satellites, NOW) and mission variety isn’t that high. I certainly enjoyed my time with it, but that time was limited to a single complete playthrough.
olaf
4288
Yeah. I liked it a lot. Finished on Normal Ironman. Tried Classic Ironman, like 30+ times and just kept getting waxed and frustrated. I am pretty sure I will never play it again.
WarrenD
4289
I had two really excellent play-throughs, the first a Normal Ironman game and the second a game with the DLC+all the Second Wave Options enabled which changed things up enough to be well worth it.
Exactly how i feel. I’m waiting for an xpac or mods with new content. I don’t really want to play through the same maps again.
I’d even be happy with a series of premade tactial fights that refreshed the game and ddn’t make me bother with the strategic layer, which isn’t all that interesting after a playthrough.
At the risk of merely copying what everyone else has already said… I really enjoyed my single almost complete play through. I still have to finish the final mission but getting motivated to actually do it just isn’t happening. I want to, because I feel like I can get one more good run through by moving up to classic and fiddling with the second wave stuff. After that though, yeah I’ll probably be done. Which is kind of a shame. I hope people will learn from this game because it’d be great to see more like it.
Quaro
4292
Lake
4293
I was just going to post that. Very cool.
This. With no smiley face. “I watched the replays on YouTube”. Headloss.
Joe_M
4295
Yeah, loved XCOM: EU to bits but clicking on this thread meant reading the same shit from the same guy posted and reposted ad nauseum. No thanks.
I would +1 for the video link above if +1 were a thing here. So instead I’ll talk about +1ing.
jpinard
4296
Wow, what an awesome video. I have so much respect for Jake Julian, and Adam. Gaming doesn’t get much better when you have such wonderful people apart of it.
You were saying something about tedious comments?
Very enjoyable interview. Gollup was very gracious and down-to-earth with Solomon’s understandable fanboying. And the insight from both men was great.
Thanks for posting the YouTube link. Great to see two of the very best developers in the business admiring each others work.
Like most people above me have recently stated: great game, weak last lvl. Where I disagree slightly is the point about the low replayvalue. Map- and storywise, this is absolutely true, but I found quite a bit of replayvalue in customizing the teammembers, just like I feel a lot of the charm of the game comes from the fear of having characters you’ve become attached too dieing on you. Strangely, while I liked this part of the game, it was also the reason I quit: the customizing options really aren’t elaborate enough after some time. And while I could get over it at the beginning, after a while I simply couldn’t stand the horrible American accent that every soldier, no matter what race, had to have. Bleh.
Still, if they add an expansion with more customizing options and accents, accents, ACCENTS!, I’ll buy it right away and play for a long time, regardless of the repeated maps and story…
