4503

The Ethereals and their prepping. I am sure you are trolling me now, but that’s what i am talking about.

4504

Unless they completely redo the endgame I have no desire to replay this.

4505

The one feature I really need is a way to skip or speed up (or skip!) animations. If I have to watch every single sectoid mind melding every other one, ever so slowly, turn after turn, not sure I can get through another playthrough either.

4506

Yes, yes, yes. Funny how they made the combat faster (in theory) than the original with the 2 actions per turn system, and they made it slower because the animations.

4507

There was a story in the new XCOM? I must have missed it.

There wasn’t really a story, was there? Are you counting the psi-stuff and assault on the mother ship the story? The tech unlocks?

4508

The background of the alien invasion (revealed mostly in the cut scenes and the final mission) was the throughline of the game. I’m fine with more color like that, but I’d prefer it be sprinkled in the missions themselves, things you can choose to discover or ignore, and to not see any more hard coded plot points (like the assault on the alien base).

4509

I’m sure that when people say they want the “story” in XCOM improved, they’re using the word as shorthand for the required beats of the game progression. The explicit story stuff in XCOM isn’t bad. It’s the sameness of progression that grates. You always have to do X to get to Y. You’ll always see A, B, and C.

4510

I’d have preferred something more in line with the original approach. Not because it’s the original, but because the original approach to mission progression was more in line with a strategy game, rather than a scripted experience. The “story” aspect was purely the research results, which said various things about the aliens as you autopsied and interrogated them. To win, you had to research the Cydonia mission and send and Avenger class transport to Mars. That in turn required a series of alien interrogations / research projects: any live alien, Alien Origins, any live alien leader, The Martian Solution, a live Alien Commander, and then Cydonia or Bust. Again, any “story” aspects were purely research results.

Alien base assaults existed, but they weren’t story missions. They were just missions, like any other. The only “special” mission was Cydonia, which was a random map, so the issues of the Temple ship didn’t exist.

The remake needn’t have slavishly followed the original template, but anything that felt less forced and more in line with a strategy game would have been nice.

4511

Here’s the mysterious “enemy within” from the title:

XCOM: Enemy Within is more than an expansion for XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It’s an entirely new level of alien infestation.

“Infestation” may not be the right word, though, unless you count harvesting alien tissue and technology to fuse with your own body.

According to Garth DeAngelis, senior producer at Firaxis, one aspect of the “Enemy Within” is the way players will use alien autopsies to create the expansion’s two new brands of soldiers: mechs and genetic mutations, called g-mods.

Get it? It’s the enemy within!

4512

Do I need to start a new game to play this though?

New classes are interesting, but the idea of playing the original campaign again is… less than appealing.

4513

It’s all part of the “original” campaign.

4514

Boo

Maybe I can use an almost done game.

4515

The expansion doesn’t seem like enough to get my to play through the game again. They need to improve the strategic aspect a lot so the game has more replayability. The replayability in XCOM is sort of like that in ARPGs The content is the same but some people like trying out multiple builds.

4516

There are supposedly some strategic changes still under wraps.

4517

Maybe Firaxis should just say, “Fuck it, they’re 20 gene-seeds. No, not 19, because we’re one better.”

4518

Maybe the idea is “play too much to being God, and aliens will invade your base from within”. Cue base defense mission.

4519

Yeah, I was somewhat fatigued with the game by the time I got through my one playthrough. I don’t really want to play through that same stuff again even if some new twists and new maps are added. I was hoping for an expansion that was more like Terror from the Deep – the same game engine but with all new maps, all new aliens, all new tech.

Looks like I will wait for this one to hit somewhere in the $5-10 range in some future Steam sale.

4520

Vidya! Includes footage of a MEC attack that looks like the elbow rocket from Pacific Rim.

4521

Right, something that moves it on. I am not sure why others take my ask for a narrative move to suddenly mean i want a bioware story or something. I want to move on. Hints of their narrative, nothing glaring of course, a new goal, new aliens, well new. I’ve already played through the game twice.

4522

With strategy game expansions, I’m much more interested in new game play than in a “narrative move.” The Brave New World expansion for Civ 5 didn’t add new “story,” and it would have been weird if it did.