No, i did like the base game actually, i just don’t feel it has any replayability. More specific to this DLC, I also feel that either they’ve done a bad job of advertising this DLC or it simply doesn’t have enough content to justify the price point. Not to mention the DLC doesnt sound like it does anything to address the replayability issues, sadly.
Paying $30 sets a really bad precedent. I hope it fails badly.
From many devs, this would be a free update.
Key Features
New Soldier Abilities: Construct the Genetics Lab to physically enhance your operatives’ abilities including augmentations to the chest, brain, eyes, skin, and legs or build the Cybernetics Lab to enable the construction of the new Mechanized Exoskeletal Cybersuit, or MEC. The new MEC Trooper class has specialized abilities and each suit can be upgraded with new weapons including the flamethrower and grenade launcher.
New Weapons and Equipment: Give your operatives an extra tactical edge with new projects from your engineering team and the Foundry.
New Enemy Threats: Adopt new tactics to counter the threats from two new alien types.
New Strategic Resource: A valuable new alien resource, known as Meld, has been discovered. Secure it on the battlefield and use it carefully back at base to unlock new research and upgrades.
New Multiplayer maps, units, and abilities: Create your custom squad from a wider array of options and dominate your opponent in intense, one-on-one, turn-based matches.
RPS has some more info up. Sounds like the new faction will add some more content to the campaign, but still $30 feels steep.
Is there a way to skip cutscenes in this game?
I didn’t buy it during the Steam Free Weekend because the amount of those really annoyed me, but the actual gameplay seemed fun.
Yeah, $30 seems like a steep price to pay for DLC, which is what this is. It’s not like a traditional expansion that adds a lot of fresh content.
What I want is a new campaign to play, with new maps that are more than just variants on the existing maps. Terror from the Deep gave us all new maps and all new aliens and weapons. It was X-COM reskinned but that was ok. I was hoping for something along those lines. This is just DLC. I don’t even know if it will freshen the experience enough to make me want to play it again.
Did they say if they have changed the final mission? If I decide to play through the game again I’d like something different.
_Fury
4589
There’s currently a bug in the iOS version of the game that has me really bummed out. I bought the iOS version having never played the game, and one of the things I was most looking forward to was naming all my people after various friends and acquaintances, so that the stories had a little more “retellability” (not a word, but you get what I mean). Currently in the iOS version when you go to rename a soldier, you get this:
Notice the lack of keyboard…
So far I really like the game, and it is really well suited to the iPad in terms of control and where I’d want to be playing the game - on the couch, at lunch, laying in bed. This makes me wish I’d have bought it for my Mac instead, though. Hopefully they intend to keep supporting the game. I do see that they have patched it once up until now, which is encouraging.
Mark, what you are describing would be more like a sequel.
This feels like a lot of content to me - body mods, a new class, an entire new enemy faction to add depth to the campaign, new enemies and weapons, new tech to research, new mission types, a ton of new maps, and probably more I’m forgetting. You guys are really hard to please.
Is it a new campaign or just more maps for the mix? The body mods don’t really interest me. New tech could be good as long as it also means I no longer have to rush to get satellites up. The problem with the strategic game was that there wasn’t one, really. It was get the satellites up in the sky. There wasn’t an alternative path that I could see.
New maps and aliens are welcome. I’m neutral on new weapons. I never yearned for anything more than the weapons I had in the original X-COM. They always felt like more than enough.
If the game progression is going to play a lot like the release version with me seeing a lot of those same maps again, but with more toys and a new alien faction and a strategic layer that is still uninteresting to me, then $30 seems really high. Maybe the new research stuff has scrambled things enough to give us players alternate paths besides the rush to launch satellites and maybe there are enough new maps so I see more of those than the old ones. Still not worth $30 to me but I might grab it on the inevitable 50% off sale three months after release.
The Exalt/mechs/bio stuff looks ok, but the designer confirmed that there were no changes made to sats or panic ( around 58:20 of the video below). Not good.
What changes to stats or panic are wanted?
A deeper strategic layer would definitely be worth $30 to me, but I’m not sure that’s what Enemy Within is providing. It’s going to be a “wait and see” for me, too.
Vesper
4595
I got that 25% coupon from GOG too, so I bit at $20.25.
Grifman
4596
Well, duh, a special 25% discount code that you received is hardly relevant to everyone now, is it?
BleedTheFreak;3461599]What changes to stats or panic are wanted?
Changes to sats as in satellites and the only strategy of putting them up ASAP.
Based on the Polygon preview (http://www.polygon.com/2013/10/9/4791464/xcom-enemy-within-exalt-2k-firaxis-anada-gupta), it sounds like they are adding to the strategy layer. The new human faction requires hunting down using hints that can be enhanced with tools and money upgrades. Sounds like a weird deduction mini-game with some ties into the monetary system (as well as causing nations to stop supporting XCOM if they’re unfairly accused of sheltering the EXALT).
And based on TMA’s interview with Anada Gupta, it sounds like they’re also adding to the replayability. Specifically what caught my ear was a new option randomizing the abilities available to a soldier cross class. So every different soldier would get a random set of abilities from ALL classes. That option in particular has me excited since I feel the standard soldier setup tends to run me into a rut where I’m too cautious to experiment with a soldier setup that works. This one sounds like it’ll force you to experiment and find what works. Speculating, of course. It could just be a random mess.
My main problem with the (lack of) replayability comes from an inability to believe the world map is at all related with the rest of the game. Thus I saw the game as a series of bland static missions with a world map minigame that wasn’t directly connected. I don’t think they can realistically fix the world view. With the previous games i saw it as one combined game, but i can’t do that with this one.
Grifman
4600
No, not really:
- Two new unit types
- Two new alien type
- 50% increase in number of maps
- Totally new faction that impacts the game tactically and strategically
The new faction is really a big thing, resulting in new mission types, and has a real impact on what you do strategically. No way you get something like that for free.
rezaf
4601
It’s fan service (i.e. a goodie for people who already hold the main game in high regard), not something to win people over that were critical with the new XCOM - which is what one should expect from an addon.
To me, the most interesting change is the +50% in number of maps, but I think the game would rather need +500%, or, better yet, a random map generator akin to that of the original X-Com. More importantly, though, VAST changes to the metagame to make it actually interesting to play through more than once.
I listened to a podcast a while ago (3MA?) in which the Firaxis dude doing the expansion hinted at (but wasn’t willing to spell out) things the addon changed in this area, which would be neat … but he also boasted that new options would give the game an almost roguelike quality - which is a bold claim for a game without random maps and with very simplified mechanics.
But, sorry to say, the dude lost most of the credibility I was willing to give him when he explained how they came up with the name for the new alien species - Sectoids that control robots = Mechtoids schoolboy laughter.
rezaf
maxle
4602
It establishes no precedent, because it’s the model they used with Civilization IV and V. It’s not really 1:1, but this sure seems to have about as much content as a Civ expansion.
