5384

They might enable easier modding once they feel they’ve sucked out as much money as they can from customer’s pockets for their own DLC.

5385

If that’s what you’re after, you could check out OpenXCOM (which tries to stay true to the original, graphics and all) or Xenonauts (which is more of a remake with significant differences from the original).

5386

That’s not really a decent metric, since the vast majority of the increase in disk space is art assets. The original game was a significant project requiring many man-years to complete, and you don’t save much of that by copying a known design. Xenonauts got kickstarted a year ago and it’s still in development.

5387

Xenonauts got kickstarted a year ago and it’s still in development.

And was a paid Alpha a year before that. (mutter, mutter)

5388

True, but it faithful to the original, and the changes mainly ADD to the formula (like the ballistic shields for instance were a blast to use, and completely new element). Not streamline it. Its fairly complete as is, had a blast playing it recently, but stopped playing waiting to this summer when its done “done”.

Its close now, and the updates are coming a few times a month, so if I had to guess I would say it would be Mid April before we see something like a polished XCOM like experience there.

5389

The game seems to be finished content wise, now they are balancing the game. I would still say something like may or june from the looks of it since they like making radical changes ground combat.

5390

OpenXCom is great to have, it delivers almost 100% pure X-Com experience with a modernized interface and some nifty new features - plus being open source and having a moddable data structure.
It’s sad that their main modder has retired from modding things like adding Shotguns and Grenade Launchers and missions where military or police guys fight on your side in order to join the core team ironing out bugs (or whatever it is they’re doing).
But I’m sure we’ll see great stuff at some point, such as new toys, a completely changed tech tree or totally different aliens or whatever. Can’t wait.

Xenonauts … well, they sure are dragging their feet. They were in development ages before they launched the KS, and now it’s been two years again. Sure not a quick pace.
Maybe the result will be worth it (I haven’t really played any version because I’m waiting for it to be finished…).

However, what I think gurugeorge wanted is the original X-Com experience with truly modern graphics and interface. Some folks dislike the art direction in XCOM or feel it’s still not AAA enough, but there can be no doubt that it’s leaps and bounds ahead of ye olde X-Com - it almost feels as if decades have passed between the two games. Wait…
Seriously, apart from some questionable decisions clearly aimed at making the game more playable on consoles, I really like what they’ve done with graphics and UI, and thus it’d be awesome to be able to have the beloved gameplay in this new really fancy engine - only I don’t think it’ll ever happen, sadly.

rezaf

5391

I finally saw the end-game screen. Never made it beyond the final battle in Enemy Unknown, but my squad was so stupidly OP at the end of Enemy Within that i just breezed through it. Tad underwhelming if you ask me. After all the drama and tension building up to it… Ah well. It was a great ride and i will play it again sometime in the future. Perhaps with that long war mod?

5392

The more I think about it, the more I think they’ve got a sequel planned, and we’ll find that that ending sequence was all “just a dream” from the moment your man/woman stepped into the Gollop Chamber. I’ll bet you a fiver.

5393

Why the fuck do I play this game?

The fall-through-the-world-after-getting-critically-injured bug is still in the game. First reported in… 2012. FFS. Two missions in a row. And I’m playing Iron Man.

Why.

5394

You’re on!

5395

So don’t play Iron Man, and turn autosaves on.

As for why some horrible bugs never get fixed, sometimes it’s because the developer finds the bug hard to reproduce. It’s very difficult to find the cause when you can’t reproduce it, and impossible to verify that you’ve fixed it when you do make a change. I, personally, have never seen the bug you’re describing, so I suspect there’s something specific about the cause beyond a critical injury (my guys had plenty of those).

5396

so … bought this one (with EW) during the recent sale on steam, was ready to dislike it on principle (for all the “obvious” reasons you know …) and overall found myself liking it quite a lot ! Played on normal, no ironman. Felt too easy at times but still enjoyable. I will probably start a game on classic and run a few missions but cannot see myself ever finishing it, no longer have the time these days.

It feels and plays like a worthy successor to the original one (adapted for c. 2012 sensibilities), did not encounter any show-stopping bugs. I can see why later squad sizes would not work very well given the overall design of the maps, abilities etc. IIt’s different but the overall design is actually pretty solid and the various elements (map size, squad size, abilities, map design) work very well together IMHO.

The biggest difference (and not a positive one IMHO) is the lack of movement by the aliens (the exalt soldiers in contrast were decent in that respect). Might be due to playing on normal but I missed the more mobile aliens of the original game. Here it felt like I was moving from set piece to set piece (enter room, clear it, rinse and repeat).

a few gripes, most all of them on the purely technical side:

  • I tend to save a lot for that sort of games (even though I only do minimal save scumming, but I like to know I have the ability to go back in time, even more so recently when most games insist on “surprises” and mutually exclusive branching paths etc) and got hit by the savegame bug after a while (i.e. the order of the saves becomes more or less randomised)
  • the default camera view is way too close for my taste (but easily fixed with simple mod)
  • the battle music is great but man, need more variety. Even the best piece of music becomes unbearable after the 20th time.
5397

Since the thread has been bumped…

I finally got around to finishing my first XCom:EU game last week. I set it aside last September without realizing just how close I was to the end (I was about to scan with the device). Maybe it was just the time away, but I quite enjoyed my last few hours. (It was way too easy on Normal–more so than I’d remembered–but the end-game combination of powers and super weapons made my team seem unstoppable).

I don’t want to spoil the ending for anybody, but I’d be curious to hear some opinions from others that have finished the game.

This thread had led me to believe that the final mission was a terrible slog and widely disliked (since people often refer to skipping it). I found the story and ‘boss’ a bit underwhelming, but it didn’t seem like any worse of a slog than the base assault or other big missions (in fact, it probably went faster for me since my team seemed so OP’d by this point).

I did lose and have to reload at the very end…

Despite how powerful my team was, I’m glad I was playing woodenman because I hit a ‘game over’ when my volunteer was mind controlled. Due to some missed shots, I was unable to kill the ethereal on the same turn, and then I instantly lost on the alien turn without any explanation. Maybe I’m supposed to think that the Ethereals had the volunteer shoot herself in the head? The rest of my team was intact and guaranteed to defeat them on the next turn, so it made for a pretty anticlimactic defeat.

Anyway, I still share most of the same criticisms discussed throughout the thread–and I continued seeing some weird bugs even in my last few missions (e.g., line of sight through a wall, aliens in the command room of a UFO seemed to fall through the floor then reappear outside two turns later), so I’m not sure if I’ll ever bother with a second play through. The Long War mod sounds tempting, but I suspect I’d rather look into Xenonauts or some other game instead.

5398

The final mission isn’t terrible the first time you play it. It’s terrible the third or fourth time, because you know precisely where everything will be. The Council missions are usually as bad with the excessive scripting, but you don’t see a particular Council mission every time you play, and you always get the Temple ship.

5399

The Long War has made a lot of progress. It’s still got tons of bugs and weird balance but there’s so much new stuff I barely noticed. And vanilla XCOM is already broken anyway (mimetic skin = can’t lose, save a single citizen on a terror mission and ignore the rest, etc).

Worth checking out. Note that the EU version of Long War is defunct and all development in on the EW version.

http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/?

You can get a feel for the changes from the faq:

Q: A really big UFO just landed in my home country in March! How am I supposed to beat that?
A: Basically, you’re not (it’s possible, though). The aliens have an active strategy now, gathering resources and conducting research and going on other missions not directly related to XCOM’s operations. They’re going to do their thing, and sometimes you’ll cross paths with them when they are doing something they feel is rather important and have brought along a massive force to defend it. The penalties for XCOM aborting that mission early on are usually small, so don’t feel obligated to sacrifice your force to win that one.

Q: What’s that little shield by each country in the Situation Room?
A: That represents the country’s ability to defend itself from the alien incursions. Fulfilling council requests from that country fills the shield and increases that country’s ability to resist panic increases caused by alien activity and helps protect any satellites overhead from detection by alien scouts.

Q: I saved some of the civilians on a terror mission but panic still went up! Is that supposed to happen?
A: Yes. Your job on terror missions is to minimize damage by saving lives; every civilian killed raises panic in both the country and on the continent.

And an important but easy to miss note:

On Beta 9a and earlier, if this is your first time playing Long War, you should hit Alt+F10 once at the beginning of the game (once the first mission is underway) to reset your map cycler. This will be done automatically when starting a new campaign in Beta 10 and afterward.

5400

Thanks. That does sound great.

I don’t suppose they added an option for launching multiple interceptors simultaneously? I kept looking for that option when I first started playing EU. If there’s only one alien UFO appearing over earth every few days, I’d expect the local airbases to be scrambling at least a couple jets per UFO.

The greater depth in the strategic game sounds great, especially the bits that cast XCom in a support role for each nation’s own military defenses.

…Unfortunately, it sounds like it may not be compatible with my 360 controller. :-( That’s not quite a dealbreaker, but I definitely preferred the gamepad over the mouse on my first playthrough.

5401

This mod sounds interesting, but that’s seriously dampened my enthusiasm.

5402

I’ve been playing the Long War lately too, and man…it’s a totally different game, much more like the original X-Com. I’m really digging it. For anyone who hasn’t tried it, if you thought normal was too easy, but classic was too hard, and you missed the more drawn out gameplay of the original, Long War is definitely worth a shot.

5403

Last I heard Long War didn’t like Enemy Within. Has that changed?