1581

Not much worse, but lets just say that game developers/publishers are infamous for falsely promising that all problems are fixed on a magical build on the dev servers in order to increase release day sales. Often times what you see is what you get.

Insert picture of Iraqi official denying everything here.

1582

If nothing else the release of XCom makes it easy to tell who the glass half empty people around here are. :P

1583

But it was a comment by an RPS journo, who’s played the game for 40 hours. It’s not a dev/publisher comment.

1584

We have a few hours of live gameplay footage. If one’s critical thinking skills have so eroded one can’t conclude that the demo is a very restricted tutorial section, then I don’t know what to say. We know how the game plays at this point. All I took from the demo is that a.) the game will run on my four year-old PC and b.) the interface will take a little getting used to.

On the latter point, I’m ok with primarily using the keyboard. In fact, after Skyrim, I kind of abhor interfaces that don’t allow me to zip around with WASD, but it could be I’m just a little weird.

1585

I think the issue is that some people really hate the PC keyboard and mouse control because it doesn’t behave the way they’ve come to expect. Because RPS published an article praising the 40-odd-hours of playtime without mentioning this “flaw” these folks feel that the credibility (perhaps even the objectivity) of RPS in regards to X-Com is shot. That RPS then went on to publish this latest article defending their decision to not mention the control issue with a hand waved “muscle memory” excuse seals the deal for them.

I’d agree that the demo probably does a bad job of giving PC X-Com fans a slice of real gameplay. I’m sure the decision to release a couple levels of the scripted tutorial is a result of the need to appeal to prospective console customers, but it’s a poor choice to entice longtime TBS fans. In that regard, I’d bet that RPS is correct. The full game will be better.

The whole U/I control issue is a bit baffling though. I know someone like the Cynical Brit wouldn’t let it slide without a mention.

1586

I wish the demo they released was more like Jagged Alliance: BIA demo.
That was pretty meaty, and gave a good representation of the game, I thought.

1587

I hated the demo, for me it was pretty much ONLY catering to everyone who didn’t play the original or wouldn’t have liked it if they did.
Gimme 1.5 hours of free derping, doing whatever I want. That’s a demo. This is a 6GB joke for kids aged 12-15 who feel their choices DO matter, even in pre-scripted events.

Don’t get me wrong I think it’s great they released a demo and I want to see more developers go back to that, it’s pretty much just suspicious if they don’t. But THIS? How did it in any way transfer or even mimic the original experience?

Luckily from what I see the demo is just an early mistake, the full game is actually a game.

1588

Did anyone check the movies folder? Did they include all the movies of the full game in the demo? It seems most of the file size from the 6GB demo was from the movies.

1589

The official forum has a spoiler thread for everything they’ve data mined from the demo.

1590

link for that?

1591

Possible spoilers. I didn’t look very hard at it. There may be better threads by now.

Hah, someone made an editor for the demo mission.

1592

The weapons felt so weak, flashy and just boring…and I am not talking about the damage t hey do.

Come on, Hunters 2 on Ipad does this better.

1593

Boiled down to brass tacks: It’s a game I want to play, but X-Com it aint.

1594

Having read most of their coverage on the game since it was announced, Alec Meer (the one who wrote the “demo” article) has gone from highly skeptical to highly relieved, apparently the biggest fan of the original at RPS. His interviews and questions to the devs have been insightful and direct. That he likes the end result so much goes a long way to reassuring me that the game is going to be satisfying for X-Com fans even if it’s not a direct carbon-copy. To be honest this sense of relief that this particular IP has at least been done respectfully probably overcomes any UI quirks the end result might have. I really don’t see why lynching him for this should be a big issue unless you’re looking for issues to take issue with.

1595

This is far too reasoned and non inflammatory to be on the internets.

1596

Yeah, it’s totally not a turn based strategy game about fighting aliens with an international squad of soldiers, improving your home base, weapon tech, etc, and having your squaddies dying brutal final deaths.

1597

Exactly my thoughts. At any rate I will reserve judgement until it is released and I play it. So far I’m really looking forward to it.

1598

Let me take another tact with this. I’m sure this is heresy, but I think one aspect of the design getting overlooked is the amazing job they’ve done with the UI for controllers. It’s completely intuitive and easy to use. I played the whole demo with a 360 controller and loved it, as short as it was.

Of course, I own a controller and playing the game with M&K isn’t a reasonable option for me (since the TV is all the way over there. And my couch is all the way over here). But I think when the dust ultimately settles on this game, these guys should get some credit for the controller UI. On a PC. It’s outstanding (for a strategy game).

1599

Yes, i do remember playing this one fps on 360 once that had wonderful trackball controls. Shame it didn’t work well at all with the primary control scheme, but they deserve credit for the trackball UI.

1600

I’m setting myself up for a pile-on, but aren’t gamepad interfaces almost always “pretty good” these days? I think it was Tim Willits who bragged about making everyone at id play Rage with the X360 controller first so they could quickly identify problems. It seems silly to eek out that last 99th percentile of gamepad interface when the PC interface barely reaches par. I know console players make up the majority. From where I’m sitting, I have to assume the resource allocation for UI work is skewed even further than what customer sales would call for.

I don’t expect perfection. It’s really hard to develop dual interfaces with completely different paradigms. Analog sticks, shoulder buttons, and big screen TVs call for different fundamentals that are hard to change for mouse and keyboard. I just want to feel like someone knows how to avoid the easy (inexpensive) pitfalls.