XCOM: Enemy Unknown

[Giaddon]

That’s just like, your opinion man. The original X-Com was not abstract in the slightest, these are serious aliens coming to kill you and everyone you care about. Maybe you would make a better general than I because I want to care about this situation, not tick off a win/lose box.

No, BleedTheFreak is talking about Firaxis’ take on X-com, which is abstract and gamey by design (cooldown on grenades, etc.)

[Savillo]

This time you’ll be entering the map from the other direction!

I’ve started in the same location many times; in fact, this is usually how I instantly recognize that I’m playing a repeat map. I don’t know that maps will have multiple drop-off points, but my experience could just be a quirk of the preview build.

[meeper]

edit:
Hell, if they were smart, they should have followed the Spore strategy.

Release a map editor before the game to help hype the game. Make it easy to use, Have a tool to place and rotate objects, pinch to create elevations/depressions and choose a size and theme, and that’s it.

So after two weeks, they have several hundreds maps to insert in the game.

However good their intentions, their tool for getting additional maps would likely have attracted cries of DRM (assuming it auto-updated and required authentication).

That being said, I think it’s a great idea. I still have a small amount of hope that XCOM may eventually be as moddable as Civ.

[Waltzer]

The original didn’t really have unique maps either, though. Instead it stitched together medium-sized map pieces … a particular house, a particular field, etc. – into a bigger map. In other words, the gas stations were all the same in the original, too. It’s just that the one gas station map piece could be surrounded by other map pieces.

(Which is not bad, mind you. The point is, it’s gamey.)

Somebody pointed out elsewhere that we Olde Tymers often misremember the “realism” of the original, which regularly featured rounds leaving gun barrels at 45-degree angles.

Yeah, but I mean, those rookies were really terrible shots.

[Papageno]

So when is the game available for pre-installation on Steam? I just pre-ordered.

[dfs]

I still have a small amount of hope that XCOM may eventually be as moddable as Civ.

ohhhh. Why did you have to go and say that?

Now I want something new.

[tincrow]

The original didn’t really have unique maps either, though. Instead it stitched together medium-sized map pieces … a particular house, a particular field, etc. – into a bigger map. In other words, the gas stations were all the same in the original, too. It’s just that the one gas station map piece could be surrounded by other map pieces.

(Which is not bad, mind you. The point is, it’s gamey.)

Somebody pointed out elsewhere that we Olde Tymers often misremember the “realism” of the original, which regularly featured rounds leaving gun barrels at 45-degree angles.

True, but sometimes it only takes a little bit of difference to suspend disbelief, and different layout helps quite a bit. The original also had the “advantage” of cruder graphics, it’s a lot easier to believe those gas stations are different when the distinguishing characteristics are so vague.

As long as ALL the guns fire at 45-degree angles it’s internally consistent! (smiley here)

[John_Many_Jars]

Hey man, you might wanna get this looked at -----------------------^

Birth control, dude

[Papageno]

So no one knows when this will be available for pre-load on Steam? BTW, is it weird that on the game’s store page, I don’t get the green banner telling me that I already own it?

[Squee]

Nope and nope. Green banner doesn’t show up on preordered things until it goes “Live” usually.

[Nesrie]

The original didn’t really have unique maps either, though. Instead it stitched together medium-sized map pieces … a particular house, a particular field, etc. – into a bigger map. In other words, the gas stations were all the same in the original, too. It’s just that the one gas station map piece could be surrounded by other map pieces.

(Which is not bad, mind you. The point is, it’s gamey.)

Somebody pointed out elsewhere that we Olde Tymers often misremember the “realism” of the original, which regularly featured rounds leaving gun barrels at 45-degree angles.

They felt unique though. The perception of random is more important than rather they were actually random. I’ve yet to play a game where the dev explains away map generators by offering plenty of carefully selected handcrafted maps that didn’t feel repetitive or that plenty of maps fell short by a lot.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

So no one knows when this will be available for pre-load on Steam? BTW, is it weird that on the game’s store page, I don’t get the green banner telling me that I already own it?

Is it listed in your library?

[Jason_Lutes]

I can’t help but love this guy.

[Papageno]

Is it listed in your library?

Nope, not yet. I did download the demo a few days ago, though, which is. Maybe the demo is taking its place?
What are other pre-orderers seeing in their libraries?

[Dreamshadow]

Nope, not yet. I did download the demo a few days ago, though, which is. Maybe the demo is taking its place?
What are other pre-orderers seeing in their libraries?

You should have 'X-Com Enemy Unknown Pre-Purchase in your library. Until the game switches to the normal version and starts preloading (in about a day or so) you won’t see ‘You already own this game’ in the store.

[tgb123]

One thing that concerns me after watching some more videos last night is that it appears base improvements have to be unlocked, as opposed to all the rooms being available from the beginning with money and space being the only constraints, as in the previous games.

[Wendelius]

You should have 'X-Com Enemy Unknown Pre-Purchase in your library. Until the game switches to the normal version and starts preloading (in about a day or so) you won’t see ‘You already own this game’ in the store.

Yep. Papageno, it should look like this:

Wendelius

[Fifth_Fret]

One thing that concerns me after watching some more videos last night is that it appears base improvements have to be unlocked, as opposed to all the rooms being available from the beginning with money and space being the only constraints, as in the previous games.

You had to research a lot of rooms for your bases in the original.

It’s the maps, non-destructable terrain and small squad sizes that concern me. I’m looking forward to hearing reports from the people buying on release.

[TurinTur]

My concerns

-Action/movement system in Tactical battles
-Fire options system in TB
-Numbers of soldiers in TB (the original allowed too many, but 6 is a bit too few)

-Variety of types of maps
-Size of maps
-Lack of real time day/night in maps
-Will have enough maps to not repeat battles in them?

-No base defense missions
-No multiple bases
-Less freedom to control your assets?
-No multiple missions at the same time in Geoscape

[rezaf]

Heh, ironically, with both Firaxis’ XCOM and Xenocide in the pipeline, I’m actually more excited about the X@Com roguelike - while both commercial titles seem to fall way short on features and/or content compared to the original X-Com, that guy at least tries to add some exciting stuff while still adding everything that was in the original.

For example, lately he added police forces and the ability to pass weaponry to your average civilian - possibly with disastrous results.

I can only repeat myself, XCOM of course can be a fun and good game, but it saddens me that there’s such a long list of stuff that was better or more detailed in the original.

---

rezaf