Xenonauts - the REAL successor to X-Com?

Seems we play the same way \o/
Did not need/want to fund my activities by selling the equipment but what if I wanted to temporarily do so, to overcome a bad patch?

If you are permanently short on resources, the alternative is simple: either cheat or reload as soon as you lose assets. X-COM is great for the flexibility it affords, you can suffer setbacks and still recover precisely because you have the ability to accumulate some extra resources

Would love to be proven wrong but have zero confidence they will be able to do so without seriously damaging the gameplay as a result

Ah, I think we’re at one of these “if it’s not identical to how X-Com did it, it’s going to be bad and wrong” impasses.

Why not simply reduce the value of sold weapons over time? Worked well enough in Apocalypse.

Im guessing, from reading the backstory, that you will gain more cash by researching or completing ops for the Russians/Americans

Those of you who are X-Com fans, and who haven’t gone through and read all of the game features detailed on the site should definitely do so. They are planning some really awesome improvements over the original game.

I like the addition of the third-party elements. I always thought there should be police/army units trying to intervene in terror missions and such.

The one thing missing from X-Com that never made any sense were night vision goggles. Night vision came of fame in the 1991 Gulf War, so having elite troops with NVG seems like a no-brainer.

Well, a lot of the XCom remake thingies had some smart ideas on how to improve on the original design and screwed up their game in the process.
IMO, they should just build their engine to be able to replicate the original XCom 1:1 and then, if they want to change something, they should do so, but keep a possibility (advanced settings menu, ini file, whatever) for the player to undo their change, should so he desire.
I mean, what’s the problem, just make manufactured stuff non-sellable per default but allow player to tick a “manufactured items sellable” checkbox somewhere upon starting a new game. Everyone is happy.


rezaf

Yep, a key to improving an existing game is knowing what the game is and what it isn’t. This is particularly true of early games where limitations at the time dictated a more streamlined and, whether intentional or not, in some cases better design. The original Seven Cities of Gold versus the 90s remake is a good example. As rezaf said, so long as a remake lets the “improvements” (which in some cases may very well be improvements) be turned off I think you get the best of both worlds.

Well, no, rezaf is saying they should just clone X-Com and make any changes reversible.

Hey, hey!, where are the space-marine-techno-halo-like-pseudo-anime-mecha suits and plasma cannons? Are we going to fight alien invaders with blue jumpsuits and kettle helmets?!

hides

Man, the default armor can be a kettle helmet, I will never complain.

Given most (if not all) the subsequent games and their “improvements” have actually turned out to be fairly broken and disappointing having somebody produce a modern working version of X-COM would actually be an improvement.

After that, if they want to add lots of exciting, game-changing “features”, it would be great to give gamers the option to turn them off.

Anyway, fingers crossed this time will be the right one and they’ll get it right.

It’s so funny to watch this year after year. People say they want the same game at higher resolution and a better interface. Then some people say they want a few tweaks made. Then other people come in and say they will make it the same, but end up limited by the engine or need to change the feel of the graphics or art design.

What all the nutcases really need is 1. a pixel-perfect open and modular port as a foundation that people could mod and enhance as they see fit, and 2. a really good modern game similar to X-COM to finally take the banner from it. That’s asking for a lot since we’re basically talking another top 10 game of all time. I’m not sure where and what kind of developer this would come from.

Site looks very nicely made, but there’s not really anything there. Not really having big huge hopes on this.

That said, if this comes out, I shall play it.

Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself here? There’s a difference between a limited resource that requires strategic decisions and OMG I CANT PAY FOR ANYTHING I MUST USE CHEATS! It all comes down to balancing the game. If it’s the latter, it’s a balance flaw, not a design flaw…

aye, I doubt Xcom can be remade to fit the rose-tinted glasses memory many people have when they talk about it.

I think this looks good - they have a LOT of nice features, and as they stated, they wouldnt have said anything yet, but the other Xcom announcement kinda forced their hand…perfect timing for them, actually.

I hope for their sake they pull it off,and get a deal with Impulse and Steam. Would be fun if it outsold the fbi-version of the game ;-)

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

As farfrael has noted, most improvements made by “remakes” have turned out to not actually improving the game - it doesn’t help that many improvement ideas tend to turn into compromises or even are downright removed again during the course of development.
For example, UFO:ET was going to feature a police faction as well, but it was cut out again at some point rather late in development.

Remember the old days when Microprose (then owned by Hasbro, iirc) was remimagening board games such as Risk? They offered a classic mode, in which you could play by the basic boardgame rules, and one or several enhanced (whatever it was called in the specific case) modes in which rules were changed or new rules were introduced. What’s so bad about that approach?

Different people like XCom for different reasons and play the game in different ways. For example, the expendable, “nameless” recruits you can hire in endless numbers were never really THAT important to me, as I tended to reload when I lost one of my veterans, but I’ve since played the game in different ways and I can at least see why many people consider this an important part of XComs design. And it’s great that XCom was designed “open minded” enough that the designers allowed me my savescumming and allowed others their iron-man-mode in which recruits were expendable cannon fodder without actually enforcing either.
I think XCom is full of such subtle balances that, changed in either way, will make the result end up worse.

So yeah, implement crazy ideas and come up with ideal improvements, but allow me to turn them off if I think they aren’t actually all that great.


rezaf

I certainly wish them the best of luck, I’ll be watching their progress via Google Reader.

Just read through the entire site (reading about X-COM beats calculus any day), and this look amazing.

I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but I’ll believe it when I see some solid gameplay and it’s close to release/there’s a demo/it’s released. I’d be skeptical of a team who has lots of experience from making and shipping games. Ex-modders of Crysis (who, I assume, are making it in their spare time), though?

It is very easy to promise stuff. I wish them lots of luck, though.