UFO: Extraterrestrials Gameplay Video!

[baby arm]

Chaos Concept has finally released that UFO: Extraterrestrials gameplay video they've been hinting at. It's 14 full minutes of the game in action, including the geoscape, squad screen, turn-based combat, and even tanks. Give it a look here and then tell us what you think.

 

[Pete]

Downloaded this last night - whilst the video does show off the tank quite a lot (a manned tank on the battlefield I might add ) it does show off a LOT of cool stuff - good guys and a whole heap of bad guys.

 

I'll start by saying the sounds and unit animations aren't the best, and the graphics aren't exactly Half Life 2, but since we all remember and mostly still play the ultra-blocky X-COM games, I hope we can all see past that.

 

The Geoscape looks cool - the interceptions seem to cut to a very well done animation of the ships shooting down the UFO and then back to the Geoscape with shots impacting on the marker representing the UFO.

 

Interceptions seem to work as in X-COM. Good start. A shot down UFO becomes a UFO crash site which you then send your landing craft out to. You arm up as in the X-COM games, with load points spread out more like in X-COM Apocalypse.

 

The in-game portions of the gameplay trailer reveal that the unit heads (the pics of your men at the bottom of the page) are animated just for that nice extra touch. There are tanks which you can take onto the battlefield, and later on robots (not just the one from the screenshot we've seen that looks like he's off Robocop ).

 

Line of sight works as in X-COM it seems, as does reaction fire, and the ultra-annoying but realistic being shot by hard-ass enemies out of your vision range

 

There's some cool area effect weapons (again, sound and animation a bit shaky, but gameplay looks great) with gas, explosions and possibly acid.

 

The good guys can also wear different levels of armour depending on research levels in the game.

 

The bit that really grabbed me though was, and I realise this is only a gameplay video, the intuitiveness of the combat system. You click on the gun you want to fire, you click on an enemy and a pop-up menu appears next to your cursor with the usual options - snap shot, aimed and auto - depending on the capabilites of your gun.

 

Overall, it may well turn out to be a bit of a hit to be honest! If the story's good, and the gameplay is as good as I think it looks, then any other minor flaws I can live with.

 

This could be the new X-COM

 

The video is definitely worth downloading, though they could have done with less footage of the tank

[Azrael Strife]

Indeed! this is the first game that really resembles X-Com! I was really surprised when watching the video, this game really has the potential to be a true spiritual successor to X-Com Too bad the explosive effects were so lame, and the acid effect wasn't that great either, but as Pete said, I don't think any of us will really mind that.

 

I can't wait for this game

 

It's some download, but the video is worth it, I wish they released a demo.

[Zombie]

I downloaded the video too. Unfortunately my version of Windows Media Player (or should I say Wimpy Media Problems) needed a codec to play. Don't know why, but I ended up downloading the 13mb DivX which also didn't work. How the heck do I play .avi files?

 

Anyhow, I could still listen to the soundtrack which was pretty good.

 

- Zombie

[Pete]

DivX should have sorted you out mate. Did you download this one? https://www.divx.com/divx/windows/

[Azrael Strife]

I watched it on Winamp.

[Zombie]

Ok, I somehow got it to work on WMP just now. Must've been a hiccup in my system before.

 

Just a couple thoughts on the game-play video.

 

It appears to play very similar to X-COM. There are some minor differences though. Instead of five difficulty levels like in X-COM, there are now 3: Easy Medium and Hard. Not sure if that will be a problem as most people who play the original do so at either Beginner or Superhuman. Geoscape controls are now located at the top and bottom of the screen instead of aligned on the right. A nice addition is the box at the top-right with recent messages (such as production, engineering and hiring). Interceptions are just ok (sure hope there will be a way to turn off cut-scenes as the interception one could get really annoying). I'd prefer the interception to unfold in real-time and allow players to be in total control like in X-COM where you could amend orders at any time. This may be possible in ET, but there doesn't appear to be much time to do it once you get in range (how do you abort or stand-off?)

 

Once in a mission, the fog of war seems strange. There doesn't appear to be much resolving power of the units to see far ahead. Your soldiers still shoot (and throw) horrendously, and the aliens can still whip you back to the stone-age. I think I only saw a couple direct hits from the soldiers while the aliens seemed to hit almost every time. An irritating problem is ammunition sometimes prematurely connecting with a target instead of continuing on to the target image and then hitting. This is probably a camera angle problem. Explosions are similar to X-COM, but there is no splash damage to the rear of a target. Medi-Kits can not only heal critical wounds (fatal) but also restores health which is a big improvement over the original. Death screams seem to happen long before the unit falls down dead, though this may be due to video choppiness. Rockets seem to be less effective than X-COM counterparts, but at least the accuracy is decent.

 

Mech units are pretty cool in my opinion. You get tanks, humvees, and a strange two footed one which bears a resemblance to a Goliath in Starcraft. The aliens have a couple types and the Sectopod/Cyberdisc firing graphic is awesome! It slowly turns to face your unit and then fires! Neat!

 

I'd need a demo to actually research the differences closer. But it is a great start to getting a nex-gen X-COM game.

 

- Zombie

[Azrael Strife]

Well, you can't expect this game to be 100% X-Com as it's not actually a remake of it, so different controls, difficulties and so are to be expected, but the similarities were many, I hope it's as good as it looked to me

[Gimli]

Well, after finally watching the video I must say I am looking forward to it more and more. It certainly seems to capture the old X-COM style, I'm just wondering will it achieve the same tension. I like that there are animated objects there such as cameras and machines, and the effects are eye-candy too, although they may be too colourful for some. The only minor thing I've noticed is that the death animations occur with a delay after the character has been shot. I also like the feeling of being underpowered, especially with that Cyberdisc taking quite a beating before going down. As Zombie, I'd like to be able to skip the interception animation, it could get tedious after awhile.

 

Overall, this was a very good video, I like what I saw, if it plays as good as it seems, I'm sold.

[Space Voyager]

I would like it better if the viewing distances were a bit longer and if you were able to see more of the terrain (zoom out). It seems as though people see like 10 meters in front of them. Not that it was much better in X-COM but I think the "hight of the people/sight range" ratio was better. Also the voices kinda lack variety. Not everything from X-COM must be duplicated.

 

Otherwise I found the vid very X-COMish. Which is definitely a compliment.

[Aralez]

The ET team finally added another mirror for the video, the other two mirrors didn't work for some people (like me). Here MIRROR 2

 

The video showed everything i wanted from a Xcom remake and even more. If they release a CD-Version without Starforce: This is a no-brainer - I'll buy it!

 

Btw, that Walker-robot looked VERY much like the ED-209 from Robocop to me, i like that, nice!