The evolution of The Bureau

[Thorondor]

Well then, don't peek now silencer because, here's another one...

 

[Thorondor]

Among other things, IGN's podcast is invaded by:

 

(...) special guest Nick Pope this week. Formerly the British government's UFO expert, Nick is in the studio to talk about the science fact behind The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, the possibility of alien invasion, and all things extra-terrestrial.

 

::

 

Podcast 198: The Truth Is Out There.

[Thorondor]

[Space Voyager]

Survive, adapt, win... Such simple orders.

[Thorondor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4LKwo-D-Xs

 

[Azrael Strife]

IGN Review: Don't call this XCOM

[Thorondor]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/13/aug/bureau8.jpg

 

I'm almost convinced that there's a good game in here somewhere, incubated for too much time or not for time enough. Opening mission aside, The Bureau isn't terrible, but it comes across as a collection of small ideas without a unifying hand to make them whole, or to jettison the worst of them. Not terrible, but a failure in almost every way that matters.

 

::

 

RPS's Adam Smith so conveys what he thinks of The Bureau.

[NKF]

This... This is not X-Com.

 

This is Future-Tech-Sword-and-Sorcery in the 1960's with space aliens!

 

Oh well. Maybe I'll buy it for the posterity. I mean, I did make it a point to hunt down Plan 9 From Outer Space. But to look on the other hand, the criticism from fans and very high expectations that have been thrown at the developers has probably left them a bit shaken and agitated. It's not easy to do your best with the pressure everywhere.

 

- NKF

[Thorondor]

[Thorondor]

[Thorondor]

https://downloads.2kgames.com/thebureau/full-site/img/bg-news.jpg

 

Word from Development Director at 2K Marin, Morgan Gray:

 

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified demands tactical thinking and intelligent play, and rewards players with real challenges and real consequences (...) With permadeath for squad mates and the tense decision-making that XCOM games are known for, The Bureau stays true to its roots while giving players a new way to experience the XCOM universe.

 

::

 

For the record: 2K has now officially released the game in the US and it will be available internationally on the 23rd.

[Hobbes]

Reviews seem to be mixed but tending for the positive. While some sites/magazines are more critic, others like Kotaku give it a Yes (out of Yes/Maybe/No) and Joystiq gives it 4 stars. Metacritic gives it a 65% rating based on 10 reviews.

[NKF]

One common theme you can pick out from both of the extremes ends of the various reviews that are popping up is that the gameplay is promising while the story and how it connects with mainstream mythos is a bit of a grey area.

 

- NKF

[silencer_pl]

So. I've finished the prologue... well the game surely ain't optimized well. Even if you have decent PC you should stay clear from any DX11 for now. Unless you're running on megazord pc.

 

The combat is very rough and the tactical aspect is very tough nut to get accustomed to. The squaddies aren't the brightest in the shed even left in cover they can get hurt a lot. The most killings will be of course made by player which makes getting the achievement of

not firing any weapon or tossing a grenade in a single mission very tough.

 

I am playing on the hardest difficulty and right now I don't feel any tough actions but well I've on my first mission so who knows.

 

 

Also I think to understand why nobody knew about XCOM if you want to combine it with the "real" timeline.

 

And a little spoiler:

 

 

 

The head scientist is again of German origin

 

 

 

 

And what was that about the first DLC? Wasn't it suppose to be Day 0 ?

[Thorondor]

[Azrael Strife]

I think I'll most certainly wait until this game is like 5 bucks or something like that, seeing Total Biscuit's review convinced me this is just not worth it. They should have kept the FPS angle and finished that game instead of flushing a half assed mess.

[silencer_pl]

Each x-com had flaws. Even the glorified too much orginal. The story is doing ok and it seems they based it on the x-com alliance.

[silencer_pl]

Well I've been playing around for a while got to 5th I think story mission. Now things starting to look up good. Sure there are few technical issues that they didn't do quite well, but when you get around you can get decent results from your squadmates. Unfortunately on the highest level this comes when they are level 4-5 (out of 10). The leveling system is similar to XCOM EU. Some levels gives you choice, some just one option, also some levels gives a special bonus.

 

Also it's nice that you can level other agents by dispatching them on separate missions, but you will mostly keep using 2 favorites unless you want to score the achievement of using every possible skill in single campaign

[silencer_pl]

So... I've finished the game something round 19 hours - completed all side quests and such. Overall the game is Ok. Not breath taking, but not boring either. When you get hold of the tactical thing, it gets easier although playing on hardest difficulty sometimes it catches you off guard and pummels you to the ground the hard way. The final battle was challenging but not that tough so you would be screaming bullshit and throwing of your monitor out of the window. Story is very well written, it contains some holes, and some say inconsistencies. I don't have such memory to remember everything so I won't be a judge of that. There is a twist of course - there has to be one, and the finish is strangely concluded, but kept with in reason.

 

On the bad side - the technical approach is bad. I don't have a very powerful PC, but even so, I shouldn't have any problems running the game with all options on (except DX11 tesellation). They need to learn a few things from the Bioshock crew.

 

Will I return to this game? Depends on the additional content if they will release it.

[Space Voyager]

Silencer, thank you for the mini-review. It is nice to hear something good about this game from a hardcore X-COM player. Gives me hope.

[Hobbes]

I've just seen an entire playthrough on Youtube and while I can't comment on the actual gameplay, I liked the storyline and game atmosphere and think it fit for an XCOM game, although there were inconsistencies. There's also a nice twist revealed to the whole story/gameplay.

[Thorondor]

[Alan]

Well, I just finished my first play through last night and I'm a bit ambivalent about it. There's some nice ideas in there, but they have managed to spoil most of them through poor implementation. Here's three examples that I think cover most of it:

 

1. The tactical interface is almost lovely, and joyously your squad mates aren't useless. I like the idea coming up with a battle plan on the fly - you there and shoot that, you there and deploy a mine over there - for the most part it works well, and it is quite enjoyable to sneak a sniper round to flank a bunch of outsiders. Unfortunately they made a school boy error in the implementation of the bit that lets you decide where things should be deployed: your camera clips. That is, when you are deciding where an object that will probably be thrown should go to you have to run it around all of the waist high walls rather than just skimming over them.

 

2. The cover based aspect works fairly well - you can use cover to your advantage and flank quite well - but the controls for interacting with it are rubbish. Specifically the control for "duck into cover and hide so the evil muton won't kill me" and 'jump over said cover so it can hit me in the face' are the same $~%&£! button. Also, if you do get out flanked while in cover, good luck, as once you have finally managed to coax your character to crouch behind that wall it takes quite a bit of effort to get him to let go of it. You may have guessed that early on in the game these were my two leading causes of death.

 

3. There's still a flavour of X-com to it in that you get access to new weapons by retrieving them from the field, and letting the research department pick over them for a bit. There is a definite feeling the first time you find an alien weapon of "I'm looking forward to taking this back to base and kitting my guys out with it". While this works for the weaponry (there is a fairly linear progression), it doesn't quite link in with the perks or abilities. In the very first mission, one of your squad mates seems to be able to materialize an automated laser turret... while you are all still plinking away with projectile weaponry.

 

In summary: It's certainly better than enforcer and it had the potential to have been awesome, but in this game every silver lining has a cloud. I reckon this game could have done with the devs having played a bit more Call of Duty to see how a control scheme should work (duck and jump should be separate buttons damnit!), and another few months to polish out the flaws.

 

Once I managed to get past the little annoyances and learn to compensate for the controls, I actually found it quite a fun game. There is a certain something to being the one to head shot a sectoid from half way across the map, and there is a reasonable alien invasion/government cover up plot to it. If nothing else I'd say this game has given me a little hope that they could eventually pull off an proper X-com Alliance (an FPS with decent base management).

[silencer_pl]

while you are all still plinking away with projectile weaponry.

 

Also it's funny when during mission cutscenes your heroes pull M-14 while you are equipped with laser/plasma guns

 

 

Another thing about cover. While player is perfectly safe in half-cover. Companions aren't that well. When they have 100% health they tend to ignore that enemy is aiming and most of the time they just fire to - of course because enemy AI must have superior accuracy it tends for them to get 1hp fast. Of course when they have 1hp they behave rational and don't poke when shouldn't.

[NKF]

I haven't bought the game yet (the thing with EU2012 and getting players to pretty much buy the game again has made me hesitate), but in the meantime have been watching one of the Let's Plays that have popped up. Only seen the game up to the first proper mission at the university. Stopped about the time Mutey McBulletSponge, star of the PR vids, shows up. Your team mates are unusually perceptive at identifying something they've never seen before.

 

Since I've never played any of the games this game purportedly is borrowing ideas from, I was hoping to have a more objective view of this once I got to see it in action. But having seen what little I've seen, I'm honestly left with a lot of mixed feelings about this game. There are lots of great ideas here, from the combat, the setting, the story and the immense effort they seemed to put in to make it look pretty. It's very pretty. But put together it feels half baked. It's good, it's bad, it needed more development time.

 

This game does have the honour of bringing the series into the true modern era by its use of cussing. I'm no prude, but I do not feel it's needed. We players provide enough of that already.

 

- NKF