New X-COM Announced

[Azrael Strife]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_2010

 

This may be an extreme example, but in a way, it's kind of relevant to what happens when you use a popular franchise and then change everything about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM:_Apocalypse

This is an example of a franchise with most of its elements changed. And yet, I find it the most enjoyable X-Com

 

Let's just give it a chance instead of whining pointlessly it's just a game, after all.

[Bomb Bloke]

Yes, Apoc changed a fair few things, but the vast majority of those were "additions", not "removals". The main "cut" was the concept of a "world wide" game, but even that lead to massive expansion in terms of politics, aerial combat and diversity of terrain.

 

This new game aims to "remove" the original canon of the series, as well as the playstyle. These are the specific changes which make people question why it's even using the same title. Also note that the release of such a game all but "officially" kills hope for a "true" sequel, as any future releases will be along the lines of the "new re-imagining" - it's understandable that this would disappoint people.

 

That said, the description given in that demo review sounds better then I was expecting. It appears team members are expendable, so that probably indicates they're randomly generated, too. It also states that the mission was of the "grab-bag" variety, which would also suggest "random". Hopefully I'm not just being optimistic.

[Matri]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM:_Apocalypse

This is an example of a franchise with most of its elements changed. And yet, I find it the most enjoyable X-Com

 

Let's just give it a chance instead of whining pointlessly it's just a game, after all.

You seem to forget that Apocalypse was still a somewhat faithful incarnation of X-Com because:

 

a) It didn't screw with the timeline

b) It didn't take away squad-level turn-based gaming

c) It didn't take away the whole "reverse-engineering alien technology" concept

d) It didn't take away the all-important all-terrain transports, without which you wouldn't have been able to even reach half the crash sites

 

I fail to see how you seem to think "most" of the elements changed.

Alien invasion: Check.

Alien technology: Check.

Alien bases: Check.

Alien infiltration: Check.

Terror Missions: Check.

Base Defense Missions: Check.

"Strategic" map Interceptor vs UFO air battles: Check.

Alien Capture & Interrogation: Check.

Base building & design: Check.

Keeping your public ratings up & preventing alien infiltration of said public: Check.

"Classic" isometric turn-based squad-level combat: Check.

Assaulting the alien homebase/homeworld for a finale battle: Check.

Control of an entire organization whose sole purpose is to combat the alien threat, aka X-Com: Check.

 

It appears team members are expendable, so that probably indicates they're randomly generated, too.

And again with the dumbing down. If what BB says there is true, then there's no more attachment to your "team", so to speak. In the X-Com games your squad IS expendable as well, but the game made you feel like a jerk for treating them as such as well as making your life a living hell, especially in the later parts of the game when every missed shot counts.

 

So if you had wanted to use a more relevant example you should have gone with X-Com Interceptor or the aforementioned X-Com Enforcer, but then that would have proven my point instead, wouldn't it?

 

From what I can gather, the more appropriate title should be "X-Files: Cancerman Chronicles". Or even as an MiB prequel/origin story.

[Space Voyager]

And yet, I find it the most enjoyable X-Com

Me too, really. The only things I hate about it is the lack of soldiers' faces and the teleports. Ok, I don't hate those, I just think they are too powerful.

 

As much as I promised myself I'd never even try the real-time mode... once I did, I never went for TB in Apoc any more. The time consumption in X-COM 1&2 is just too much for me now. And yes, I know I'm repeating myself.

[Guest Guest_Bloodmoney_*]

First of all sorry for the previous post - by mistake I pressed Enter, please delete it.

Because... Aliens were completely different? (bar aquatoid in TFTD), two stage insufferable missions? pausable real time? dimensional travel? Nah, it's all just too similar to X-Com

TFTD... Let's see:

Happens after the Enemy Unknown story? yes.

Has Strategic part and Tactical? yes.

 

Expanding or altering some features doesn't make the games not belonging to the franchise, until they don't brake the canon. For example, Fallout: Tactics is a game that can be called non-canonic (thought Fallout fans call it semi-canonic), since it introduces many things that are conflicting wit the canon - Hairy talking Death Claws (FOT happens between FO1& FO2, and the latter introducer the talking Death Claws created by Enclave), Hummer that doesn't fit the settings and many more less or more important. Matri made excellent post about Apoc, so I won't mill it

 

How can they dumb down a game that they made themselves and didn't exist before...

Bioshock is spiritual successor to System Shock 2. So the developers were saying and other people. IF you had occasion to play it, you would see how many similarities they have. I think that some people from Bioshock 1 worked on it., can't remember. The most cool feature of SS2 comparing to Bioshock are levels which have many corridors and also you can explore in non-linear way the ship.

 

And people still whine too much, it's just a game, get over it, most of the people who whine don't even have the time to play most of the games they whine about because... some have lives?

How you can know? you did some official poll or something? Do you really think that all those people who dislike idea of this game wouldn't play a new X-Com game like first three ones?

Anyway if the rumour about Firaxis working on Turn-Based X-Com game faithful to the EU/TFTD, I would happily ignore this silly game. Understand, I don't criticize the game for the sake doing it, I'm just really disappointed that they doing another spin-off that sounds really more and more silly.

 

Not sure what you mean.

Your post:

Nothing is going to be X-Com unless they remake it, and even if they did, it was bound to have a gazillion new features and additions from the games we know, and people would also whine "it's not X-Com, buaaaaa".

Such project is UFO: Two Sides. They are remaking the game and altering/expanding or adding many new features. So far nowhere I've seen anyone whine about it, in fact people are very interested about this project, including myself. I can even bet for a 100$ that if for example Take2 started this project, the reaction would be the same.

 

That's my point, we know very little of the game, instead of whining we could just simply wait and see

We know enough from previews for now to know that it's a complete spin-off made in the most sorry way. They just took out the cool stuff from X-Com games, modified to their needs (Base will be dumbed down), then replaced it with something else (TB Squad combat into FPS) or altered in the most silly way (Elerium). Basically if they named this game like UFO Invasion instead of XCom and replaced Elerium with something else, you wouldn't even seen news about this game on Strategy Core. I think you understand why.

Funny thing is that most remakes of old games turn into FPS in the end - Fallout 3, Close Combat game (I don't remember title), mentioned Metroid in this thread etc. and now X-Com.

[Azrael Strife]

I haven't been able to play SS2 on my system, it crashes every single time despite me trying to follow all solutions, patches, etc.

Regarding the plot, I never understood what Bioshock and SS2 had in common except the name, but that's just me never playing the original game, sadly, I heard it'd like Deus Ex.

 

People never whine about Open Source remakes not being 100% close to the original. Reason? it's never going to be an official sequel/remake, and chances are that it will never be completed (let's hope UFO: TS is), they whine about official releases because they feel the devs are bound by moral to make it the way the insane whiny fans want it.

 

SV, I never got teleporters, not sure why, what breaks the game for me is the Toxiguns, they are insanely powerful, aliens drop like flies, I guess it's Apoc's Psi-Amp? (as in that it makes the game too easy).

 

I am still very much excited about this game, and will wait for more than a tiny article on a random magazine before saying "we know something about it", it's so early in development that a lot will surely change before a preview appears on one of the larger gaming sites like IGN.

 

X-Com, as I see it, is the struggle of a secret organization to fight an Alien invasion. That's about it in the storyline. This game starts with you as an FBI agent, maybe they are planning for you to play the origin of X-Com, maybe go on a regular mission, meet the aliens, and eventually join the newly created X-Com. Who knows? all I know is that the idea sounds fun and interesting and I'll wait and see before calling this a shitty FPS that has nothing to do with X-Com.

[Exarch]

all I know is that the idea sounds fun and interesting and I'll wait and see before calling this a shitty FPS that has nothing to do with X-Com.

 

And by then, it'll be too late. Better for the voices of the concerned to (hopefully) be heard while the game is early in development. No one in their right mind expects them to turn it completely around and make it a turn based strategy game, but they can add familiar aliens, maybe alter the way Elerium works, etc.

 

I mean, seriously... blobotovs? Someone needs to take their copy of Fallout 3 away and get them to play X-COM more, I think.

 

If I wanted anyone to do an X-COM FPS... I think it'd have to be the guys who did FEAR. At least then I know I'd be terrified.

[Matri]

If I wanted anyone to do an X-COM FPS... I think it'd have to be the guys who did FEAR. At least then I know I'd be terrified.

Mmm, excellent choice for simulating Psi attacks.

[Accounting Troll]

While I hope that this new game turns out okay, I am concerned about it being descrbed as a reimagination of the X-Com games. In my experience, "reimagination" usually means that even the original creator wouldn't recognise it.

 

A reimagination of the original franchise could very well mean that this game will not be consistent with the established X-Com timeline. An X-Com formed in the immediate aftermath of the Roswell crash could work, but only if the developers bear in mind that the Cold War politics of the era would make it a very difficult organisation to the X-Com of Enemy Unknown.

 

In Enemy Unknown, X-Com was a multi-national taskforce directly reporting to the United Nations, or rather, the UN nations that were directly funding it. It had a UN mandate to ignore national soverignty and airspace restrictions in its conduct of the war against aliens who had proved themselves to be hostile. National governments would have been unable to conceal terror attacks against major cities, so they would probably have talked up the victories X-Com was acheiving in order to keep up civilian morale.

 

A 1950s X-Com would probably be an American only organisation reporting directly to the CIA or the military. It's objective wouldn't be just to beat the aliens but to obtain alien technology that the USA would be able to use to gain a military or economic advantage over the Soviet Union. Cold War paranoia would make global cooperation against the aliens almost impossible, even to the point where an X-Com agent in the field might occasionally have to fight foreign agents for possession of some alien artifact.

[Guest Guest_Bloodmoney_*]

I haven't been able to play SS2 on my system, it crashes every single time despite me trying to follow all solutions, patches, etc.

 

Hm that's pretty strange, it works pretty flawlessy with unofficial fixes from what I know.

Regarding the plot, I never understood what Bioshock and SS2 had in common except the name, but that's just me never playing the original game, sadly, I heard it'd like Deus Ex.

Gameplay, character creation, etc. After playing it you will understand. Really try it, this is one of must paly games ;-)

 

People never whine about Open Source remakes not being 100% close to the original. Reason? it's never going to be an official sequel/remake, and chances are that it will never be completed (let's hope UFO: TS is), they whine about official releases because they feel the devs are bound by moral to make it the way the insane whiny fans want it.

UFO: Two Sides has gone Open Source? anyway you made typical exaggeration. Why people prefer Open-Source remakes comparing official releases of new games from X franchise? because the latter one is less faithful to original franchise and sadly, this is the main truth. You are right, there are people who whine only for sake of doing it. Don't forget there are people with arguments & strong opinion, which won't take all crap in the butt. I can really assure you that if Take2 made really a true remake, less people would criticize the game then this new one. Unless they did some stupid changes to make game easy etc. I think you get the picture.

 

I am still very much excited about this game, and will wait for more than a tiny article on a random magazine before saying "we know something about it", it's so early in development that a lot will surely change before a preview appears on one of the larger gaming sites like IGN.

You really think that suddenly creators do U-turn and completely change the things that currently we can read in previews?

 

X-Com, as I see it, is the struggle of a secret organization to fight an Alien invasion. That's about it in the storyline.

Now read the original Enemy Unknown storyline and notice when the whole Invasion started. This new game completely butchers original storyline.

This game starts with you as an FBI agent, maybe they are planning for you to play the origin of X-Com, maybe go on a regular mission, meet the aliens, and eventually join the newly created X-Com.

Even if this will be like you say, it's still violation of original cannon.

Who knows? all I know is that the idea sounds fun and interesting and I'll wait and see before calling this a shitty FPS that has nothing to do with X-Com.

I don't know what more you need to understand that this game is what I said before - taking out from originals what they need and altering/replacing the stuff to their own needs. Also the team behind the game ain't so good, basically all they do are Bioshock games (yes, third one is incomin), which are Imho really crappy.

[Bomb Bloke]

BioShock is kinda like a mash-up of System Shock I & II. In the first game, upgrades are found sitting around the various levels of the space station you're on - by the end of the game, you may well have collected all of them, depending on how much tourism you performed. The second game gives you generic "cyber modules", which you can convert to selectable upgrades at certain wall consoles - but if you need to specialise, because there aren't enough modules to become an effective "jack of all trades".

 

BioShock uses a system similar to SS2's cyber module system, but gives you so many of the things that you'll probably end up with every power of any real value maxed out by the end - and most of the said powers boil down to "elemental guns". It also dumbs down things like the hacking game, which pauses time whenever you start it (a turret will sit and wait for you to pass/fail the game before deciding whether to blast you or an enemy).

 

Az, what's SS2 do when it "crashes"? When/how does it happen, etc? I used to have problems with crashes that no one else had, took me ages before a work around presented itself. On some computers it'd work, others would always fail in the same way. Just stopped on the loading screen, and sat there until I tabbed out and killed the process manually.

 

But I digress...

 

The review thingy did mention that your base is supposedly powered by Elerium, which means that it probably serves as more then just a macguffin. Can't say I like the idea of finding it on some random bloke's porch, or of it being carved into the shape of an idol, but such matters may be refined in time (or the reviewer may just've being seeing "shapes in the clouds") - sooner or later, the developers are gonna have to throw in some UFOs to raid, and that may provide a more suitable "habitat" for it. If it appears during "random" missions (assuming there are random missions - it's all very ambiguous for now), then it certainly wouldn't be a "limited collectable".

[Mouse Nightshirt]

Glee mixed with major trepidation.

 

I have no doubt that the game will be good. I have major doubts that the game will be X-COM.

 

And hello again folks, always nice to pop the head in from time to time

[Thorondor]

Reports of X-Com Sectoid to appear on XCOM shown on PC Gamer ?

 

::

 

Shoot it if you spot it...

[FullAuto]

First look?

[Matri]

Mmm, majority of the comments also agree, that this isn't an X-Com game, it just has the name attached to try and sucker people in.

 

Seems all too common nowadays, like they took a page out of the Uwe Boll manual of film-making. Just attach the name of something famous to your works and ride the wave of fame that the name has acquired, and don't worry about not living up to the reputation.

 

C&C Renegade was a damned accurate game, though. The setting, the enemies, the buildings, the weapons, the vehicles... All that was really missing was a giant disembodied mouse cursor flying about the sky giving orders.

 

And on the other scale we have Enforcer, which is the book this game has taken a page out of: Attach the name, take a few concepts, and hope people will fall for it.

[Azrael Strife]

Harsh for a game that doesn't really exist yet and we know very little about

[chiasaur11]

So, glad to have read the article. Looks...

 

It looks like...

 

Right. Encapsulating emotional response: I'm looking forward to it. I mean, it looks to nicely combine the whole large scale small scale thing like the original, you're slowly building to be able to fight back, like the original, all nice. And the risk/reward mechanic sounds aces.

 

But...

 

I miss the power armor. And I will be very disappointed if there aren't Chryssalids.

[Sorbicol]

Hi All

 

There is a more lengthy review here at Games Radar if anyone is interested.

 

It's most certainly not XCOM as any of us would recognise it, but having read this it does look like it's not going to be your standard Linear FPS al la Half Life or Crysis or something like that. It doesn't even look that similar to Bioshock, although I get the impression that is the type of atmosphere they are going for (which is no bad thing in my opinion)

 

This is still being viewed with some scepticism here, but having got my head round the concept that it's not really XCOM, as a game it is capturing my interest.

[Matri]

Harsh for a game that doesn't really exist yet and we know very little about

You keep saying that, yet you just don't want to see.

 

...the concept that it's not really XCOM...

It is X-Com, no matter how much some of us wish it wasn't. They hold the IP and they are actively re-writing it. Ret-cons, even when properly done, are never good. And ret-cons lately have been less than half-assed.

 

Seriously. A piece of raw crystal of alien energy in the shape of a carved South American stone disc. How is that more acceptable than collecting half-opaque data chips to "research" weapons & systems upgrades?

[thothkins23]

Hi,

 

Having (belatedly) found out about the release, and picked up PC gamer in the supermarket, I'm more positive than not about the new game.

 

- It certainly brings back that life or death tension of the original, with an inevitable bail out seemingly required in the demo. All about getting the evidence at that stage. Perhaps later a more direct approach can be used instead of "Hey Frank, thanks for the pics. After you left the whole town got their heads sucked off."

 

- i like the time period. Paranoid yet positive. Technology seen as both the future and yet as an overarching threat. I'm happy it's on earth where it should be.

 

- I like the use of Fortean aspects. For me, this was an important part of the fun of the first game. There were Greys, Reptoids (well, Snakemen), Harvesting, Cattle Mutilations, wheat field landings all coming together into one coherent story. The new game focuses a lot on this, just as these were trappings of the original. Research and Development seems to be a strong component of the new game too and they've clearly had fun with the technologies.

 

From the article we have a Tesla inspired death ray and the Blob. How more '50s can you get? The Blob in question is like the Cthulhu Mythos Formless Spawn while the Monolith/Titan seems to have some extradimensional trappings too. So, I like the creatures so far.

 

The Elerium in the mag is described as "a strange arrangement of cubes, hovering in mid air." The original was a clump of rectangles, with properties so odd that it couldn't be replicated (perhaps not from our dimension at all). So I'll wait till I see this.

 

I like the new base. It's sleek, well designed and I look forward to any customisation that's suggested. I also like the idea that there will be particular kit needed for certain missions, rather than simply dragging in the most powerful guns.

 

It looks as though the 2 squad members accompanying the agent can also be upgraded through training etc as the game progresses. Either that or there's co op play of some sort. There's no mention if it's always 2 going or if it's the same 2 or a selection with different skills. So, there's scope there too. I wonder what happens if the main agent gets killed. Will you just move over to another member of the team or is it game over? no squad commands yet, but that could be in later, which is almost like having a mini-squad again.

 

There's no obvious intercepts going on, but who knows what later stages may bring? Perhaps I'm seeing the investigative look of the game as the start of something larger as the threat grows. Perhaps it can all be done by a small team of investigators a la Call of Cthulhu games. I'll miss timing the departure of my craft to tackle a battleship, but I liked the missions and the r&d more.

 

So it's the change from the squad isometric view to the FPS that seems to be the big shift really. I have to say I'm not a fan of FPS. In fact I don't play any and I have rarely played any in the past. That's going to take some getting used to, but I'm certainly willing to give it a chance as the rest of the game seems fine so far.

[Matri]

Contact lens.

[Azrael Strife]

Heh, I actually like that design, reminds me of the Aliens from Evangelion

[Matri]

Heh, I actually like that design, reminds me of the Aliens from Evangelion

So make up your mind, is this game supposed to be Evangelion or X-Com?

[Azrael Strife]

So make up your mind, is this game supposed to be Evangelion or X-Com?

I dunno, it hasn't been released yet and there are little info on it

 

On a side note, I never said it was Evangelion, said it reminded me of it

[Pete]

Worth a read if you haven't already: https://uk.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_m...pic_id=27311384

 

And this is the first page from that GamesRadar piece from a cache on Google - grab it while it's still there: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/sear...lient=firefox-a

 

I imagine GamesRadar's piece was removed for not complying with the online preview embargo mentioned on another site. Expect more online previews whenever that embargo date has passed!