XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Discussion in 'Gaming' started by infinix, Feb 3, 2012.

  1. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

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    Mannheim, Germany
    I'm not worried about gameplay but the controls.. i've never played a strategy game on a console and am curious.

    As fate would have it i have the full game now.

    First impressions after about 3-4 hours:

    I'm very impressed. I hoped they would do the original justice and they did. They created a fast paced, intense game full of tactical and strategic depth.

    They eliminated parts that bogged or broke down the original (laser rifle production spam for example or the ammo micromanaging) and have improved in other areas (i just love the cover system).

    Strategically it's also quite good.. you'll never be able to build everything because you'll always be short on something.. engineers/alien alloys to manufacture advanced equipment/money (you can sell alien stuff but then you can't produce certain equipment because of the lack of certain stuff).

    When the mission description says Very difficult it means that.. missions like these you'll be lucky to get out of with only 2/3 of your squad heavily wounded. I'm at the story part where you have to assault the first (?) alien base and i dread the prospect of what i have to go up against.

    Graphicswise it is decent.. it is not state of the art but good and does the job well. Camera/area controls could have been a little better but that's only a minor gripe.

    Unfortunately i'm no student anymore so i can't blow off attending university the next day to play all night.. work life sucks :(
    But i'll be definitely enjoying this game in the next days/weeks (curious how close they have remained to the original story).
     
  2. Alidar Jarok

    Alidar Jarok Everything in moderation but moderation Moderator

    Joined:
    Apr 14, 2003
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    Norfolk, VA
    Yeah, from the demo, camera and controls seemed the weakest (I had to fidget around to make sure I was clicking the right place for cover).

    I also had the biggest scare in my life when I moved my promoted unit inches from the enemy and pushed fire only to be told I was out of ammo. The next turn, the alien pointed and hit a wounding, but non-fatal shot.

    I'm unfortunately in law school, which is the worst of both worlds when it comes to free time. I'll try to check it out at some point, though.
     
  3. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

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    I've had close calls multiple times.. near the end of a story mission i had to capture a specific alien and have this stunner on 2 of my guys.. i rush both of them into the room because it only works on very close range but naturally i don't make it all the way in.

    He takes out one of my guys and leaves him bleeding on the floor (depending on severity you have more or less time before he finally dies or you can stabilize him with a medpack) and the other one closes in and i pray that he doesn't miss.. luckily he hit and i got home with the trophy.

    In only 3 hours of gaming i had multiple, hollywodlike actions when fighting the aliens.. i really like this game.
     
  4. timmy84

    timmy84 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    May 5, 2003
    Location:
    Washington
    I played the first Xcom game on the playstation, so getting the controls right doesn't bother me. I'm used to it.

    I played the demo today and I can't wait. I can't afford the game right now but its on the way from Gamefly. Got so excited I booted the original game up on my computer and played it for almost 3 hours. I love that game.

    :borg:
     
  5. Rincewiend

    Rincewiend Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2001
    Location:
    The Netherlands
    Found this:
    http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/10/h...el=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0
     
  6. Jono

    Jono Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 22, 2001
    Location:
    Australia
    Played it lastnight and I got a lot of soldiers killed...especially my snipers for some reason. The ant farm wasn't explained fully. I managed to run out of some resources and I didn't know where I got them from so I was far too gungho with using them. It might say in the manual but I haven't looked at it yet. Anyway after that and my horrible soldier death toll I decided to just roll through to see what happens when lose complete support from the shadowy council. Sorry about that humanity.
     
  7. Rincewiend

    Rincewiend Admiral Admiral

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    Location:
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    Overall i think they did a good job updating the classic game to current standards.
     
  8. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

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    Nov 7, 2004
    Location:
    Mannheim, Germany
    In tactical battles it's prudent to move from cover to cover and not overextend. I found that the best approach would be to have a sniper on overwatch, 1-2 assault guys, 1 Heavy (love the rocket launcher) and whatever else is needed.

    Move carefully and after a while when the Mutons appear be very careful as these suckers like to throw grenades when your guys are bunched up.

    I think the game has a very good balance.. so far i haven't found any big exploits one can use.. everything has advantages and drawbacks so you have to choose carefully and inevitably you will end up a tone point wishing you'd have chosen differently but then you adapt and make the best of it.

    Pretty good game design if you ask me.
     
  9. Base_Delta_Zero

    Base_Delta_Zero Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    May 4, 2004
    Location:
    Maine
    It's strangely addictive (I've put in 20+ hours over a dozen playthroughs at various difficulties), and yet, at the same time, hugely disappointing.

    The story I have to tell in my head about the various missions my team of battle-scarred badasses go on, because the actual in-game story is practically non-existent outside a handful of cutscenes, is a plus and a minus. If you've played miniatures games like Warhammer, gameplay is similar, with a similar lack of enforced story from match to match. You have to imagine what is going on. OK, I guess. I can tell myself a story, but I'd really rather have an awesome campaign story with the option for free-play, not just a free-play campaign with a few crappy tacked on cutscenes.

    I can't stand the monster closets they use for every alien encounter. They give you these auditory clues that aliens are moving around on the map, doing alien stuff, maybe hunting your team, but they're really not. It's a lie. On the Terror Attack maps, there are a few aliens that wander around killing civilians in the Fog of War to create a sense of urgency, but every other alien encounter on every other map is one of your squad tripping a spawn trigger, a "oh shit" cutscene of the aliens being stumbled upon, and then they get a free move, which usually puts them within evisceration range. If this happens at the end of your turn, your team is about to get manhandled by one or more squads of aliens getting two turns following your one. If they're Chrysalids, your elite, 15 mission veterans with top of the line gear can get 1-shotted.

    The obvious way to dominate this mechanic and not constantly lose guys or have a total squad wipe every mission is to simply inch your way forward, constantly on Overwatch, so that when the aliens do jump out of their invisible closet and scurry towards you, you can cut a few down with attacks of opportunity.

    There's never the risk of the aliens setting up an actual dynamic ambush as you make your way through the map, because they're invisible and rooted to the ground until you reveal their closet on the map. Similarly, you can't set up ambushes for them except to do what I outline above.

    It would be nice, just once, to hear activity occurring in the distance, move towards it stealthily and not just stumble into the same exact make-up of aliens that pop into existence. Similarly, if I just blew the crap out of the first alien squad and practically dropped the building on them with my rockets and grenades, it would be nice if the other (non-revealed) aliens reacted to the insanely loud firefight happening twenty feet away from them by maybe, getting into cover, or moving to flank me or fall back or charge to their buddies' rescue. You know, do something.

    The base-building is straight up boardgame mechanics. There is no political game at all. Every country you successfully run a randomized mission in likes you a little bit more, and a few you couldn't help at the same time get more panicked. You research tech based on when you are in the game plus what buildings (chambers) you built, and what you manage to salvage/capture outright each mission.

    Once you actually get into the firefights, it's quite fun to have pew-pew lasers fights with the campy aliens, try to flank each other, use terrain and keep your squad (which you can individually customize somewhat in look and name) alive.

    Again, it feels and plays like a miniatures tabletop game, with everything abstracted and relying on to-hit tables with dice rolls. Sometimes you can pull a miracle out of a disastrous situation with a lucky reaction shot from a panicked trooper. Alternately, your elite SpecOps alien-stompers can get wiped out in the blink of an eye despite extreme caution, careful route planning and good tactics/gear when that last Chrysalid manages to dodge everything, including the rocket your Heavy just misfired into your Sniper, and guts your medic for a 1-shot kill.

    All-in-all, a decent time-waster you can play while watching TV, but will definitely need some help form either DLC or modders to keep lively.

    Keep in mind that the "Normal" mode is actually the "I've never played a video game before" mode and the "Classic" mode is essentially a fatalistic grind towards eventual alien dominance of the world. I can't imagine what "Impossible" mode is like. All Chrysalids, maybe? I prefer Classic w/Ironman. Feels more like an alien apocalypse mini-series where the good guys don't really have a chance of winning without some great strings of luck/acts of god.

    You should really be playing with Ironman on, regardless of the difficulty setting, so there is only ever 1 save that is automatic after every significant action. Otherwise, you'll just be tempted to reload after every wipe or really bad roll. Pretend you're playing a tabletop game where your friends won't let you mulligan your way through dumb moves and bad rolls, and the tension really ramps up.
     
  10. Roger Wilco

    Roger Wilco Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 27, 2004
    The way I remember, the original was insanely difficult, so "classic" sounds about right. ;)
     
  11. Jono

    Jono Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 22, 2001
    Location:
    Australia
    Hit a very major bug involving the interceptors. I'd deployed my Skyranger and got an intercept request, while I accepted. I get to the ground battle first and fight it out and while I'm returning to base the game gets struck in this weird slightly zoomed in view of Earth and there is nothing you can do apart from force the game to shut down. Looked it up and it seems the same thing happens if you try to take on two intercepts at the same time. It's a very annoying bug, especially if your ironmanning it.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2012
  12. Sephiroth

    Sephiroth Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Jul 15, 2004
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    Necroscope86 on youtube is doing an LP of this, dude's funny, you should check him out, and his original X-com LP
     
  13. Stiletto

    Stiletto Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2002
    I can't get the demo to run on my laptop (Windows 7) so I guess I won't be buying this game. I so wanted to.

    I loved the original X-Com game. I learned to never name game characters after my friends, those guys always seemed to die right away. I remember playing the first one and on my first mission a grey, from out of range of my lights, took out my whole party.
     
  14. Sheep

    Sheep Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2001
    Location:
    Chicago
    I am seriously addicted to this game on the Xbox 360. My very first playthrough was a 5 hour marathon in which I got my ass BEAT and saw the "bad" ending. This was my very first XCOM experience though so I chalk up my asskicking to being a noob.

    And now I'm reading how people actually reload saves if they get killed which I thought would completely remove the sense of danger and urgency. I've inadvertently been playing my own version of ironman mode (no resets or reloads EVER) which makes the game that much more fun to me with actual consequences for poorly-planned missions and bad decisions. Guess I should actually enable ironman mode since I play that way anyhow.
     
  15. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2004
    Location:
    Mannheim, Germany
    Did that too but i chickened out a little near the end of the game when vital members of my squad bought it.

    Awesome game.. i had so many movielike scenes in it that defy logic. Shoutout to my Sniper who is the epitome of coolness.. he should be played by Brad Pitt at the least.

    Headshotting everything in sight, running headfirst into rooms to put a pistol round in the enemy leader's head to save the whole team's ass, becoming the chief psychic of the unit.. that man needs a pedestal and a hero's welcome (or funeral.. i've yet to play the final mission).
     
  16. timmy84

    timmy84 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    May 5, 2003
    Location:
    Washington
    Finally got my hands on this, and as someone who has been a huge fan of the original Xcom series (I've played the first three games) I have a couple comments to make on this game (I'll also be address previous posters, but not by name).

    The first is story. I'm enjoying the story at the base. Its so far a more detailed storyline then the original games. The originals did have a plot that moved forward. At one point the alien threat becomes to overwhelming for the player that it has to be progressed. This game provides a little more in between the major events that the first games plots were built around.

    The next is the tactical combat. I get it. Its a nice modern system that works well to get the more action gamers involved. I like it too, but after playing a lot of Xcom: UFO Defense I do miss the old system. Especially the monster closet thing. I've yet to be fired upon from the fog of war (which happens a lot in classic Xcom since the aliens have better eyes then the human operatives) which takes some of the tension away. Plus hearing the doors open during the aliens turns always created tension for me.

    The ant farm is a little frustrating. The reason is everything needs resources, and I'm used to the first game where you can produce alien alloys. I'm pretty much out, and the only time you get them is shooting down UFOs (and I only encounter one a month in the game).

    Overall a great game. I love turn based tactical games, and this one is well done. I'm playing the PS3 version, although I bet this game is awesome on the PC.

    :borg:
     
  17. archeryguy1701

    archeryguy1701 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings published a pretty amusing article about 10 rules for surviving XCOM. I haven't picked the game up yet, but I'm thinking I probably will this weekend.
     
  18. gturner

    gturner Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2005
    Location:
    Kentucky
    I can't get it to run on Windows 7 either, and it doesn't say why, it just aborts without an obvious error. Compatibility modes didn't help either, so perhaps I don't have a compatible graphics adapter or something.
     
  19. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2004
    Location:
    Mannheim, Germany
    Just started Classic with Ironman enabled and damn that's HARD!

    Additionally i encountered a bug which cost me 3/4 of the team :scream:

    Had to evacuate a VIP.. mission goes well and the VIP is dashing to the pickup zone. I let her dash the final distance while an alien is near her figuring the mission is over safely.. wrong.

    The camera freezes up on the spot where she entered the safe zone, couldn't pan across the battlefied anyome and the lone alien proceeds to slaughter my squad until my last man got him! :scream:

    So beware.. clear out all aliens before you evacuate
     
  20. archeryguy1701

    archeryguy1701 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 1, 2007
    Location:
    Cheyenne, WY
    Grabbed it the other day, and it is extremely addictive! It's a lot of fun trying to out-maneuver the AI to get into position. It's also a stressful experience when you're forced to do a Very Difficult mission when all of your veterans are injured.

    If I'm not careful, this game could cause a lot of trouble for school and work...