X-Com to be re-imagined as FPS by 2k games

[firehawk12]

It`s true though. I'm sure there are people who cared about the Warcraft fiction who are disappointed that it's been diluted by the MMO and so on.

But even then, exploiting current franchises isn't a big deal to me. It's dredging up a revered name to make something else out of it. It's just rather unnecessary.

 

[SlaveOfSeven]

firehawk12 hit the nail squarely on the head as far as I'm concerned.

Guess I would have been somewhat annoyed by this news a few years ago, but I don't really care anymore. It's clear there will never be another proper X-COM game, and the original can still be played even on modern hardware, so I just don't care anymore.

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah. Funny enough, a British company took the opportunity to announce what looks like an X-com remake:
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/16/xenonauts-capitalizes-on-xcom-rage

There's also been a couple of other X-com inspired games that have been made as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO:_Extraterrestrials

 

[SlaveOfSeven]

Xenonauts looks promising. Will keep an eye on it.

I had a look at Extraterrestrials a while ago, but there were a few fairly major flaws. I think it was that one that had unkillable soldiers, which seems like a really strange design decision. The UFO games were ok, though they used an annoyingly fiddly RTwP system and were deficient on the base management side. The first one had a pretty good, dark atmosphere though.

 

[Rincewiend]

The UFO: After... trilogy was good though...

 

[darthraidr]

i also dont see the big deal... like others pointed out games do this all the time. all that matters is if the game is good, not what genre the game is.

you could make a strong case that branching out to other genres will strengthen your franchise. has the mario franchised been tarnished because of it's many other games that aren't platformers?

i'd also say that warcraft lore is strengthened because of the mmo. the lore has moved on in tangible ways and expanded upon greatly because of the mmo.

if you want, think of this new take as an "expression" of the license. just as how Batman can have "the brave and the bold," "Arkham Asylum," "lego: batman," "Batman Begins." all in the span of a few years and still all be valid takes on Batman. there is no reason a game cannot have different expressions of it's world.

 

[firehawk12]

And there's also no reason why this game couldn't be called something else. But I guess it's no use arguing about it any more.

 

[clint g]

Unless, of course, they want to build on the franchises storyline. Why was't Halo Wars called something else? Because they wanted to build back story for the universe.

 

[firehawk12]

'cause they wanted to cash in on the Halo name. For better or worse, I have to imagine Halo sold more copies than the last AoE game.

I'm sure it comes down to 2k owning some old Microprose IPs or whomever and deciding to just reuse the names so they save the trouble of filing for a new copyright or whatever. :lol

 

[clint g]

Well if we're going to come down to making cash, I'm sure theres a list of every game in existence that I can try and find. It's a business. If you're going to condemn one company the least you can do is condemn each and every one.

 

[firehawk12]

Hey, I hate the new Leisure Suit Larry games.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Basically, nobody plays turn-based strategy games anymore, but first-person shooters are all the rage. Solution? Dredge up an old IP and make an FPS out of it! Score! It's a good business move, since you can bank on the fans of the original game (at least those the new format doesn't alienate), tout the name-recognition of the Bioshock 2 developers, and cash in on a hot genre (FPS.) A smart business decision, but will we get a good game out of it? Guess we'll see.