My first post here, and I would just like to start out by saying its so great being able to play Enemy Unknown once again. I didn't think it possible to replay this legend on this sort of machine, at least until I found the xcomutil. The author and his affiliates are due some serious praise and I salute them.

In the midst of my new found excitement, I thought it may prove interesting to some about a recent revelation I had about Xcom, and games in general.

Is it just me, or do others find it strange that this high end PC I have here, capable of running the latest titles at a zillion frames per second is spending all it's time with a game made for the 486? I buy on average 10-20 games a year, and for the past several years, only a few come to mind as being really good, quality games. Am I getting old, and games today are aimed at the younger folk? What the hell has happened? Where are the new Xcoms, Masters of Magic, etc?

Now I've read about the upcoming Aftermath title, and although I'm quite excited about it, I'm also worried about it. Will it be what Xcom was? Sure I expect fancy graphics and all, but will it have the balls under the hood like the original? Just seems like developers these days are ignoring the genre of these deep, involving strategy games that have style.

IMO the biggest danger with Aftermath is that it's going to be real time and quasi real time. A bit like a mix between Baldur's Gate and Laser Squad Nemesis.

I think it's a real shame that so many games are drifting from "pure" turn based games in favour of the glam of real time. OK... LSN is still, strictly speaking, turn based, but there's a large degree of unpredictability involved. I suspect that the same kind of unpredictability will follow through in Aftermath, possibly more-so, which is a real pity in a game where it might be nice to preserve your forces somewhat.

OK, I'm not exactly TopDog at LSN, but even if I win by a land slide I typically lose about half my force. True, some of you players lose half the guys you send on any given mission in XCOM, but that can hardly be considered a "good" result.