171 replies to this topic

[Bomb Bloke]

The interview sounds promising, though it sounds like they're retreading the ground covered by the UFO: After* series in terms of troop growth (whereas the originals were a lot more subtle about it).

Also not liking the sound of the "RPG story" thing. I mean, I get how they want to "tell a story", but if they lay it on too thick they're just gonna kill the replayability aspect. I suppose it can't be helped, as soon as you slap a definitive name on an NPC, you lose the whole "player's story" thing from the originals.

Loved his reaction when asked about the fanbase response to the game - "oh crap, hoped he wasn't gonna spring that one, here goes!". The fact that he had an answer for it is promising, as it shows at the very least the fans are indeed being "listened" to.

[Gimli]

False alarm about the Youtube thing, thankfully. Looks like Youtube itself changes the Top comments from time to time. I apologized on the official forum.

[The Veteran]

Wow... Well... Where to begin? First off I just want to say kudos to the Gamespot guy in charge of the interview. He asked all the right questions, 'what the fans think of it', 'why the move to FPS', etc. Also that same reward is deserved by the guy answering the questions as he did a pretty good job and I dont completely hate him even though he goes through the entire thing claiming that this is somehow connected to the originals... Ugh, you'd think that would be a lesson they've learnt by now but it seems not...

However, impressed as I am by the people in this interview, the content leaves me hoping 2k folds before March next year. They mentioned too many things that I'd like to rag on for me to do them all here but I remembered a few of them which I'm going to cover now. I'll leave the rest to someone else and of course this is all just what I think so please discuss freely once I'm done

The interviewee mentions that they want to focus the game on what X-Com was all about, tactics and strategy. Yet it's a FPS with crazy weapons and enemies more reminiscent of Enforcer than any kind of strategy game I've ever played. This may be a generalisation and I'm sure people will disagree but in my opinion, it's not a strategy game if you're holding a shotgun... There are no tactics involved when your plan of attack is to wait for the blobs to come round the corner then blast them to pieces and hope you stay alive...

There were also multiple uses of the word RPG as well as related terms like 'classes' and 'xp'. None of this makes an X-Com game and I agree completely with BB that it sounds like an Afterxxxx title. He mentions quite late in the interview that they want to take the focus away from fielding '16 troops only 2 of which you care about' and instead have the player focus on each individual trooper. He even uses the phrase 'I've invested heavily in these guys'. Oh dear... So not only are there no 'disposable' troopers which is essentially what the old games boil down to, it also sounds like we're about to witness the birth of a whole new generation of reloaders. He even goes on to discuss 'mission critical NPCs' at another point, what the hell is WRONG with these people??? There shouldn't even BE any NPC's let alone MISSION CRITICAL ONES!!!

Something that immediately made me sick to the stomach was the use or the phrase 'strategic campaign map of america'. Seriously is he kidding? I watched the rest of the interview before judging too harshly but sure enough he can later be heard to say they wanted to create an 'ORIGIN STORY OF X-COM AND SETTING IT IN THE STATES?!?!?!'

I REALLY WANT TO CURSE RIGHT NOW!!!!!

Firstly there IS NO origin story for X-Com and there NEVER WILL BE! This game has some sort of nano-bots as enemy turrets and amorphourous blobs for lifeforms. XCOM uses lightning guns and such about 40 years before they even started research on laser weapons. Seriously? They just threw them all out once they beat the blobs did they? It's a sadly repeating cycle in the originals to be fair so currently there is ONE similarity between this and the REAL X-Com franchise.

Seriously though, aliens are attacking, lets set it in America... I HATE YOU GUYS SO MUCH! At least let US choose the continent, like in the originals, that way you even add some re-playability to the game with minimal extra coding! Why do aliens always land in America first anyway? What's wrong with the Sahara desert or Australian outback? No, I know, let's land our small forces in the largest, most developed and strongest military country in the world! No wodner they're going to lose!

You know what though, I think this guy said Elerium... Seriosuly, the alien 'fuel' is called Elerium... Think I've heard that somewhere before but can't put my finger on it... Seriosuly guys? Again you're proving you have no idea what you're doing! Elerium is mined on MARS and the only alien race using it is the Ethereals! You simply can't introduce some crazy globular foes into the timeline and then let them share fuel. I never thought I'd say it but having a recognisable term from the original games actually makes this game even WORSE!

Another interesting comment was that they were 'taking the pieces' of the original to make the new game... Where are they then? All they've shown us is a FPS... Where is the geoscape where we hunt down and destroy secret alien bases and UFOs? No wait we don't have one because they only want to take over America apparently... What about R&D? Well we know it's there and that we can recover alien artefacts for use by XCOM but how? do we have bases? He mentions 'headquarters' so my guess it that there won't be any expansion. I also highly doubt the aliens will ever assault that base so there's another aspect of the original gone. At least we have disposable soldiers though right? Oh wait, no, they're gone as well...

That kind of brings me to the last comment I wanted to quote. The guy said that they are 'trying to honour the classic game'...
Clearly he's never played the classic game has he or they wouldn't have managed to . . . . it up so much...

[Azrael Strife]

Thanks for posting the interview, I'm crazy hyped right now, the game looks awesome and I may be the only X-Com fan who thinks this IS X-Com. Albeit a different genre, this has X-Com written all over it for me, not that I want or even will get into a discussion of whether this is X-Com or not, just saying for me it is and looks wonderful Plus the success of this game will surely leave open the doors for a strategy game.

Can't wait for March 20th!

[Gimli]

Another gameplay video. It's in German, but I don't think that will stop anyone.

[silencer_pl]

I have watched the german video. He stated there that it is based on mass effect combat style - and it does looks similar. I don't scratch this game - but it won't replace old X-Com.

[Space Voyager]

 Azrael Strife, on 9th June 2011, 4:13pm, said:

I'm crazy hyped right now, the game looks awesome and I may be the only X-Com fan who thinks this IS X-Com. Albeit a different genre, this has X-Com written all over it for me

You are not the only one and I think the same. Different genre? True in essence, but X-COM did not only have the first three iterations. X-COM already is trans-genre so if the game is good I don't mind the genre.

 silencer_pl, on 9th June 2011, 9:13pm, said:

but it won't replace old X-Com.

Never. I'm hoping for a good supplement though.

On German vid; ZUM TEUFEL das war fenomenal!!! FAR more informative than any of the previous vids! So there are squad commands!

[The Veteran]

 Space Voyager, on 10th June 2011, 9:28am, said:

Different genre? True in essence, but X-COM did not only have the first three iterations. X-COM already is trans-genre so if the game is good I don't mind the genre.

Remember though, it's not about being a differnt genre, it's about being a different game. Alliance would have been a different genre but it would've followed the same story bible as the rest of the franchise. X-Com would've still been X-Com and the Patton vessel in the game would be the same one referenced multiple times in Interceptor. The enemies would have been the ethereals and even weapons would probably have been similar. R&D would almost certainly have been different and there would have presumably been limited human recruits but it was still the same game, just a different genre. XCOM however is a different game AND a different genre.

Remember I'm not saying that's a bad thing but I'm really getting sick of people trying to compare the two to each other. UFO and TFTD were like Potato and chips. They were essentially the same thing but chopped up and stuck in a new bag. Interceptor and enforcer are like mash as they're still the same product but someone has REALLY mixed things up. XCOM is like chocolate... There's no potato in it and you would never eat the two together. So can we PELASE stop comparing these games and just discuss it on it's own merits?

[Azrael Strife]

 Gimli, on 9th June 2011, 8:40pm, said:

Another gameplay video. It's in German, but I don't think that will stop anyone.

Combat looks really interesting, does remind me of Mass Effect I saw a "create diversion" option on one of your allies

At the end of the trailer the trooper is sucked into a portal of some kind, so looks like these could be an Apocalypse-like invasion from another dimension.

[Thorondor]

Quote

At the end of the trailer the trooper is sucked into a portal of some kind, so looks like these could be an Apocalypse-like invasion from another dimension.

Could very well be that, or maybe something else, as an element of The Adrenaline Vault's E3 crew mentions in his coverage of the game:

Quote

And action isn’t limited to the Earth, as shown by our demo, which ended with a team member being transported to an alien ship.

::

Abduction danger - keep your livestock safe!

[Thorondor]

Quote

After picking our recruits to help us, we walked over to a woman named Angela who is the chief of XCOM.  She’s the liaison between the player and the game’s many missions.  2K Marin really wants their game to have an open-ended and non-linear campaign that you can follow at your own pace.

(...)

Eventually we tracked down Dr. Weir only to watch him be torn from the ground and dragged into a portal. Desperate our hero follows him through, and we wake up inside of a strange pixilated and cubic Outsider dimension: perhaps their homeworld?

The suspense continues...

::

Check out the rest of the FPSGuru XCOM article here.

[The Veteran]

I've finally got round to watching that German trailer. Honestly? This could be a really great game if they just changed the name. It looks pretty interesting (but nothing like X-Com) The FPS slant could potentially be fun I guess (but nothing like X-Com) It may be a stupid map of North America only but the brief glimpse of the campaign map seems to indicate a little choice in missions and locations (nothing like X-Com though) The 'capture turret tech' was just pure bullcrap though I have to say (AND nothing like X-Com) Looked like something from Enforcer in all but graphics. Like you're going to pick up a black ball of alien nano-bots which are fluctuating wildly and emanating some strange electro-magnetic anti-gravitational force... Hmm ok, leave that to the cleanup crews... The hadn signals are good for a FPS (but nothing like X-Com) and lets be honest you could be playing ANY FPS in the world with these characteristics...

End of the day it's starting to look like there may be basic elements of the old games which have been implemented outside of the action ( I WILL NOT call it a battlescape because it just isn't...) but that's not going to be enough... In the original franchise, the battlescape was only a small portion of a much larger game which required a lot of dexterity and global tactics on the players part. I believe the FPS part of this game will constitute between 75-90% of it's total worth however and that simply doesn't compare to X-Com. Add to that the fact that there simply IS NO less tactical kind of game than a FPS and you've basically taken all of the components from the old series, chopped them up, sexed them up and taken a massive dump on them before setting the whole lot on fire.

This could be a really good game but it will NEVER be an X-Com game...

[Lysear]

 The Veteran, on 11th June 2011, 5:17pm, said:

I've finally got round to watching that German trailer. Honestly? This could be a really great game if they just changed the name. It looks pretty interesting (but nothing like X-Com) The FPS slant could potentially be fun I guess (but nothing like X-Com) It may be a stupid map of North America only but the brief glimpse of the campaign map seems to indicate a little choice in missions and locations (nothing like X-Com though) The 'capture turret tech' was just pure bullcrap though I have to say (AND nothing like X-Com) Looked like something from Enforcer in all but graphics. Like you're going to pick up a black ball of alien nano-bots which are fluctuating wildly and emanating some strange electro-magnetic anti-gravitational force... Hmm ok, leave that to the cleanup crews... The hadn signals are good for a FPS (but nothing like X-Com) and lets be honest you could be playing ANY FPS in the world with these characteristics...

End of the day it's starting to look like there may be basic elements of the old games which have been implemented outside of the action ( I WILL NOT call it a battlescape because it just isn't...) but that's not going to be enough... In the original franchise, the battlescape was only a small portion of a much larger game which required a lot of dexterity and global tactics on the players part. I believe the FPS part of this game will constitute between 75-90% of it's total worth however and that simply doesn't compare to X-Com. Add to that the fact that there simply IS NO less tactical kind of game than a FPS and you've basically taken all of the components from the old series, chopped them up, sexed them up and taken a massive dump on them before setting the whole lot on fire.

This could be a really good game but it will NEVER be an X-Com game...

*Tips my hat and shouts hurrah*

honestly couldn`t have put it better myself         x-com is and never shoud be a fps.. ever.   enforcer doesnt count as an x-com game coz its pure shit,   even intercepter was shit.   Just shows you stray away from the roots of the game and you get a shitty game with the x-com label stuck to it.

This will be bargain binned within 2 months once the cod heads realise  MW 12 is out just after it.

[Pete]

 The Veteran, on 10th June 2011, 12:37pm, said:

So can we PELASE stop comparing these games and just discuss it on it's own merits?

Stop comparing it then and discuss it on it's own merits

[The Veteran]

I did in the last one! Sort of But yes I know I keep slipping back in an attempt to drag out people still not taking the hint. To be honest it's not been helped by that interview of the guy insisting that it's meant to be an origin story of X-Com... Idiot!

On it's own merits though... Campaign map looks interesting but it's a shame it isn't global. Seriously, aliens invade North America SO often, what about everywhere else? And when they start losing in North America why don't they try relocating to Australia or something? XCOM are clearly American and they get around in cars so my guess is it'll take them a while to catch up to these aliens if they teleport from country to country every few days whilst continually slaughtering inicents the world over... Like I say, campaign map is illogical but looks like it could be ok. We've only seen a tiny shot of it so it's impossible to say but it almost looks like the old school C&C map when enemy progress is shown with a sort of WW2 campaign map red arrow and friendly advances are in blue. While I didn't see any indication of friendly movement here, this is what I'd like to think is being shown.

Just found a still of this map and I think I have it pretty well pegged. Though of course there's a chance that the big black concentration is the good guys whereas I'm assuming it's the bad...


There doesn't seem to be any base management and I'm expecting R&D to be very simplistic but we've been told a few times that we'll be able to walk around the base and talk to people who can fill us in on the background of particular missions and such. That'll be a nice touch, I hope it's not a sort of one-shot deal of 5 blokes in the briefing room who simply repeat the same line of text over and over when a conversation is initiated. I'd like to see a fully accessible base so we can walk into the labs and see what the eggheads are working on. Maybe stray into the boss's office and be told to get lost if our last mission went badly or commended if the opposite is true. They could really add depth to the game here but so far I haven't seen anything to suggest that they will.

Other things that aren't particularly clear yet (to me at least) is what will happen between missions... We've been told that they don't want to make the game a linear experience but if that's the case then what's been put in place to prevent that? Personally as far as FPS go you can only do the same thing so many times before it gets a bit samey... I'm sure there are different enemies and techs we haven't seen yet but as it stands the black globby things and the nano people things are going to get pretty old pretty fast. We've also seen the alien turrets which can apparently be beaten by destroying their power supply (guess these massively superior aliens didn't think about a self contained unit) and the sub-orbital cannons which seem to be under human control more often than not... That doesn't make for great variety so we'll have to wait and see what other enemies are around.

Continuing along the theme of mission variety we can only imagine what this will entail. There's been discussing of defending territory in order to retain it but how this is done and what the repercussions are is unknown. Similarly we haven't been told whether or not counter-attacks are possible in which we can recapture lost ground. What IS the alien presence on earth exactly? Is it a growth like in the Aftermath series? It's clearly not a covert presence so we can pretty much guarantee that any humasn left behind are exterminated immediately and the surface world lost completely to these shiny black monsters.

The actual XCOM organisation itself is a bit of a let down for me personally. I get the impression that the team was only formed recently due due to suspicions of a nearby alien presence. That doesn't excuse their complete lack of military preparedness though which leaves the operatives looking like a cross between a private eye and the local farmer. If I was an advanced alien race with nano-mech weaponry and energy walls and such I would NOT be scared of some office clerk in a tie and braces wielding a puny shotgun and taking orders from a guy who until yesterday didn't even know there WERE aliens! They seem to travel in cars and helicopters (which somehow don't get shotdown en-route by the aliens superior weapons) and in a few shots they've been shown with utterly ridiculous looking weapons and equipment yet NO ARMOUR! The scenery and civilians are more than enough to create a fully convincing 1960's USA so quite why they felt it necessary to make the soldiers look like uptown postmen is beyond me.

Of course the thing that will make or break this game (though not for me) is the FPS element itself. It seems pretty sound from what we've seen so far and the graphics certainly suit the enemies we've already seen. Both the globular and bipedal aliens look pretty nasty as intended and the nano-technology is sweet. The way it alters and in the case of weapons, activates/deactivates are all done very well for a very intimidating result.

As far as actual gameplay goes it's impossible to judge while the only thing we've seen so far is the dev's playing a short demo. The squad commands could be a good touch if they work as intended. The only ones I've seen so far are 'Capture' and 'disable' both for use on enemy tech and 'create diversion' which could be hadny but seems fairly suicidal. The squad certainly puts a lot of faith in their leader if they'll willingly stand up in front of overwhelming odds and hurl insults at their foes while he sneaks round the back to switch off a tutrret... Can turrets even BE distracted? Anyway, seems promising but we really have to wait until they let us have a go for ourselves.

Personally I'd really love to get my hands on a copy of this as it does strike me as a combination of features that hasn't really been done before. It's success will depend on just how in control the player is, in my opinion, but also on how successful they've been in eliminating the linear advancement present in almost every FPS to date. Of course it's also down to gameplay, weapon and enemy variety, missions and of course the actual story which we currently know NOTHING about save the rescue of some doctor from an alien dimension... hmm...

Ultimately we'll have to wait and see what they show us next and in reality we can't know much more until we're gven a chance to get our own hadns on a copy but right now it has a lot of potential. What we have to hope is that it doesn't remain potential and as many of those features as possible are being included in the final product. They really need to add to this title outside of the action to prevent it from being 'just another FPS' Sure it's a pretty one but it's still a pretty generic 'kill all aliens' title at the end of the day.

Pete, seeing as you're reading this, do me a favour and track down someone from 2k in charge of publicity. I want whatever I can get from these guys as soon as possible. At the very least I'd like a chance to put my own questions to these guys as there's a lot of things I'd like to know which currently hasn't been divulged! I know you have the power man, get to it

Impartial observer - out.

[Space Voyager]

 The Veteran, on 12th June 2011, 5:39pm, said:

Other things that aren't particularly clear yet (to me at least) is what will happen between missions...

THIS. This is IMO an X-COM maker or breaker. I wouldn't think so for a usual FPS but for it to be X-COMish in nature, this is crucial info.

And we have no idea.

But the scientist testing a weapon did look COOL.

[NKF]

They certainly have a great opportunity to do something a little different and make FPSs something more than just linear maps strung together. As long as it doesn't end up as a completely story driven interactive novel - which some of the classics like System Shock and Deus Ex were.  

As with most games, the generic NPCs will most probably just be walking signboards with a set of dialogue they repeat over and over.

"Oh hey, Straker, sarge says he's got a present for you in the locker, better go check it out, hear it's a glock."
"Seems like the nanobugs got Shelton. Say he's turned zombie and running around in Dallas somewhere."
"Well get to it then, your coffee's going cold."
"Oh hey, Straker, sarge says..."

Three missions later, the same guy says the same things until the next big plot update where he starts talking about the weather.

Onto the 'origins' aspects. I can't think of this game as a definitive origin story. To me it will always have its roots as an international collaboration, but I can see how they could make it work. They start Not-X-COM in the 50's. After the alien fuss is quashed, Not-X-COM is whited out of existence. Basically forgotten, even by the US bigwigs. Then the aliens show up again, the Kiryu-Kai fail and finally the world powers form X-Com proper "for the first time" again.

This way, who knows how many origin stories they can crank out if they wanted to and not interfere with the original storyline. They could even have a game covering a secret AI tank development facility in Sweden telling the origins of the various prototype HWPs that came before they started the mass production tanks X-Com bought and used during  ... no hang, I want to claim this origins story for myself.

- NKF

[Space Voyager]

A new preview at Gamespot.

[The Veteran]

Not really a preview though is it... Just a transcript of the demo for people who can't keep up with the pace of the video  

[Thorondor]

XCOM E3 video interview at Destructoid.

::

Outsiders and their landscaping efforts revealed...