Pete

I still maintain that we are clones - same birthday etc etc, just different ages. Started Dodger now and loving it only a few pages in. Not going to rush it so I've got something to settle down with when I'm off for a week at the start of November.

I had it twice in a whole playthrough, but I don't use rockets often at all - once sadly was on a Terror site so instead of taking out some Chrysalids I wiped out some civvies standing nearby. "Friendly fire" and all that

I suspect Impossible is just less forgiving about mistakes, but I suppose that makes it more realistic (well, in terms of an alien invasion) in that your men are likely mown down with one-hit-kills a lot more.

Thanks - even I don't remember it so it must have been good

Sectopods have some fun attacks that I kept on forgetting about and getting lots of people badly injured on Normal. I don't fancy my chances on Classic. The fact that there are multiple of them in the very last mission worries me for a Classic playthrough

Oh, and hi Alan

Can't everyone just agree to disagree? Because I'm going to get annoyed with the next one of you who isn't polite to the rest. Everyone has their own points of view. Everyone sees the world and this game in a slightly different way. Deal with it, kiss and make up. Whether it be the original or the new game it's just a game.

@Matri - was watching a few after your last post - try this for mental, with a cool ending (after the noise of the piano blowing up):

And the age gap is...?

Why are we cutting out the "nonsense posts"? We've not done that in aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages (unless they're spam bots). Can we try not to rub folks up the wrong way please? (Don't spring clean my post ). On a more related note, there is a new feature in the next version of the forums due out "soon" that will allow moderators and topic starters to assign a reply as the "correct answer" so that it can easily be identified and it is automatically displayed beneath the original question. That way these threads can get as messy as you like and it still works fine.

Alliance follows on from Interceptor, or rather it's one of the pieces of news in Interceptor - it was a ship like the MacArthur that ended up stranded across the galaxy/universe (I can't remember which). Essentially it's near enough the time of Apoc too - I'm being lazy and not checking the timeline on the site here @Vet - but you love the game still even though it kicks you in the face right? Right?

But if you just use ghost armour for a turn on all your guys and line everyone up so they can see the Uber Ethereal when they decloak next turn and cut him down is that a more satisfying ending? Assuming that would be possible of course.

Also, at the time of writing, Eurogamer Germany and Sweden have given it 100 out of 100 according to MetaCritic

Okay, so you've been warned - this will be a thread to discuss the end of the game, but in case you didn't see the mention of spoilers in the title I'm going to insert a massive space below this sentence - scroll down if you have completed it or can't wait to see what happens. So... I rushed the last terror mission before the Gollop Chamber was ready, losing a good Psi soldier who could have used the device - that sucked but I had another guy and was determined not to re-load so I carried on and beat the terror site (good thing I only saw one terror site with Chrysalids, Sectopods and Mutons - that was tricky!). The final mission... I don't know, it was a bit of an anticlimax for me if I'm honest. I was doing really well up until the Sectopods - placed in an area where it's extremely difficult to kill them without losing someone. I ended up losing too many and after I'd killed them I got mowed down at the end - the last area is just plain silly for a number of reasons. Everything before the Sectopods was a breeze, and had a bit of fun with the mind control. The Sectopods were tricky, but on my reload (first of the game - not bad!) I had them beat. The last room is insane. I tried it half a dozen times - first one I ran in and tried gunning down the main Ethereal and got MC's a lot. Reload. Second one I tried to lure them all out of the room - that ended in failure as they won't come to you. Several failed attempts later, I enter the room but head immediately for the back corners on either side. One person is used as a spotter, running out and ducking back into cover. My main man uses the Rift ability several times in a row when aliens are spotted. When I realised that was working - hiding at the back of the room using Rift, I kept doing it until the Uber Ethereal walked right through it and topped himself. That was a massive anti-climax, but I didn't see another way of beating that room - 3 Ethereals all at once is just a bit much on Normal Add to that the fact that the voice of the high Ethereal was hard to hear and that there didn't appear to be a build-up to a cliffhanger... I dunno... I was hoping for maybe a hint at what's next in a sequel, but the ship just flies off into space and blows up rather than creating a black hole in Earth's atmosphere. I did think it would have been amusing if one of the pieces of debris took out the Skyranger in a morbidly amusing sort of way though That said, there was talk of an alien dimension in the research earlier, and we didn't get to go off-world, so my hopes are for a sequel - perhaps they do the whole "Elerium doesn't work any more" that they did in TFTD and you could start with laser tech? Set it in the future a bit and Psionic powers could be reduced over generations. Anyway, I did enjoy the game a lot. I'm glad they made it, glad it's scored so highly by reviewers and is already in a few top ten lists at the moment, but not so sure I'd score it 89/100 (Metacritic) myself. There was a lot of linearity, and as Vet has said there is an issue over whether these are Schroedinger's UFOs - are they there before you spot them or do they just pop into existence? In the original UFO's could be tracked across the globe and you knew they were there in the background whether you detected them or not (or at least you had the distinct feeling they were there but invisible until you went looking for them). I think I'm leaning towards 8/10 (more like the average user reviews on MetaCritic) because what there is there is done well - it's just that it lacks the depth of the original. To me, the research tree in this game is wonderful and rich, as are the engineering projects, but the rest is a bit light sadly. The Geoscape strategies are toned down, interceptions are toned down (no multi-interceptors on one target), aspects of tactical are toned down (though on the whole I love that side of it) and as mentioned I didn't much care for the linearity once I realised UFOs weren't popping up in the same manner they do in the original - an average game of the original can end up with over 100 crash sites, and I certainly hadn't had that many UFO missions by the end. The bits I do like make up for the rest, and it's certainly replayable and it's the first game in a long time that had me glued to my seat with a "on more turn" feeling that I've missed for so long. I doubt I'll replay it so much that I'll get that last achievement any time soon, but some of the new stuff is great - it's just falling short in a few areas that mean I can't give it more than an 8/10 personally. Very well done to the team for working so hard to revive the franchise though - you've had a cracking go at it and it's a great game, it's just that if you put your sceptical had on it feels like it's been streamlined a bit too much for the console audience and for accessibility whereas many people who have played the original know that it could have been so much more than it is, and it really does pain me to say that. I love the game, it's just that I love the original more still. Going to jump on multiplayer over the weekend if I get a chance, but now I need to do some work that I've been putting off FA is working on an official review as we speak by the way

I can't colour code because I didn't pre-order - no cool haircuts for me However I do give people the more varied colours of hair so I can spot them more easily on the battlefield. I never remember their names, but always know who's who by hair colour.

Any mods are also welcome here in our Files section - mod authors should feel free to get in touch.

We'd need an Elerium reactor to power the site then due to the frequency of updates

I suppose for a small squad size the perks enable you to make a unique enough squad, but I found myself wanting a third choice at some levels. It all depends on how you play as well of course. At my stage in the game now I'm happy enough with shotgun wielding soldiers on reaction fire and the burst mode on their next turn - great against Berserkers! Earlier on there were one or to occasions where I was picking a skill I'm sure I wouldn't use because it was the best of the two. Different strikes for different folks

I didn't mean the page, more the fact they were talking about "X-Gum" which is most certainly obscure

Yeah, that's what I meant. I enjoyed the reference in the Thin Man research, plus the fact they spit poison (you get the feeling Snakemen would have been poisonous in the original if that could have been programmed in).

Co-op version of the main game, or better yet human players for both sides on the main game - one player takes the aliens and the other is in charge of XCOM. I could only see it working in the missions though.

I wrote these musings in an email to FullAuto but will post them here too since it's a mini-review too. Some of it is repetition of what I've said elsewhere, but I'm not going to spend another 40 minutes editing it --------- The game is a bit like marmite for the more seasoned veterans of the original. It's not the same, and it does lack depth from the original in some key areas, but it is definitely X-COM. The research tree and manufacturing options for me are a good example of areas they've expanded upon - every item, including corpses, is vital for research (good armour from Chrysalid hides for example) so things like that are nice, and there's a nice nod to the Gollop bothers in one of the facilities you can build near the end of the game. Hiring is still there too, but the black/grey market feels simpler as you can't make tonnes of cash of selling laser weapons. This is an annoyance for some, but it's to make the struggle feel more like a struggle and there are times (though too few and far between even on Normal setting) where countries will offer to buy things from you for cash, scientists or engineers - this has obviously been done in an attempt to balance it a bit more so you can't become a powerful warlord with lots of Firestorm's and all the gucci gear. It does irk me that I can't hire my own engineers/scientists, but again I see why they've tried to move away from that - to me it seems again like it's an attempt to not allow you to become too powerful too quickly. So I think they've made some logical choices when you stand back and look at them, but at the end of the day it is annoying as it has simplified some aspects that micro-managers liked. It's both an attempt to balance the game, but there's no denying it's also been simplified to appeal to a wider audience. Onto the soldiers - I thought I would hate everything about classes, but they work wonderfully. I would like a skill tree more akin to Silent Storm though where there are more options to choose from and whilst each soldier has a speciality they are much more unique in Silent Storm as a result of the wider array of perks available. This feels a little dumbed down with either/or choices, but again it does work surprisingly well in the field if you don't choose the same perks for all your same-class soldiers and was an area I was determined I would hate but actually like. Psi abilities are similarly a choice of one or the other ability, with an even shorter tree - presumably because you're near the end of the game and they might not have time to reach the top. The whole idea with the different soldiers is to stop people playing like I played the original - all soldiers with rifles and no variation, plus making you think about tactics, but an unlucky game could land you with a barracks with too many of one class and they could have solved this by making it a choice which class your soldiers were during their first promotion rather than randomising it. Aliens - wow! I love them. Later on, Mutons and Floaters get upgrades (Floaters are harder to kill, Mutons are MUCH harder to kill). Sectopods are frighteningly powerful in terms of weaponry and the one Ethereal I've encountered had some nice new abilities. They've stripped out the pointless aliens and essentially upgraded the remaining "original" aliens in interesting ways so they're fresh for all players regardless of experience. They do seem to back off at the slightest sign of a beating in later missions on Normal setting, probably because I'm overpowering them in the first couple of turns like a bad sport. Difficulty settings - Normal is a bit easy for me. Looking on the forums though it's as wildly unpredictable as the original game is though as you can get wiped out quickly for wrong decisions or an unlucky roll of the dice, but once you get better armour and used to the tactics on hand Normal is a bit of a breeze for veteran players of the original (spot, snipe, repeat) and I'm essentially playing self-imposed Ironman to boot! Not played classic yet, but hear it's a lot harder. The maps... I read somewhere there are only 70 unique maps. I can see why they're not randomly generated, but of all the missions so far on Normal, only once have I been impressed beyond words (I was lured down an alley and the enemy flanked me effectively - fortunately I had Titan armour and enough perks to resolve that but it was a moment where I actually said "oh wow" out loud). That shouldn't be the exception though, it should be the norm, and maybe the aliens are harder in more ways than just hit points and accuracy on higher settings. Atmosphere - it's not scary, but I do dream about it, so there's that I had in common with the original. I think that's just down to too much cheese in my diet and an unhealthy amount of play time in a 48 hour period Graphics - detract from the atmosphere in places. Certain (or most) animations and some of the silly things your team say remove you from the feeling you had when playing the original. Other than that, it's darned good-looking for a game using an engine this old! Music - can't really fault it, except I might be right in saying there's no suspense music for things like the alien base or night missions. Both mission types and maybe others could have used it to give you a scarier atmosphere. Sound effects - there are nods to the original. I've heard a few whooshes that sound like buttons being pressed in menus on the original, and the footfall when you're on a metal floor such as a UFO sounds like it's right out of the original - there are quite a few nice nods to the original. Voices - meh. They had a long time to implement more than the few they did, and Jake lamented on Twitter that he wishes they'd done it. With the budget they had I can't see why they didn't, but since it's this popular it won't be long before some talented community members add their own voice packs I reckon. At the end of the day, it's not the end of the world and doesn't ruin the game by any stretch of the imagination. Modding - we've been told it's easy to mod and it appears to be true. Someone has already released a fix to enable you to play on Windows XP which was unsupported by the default game. Looking forward to more from the community. Weapons - love the choices, but hope the community mod more into the game. Not too many more, but a few more types of each weapon which vary slightly on accuracy, range and damage would be most welcome. End of game - can't comment as I'm not quite there yet. I'm assuming it's been left open for a sequel. They had to be about 70% sure it was going to be a massive success but it has been a gamble as so much of the game was developed before the announcement in January! I'm also still convinced they're going to attempt to tie this in with the other XCOM game in production somehow if only because they said the two aren't related (denial is the first sign of a sequel... or addiction... one or the other ). Bugs - what game doesn't have them? In true gaming tradition, some people seem to be encountering them way more than others. Everyone forgets the original had a mass of bugs on release that are still being found and fixed 19 years later! Geoscape/Mission Control - I'm unsure what to think here. UFOs seem few and far between compared to the original. I don't know whether they've restricted it to a set number between each story mission or what, but I've been at stages in the game where I've been pleading with the game to give me more UFOs because I don't have enough materials to progress any foundry or research projects - this seems a bit silly to me. It could be like the original that if you happen to start far away from the first alien base then you don't see many, so only a second playthrough will prove that one way or another. Conclusion - needs to be waaaay longer. I think part of this is because I'm used to the original otherwise I wouldn't have a clue what to research in which order, but the main thing is that it seems to feed you the story missions too quickly thus allowing you to put the pieces of the puzzle together too quickly. The game does project a chaotic struggle in terms of the atmosphere of an alien invasion in places, but as with any game the only way to get that across is with insane rolls of the dice and ramped up stats on aliens at harder difficulty settings. It could use more AI with the aliens (a request of pretty much every game ever) and with a limited number of maps I feel that they might have done more to get the aliens to flank you more often or be more sneaky with cover etc (again, this may be because of the difficulty setting though, so I will of course try it on much harder settings to see what that brings). It's a damnably enjoyable and addictive game though. As PC gamers we're spoilt for choice with strategy titles so the things it lacks are all the more apparent, but each part that has been removed or simplified seems to have been done with the best of intentions, even if they don't always quite gel. It's not been built purely for console gamers, as was the original fear, but definitely bears them in mind as the game has to be navigable and playable on a controller. I will keep coming back to the game once I beat it, there's no doubt about that, and I look forward to future content from devs (fingers crossed) and players alike! I'll stop waffling now as I'm not writing the review, more throwing my thoughts at you and seeing what sticks (like a monkey with faeces).

I tip-toe around XCOM threads lately just in case

I updated your post to mention the spoilers are about the end of the game. As soon as I got to those words I closed the spoiler box instantly so didn't spoil it for myself I'll be able to read it later in the week when I have time to play again though

The majority of it is my wallet and Slaughter's wallet along with staff contributions in the past. We'd sadly not be big enough for a Kickstarter of our own, and I doubt we'd raise $1,000 either (which is pretty much what it costs per year for both sites). The problem we have is also our strong point - we run no ads and so get no revenue, but no ads is so rare on the internet that we don't want to introduce any. I did have an idea to revive the newsletter and put some ads in that but we'd need content and we barely have enough hands on deck to keep content flowing at present (hey, want to write for us anyone?). I've seen on other forums where they've set up a VIP member group or something like that and people can subscribe to be in it to get a badge on the forums, but I'm not sure what the interest would be for something like that for $10 a year. Is anyone interested in something like that? We could have more impressive badges for higher subscription levels - that's sort of a Kickstarter-esque thing in itself I'm definitely open to suggestions. P.S. Is the server speed any better yet? I think the extra CPU and RAM allocations have been made and the disk space is just increasing itself in the background automatically.