flark

Thanks, you guys are awesome.

Guys, can someone please help me, I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of clear information about XCOM and it's patches. I have a bought PC CD version of XCOM which apparently I have to play through Steam. Where do I download the patch? Has Steam done it for me automatically already? Is there any clear way to tell? And how do I use/activate the "Chris Kluwe as XCOM Hero unlock"? I don't know if it's just me being old, out of touch and stupid, but I can seem to find any answers to these questions. Can someone please help.

Thanks for the update. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that it all works out for them in the end. Thanks.

Bump. Any more news on this game? I was really looking forward to this one. Hope it hasn't been cancelled.

WOW! Finally what we have all been waiting for and dreaming of! I haven't been this excited since losing my virginity! Let's hope this excitement last a little bit longer than that did!

I don't hear anyone bitching about how poor JA2 was/is. People still singing it's praises today - 13 or so years later. The same with X-Com. People are bitching today because some of these brand new games are nowhere near up to the standard of gameplay which was achieved almost 20 years ago. The only thing improved in most cases are the graphics, and for me personally graphics are the least important part of my enjoyment of a game. I would rather play Rebelstar from 1986 than play either of these two new so called JA games, and I really mean that.

Don't let me put you off trying it. Give it a go and make your own minds up. I found the controls/ user interface on JA - Back in Action too cumbersome and difficult to be fun. I found JA online to be too dumbed down and simplified to be fun for me. If felt more like playing Farmville than playing a Jagged Alliance game.

I thought that as well. I hate to keep being negative, but how wrong I was. This is as bad as JA - Back in Action, but for very different reasons.

Cool! I loved Cannon Fodder back in the days of the Amiga. I don't like buying game downloads anymore though. Steam has put me right off that. I can't remember now, is Gamersgate anything like Steam where you have to download horrible intrusive softwear just to play your game, or is it a nice clean game download free from any unwanted extras?

I thank you for sharing your opinion. You were a lot more patient and tolerant than me. I tend to make quick decisions on my initial gut feeling. These are usually the correct decisions for me, and my initial gut feeling told me that I would not enjoy playing this game however much I tried to persevere. I'm putting all my gaming eggs in the new XCOM basket now and praying the same thing wont happen.

Yeah I think the higher the rank of the person killed, the more damage it did to everyone's morale. It made good sense.

I finally got around to playing this demo last night and I'm sad to say I'm very disappointed. It looked great on the screenshots, but unfortunately the controls and user interface just feels slow, awkward and cumbersome to me. First I tried to jump straight in without playing the tutorial, but couldn't do anything so had to quit to play the tutorial. I think a good design of controls should enable a player to be able to jump straight in without needing a tutorial. Anyway, the tutorial was far from being fun andf the whole thing just felt like a chore. It was late and maybe I was being impatient, but I quit the tutorial and called it a day in the hospital after my guys firstly couldn't find their own way down the ladder, then mysteriously became injured, and then magically healed again before I actually had the chance to practice healing them. The whole thing just felt annoying which is a sad thing for a huge JA2 fan to have to say. Edit: I forgot to add, the characters sadly seemed to be lacking a certain amount of "character" too.

I agree the graphics style does look like Aftershock, but I think that's a good thing because I liked the style of Aftershock. Oh NO PLEASE don't make us have to use Steam. I hate Steam enough for it to be the only thing which would stop me buying/playing this game.

I didn't like the look of the side split view of the base at first, but hearing about how it's interactive and you get to watch your actual guys wandering around at work, rest or play it sounds good. I like the idea of digging deeper underground too. Imagine if you dug too deep and hit water, causing it to flood your base with Gillmen or aliens from Terror from the Deep... Ok, maybe I've gone too far.

Iron man mode! Get in! I think this is going to be awesome! The more I hear about how and why changes have been made from the original, the more I understand their way of thinking and am starting to believe these changes are for the best.

Partly I'm very excited, but partly I'm also disappointed to keep hearing about all of this "downscaling" of the game. Only 1 base. Much smaller squads. XCOM was supposed to feel like war on a global scale. Earth's finest soldiers versus an Alien menace. The original managed to achieve this pretty well. It managed to stike a great balance between feeling like a full scale war, but at the same time keeping each individual unit massively important by breaking it down into smaller conflicts and missions (but not too small). I worry that 3 soldiers taking out a Muton in a gas station does not give out the same vibes. I know this was only a small scale "training mission" style example, but I'm sure you know what I mean. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'm worrying for no reason and everything will be fine in the end.

Only one base. Oh no, I hope not. Part of the fun was expanding your forces by building more bases around the globe. It was also fun deciding which soldiers to send to which base. Your oldest surviving squaddies from your original base end up being your commanders of the new bases. I disagree. I hate being caught out of position/formation when turn based combat kicks in just because I didn't have "time" to select units when the game was in real time. Turned based only for me please.

This is all too exciting! I can't wait to play this.

I agree. I've gone from cautious skepticism to uncontrollable excitement in the space of 3 or 4 days. Of course it gets more hype than the 2K Xcom! How hyped can anyone get about ANOTHER FPS. On the subject of Iron Man mode. I really hope they add that feature. I'm one of those people who ruin my own fun by totally abusing the save/load feature. I just can't help myself. I LOVE Jagged Alliance 2 and Silent Storm in Iron Man mode. What's the point in creating a challenging game when it's so easy and tempting to cheat with the save/load.

It looks good. It's surely worth 30$ just to spite that horrible XCOM FPS. It won't happen, but I would love it if it makes more profit than that thing.

Have you tried Stellar Forces good sir?

This is the best news I've heard in ages.

I don't know what my system specs are - my computer is a few years old and I'm probably due a new one - but I've played many bigger and better games than Alien Invasion (no offense intended) without such problems. As for getting used to the Interception - you're probably right I would get used to it if I gave it some time - but what's the need for getting used to a different, less obvious method when there was a perfectly good tried and tested method that most people are already used to. I liked the way many guys died at the entrance. Some missions could be a bit like the beginning of 'Saving Private Ryan'. You never knew what to expect the moment the 1st guy stepped out. It brought some real tension and suspense to missions. Quite realistic too as of course there would be a chance the enemy would have watched the Troop Carrier land and be waiting to spring an ambush. Removing this for me takes away a large part of what as so uniquely exciting about X-Com.

I just played this briefly and while it looks like it has GREAT potential, the are quite a few niggles which make it unplayable for me at the moment. I'll list them in the rough order which I recall encountering them. 1. Laggy mouse pointer on the Geoscape screen. While the globe looks impressive, I was instantly irritated by the slowness of the pointer and slow delayed movement of the globe. I'd rather see a crappy plane looking globe which moves quickly and effectively rather than this beautiful but sluggish thing. It annoyed me straight away I must be honest. 2. No options on the right hand side of the Geoscape screen (like X-com). I liked having those options there in X-com, there were clear, precise, efficient and self-explanatory. It took me ages of mindless and frustrating clicking to figure out how to Intercept the first UFO - and then to send out my Troop-Carrier to the crash site. I kept clicking on the Interceptor instead of the Crash Site so had to play around with the frustratingly laggy Geoscape controls and zoom until I finally got it - which as I said was only after I figured out HOW I was supposed to do it. Having those options on the side of the screen would be SO MUCH EASIER. Like going straight to your base instead of having to click on the globe. There's plenty of room for those kind of buttons so I can't for the life of me figure out why you would chose to remove them. TACTICAL MISSION 1. Heavy metal music - aaarghh! I HATE heavy metal music anyway, but for a game which is meant to be full of suspense - no, no, no, no NO! 2. Laggy mouse pointer again. It drives me mad! UFO - Extraterrestrials had it too and it made me unable to play any more than a handful of missions before I wanted to SCREAM! Please do something about while you still can. 3. My soldiers are already deployed outside of my Troop-Carrier - why? Stepping out into the unknown was a huge part of the suspense of X-com. Like choosing you most expendable recruit to go first ;- "Go on laddy - It's part of your initiation - We've all had our turn before!" "Errr.. alright Sarge..." *ZAPPP, BLAST* - "arrrghhh...." 4. Kneeling down (soo slow) - Like the Heavy Metal music it's been mentioned before, but certainly worth mentioning again. Like the general laggyness of the pointer it's a horribly frustrating experience to watch. 5. I couldn't figure out how to Save during the tactical mission, so I exited thinking that maybe it did an auto-save.. it turns out it didn't, and I had to start all over again - thus ended my Alien Invasion experience. If there is no ability to save during the tactical mission - fine I can handle that, I quite enjoy playing Ironman style but at least it could have warned me. An auto-save feature before the mission starts would have been nice too. CONCLUSION. There are some very nice features like the character equip graphics which are cool and varied. Nice weapons and crafts (from what I've seen) and a nice method of proposing research. Sorry I know it has sounded like a ripping, but it is my genuine honest opinion. All the great features I KNOW are buried within this game are completely lost through an unnecessarily bad interface system (you could have / should have copied it directly from the original X-com) and through a general sluggishness of movement withing the game.

Thanks again chiasaur11. You've raised my spirits after the disappointment of this FPS Xcom. Long Live The Turn Based!