Spoony posted his impressions of XCOM for this year. Go give it a watch.
http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/06/16/e3-2011-xcom/
Spoony posted his impressions of XCOM for this year. Go give it a watch.
http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/06/16/e3-2011-xcom/
Still watching, but it occurrs to me, watching the trailer footage again, that 2K may have been attempting to channel the intro animation to UFO: Enemy Unknown/X-Com: UFO Defence, what with the organisational call-to-arms, the dead people lying around, the scenes of alien violence, the musical buildup and the general framing of the "quiet but ominous" outdoors shots. If that's what they're going for... it doesn't really work - it lacks the comic book dynamic, the catchy tune and the graphics in general are kinda bland.
[EDIT]: Impressions:
Wow, he's really feeling it. 2K: Please take notice of this guy, because he's well-known enough to get away with saying all the things we'd get banned for, to a hell of a lot of people, and I suspect he's probably gonna say them if he's pushed much further.
Wait, what? The clerks aren't even equippable? Is that what he's saying? They just magically get better weaponry as they level up?
Okay, he even uses the term "research points". I guess that part of the speculation is confirmed.
Oh, I love that so muchSo he pauses the game, and he goes into... ☺☺☺☺ it, he goes into Mass Effect....
Kind of like flu is arguably better than tuberculosis.It's ... "better"? But it's not X-Com.
THIS! THIS! A THOUSAND TIMES THIS! Why does 2K not get this?I want to fire a blaster bomb around a corner and right up a floater's ass!
And they seriously tried to compare this to Final Fantasy Tactics? I have no words. None.
Last edited by Brian Damage; 06-17-2011 at 07:14 AM.
I didn't even notice that. If that's the intent, it's way, way, way too subtle.Originally Posted by Brian Damage
What. Oh come on, that's too terrible even for this game. Even Mass Effect 2 let you equip your guys' guns.Wait, what? The clerks aren't even equippable? Is that what he's saying? They just magically get better weaponry as they level up?
Blargleblargle asdf.Okay, he even uses the term "research points". I guess that part of the speculation is confirmed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM
what will be writen on wiki about XCOM?
My guess is whatever article eventually coalesces after the game's release will probably give a cursory overview of the game's nature, sales and reception, then focus on info gained from the inevitable tell-all story concerning the baffling decision to name this game "XCOM" in the first place
Y'know, I DID think of Final Fantasy Tactics when I heard about sending mooks on missions alone to level up. But even with that, to compare this game to FFT is...pretty bizarre. Did people really want elements of FFT in XCOM? No, they wanted elements of X-Com in XCOM.
Damn you! That which can not be unseen! But meh. X-Com did it better
Totally called it. Erm. Sorta. Did they cut elerium from the game or something? I don't think I saw it mentioned once this year >.>Okay, he even uses the term "research points". I guess that part of the speculation is confirmed.
I believe elerium points are for manufacturing and buying powers.
Yeah the Floater part really got me!
Just a few days ago i replayed UFO:EU and re-experienced how fun is to blaster bomb someone from far away. On cydonia a ☺☺☺☺ty sectoid who wasn't visible fired at me from some dark pyramid. Mother☺☺☺☺er...i took my three blaster guys and leveled the place. It was so much fun!
I love this guy already.
Also, I'll go ahead and reinforce what everyone's been saying. There's not a single original idea in this game. Hint for 2K: Don't say that your game is "like" someone else's. Ripping other people's ideas off wholesale really isn't professional.
Last edited by Shrike; 06-17-2011 at 02:53 PM.
Didn't this fellow's hypetastic opposite number turn up on this forum in person last year? I wonder if we'll be seeing a repeat?
Saw this when it was first posted - the only thing I wish there was more of was in depth feedback. "This is not X-Com" is a pretty vague statement because opinions and tastes vary so wildly. I think I have a handle on his particular tastes but I definitely wouldn't want to assume I know what anyone's individual opinion is unless they came out and stated it directly to me. (And we're not looking to do over what's been done before, either.)
Well, I've given quite a few in depth responses over the past year and a half. It certainly wasn't all I had to say about it, was just given them some info and see what they would do with it and apparently they didn't take any of the ideas. I cant remember where and when I posted all of the in depth ones but if you look through all of my post you can find them.
Cpl_Facehugger wrote a nice long summary of what he thought an FPP X-Com game should be like a long time ago to. many other poeple have given lots of in depth explanations of what they want it just I don't think ant devs or any of the staff have seen them.
http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?68788-On-X-Com
Last edited by Tanki; 06-17-2011 at 03:32 PM. Reason: Added link to Cpl_Facehugger's On X-Com
If it's on this forum, I've read it. I'm not saying I haven't gotten any already - I've definitely gotten a bunch - both positive and negative - and it's helpful not only to the team, but also for the work I'm going to be doing. Giving me a better picture of what you want to see more of or are unsure of is good, because then I can get it for you. (And yes, I've already got a bunch of that too.)
I think a lot of times people think official can be a black hole, and that's not what the 2K Forums are.
Heya, Liz!
The problem is, and I share the feeling, there's just so much that's different that he doesn't exactly know where to begin. It's kind of that feeling of being so overwhelmed and baffled that you can't really put it into detailed words about all that's wrong, there's just too much. I'd like to think we've given a lot of feedback on here about why it still isn't X-COM. I can only sum up my feelings on the matter, but here you go.
The setting first off. It's too overly fantasized, stylized, with nothing recognizable from the original games. Your guys may say what they will about the original X-COM aliens being cliche or whatever, but just look around you at the number of people wanting them back. They were memorable. They may say Grey aliens are too "tedious," but how many games have actually used them as an enemy before? Two? X-COM and the UFO: Aftermath series? And trust me, if you delve deep enough in UFO lore, they're scary. But to pull it off, you'd have to ditch the overbright colors and cartoon proportions and make it look real and convincing.
I can see why you'd want to go with the 1950s and 60s for the time period. There was a lot going on in the world of UFOs around that time period. But it's a completely missed opportunity because you're not using any of it. You've got Roswell and the Ghost Rockets in the 40s, rising UFO activity in the 50s, heck, you even have the famous Barney and Betty Hill abduction in 1961 that initially SPARKED the whole Grey alien phenomena. But you're not using it. XCOM completely ignores the history that the franchise was built on, and which would have worked perfectly for building a UFO conspiracy game. What your game's story lacks is relevancy. It's alternate history, fantasy America with aliens we don't recognize. Why should we care about either? Not to mention as our various non-Americans have pointed out, they don't really care what happens to America anyways. :P And the unfortunate thing is that if you continue on this path of overt alien invasion, it completely changes world history for the future of this new XCOM series, meaning we'll never, ever have a proper modern setting.
The atmosphere of the game is all wrong, too. I've said it before, and I'm certain you agree since you've played it, X-COM held a lot of tension to it. It's what built the fear. The fear wasn't what you could see, it's what you DIDN'T see and was waiting around the corner for you. The only time the aliens broke their cover and went for overt invasion was during a Terror Mission. The purpose behind terror missions was to spread fear and doubt that X-COM could perform its duties and defend the people from the aliens. Otherwise, the aliens went about performing their experiments in secret. You had to search for them. X-COM was akin to a counter-terrorism division, and it was up to you to set up their network of detectors for your agents/soldiers to be able to counter the aliens. They were different from the army because the army's used to fighting on a front. The aliens appeared anywhere and at any time, meaning X-COM had to learn to be a reactionary force and deploy quickly anywhere in the world. The aliens always made the first move.
To me, that was the essence of X-COM. Fighting an unknown enemy in a secret war that only sometimes bled out into the public view. If you wanted to make a story driven X-COM, I would have first off gone with the original setting. A reboot of X-COM wouldn't be a bad thing really, but UFO Defense was the definitive X-COM setting. Losing that loses the heart of X-COM. Anyways, a 90s or perhaps modern setting with all the awesome military technology we have today utilized in some fashion in the game. Starts out with the subtle alien activity. Harvesters, abductions, cow mutilations... eventually downing your first UFO and more to come. Then the terror missions start coming, throwing the world into panic. Nations start surrendering to the aliens in fear. Secret alien bases start appearing over Earth and your squad is being sent all over the world to eliminate them. All the while finding out more about the secret and sinister alien plans through your science division, backengineering and acquiring alien technology to use (who WOULDN'T want to walk around in a power suit?), etc. But presenting the story in a way that's dark, bleak, and realistic. This is war, and as such, you should be seeing people die, both close allies and the random civilians that fall victim to alien terror. It's a dark time for Earth, saving it by just a handful of guys won't do. The bodies should mount up as the aliens claim comrades, innocents, loved ones... You said we'd care for our squad mates in XCOM, but they can't even die. That eliminates any concern I have for them. Make us hate the aliens for taking countless men and women from us in our desperate effort to stop their invasion. The body count should be worse than World War II by the end between civilian, world military, and X-COM soldiers lost in the fighting once the aliens kick it into high gear.
I'll leave the issues with the gameplay up to others, but for me, that's my main problem. My suspension of disbelief is completely and utterly lost with this XCOM.
EDIT: Talking to a friend after I wrote this, adding to our list of things we would have loved seeing, how about the original Skyranger flying into a terror mission and seeing the city with smoke rising from it, fire bellowing out of skyscrapers, and the alien terror ship looming overhead and casting its shadow over the destruction below? That'd make me realize just how serious things were getting.
Last edited by Shrike; 06-17-2011 at 04:14 PM.
Nice ideas Shrike Maybe we should make a new thread that all of our ideas for the new XCOM can go into so you don't have to go around searching for them.
Also check out these stories by qu35s over at projectxenocide, he/she really knows how to paint a picture in your head.
http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index....opic=242029395
I can agree with that somewhat, though I think his body language, general tone, and this part of the video...
...give a pretty good indication of where his opinion lies on the issue. He says that the game does look better than it did at last year's E3, and it does, but the point still stands: it's not X-Com. And 2K Marin still hasn't seemed to have caught on that what they're working on right now not only isn't X-Com to the series' long-time fans, but can't be X-Com in spite of their best efforts.
I'll give a rundown of what I, at least, think X-Com is:
- Global view of the planet, not the United States
- Turn-based combat
- Random UFOs that you can intercept and shoot down...or don't
- Crash sites that you can visit to salvage aliens, their corpses, and technology...or don't
- Terror missions where you have to save civilians from alien incursions...or don't
- An open-ended research tree that you can tackle however you see fit. Have 300 scientists in 6 labs research Medkits...or have 1 Scientist off in a corner of a lab research alien alloys
- Manufacturing and construction that allows you to make equipment for your own use...or to sell to the public
- Building a base how you want it built, placing the facilities yourself, not having the game choose for you based on nebulous "choices" or "story progression"
- Being able to arm your interceptors with high-explosive missiles...or a single cannon
- Being able to load your troop transport with 20 soldiers armed to the teeth...or one guy with a stun rod
- Taking the stairs to reach an alien on the top floor of a building...or leveling it with rockets
- Using psychic powers to make an alien ☺☺☺☺ itself in fear...or to take over its mind
- Having to keep your funding nations happy so they don't cut you off...but not all of them
- Naming your guys with cool callsigns like "Killer" or "Bonebreaker"...or leaving it at the default names...or calling them all "Bob"
- Holding off base invasions...or leaving them for dead
- Invading alien bases to destroy them...or to harvest technology and supplies
- Not knowing what's lurking around the next corner. Seriously, never, no matter how many times you've played the game.
- Randomly selected maps
- Randomly generated aliens, with randomly selected equipment
- Randomly generated soldiers, who have randomly determined stats
- Firing those soldiers, then hiring a bunch more
- Firing THOSE soldiers, then hiring even more
- Doing the next mission with the new hires because an alien showed up, and you have to complete the mission with the scrubs
- Firing them after its over, then hiring more
- Positioning your guys to enter the alien ship, only for half of them to get fragged on the aliens turn from behind by a grenade thrown by an alien you didn't even know was there
- Seeing Chrysalids on a mission and knowing that every civilian and at least one soldier is going to die
- Going on a mission forgetting that half your squad was laid out flat by the aliens and won't be fighting for the next two months. Three scared recruits and a tank emerge from the Skyranger armed with laser pistols, and die to Chrysalids on the aliens' turn
- Not being able to refuel or rearm your craft because you ran out of money for fuel
- Going dumpster diving in your storehouses trying to find stuff you can sell in order to get money to rearm and refuel your craft
- Dismantling that brand new research facility you just built because there wasn't enough stuff in storage to sell
- Finally going to Mars to end it all because those alien kids just will NOT stay off your lawn
I think that gives the general idea of what X-Com is.
What do you mean by this? Care to elaborate?(And we're not looking to do over what's been done before, either.)
I'm almost afraid it means they don't want to redo X-COM: UFO Defense in any format. Which, if that's the case, our pleas really are falling on deaf ears sadly. They'll do what they want.
There's nothing wrong in retelling UFO Defense. If you want to reintroduce people to X-COM, that's what people are going to expect. Start over from the beginning, but don't throw away what was trademark to the X-COM franchise. You're just making a completely unrelated game otherwise, and people are going to call you out for it.
And yet, you said the Titan's name was great, and it ment something. Now you are calling it the Goliath. It doesn't really inspire confidence, no.If it's on this forum, I've read it.
That's not a bad thing necessarily, doing what's been done before
Just like it's not necessarily a bad thing to do something new.
The problem is there are some distinct preconceptions of what an X-Com game entails. Going with something entirely new with the brand doesn't make much sense to a lot of people. And by entirely new, I mean little that is recognizable in the way of the games that came before.
I believe you made a comment like this before, and I'm trying hard to not reply the exact same way I did to it back then, but really, if you wanted to do something completely original, using an existing brand isn't the best way to go about do that. And let's be frank, very few ideas are new anymore. Most are rehashes of what has already come before. It's how you use them that makes those ideas really stand out.
As far as the gameplay goes, I can only speak for myself and can't guarantee anyone but myself look for this but...just take a look at X-COM. Keep looking.
Good.
Now take everything there and make it better. (Or better as envisioned by myself.)
Make the strategy portion deeper, as in the overall Geoscape part. In X-COM the aliens do have a few bright moments, whether by accident or not. They can spot your base and they retaliate if you hit their terror ships, they build bases in places you fail to cover etc, but there can be more added to this part of the game by giving the aliens deeper goals and ways to achieve them, not to mention more ways to react to or outsmart the player on the Geoscape. Take the strategy part and make it better.
Don't cut away from the research and base managment. Add more to the research, it doesn't have to be a behemoth of a tech tree but the one in X-COM is frankly quite small and easy to learn by heart.
Find ways to keep it somewhat fresh from playthrough to playthrough. Whether by having the AI setting the player up in situations where they have to prioritize one thing in one playthrough and another the next time or by otherwise throwing them for a loop by keeping parts, small or big, of the research random. Just don't trivialize it, whatever you do.
Make the tactical battles look better all you want, add to the destructible environments, give us more gadgets, both must-haves like ye olde smoke grenades and flares but also an assortment of things with more optional, tactical applications. Give the aliens more stuff too, both things that go boom and things that force us to adapt on a tactical level, whether that be something as simple as shields or whatever.
Have it escalate as the game goes on too, preferably based on what the player does so that there actually is an almost constant need to adapt even when you begin to get the upper hand.
Keep the squad sizes of the original games. This is a war, or it should sure become one by the mid to end of the game at the very least even if it starts out small scale with a scout ship here and there and so on. Let the player fail, see his entire squad or entire bases lost.
At its heart, part of X-COM is a strategy game after all, bouncing back from a setback is part of the fun. Nevermind that we feel much more for our soldiers when they can actually die and when we can have real veterans whom have actually done some crazy, against the odds stuff. Not because of mechanics that held the soldier's little hand but because he kicked ass, survived and probably pulled a few others out of the fire as well.
Obviously there's going to be no scrapping of the current game to make something that I would envision as a grand improvement on the old classic and people might not even agree with me, this is more to explain why I more or less reacted exactly the way Spoony did.
It feels like this, XCOM, the new game has very little of X-COM in it and it feels like what little is there isn't being improved upon, it's being cut down to size to fit into whatever game it is you actually wanted to make.
The lore was mentioned above, that's gone too, unrecognizable. Whether you decide to build on it or retell the original, it should still be there and be recognizable.
I don't really want to do theatrics or anything but it all really does feel kinda sad.
Well, I'm done rambling.
Almost:
I love the U.S. but yeah...what can I say. Please move the focus to all of Earth.
Last edited by kenthen; 06-17-2011 at 05:03 PM.
I don't want to ever act like I'm putting down or aside the previous games because as we've talked about before, I love them. And I understand those sentiments, but I also want to talk about the game we're working on now - so please don't be offended if I do that in the majority of these threads. I'll still pop into the older ones, as well, but this is a new game.
The Titan is called the Titan. It isn't the Goliath and I haven't called it that. I'm not sure where that name came from, but not us. ;-)
Naw, I'm not offended, not at all. Just... disappointed? I understand it's far, far too late to change the game now probably. Especially to the extent we're talking. But if the game could be salvaged in a way where we COULD see a return to the established X-COM setting, it'd take away the disappointment a lot. I'll probably be skipping this game, but at the very least, it'd make me and I'm sure many others happier and more enthusiastic for the future.
EDIT: If you want my input for this specific game, most of what I said above can still apply. The darker, more sinister and covert alien invasion. More UFO lore. And more importantly, a way to tie this X-COM to the "future" X-COM we're familiar with. I wrote up a way to do that in another thread, if I can find it...
Ah, here we go.
Obviously there's room to maneuver, it doesn't HAVE to necessarily be that way. But all that is borrowed from actual history and UFO lore. Just a thought anyways.The funny thing is, I've been thinking, and a 1950s XCOM could have actually been great as XCOM: Origins. There's a lot of great stuff they could have pulled from history to fuel it. Reference the Foo Fighter and Ghost Rocket phenomenas of the 40s, and of course, Roswell. The establishment of the Air Force, CIA, and less officially, MJ-12 in 1947 (coincidencing with Roswell). The original "XCOM" could have been the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit established in the late 40s as part of Army Intelligence and later disbanded with its files handed over to the Air Force.
The way I see it going is like this. After World War II, a string of UFO sightings are flooding the globe. Truman establishes MJ-12 to head the investigation, and in turn, MJ-12 develops the IPU. In 1955, Eisenhower restricts the airspace over Groom Lake, establishing Area 51 as the IPU's base of operations where they are to take recovered alien artifacts to back engineer and turn into usable technology. The IPU reacts to global incidents, but since it's the Cold War, sometimes they have to be more covert in their actions depending on where they are reacting (the US did participate in investigating several incidents in other countries in the 40s and 50s, but mostly allied nations). Eventually through the game, you realize "Hey, it's an alien vanguard force setting up for invasion" and also discover they have a base already on Earth. As the game's sort of Cydonia mission, eliminating the alien base is the final task of the game. At the end, the IPU is disbanded, the files classified and sealed away as the alien threat is temporarily averted. Fast forward to 1999 or whatever where the aliens are back with a vengeance, and X-COM is formed.
I'm not really asking that XCOM be remade into X-Com at this point; it's silly to think that things could go that way at this point. At this point, I just want the devs to keep in mind that if they ever want to throw old-school fans a bone sometime in the future, they'll think of the complaints and what the fans were after and try and incorporate it into the next game. Hopefully it isn't another shooter, but I have my doubts.
I think what would've worked better for both parties is if XCOM was a survival horror game as opposed to an FPS. The player plays a soldier enroute to a terror mission, things go south, and now he's stuck in small-town America and aliens are taking it over. That would offer tension more in-line with the original game than what it appears we're getting.
Yes, absolutely this. More subtlety is needed, with an effort to make us actually believe in what is going on.
EDIT: Also, for all those who say X-COM wouldn't sell or TBS is dead, I think Mike Morhaime from Blizzard said it best. One year, the market will say "Oh, hey, movies are dying, people aren't going to the theaters." But then you have something like The Dark Knight that comes out during the summer, and suddenly, movie sales are through the roof. People don't buy TBS games because there's nothing interesting out there. If you make a good game, people will buy it. That's all there is to it.
Last edited by Shrike; 06-17-2011 at 06:25 PM.
It was from this preview
I had thought it was changed too.
This is just pure speculation but after UFO: Enemy Unknown went up on steam Its sales were quite large for a older game. Top guys at 2K said hey this game is making a lot of money maybe we should make a remake? Sounds good. That's probably the conversation they had but cut down to 5 seconds. Either that or they had to use the IP.
That's just been bugging me forever! Anyways I've given up on this game so I think I'll just vent then leave the forums.
Hey, nice to see you here. While a direct hit to the game's PR is happening.
It doesn't have to be anything but vague because the game is self-evidently nothing to do with X-Com. It wasn't even X-Com to begin with, for goodness sake. But if you want his reasoning, you probably only need to look at the commentary on youtube, the dialogue in most of the comment threads for articles on "XCOM", or the talk in any of a hundred forums. Or, y'know, actually listen and notice that one of his major complaints is the nonpresence of the original canon, which coupled with the fact that the game is nowhere near close to X-Com mechanically just makes people far and wide go "WHHHHYYY?"."This is not X-Com" is a pretty vague statement because opinions and tastes vary so wildly.
Oh, c'mon Liz, he wants the same things most of the fans do, a worthy turn-based remake or update using modern tech and featuring the classic cast of aliens. It's quite simple.I think I have a handle on his particular tastes but I definitely wouldn't want to assume I know what anyone's individual opinion is unless they came out and stated it directly to me.
No, 2K were looking to boost their marketing for the current non-X-Com game by attaching the X-Com name to it. We've already been over that a thousand times. Wait... marketing... this whole thing wasn't your idea, was it, Liz(And we're not looking to do over what's been done before, either.)?
Anyway, what they should have been doing with this golden property, was what nobody had sucessfully done before: Making a proper graphically- and interactively-updated TBS or RTWP remake or sequel with gameplay improvements, set in the original universe. You don't mess with a winning recipe, as the history of the X-Com series should have shown the lot of you.
Pity this was only in the general games forum, then: http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread...e-Unknown-XCOM
It's pretty much got everything we ever wanted out of an X-Com game, it was around four years ago, and you and 2K ignored it, completely.
I'd ask you for the ratios, there, but I'm afraid you wouldn't give us an honest answerI'm not saying I haven't gotten any already - I've definitely gotten a bunch - both positive and negative.
Actual X-Com games.- and it's helpful not only to the team, but also for the work I'm going to be doing. Giving me a better picture of what you want to see more of
I'd say "XCOM", but we're pretty sure that isn't good at all.or are unsure of is good,
How about some of the stuff and interaction we asked for in the latest E3 Trailer thread? You never replied to that stuff.because then I can get it for you. (And yes, I've already got a bunch of that too.)
Well, it doesn't help that every time we ask for the actual information we want we're rebuffed in some manner. I understand that it's more difficult to get the stuff we want (explanations for 2K's shenanigans from someone on high, answers on the issue of what will be done with the old stuff from the IP that's not being used, replies on the subject of a possible revival of the canon and strategy in a seperate series) rather than the stuff you wish we wanted (hype opportunities and glurge), but it's the way things are.I think a lot of times people think official can be a black hole, and that's not what the 2K Forums are.
I don't really care about not putting down or aside the upcoming game, because as you've probably guessed, most of us dislike and resent it to some extent. I understand you're really only here to hype it, but understand that if you try and attach the game to the X-Com series, people are going to talk about, and compare it to, the X-Com series, so please tell your bosses to pay attention to how that's happening in the majority of threads. I understand that this isn't really a forum for the old games, but almost everyone hates the new one.
Probably that was a factor, but remember that this game was something they had on standby, independent of the X-Com franchise, that they decided to slap the X-Com name on. That's why it never looked much like X-Com in the first place - it was born of what was purely a marketing decision.
Last edited by Brian Damage; 06-17-2011 at 11:46 PM.
You know, reading comments about X-com does reminds me eerily on with FALLOUT 3 fan feedback early on. Alot of people were really upset that the game would be made a FPS, but some held hope since it was Bethesda. As we saw some of the first footage and screens, alot of people including myself grew more warm to the idea... And FALLOUT 3 turned out decent, I must grudgingly admit. However, I didn't particularly like it myself, but it was successful. It kept alot of the core fallout stuff like perks, and the wasteland with an interesting twist.
XCOM however, from the very second of inception and knowledge to the community has been HATED. Sure people were intrigued initially but the exact opposite of interest has occurred as we have seen and heard more. People now are truly upset where this train wreck is going. There are alot of warning flags being thrown up by the community here. We are desperately waving them in front of 2k... The media/press have expressed their concerns about the title and the youtube ratings speak for themselves. I'm not sure this train can leave the tracks it is speeding down... But it could be an epic crash in the making.
I keep saying this, I don't mind XCOM being an FPS. But you have cut EVERYTHING that made the original special... nothing remains but a shell of a name. I would have LOVED to see an X-com FPS with dark horror... You being just a man in a X-com squad, facing the aliens. Nods towards the original with the weapons, some random mission, and environments so no mission plays out the same. I think alot of us would like to be one of those little guys, but seen from their perspective instead of our normal god like view of a battle.
And you know, tacking on a bullet point list of "tactical" features won't save this. I think gamers are smarter then you believe.
I've been thinking and just wanted to answer to this... we're not game designers. We're not being paid to come up with ideas for 2K. Nonetheless, we've given 2K a -ton- of feedback, ideas, and as Brian I believe pointed out, there was already a topic long ago on what people wanted in an X-COM game. I don't want to beat a dead horse, but... this isn't X-COM, and will probably never be X-COM unless it's scrapped, redone from the ground up, and made into something that at the very -least- utilizes the setting and aliens 2K paid for. Taking out the hyphen doesn't change what it is and what it's meant to be.
You say you don't want to do what's already been done, and that's fine. I can understand that. People who have watched the first Star Wars movies probably don't want to see the same story rehashed and updated, it's redundant. But you don't make a Star Wars movie and say to everyone, "Hey, we took out the Jedi, stormtroopers, all the memorable characters, the high technology, the space setting, and we decided to put it in an Renaissance fantasy setting where everyone wears those funny wigs and ridiculous costumes. You're going to love it!" Even reboots need a bit of consistency with what originally inspired them. Battlestar Galactica had... well, the Galactica, as well as Cylons, all the characters (albeit some significantly altered), Vipers that actually LOOKED like the originals... fans of the original BSG may say what they will, but Moore's BSG was at least recognizable as BSG. The other comparison made was with Batman Begins, and well... superhero movies have so little consistency anyways, especially the Batman films, that that's kind of an unimpressive comparison. But alright. Thing is Batman still had Batman, the suit was familiar, the bad guys were ones we were familiar with in the comics... it's still not a valid comparison.
And I'm just going to stop myself there because I said I wouldn't beat a dead horse, but come on... you can't keep telling us there's X-COM in there and expect us to believe it when right from the beginning, we were told this had nothing to do with the originals whatsoever. Not one thing to tie the two together. The UFO Aftermath series had more in common, and that had the decency to use a different name. It was touted as a spiritual successor, and rightfully so. This... this is nothing of the sort. This is, as you call it, a new game. A completely new game. So why is it XCOM?
Frankly, the simplest, easiest, and most satisfying answer to this problem would be to rename it. Save the XCOM name for the future when it can be used properly. It would hardly be unprecedented for a game to undergo a name change even deep in development, so why not? It is seriously the best possible solution. Unless it's a matter of pride, which would be sad, but I'd like to think honoring the community is more important to 2K than trying to resist falling to their demands, don't you think?
It helps in the case of Fallout 3 that it did keep the setting and at least things like an FPS-adapted version of the SPECIAL system (rather than adapting an FPS mechanic to the game and using the SPECIAL system's name), and functioned mostly as a translation from TB to RT and from Third-Person to First-Person. Which doesn't mean it was an especially good adaption of the Fallout series into a First-Person perspective (I personally reserve that for New Vegas), but it does mean it has a legitimate claim to the name.
I've always been a little amused by the ["You'll love the next bit of info!" - next bit of info stokes the hate - "You'll love what's coming up next!" - hate stokage] cycle. Although it does seem to be leaning towards "Please guys? Be a little nicer this time 'round? Please?" lately, as 2K is perhaps finally sitting up and taking notice of what's going on.
Last edited by Brian Damage; 06-18-2011 at 01:38 AM.
i had to tell so much, but do to my pure english, i will only say this, forget about this game, its focused on medicore console user young ones, who wil watch videos where them is told that this is a remake of one of the best game all times, read it on wiki or somewhere, and buy it.
Last edited by vitalis; 06-18-2011 at 02:32 AM.
It's pretty simple. Find someone who has no idea what X-Com is, plays modern RPGs and shooters then let them play this. When their answer is "Hey, you made a 1960s version of Mass Effect!" you'll know exactly where you went wrong. At the same time, 1960s Mass Effect is infinitely better than what you had last year (whatever that was). I can buy and play 1960s Mass Effect dressed in X-Com without feeling inherently terrible. I couldn't buy Bioshock with aliens tacked onto it without weeping.
But by this point, if you don't know why people on the internet said "This isn't X-Com" you just aren't going toI just hope whatever is being done ends up being fun and well put together.
I hated the idea of Fallout 3 because of Bethesda, because I regarded Oblivion as an overhyped and overrated terrible RPG. Fallout 3 amazed me because everything I thought they would get wrong they didn't. They actually made an RPG, they kept much of the tone of the original Fallouts and they did use basically the old elements of Fallout a lot. In fact in many ways it's the overuse of some things from Fallout where they don't seem to fit well that is the games problem.
But you can't have played Fallout and then Fallout 3 and NOT be able to connect the two games. It's frankly impossible. You can easily see why someone who plays X-Com could not put together how on earth XCOM is supposed to be related.
its like you found cow pie and want sell it like aple pie, so you tried to put aplles on it, some sugar ,flower and say to all around that is ''modern''aplle pie.
I'm sorry to say that it's pretty much impossible to give an in depth criticism of this game without veering towards a 100k+ word doctoral thesis. The breadth of its flaws is simply too wide. The only way to explain it succinctly is "not X-Com." It's got all these things ripped from other games, but nothing we've seen looks like it's ripped from the actual X-Com.
When you can identify all these other influences - Mass Effect, Bioshock, etc but you can't identify X-Com influences outside of a premise of "aliens invading, take their stuff!" and superficial names like "TIME UNITS!!!" or a "base" that you can't redesign, you know something is wrong.
It's not that X-Com fans hate FPS games. We'd be okay with a good X-Com FPS, one replete with tension and fear. It wouldn't be what we truly wanted, but we could get behind it, just like we got behind Alliance. But this game isn't even that. It has nothing in common with X-Com. Literally every piece of information 2k gives us only reinforces this sentiment. Time Units that act like mana points, or at best APs in Fallout 3. Squadmates who can't die. Strong narrative with a fixed main character. Max squad size of three. Totally new aliens with totally new lore. World War II era weapons. Strategic segments that function more like an RPG complete with sidequests instead of an actual unguided strategic metagame. No dynamic interceptions. This isn't X-Com. It's another game with X-Com written on its head with a sharpie.
Damn, when I saw this new trailer I let myself hope. I could tell myself that maybe they've taken the criticism to heart and brought back the strategic metagame. Then 2k started actually talking about the strategic and tactical portions of the game and I felt that hope explode like a chryssalid hit by incendiary rounds.
Devs, we see this game and we don't see X-Com. We don't see X-Com DNA, or some nebulous "X-Com feel." We see a hodgepodge of all these things that aren't X-Com. We don't hate change. We were looking forward to Alliance. We hate lack of X-Com traits.
Trouble is, X-Com fans are generally older than, say, Halo fans. We can sniff out shenanigans. Elerium points, "Time units", "X-Com DNA", we see through all these things. We see them for what they are - attempts to pander to us with irrelevant superficialities and misdirections while what we really want goes unsatisfied.
X-Com fans didn't ask for a shooter. We had that desire exorcised with Enforcer. (Which, I should note, at least had most of the classic enemies.) 2k was always fighting an uphill battle to get people interested in this game. It's not like FO3 which had the ready-made fanbase from the Elder Scrolls/Bethesdafan community. This game has us, and that's pretty much it. Even the Bioshock fans are more interested in BS: Infinite. We, the potential customers, are lukewarm at best towards this game. Even those who never played X-Com say things like "I've never played X-Com, but this game looks pretty meh." I've seen it.
What was that delightful turn of phrase? Cautiously pessimistic? Yeah. We want to like a new XCOM game. We really do. Deep in our shriveled etherial hearts. But it has to be recognizably XCOM. It has to legitimately share XCOM DNA. It can't just be Mass Effect or Bioshock with a paper bag over its head. This last E3 trailer was a tiny step in the right direction. But even as it stepped in the right direction, it took two steps in the wrong one. Mass effect style power wheel. "Time Units" that basically stand in for mana points. Squadmates who can't die.
The thing with Mass Effect is particularly bad, because there is no way in hell this game can compete with Mass Effect 3. It's trying to muscle in on the territory of King Kong here. If it really did boast X-Com DNA, the legions of X-Com fans who've come out to say "this game isn't what we wanted" might buy it. But when it lacks that and ends up being highly reminiscent of Mass Effect? Why would anyone settle for a clone when they can have the genuine article? ME3 is going to sell a bazillion copies. XCOM is going to sell a handful. People aren't going to care about this game. Not with the negative buzz lovingly propagated by X-Com fans, and not when they're playing ME3.
Thing is, X-Com has a niche. Blending tactical and strategic elements in a way that no other game quite matches. More, it's a niche that's going almost unfilled. If you build it, they will come. People would buy an X-Com game simply because it's so different from everything else on the market. In a time when nearly every game is a "strong narrative first person shooter" or the like, a real X-Com remake would be even more hugely successful than it would be otherwise simply because it has no competition. It's not like turn based strategic games are anathema to modern audiences. Handhelds have many successful and much loved games of this very sort. Many older console games, oft considered the best by the fans, are made in this mold. 2k published Civilization IV and Civilization V. There's no way they can think a turn based strategy games are dead. And as we see with juggernauts like Minecraft and huge successes like Portal 2 and Recettear, gamers will buy things that aren't a "strong narrative first person shooter." And they'll buy it in mass quantities.
Which is why the direction the devs have gone with XCOM is even more perplexing. XCOM's niche is one that's already filled by a veritable legion of heavy hitters that it has no hope in hell of outcompeting. How's this game going to compete with Modern Warfare 3? ME3? Halo 4? Battlefield 3? All strongly narrative FPS and/or TPS games, all with huge fanbases who're practically guaranteed sales, all being released in the same general timeframe as XCOM.
Frankly, the best thing for 2k's bank accounts would be to eat the Xenonauts devs and rebrand Xenonauts as XCOM. Then sell this game as something else. Perhaps even an XCOM spinoff. It still wouldn't be too successful because it's trying to edge in on an already oversaturated niche, but it would probably be more successful than it's going to end up being.
Edit: Failing that, devs, your best option is to bring back the strategic metagame in all its randomly generated glory. That would set this game apart from all the other games it's trying to compete with. And it'd be a real nod to its X-Com lineage too.
we only can hope and ask, after this fiasko with xcom, they do what they must, a proper x-com,not beter xcom, forget it, what done is done, but learn from mistake.
After watching Spoony's video, I wish he would have been more clear whether he likes XCOM or not.
I agree with the many posts that describe what an X-COM game means. The tension that comes from not knowing what you are about to face. The randomly generated maps that made every mission significantly different. The fact that the aliens are going about their own purposes until you show up and engage them, instead of simply waiting around for you to arrive. How the enemy seemed like it was always a little smarter than you, knew what you were up to, and that it was hopeless to resist. And even when you started fighting back with the really good toys, they found ways to make life difficult for you.
Please, 2k, consider how the fans have reacted to what you've shown us about this game. If you continue to make this XCOM game we will give you our input.
But, you must see how we still treasure the original game and are hungry for a true remake. Why not also make that game, keeping the original setting and gameplay with more intuitive controls and a new coat of paint. Just hint that you are considering developing a Turn Based strategy in the original canon and setting and see what buzz you get.
If you think that we need to be told a complex and engaging story, well that wasn't the greatest part of X-COM and it isn't what we want now. When I play Chess, I never wonder why the Black King and White King cannot get along or wonder why that Bishop decided to join the army. I play because the gameplay is fun and forces me to really think hard. I know there will be a winner or the 2 sides will regroup and start again. X-COM should allow me to tell my own story with my soldiers (most of whom are nameless pawns) if I want to while focusing on the fun strategic gameplay.
If you think an isometric game can't appeal to today's gamers, then think about Farmville and it's droves of fans.
If you feel that Turn-Based games won't sell anymore, look at your own Civilization games. X-COM is as beloved and revered as Civilization. Try pitching a new FPS Civilization game with "Civ-DNA" that captures the feelings you get while playing the originals, limiting you to playing as an archer who can choose to take 2 pikemen into battle with him, and see if Civ fans will buy that.
I respectfully ask that you consider what X-COM gamers want and try to fill that demand. I can't say that I know how to run a for-profit Game Production company, but I do know about supply and demand. And I know that companies pay tons of money to get feedback on their products. Take note that we are spending some of our precious time complaining to you because we love the IP that you own, and we are all standing by ready to give you some of our money to have more of it. But we won't be fooled by an imitation.
All Fixed
First thought: How the heck did he...then I read the comments and saw someone point it outAll Fixed
It's still an awful name.
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