Issues with your account? Bug us in the Discord!
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
WORF
The Burninator
in Zocalo v2.0
Despite reports all year that this was a good game, I have been very concerned that they will ruin the concept behind the original.
That said, I was still very curious to see what they would do as the originals were games my friends and I would play obsessively as kids.
A demo was released on monday and I played through it last night. You are thrown into a mission right away and initially, I wasn't so sure I liked it. The mission was heavily scripted to the point where you didn't need to use tactics, just send your troops where you were told.
Of course, it was the tutorial so I stuck with it. The second mission began again with some scripted actions but only for the first two turns. After that, I was free to proceed with the mission as I wanted. Much better and very enjoyable.
By the looks of things, missions are going to have objectives beyond "kill all the aliens" which should make some variety. The base management was excellent, I didn't get to build anything but it gives you the impression of having a big base at your disposal and you can see people going about their duties.
You have advisors who talk to you about missions and research, the kind of stuff you would imagine that would happen if you really were the commander of X-COM.
I guess it's fair to say I liked what I saw and know I can safely buy the game. I'm still not sure it will live up to the original but I think it's a good entry to the series.
Anyone else looking at it?
That said, I was still very curious to see what they would do as the originals were games my friends and I would play obsessively as kids.
A demo was released on monday and I played through it last night. You are thrown into a mission right away and initially, I wasn't so sure I liked it. The mission was heavily scripted to the point where you didn't need to use tactics, just send your troops where you were told.
Of course, it was the tutorial so I stuck with it. The second mission began again with some scripted actions but only for the first two turns. After that, I was free to proceed with the mission as I wanted. Much better and very enjoyable.
By the looks of things, missions are going to have objectives beyond "kill all the aliens" which should make some variety. The base management was excellent, I didn't get to build anything but it gives you the impression of having a big base at your disposal and you can see people going about their duties.
You have advisors who talk to you about missions and research, the kind of stuff you would imagine that would happen if you really were the commander of X-COM.
I guess it's fair to say I liked what I saw and know I can safely buy the game. I'm still not sure it will live up to the original but I think it's a good entry to the series.
Anyone else looking at it?
Comments
There are not many games I'm looking forward to right now, but this is certainly on my very short list. :)
As for multiplayer, the map we were given was a police station, which ended up being pretty much devastated in the resulting fire fight. While I was waiting, I saw some other maps, a bar and a train yard. There wasn't much of the bar left by the time they were finished either. It's pretty impressive how destructible the terrain is. I'd say it's on the same level as the original games.
Multiplayer works by offering 1vs1 fights only but you can load out your squad by picking different skills and weapons. You can also mix humans and aliens, which seems a bit strange to me.
I did win a tshirt though, so I'm pleased about that :)
Send troops on missions > capture aliens and their technology > research it > repeat until you find what you need to defeat them.
That's exactly what the tutorial is telling you to do. Except, that way you'll be constantly low on cash and you'll play yourself into a corner. All the global strategic details where you need to send up satellites, build uplinks, provide your council members with interceptors and thus be able to provide help where it is needed in the world, gets completely swept underneath the rug.
The tutorial has you researching gear that will as a direct consequence, increase difficulty on the field faster than you can upgrade your team (weapons, armor, etc.) because you can't afford to sell alien loot since it contains the ingredients to manufacture the alien weapons will need to succeed.
The council members that would have provided the funds needed will by then be long gone and you'll be left underpowered, overwhelmed and broke.
At least that is what I've gathered from gameplay footage. Your mileage may vary of course. As I said, that doesn't mean the game is bad, but it's just not for me right now. :)