PAX 2013: XCOM: Enemy Within Hands-On Preview
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It sounds just like a game I'd want to buy if I can get a demo to run. I has a sad because my hardware is so old, so I'll have to content myself with opening the original box that I bought some years ago, getting that sucker installed and giving a whirl on DOSBox when I have some time.
1. Nowhere because it wasn't good.KaZuYa said:
2. No, we don't - those bases would only serve two purposes anyway: Make cash and scan areas. Guess what saterlites do?
3. Well, I would settle for a good reason why we got only one, too.
4. No, we don't (unless it is a story-mission)
Well this looks interesting. Sounds like the mechtoids are going to be a pain in the ass, especially with that meld thing.
But can we apply this stuff to an existing game or do we have to start all over! Because seriously, I hate building my game up in games like this only to be forced to restart just to access new content. Like what they did with the last DLC, which I got to finally experience because I got XCOM: Enemy Unknown for free with a pre-order on The Bureau, along with Spec Ops: The Line.
I just hope they took the time to fix the issues with Enemy Unknown and actually amped up the gameplay a bit. Not just adding mech units, but also "fix" issues with the gameplay, like no inventory management at all which basically took away any kind of tension because you had infinite ammo, oh look my plasma rifle is out of ammo, click reload, all good now! The sometimes GODAWFUL camera that screws you over and as soon as you see an enemy it sees you... you can NEVER surprise them. The 6 squad member limit with literally a few dozen people jerking off back at base, the one thing I would take away from the Bureau is to be able to send those people out on secondary missions, with a risk of injury/death for them (seriously the Bureau? They just succeed? Not even a risk for failure?). Oh and also add some proper escalation for enemies, I could be up against 6 Elites and not give a crap but enter a Sectopod and I'd be scrambling in panic because of the way it worked in the early days of release (basically getting stuck in bombard mode). Mod support, add it, nuff said.
The hilariously useless combat vehicle from the first one that REPLACED one of your soldiers rather than being an addition to the team for example is something they desperately need to rethink, when I first saw that, I was like "Oh how cool, I'll have to respec one of my soldiers into a tech guy to keep the thing going but it will be worth it in the long run, wait this hunk of junk IS a team member? LOL! Scrap it, not needed!."
The biggest fix however should be the visuals. If I had a penny, not even a nickel, a penny for every time someone shot through cover, through a wall, through something solid, through an ally or whatever. I would still be able to afford a nice burger. Fix that shit, it infuriated me that when I thought someone was safe behind a wall, in full cover I'd be getting shot at through several walls or through solid rock without the wall taking damage or getting destroyed.
I am however not interested in the Meld missions. You basically took the worst mission of them all and then made a game around it... genius... I hated the bomb missions because they were so boring, whilst simultaneously agitating you. Not to mention the scripted the tent-pole mission structure of the narrative, and I guarantee you Enemy Within is the same, basically limiting the time you have to gather resources or the types of missions you can do.
Imagine playing 80 bomb disposal missions in a row... yeah I'd rather play Interceptor too.
The hilariously useless combat vehicle from the first one that REPLACED one of your soldiers rather than being an addition to the team for example is something they desperately need to rethink, when I first saw that, I was like "Oh how cool, I'll have to respec one of my soldiers into a tech guy to keep the thing going but it will be worth it in the long run, wait this hunk of junk IS a team member? LOL! Scrap it, not needed!."
The biggest fix however should be the visuals. If I had a penny, not even a nickel, a penny for every time someone shot through cover, through a wall, through something solid, through an ally or whatever. I would still be able to afford a nice burger. Fix that shit, it infuriated me that when I thought someone was safe behind a wall, in full cover I'd be getting shot at through several walls or through solid rock without the wall taking damage or getting destroyed.
I am however not interested in the Meld missions. You basically took the worst mission of them all and then made a game around it... genius... I hated the bomb missions because they were so boring, whilst simultaneously agitating you. Not to mention the scripted the tent-pole mission structure of the narrative, and I guarantee you Enemy Within is the same, basically limiting the time you have to gather resources or the types of missions you can do.
Imagine playing 80 bomb disposal missions in a row... yeah I'd rather play Interceptor too.
I did not give up on the S.H.I.V. in fact it was my most used unit by the end of the game, massive health, great flight fuel, massive damage and immunity to psychic attacks they tore through many enemies and made the most powerful abilities of the aliens useless.
The way I interpreted it, the meld is just another objective to do. I imagine you could still stay competitive without large amounts of meld/cybernetics (I believe Heavys (and maybe another class) got the option to deal more damage to mechanical enemies). It's another resource to manage and gather (similar to trying to get alien weapons without them exploding into fragments).1337mokro said:
I also liked the bomb missions because they changed the pace and forced me to think in a different way. I was so used to turtling (from original and early EU), and I was able to use skills in different ways. It also made me rethink my team comp because of the different mission structure (in other words, showing me that running two assaults wasn't terrible).
And Interceptor wasn't that bad...now Enforcer on the other hand was god awful.
Thirded (sp?). Especially because the new ant-farm base structure wouldn't lend itself to well to fights.Doom972 said:
Having to search six floors (two of which are only engineering/research labs) with only elevators as ways between floor doesn't seem fun to me.
And a more well done TftD (and balanced) could be fun, if only because of new enemy variety and environments.
The one thing I really want is larger soldier pools (eight maybe, sixteen seems too high) to account for new mech/cybyernetic soldier options. Some larger scale fights could be fun with the EU systems.
I usually had one with me on most missions, if I had to use a unit to make a suicide run to finish an entrenched enemy, they came in handy. You could replace them and no exp was lost.nuba km said:
Fourth'd, kinda.Doom972 said:
Base defense missions would be kind of cool, but they would have to implement it very carefully. After all, it would make sense that the aliens would try seek out those attempting to disrupt their invasion.
They could do it in a way that you're defending the base from the outside or something, if that defense fails then it has a defense one inside on one level. Once that gets overrun then that would be it.Bindal said:
TftD would seem kinda silly to a lot of people, I'd like the variance that it would add. But to a lot of people, to whom this is their first Xcom game, I doubt it would sit well.
Eight people would be good, I can get behind that.
Dunno why people are so anti base defense, I mean the new XCOM:EU is just a seriously watered down version of the original and most of the complaints people have are about things they removed. I wish they just revamped the old game but they were to scared people wouldn't like it, they did and i'm bloody convinced if they had left in everything it would of sold just as well if not better.
can't wait to see how the Gene Mods and the MECs change up the dynamics. The thing is, aside from the SHIV the player actually lacked any true juggernaut units. Sure, the Heavies had their launchers and heavy machine guns, but they were NOWHERE near as powerful as the aliens' bruisers. New weapons and maps are also much appreciated. I think some stuff that would be cool would be desert stages, heavy jungles, swamp, aquatic, mountainous, tundra, etc.
WE actually do. Even if those bases are just cosmetic, it would at least make sense to have more than one vitally important last stand for mankind base around. Also the one thing they NEED to fix 100% was the awful interception section. My goodness was that boring and pointless.Bindal said:
Actually, it's pretty safe to bet that it would've sold horrible because the old game, as much as you want to praise it, wasn't that good to begin with. It was complicated as heck, but it wasn't very complex, the AI was cheating where it could.KaZuYa said:
And Firaxis cut a lot of things for that reason. Or because people never really bothered with it. Like the addional bases. I filled mine always with living quarters, general stores and workshops and had exactly ONE hangar (or two if I was building the Avenger there) and had maybe 10 soldiers on stand-by should the aliens decide to do the most annoying thing the game had - attack the base.
As a person who actually played Enemy unknown FIRST and then got to the original, I vehemently disagree. While some of the "complicated" stuff was needless (Fuel and ammo management) the new game had quite a bit of unnecessary streamlining. Disregarding the roleplaying aspects in being able to place your base where ever you want on the map (which to me atleast, was cool) having multiple skyrangers with travel time to missions around the globe added to the immersion and really fit the theme well. In the new one, you're presented with this artificial choice between 3 locations, despite your progress or resources at the time. In the original xcom you could work to the point where you actually COULD protect the world, for a time atleast.Bindal said:
As for the base defence, it was a very important part of the difficulty curve in the original. In all iterations of XCOM, the start of the game is by far the hardest point, and it only goes downhill from there. (With maybe a little difficulty spike in the final confrontation) Base defence missions excisted to present challenge, after you've progressed far enough for vast majority of the missions to be cakewalks. In Enemy unknown, this is not the case, and once you get a couple of characters to max rank, theres literally no losing.
I liked enemy unknown, but the RNG was bullshit. I missed/hit 50% of the time when I clearly had a 80% chance to hit (give or take 2%). Seriously, I counted them. Just release a patch to sort that and I'll be happy.