XCom E3 Trailer Brings the Disappointment

[Andy Chalk]

XCom E3 Trailer Brings the Disappointment

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The XCom [http://www.amazon.com/XCOM-Xbox-360/dp/B002I0HAZS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1276272876&sr=1-1] E3 trailer is out and as much as it pains me to say it, it's not looking too good for fans of the franchise.

When word came out in April that Fallout 3 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99964-New-X-Com-Shooter-Coming-From-BioShock-2-Studio] proved, a turn-based tactical classic could be taken to a first-person perspective and still be a great game, and 2K Marin's work on BioShock 2 was certainly nothing to sneeze at.

But based on the newly-released E3 trailer, it's looking like they were right and I was wrong. XCom isn't scheduled to touch down until 2011 so it's way too early to make a definitive judgment but if this is indicative of the final product, then the X-Com we knew and loved is gone, replaced by a generic shooter built around the X-Files [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonist_%28The_X-Files%29#Black_oil] and 2K Marin's increasingly obvious obsession with the 50s.

Maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe the meaty brilliance of this game is being kept under wraps and in a year or so from now, we'll all look back on this and laugh. But if this is the best that 2K Marin can do for E3 [http://www.e3expo.com], the industry's biggest showcase of the year... then maybe not, too.

via: IGN [http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14252327/xcom/videos/e32010_xcom_e3trailer_60910.html]


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[Random Argument Man]

That ain't so bad. But then again, I've never played X-com.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh no NO NO!

 

[Treblaine]

As long as it's a good FPS.

It's a shooter, but is it Generic?

 

[Baby Tea]

That ain't so bad. But then again, I've never played X-com.

See, and there you miss the disappointment.
It's like if a new company made a new "Call of Duty" game, and the first trailer showed it as a dance-dance style game. You'd say 'That's nothing like Call of Duty'. That's what this is. Taking a deep, interesting, turn based strategy game with an isometric view and based building set in the not too distant future...into a first person shooter set in the 50s with boiling oil aliens and flying bricks.

PASS.

 

[Kanodin0]

On it's own that seemed like an ok to interesting game. It just shouldn't have X-Com as the title when it so obviously has nothing to do with the actual franchise.


Really I don't get why they did that, calling it X-Com is just making all the people who actually played X-Com angry, and the FPS crowd has little to no knowledge of X-Com so the title means nothing to them. What do they gain from it?

 

[Optimus Hagrid]

And what connotation does this have with the original games exactly?

Actually, as a shooter, it looks pretty cool... though I've already been to the '50s alien setting in Destroy All Humans...

 

[chemicalfire]

It just looks terribly boring. I don't think I could ever be interested in shooting oil slicks.

 

[PipBoy2000]

Fallout 3 wasn't really close to the originals, and apparently, so does the new XCOM.
However, the trailer actually looks very interesting. Count me in.

 

[Sartan0]

On it's own that seemed like an ok to interesting game. It just shouldn't have X-Com as the title when it so obviously has nothing to do with the actual franchise.


Really I don't get why they did that, calling it X-Com is just making all the people who actually played X-Com angry, and the FPS crowd has little to no knowledge of X-Com so the title means nothing to them. What do they gain from it?

That was basically the point I made in the other thread started on this topic the other day. If you drop the name it looks interesting. I am going to treat it that way. Though it would be funny if they made a "Darklands" dance game. Something about a medieval German monk slam dancing and/or break dancing in a town square makes me laugh.

 

[Truly-A-Lie]

Ok, so as someone who has never heard of Xcom, was that trailer supposed to make any sense? So it's about evil alien blobs that infect people? Or disintergrate people? Or form miniture Halo rings? I'm confused. What were the previous games in the series about?

 

[Worgen]

why the fuck is this called xcom? thats whats really pissing ppl off about it, its not fucken xcom, its something else, I dont recall xcom having black ink blobs you needed to kill or being set in the 50s, just call it something else and everyone will be ok with it

 

[SolarisII]

I too haven't played original x-com and will add it to my "to-play list". To be all honest this "re-imagined" version looks like Bioshock... on land ... with heartless.

 

[Bretty]

Am I the only one who thinks this game is looking cool?

I played all the XComs and hated them. Why anyone would be upset that they made this game good. As long as it doesn't turn into a re-skined Bioshock I will buy it.

 

[Slycne]

Fallout 3 wasn't really close to the originals, and apparently, so does the new XCOM.
However, the trailer actually looks very interesting. Count me in.

I don't think that's a very good comparison because Fallout 3 still maintains a lot of the same ideas as it's predecessors. This literally shares almost nothing in common with the prior XCom games.

I think I would actually be more interested in the game if it was simply titled something else.

 

[dough]

Ok, so as someone who has never heard of Xcom, was that trailer supposed to make any sense? So it's about evil alien blobs that infect people? Or disintergrate people? Or form miniture Halo rings? I'm confused. What were the previous games in the series about?

Parts of it did seem intended to draw in the old X-Com fans. Basically just the captions, really: find them, study them, etc etc.

In the original game, you had modern weaponry plus some near-future ones (eg lasers). The aliens were vastly superior to you in all aspects, so in the beginning you had to struggle to win each battle, after which you could take back the dead aliens and their technology for research. Successfully researching them allowed you to make use of the weapons and learn the aliens' weaknesses, and fight on the same level. It was (and still is) incredibly awesome.

The original had all sorts of aliens, and none of this oil blobby business.. or disintegration, or well... anything shown inbetween the captions.

 

[GrinningManiac]

I hate RPGS, and I never played (or heard of) the original

That game looks pretty sweet, though I can understand the frustration if you knew the original

 

[Irridium]

I don't care what they call it.
This is not an Xcom game.

 

[sneakypenguin]

That looked awesome to me, then again I never had a fondness for old games.