People were bitching that the Xcom FPS appeared to be a Syndicate style reboot, the type that's Xcom in name only rather than a Fallout style change of perspective.PunkRex said:
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Apparently the two projects were running simultaneously for a couple of years with work on Enemy Unknown starting in 2008, two years before the FPS's less than stellar reveal.WanderingFool said:
I'm with you two on this. Metroid was basically a transition from a 2d platformer action game into a 3d platformer action game, and fallout went from a exploration based classic RPG into an exploration based action RPG. Yes, action RPG. It's pretty identical to oblivion mechanically and we don't call that an FPS.Mokuren said:
Turning a RTS into an FPS is pretty much jumping from one side of the genre spectrum to the other.
I want to say that mentioning Fallout 3 and Metroid Prime as examples of when it was pulled off exquisitely doesn't mean that any game can, that both of those could fairly easily be done from the first person perspective without changing what the game is and how XCOM doesn't have that kind of crutch, but I'm not going to, because I feel like that would just belabor the point that not every studio can pull that off, and that those that try and convert a non-FPS property to FPS just to get on the popular trend have missed the point of both FPSs and their non-FPS game. In not saying that, I'll also not say that Extra Credits had a discussion awhile back (forget which one specifically) where they talked about the other mechanics in a game, and why the other mechanics don't make us think of "FPS" when we think Fallout 3, and how we instead think "RPG in first person". It's things like that that I'm not going to mention.
Maybe they had no fruit of knowledge, no fig leaves, no reason to hide their shame. maybe they're a nudist planet (imagine that kind of Asari home world... nude blue starfish-headed women with engorged reproductive tendrils slithering about...). Tis a funny thing to worry about, since it's an alien invasion.
Edit (because I'm slow today):
I get what you mean about not everyone pulling it off, but a lot of series fans from the past felt the same way, and while what we got wasn't Fallout, it wasn't bad either. Also I feel this get's into the meat of your point, how the point of the games (their soul and flavor if you will) are lost. I can't say Fallout ever felt like a RPG to me, it simply lacked enough of the right elements to make it any better than a shooter with stat adjustments. Making their weapons less accurate and adding stats to improve their accuracy doesn't add to anything that makes it any more substantive as a role-player than Call of Duty.
I won't drag you into this sort of debate because I understand why you didn't seem to want to flesh out this part of the discussion, but I must disagree with you if you believe that Fallout didn't lose what it was when it went 3D. New Vegas can almost be construed as an admission they gutted too much from the series, and it did a poor job of restoring what was lost.
Sorta like that game that did the same thing and sold poorly.... what was it called... oh yeah...imperfect number said:
(I know it sold well, that's the joke).
Edit (because I'm slow today):
Metroid is an odd example, since the game was always action oriented and ultimately not really a shooter (as even the studio that developed it admitted around Prime's release). Like X-Com, Fallout was a turn-based game; they changed what the game is. For those of us that grew up playing the old Fallout titles what we got was a mangled and unrecognizable experience. I'm not saying it was bad, but I am saying it wasn't Fallout. To have simply titled it as a spinoff would have settled an awful lot of debates, but ultimately they changed the formula, the writing, the mechanics were annihilated, the core game play discarded, the game was only thematically Fallout.BehattedWanderer said:
I get what you mean about not everyone pulling it off, but a lot of series fans from the past felt the same way, and while what we got wasn't Fallout, it wasn't bad either. Also I feel this get's into the meat of your point, how the point of the games (their soul and flavor if you will) are lost. I can't say Fallout ever felt like a RPG to me, it simply lacked enough of the right elements to make it any better than a shooter with stat adjustments. Making their weapons less accurate and adding stats to improve their accuracy doesn't add to anything that makes it any more substantive as a role-player than Call of Duty.
I won't drag you into this sort of debate because I understand why you didn't seem to want to flesh out this part of the discussion, but I must disagree with you if you believe that Fallout didn't lose what it was when it went 3D. New Vegas can almost be construed as an admission they gutted too much from the series, and it did a poor job of restoring what was lost.
So, is the new XCOM gonna be FPS or not? And you guys keep bringing up the Syndicate reboot and its suckage, which I think was made just to compete with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which was a prequel that stuck to its series' format pretty well.
So why not make both? Since costs 1/3rd or so the other it should not be so hard to do and you can use the same assets/base/code,ect,ect. I like my shooters and RTS games but what I hate the most is easy over simplistic game designs.
Honestly the only reason I was upset was it felt like they were making an FPS instead of the thing folks kept asking for.imperfect number said:
Had they announced both I'd have been 100% gravy.
"Interesting a FPS AND the game I want! Cool!"
I honestly thought that the X-Com shooter looked terrible. Nice aesthetic but uninspired gameplay....the biggest mistake was having a protagonist, characters have to be disposable in an X-Com game because they WILL die. A protagonist ruins that because if they die it throws a failure state that requires a replay of a level rather than limping on undermanned, which to me is a key part of X-Com. All they needed to do was have a roster system similar to Rainbow Six and it could have been fine, but gamers need to have a white brown haired bland protaganist to follow or they get confused.
"I guess what worries me about the whole affair is that the fan "outcry" has actually done something."
Really now, that was an impressive fan cry. Because in an interview they said they had been working on the turn-based game since 2008.
Though I do like to think that the outcry hurt the FPS one.
Really now, that was an impressive fan cry. Because in an interview they said they had been working on the turn-based game since 2008.
Though I do like to think that the outcry hurt the FPS one.
Just to be clear. When people say the XCOM reboot NOW they typically mean the TBS game that comes out next week, which while opinions on it may be mixed there are clear connections to the original game.
The FPS XCOM pissed a lot of people of because A) fans had been asking for a TBS update for years, then we get an reboot that is an FPS which is totally different from what we had be asking and hoping for and B)There was no connection to the original beyond 'aliens invade'.
Now yes, the idea of a Alien Invasion FPS set in the 50s might be neat. But if you are going to call it X-COM, especially when fans had been asking for a faithful reboot for almost a decade, then you need to have at least some connection to the original game.
@ Endplanets, while fan anger at the FPS might not have gotten the turn-based game started, fans had been asking for turn-based reboot a decade.
The FPS XCOM pissed a lot of people of because A) fans had been asking for a TBS update for years, then we get an reboot that is an FPS which is totally different from what we had be asking and hoping for and B)There was no connection to the original beyond 'aliens invade'.
Now yes, the idea of a Alien Invasion FPS set in the 50s might be neat. But if you are going to call it X-COM, especially when fans had been asking for a faithful reboot for almost a decade, then you need to have at least some connection to the original game.
@ Endplanets, while fan anger at the FPS might not have gotten the turn-based game started, fans had been asking for turn-based reboot a decade.
Would it be too pedantic to point out that the naked sectoidd were clones and we were specifically told they had no space junk? Almost all the other alien races had clothes, or were robots.
Amen, man.NuclearShadow said:
Possibly there's also a change of playerbase. Look at Football Manager forums, full of complains of people who just lost a game. First it was supergoalie, rumour that was properly shot down by an user making proper tests, now it's all about prescripting "I lost and reloaded but lose again! The game had decided I had to lose that match AAARRRG!" (of course they'll never reload a game they won to find they win again and won because the game had decided so with nothing to do with their tactical acumen). In short, what you see is a lot of sore losers who don't play the game for a challenge, they just want the game to let them win and pat themselves in the back about how great genius they are.
I feel like the games nowadays have dropped their challenging quite a lot compared to the old days of eighties and nineties. It's the continuing almost from the point one fell (or in the point one fell) without consequences, it's the gameplay simplification that goes beyond just making understanding the controls easier or but actually making the tasks themselves easier. It's COD telling you where to go and leading you by the hand. There it not only gives you so much of the work done (finding the best route) but it also cuts you the tactical options. I only remember one map and one spot in another where you could be choosing, and then in the one sport it was limited to go around one block that didn't really helped to get around an ambush and didn't offer too much in terms of new angle of attack of enemy positions beyond "now you're not in the way of their main attention".
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Back now to the matter of X-COM, the demo did convince me to pre-order it, as it looks interesting enough to want to get this new take on the game. It does seem what I've been waiting for for many time.
The changes of gameplay make it to bring it something different enough to the tactical game that it makes it worth playing along the original X-COM, there's now accesses to rooftops that the soldiers can take without flying suits that allow some more meneouvers. Combat can be very interesting. I'm not sure about the in base works because the demo didn't allow to see that.
The soldier progression is something I don't know how to feel about. I suppose I need to see various level ups to see how it works. It may turn to be better or another way of progression with its own appeal and interest. The thought of it makes me think I'll prefer the old type of progression, but not necessarily a bad thing, just less appealing to me.
The one thing that's been kind of a disappointment is that in neither of the two missions I had to take the soldiers out of the Skyranger, they were out from the start. That was an interesting part of X-COM's combat and required care to perform. From the demo one would think at the start the soldiers are displayed in a safe zone, instead of having to find out if the Skyranger landed in one or not.
There's another point that may be a disappointment, though I expect it not to be. I think the most likely options are A) I missed it as I forgot to look for it during the demo play B) It's just not included in the demo as they wanted to show the battle and skipped it (maybe we'll find the Skyranger unload was also a part of the full game skipped in the demo?): equipping the soldiers and change equipment during the mission, with a pile of unassigned items in the Skyranger or point X. I'm afraid the unloading from Skyranger is not something removed for the demo as the Skyranger didn't seem walkable
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Sorry for double post. After 8 minutes with the page still on "waiting to send" tab animation and page stuck with the edit field there and post button grayed, I opened a new tab, loaded the last page and the post hadn't been posted. So I copied, closed tab, paste in new tab and send. Now there were the two posts, duh.
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Okay, apparently people still don't seem to get this, so let me write this in caps this time.
XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN HAS BEEN IN PRODUCTION FOR FOUR YEARS NOW!
FOUR YEARS! That's at least ONE YEAR before the XCOM FPS has been announced!
The fan outcry had NOTHING to do with why it was created! Jake Solomon and his desire to create this game, plus all the devs at Firaxis who have been working on it for all this time, are pretty much the only reason why it exists in its current form (not counting, of course, the Gollops being the inspiration from which it all originated).
In short STOP DELUDING YOURSELVES ABOUT HOW THE FANS MANAGE TO MAGICALLY MAKE A GAME APPEAR OUT OF THIN AIR WITH THEIR BITCHING.
Or keep on deluding yourselves regardless, if you want. It's fun to watch just how completely out of touch with reality this place is becoming.
Okay, apparently people still don't seem to get this, so let me write this in caps this time.
XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN HAS BEEN IN PRODUCTION FOR FOUR YEARS NOW!
FOUR YEARS! That's at least ONE YEAR before the XCOM FPS has been announced!
The fan outcry had NOTHING to do with why it was created! Jake Solomon and his desire to create this game, plus all the devs at Firaxis who have been working on it for all this time, are pretty much the only reason why it exists in its current form (not counting, of course, the Gollops being the inspiration from which it all originated).
In short STOP DELUDING YOURSELVES ABOUT HOW THE FANS MANAGE TO MAGICALLY MAKE A GAME APPEAR OUT OF THIN AIR WITH THEIR BITCHING.
Or keep on deluding yourselves regardless, if you want. It's fun to watch just how completely out of touch with reality this place is becoming.
Then again, is making the xcom-remake into a fps really a bold move in any way? If you look back the last couple of years and look at the ammount of fps-games vs isometric squad-based shooter games I think you would agree that making an xcom-remake that actually is true to the original is a much more bold move.