Welcome Back Commander: XCOM 2 Invades Your PC In November

Qizx

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Feb 21, 2011
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Oh my god that tingle of joy, this is the most hype I've been for a game since I was a little kid.

http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/2014-09/22/18/enhanced/webdr05/anigif_enhanced-5646-1411426350-9.gif

(No idea how to add gifs in a post)
 

jabrwock

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Bindal said:
Just one question: How did we LOSE the war in the first game when we basically wiped out the entire leadership and main-base of operation and the only mayor outpost the aliens had? I suspect there is another, unseen conflict in that 20-year-gap we didn't see (after all, the Ethereal did hint at 'another group' when you finished the game - so I currently suspect those are the guys we lost to in those 20 years)
They are introducing an impossible Ironman game mode. Basically you fight the good fight, but in the end it isn't enough. From IGN's article: [blockquote]Surprise: You didn't beat the aliens ? they steamrolled you.

Solomon painted an alternate version of how the war unfolded: "When the aliens showed up, XCOM suffered massive casualties, and governments around the world crumbled in face of popular support to surrender. Then, the Earth was quickly overrun. And so, 20 years into the future, the world is a very different place. The aliens rule Earth from giant shining megacities where all the people of Earth are flocking; that's where they're promised an easy life, a secure life free of disease."[/blockquote]

Which is too bad, I was hoping maybe the "prepare you for what comes after" the Ethereals were trying to do would come into play. Afterall, if we beat them, then we never finished the training to deal with "what comes after". But I suppose it allows them to reuse the familiar aliens, while adding new ones.

One interesting feature from the IGN article. Less customization for Rookies. Things like customizable hair (head and facial), etc will come after the trooper has been with your organization for a while. So you get Johnny cookie cutter out of the gate (minor variations will be auto-generated), but then as he/she gains experience they develop more of an individual personality.

I also like how the tables are turned. We're the ones doing the ambushing, not the aliens.
 

Elfgore

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I enjoyed the time I spent playing X-Com:EU/EW, never actually got around to beating it though. This may have just giving me the boot I need. Get hyped!
 

Aeshi

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onard said:
But back in my day playing X-com...
-You could deploy 12 soldiers at game start instead of 6 tops end-game.
-You could move after shooting.
-Heck, you could move-shoot-move!
-Anyone could equip any weapon and you had more weapon and item variety.
-You could have multiple bases and multiple transports.
-You could actually fly instead of glorified jumps.
-Etc, Etc. And we liked it!

Alas this new generation wants everything easy peasy and streamlined, so I can't blame the producers for simplifying stuff.
I'm willing to take that streamlining if it means I don't have to manually stock up every single soldier with ammo clips or that I never have to see one of my jets can't take off to kill a UFO because I missed one while I was manually refilling each ones fuel tank :p
 

onard

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Alien Captain: Prepare to send the new attack on Earth!
Ethereal: No, abort those orders!
Alien Captan: Eeerr, why?
Ethereal: The humies are still refueling their aircraft in their single base. It wouldn't be fair to attack them now.
Alien Captain: Oh, my bad. Say, while we wait we can discuss the plans for the city gardens and free public health care we intend to implement after we get the humie governments in our sides.
Ethereal: As long as we give the violence-seeking humies shiny targets for them to blow up, they'll never see our diplomacy victory coming, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Indeed, new X-com aliens are pretty nice dudes when all's said and done.
 

cojo965

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MCerberus said:
Paragon Fury said:
Wait, so we lost EU/EW?

I'm pretty sure we steamrolled their asses. Unless they came back...
We beat the Ethereals, not what the Ethereals were running from.

edit- to clarify, the invasion was seeking to weaponize humanity to win the war the Ethereals were losing. We... may have goofed by not being a bit more diplomatic at the end.
HEY, they attacked first, I think we were well within rights to fuck them up in retaliation.
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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elvor0 said:
EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.
They're not using the same game engine. New engine means new requirements. The consoles are struggling to do 1080 @60/fps, in some cases, struggling to do 720 @30/fps. They just don't have the power for modern gaming.
 

WhateverDude

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I am beyond excited for this game, but I am concerned that my pc won't be able to run it since I got the original on my PS3. If the requirements aren't that different than the original, them my pc should be able to run it on like the lowest settings. Have my fingers crossed.
 

Vault101

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Sep 26, 2010
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EternallyBored said:
It's not so much handwaving as it is finding out what you did just wasn't good enough, if they go the route of following the temple ship destruction, there's nothing in the original game to indicate that the aliens losing the temple ship would totally defeat them. Depends on where they go with it I guess.

.
Broderick said:
As far as I know, it can still be in the canon of the game that we won the battle.
yeah I assumed that given the vauge allusions to "something coming" in fact I expected a sequel

I might have jumped the gun a bit there...but depending on the set up and who the enemies are (human or otherwise) I just find it incredibly lame if they were to "rebrand" XCOM as some rag tag group of cool misfits fighting against "THE GUV-MINT" rather than...y'know a secret hi tech defense project, in games it just comes across as a lame way to garner sympathy from the player

Squilookle said:
Just give us some variety in the nationality's accents, and I'm sold.
the expansion actually gave us entirely different languages which was nice
 

Terminal Blue

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Vault101 said:
I might have jumped the gun a bit there...but depending on the set up and who the enemies are (human or otherwise) I just find it incredibly lame if they were to "rebrand" XCOM as some rag tag group of cool misfits fighting against "THE GUV-MINT" rather than...y'know a secret hi tech defense project, in games it just comes across as a lame way to garner sympathy from the player
Apocalypse was set up so it was actually rather difficult to completely avoid alien infiltration (there were tactics which made it easier, but even so on higher difficulties people would get brainsucked ludicrously fast). Often by the end large sections of the human society would be under alien control and you would be a rag tag group of cool misfits fighting against them. As you went through the game, an increasing proportion of your money would often come from raiding and artefact recovery rather than your government funding, which would dry out as infiltrated organizations pulled out. So yeah, while X-Com has never started a game as a resistance group, it was sometimes very easy to become one.

Also, are people really that upset about the implication that EU was a "canonical" lose. This 'aint no Mass Effect, son.
 
Sep 14, 2009
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Zhukov said:
Cool.

I just hope they find a way to even out the influence of dice rolls. Got really tired of having games go pear-shaped because I arbitrarily miss four 80% shots in a row.
the problem I seemed to have was, there would always be that ONE fucker who flanked fucking hard, and it seemed like he/she was ALWAYS the one that was nigh invincible that turn, regardless of how many times I save scummed and had different people move to different spots and take different shots, and due to this, the next turn he'd just go to fucking town on someone and there would go fuck all strategy for that part of the mission.

OT: surprisingly being a mod lover and all, I haven't tried long war yet, might just have to give that a go before this comes out..

will need to see some gameplay though before I get too hyped, as long as it's like the previous one (just more depth perhaps) then I will be looking at a first week purchase.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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well thats some good news. looks like Autumn of 2015 is turning into good release time instead of last years dissapointment.

Grouchy Imp said:
According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.
VGChartz is very unrealiable when it comes to PC data due to it only accounting for physical retailers and PC is mostly (some sources claim even as much as 93%) digital. So PC sales is heavily underrated on that website. For example there are AAA games that have more people online at once on steam than total sales according to that site.

008Zulu said:
The PS4 and Xbone are already showing their age. It is unlikely that they would be able to run the games, not without a massive hit in graphics and/or reduced gameplay.
To be fair, in this particular case, the game is unlikely to be very demanding considering the specs.
 

EternallyBored

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Jun 17, 2013
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008Zulu said:
elvor0 said:
EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.
They're not using the same game engine. New engine means new requirements. The consoles are struggling to do 1080 @60/fps, in some cases, struggling to do 720 @30/fps. They just don't have the power for modern gaming.
Are you serious with this? XCOM 2 is not going to have such a drastic graphics upgrade that it wouldn't be able to run on the PS4 and Xbox One, maybe enough of an upgrade that it wouldn't run on the 360 and PS3, but Firaxis just doesn't make super graphically intense games.

They have shown zero experience or desire to start making games that would require more power than what the current gen consoles could supply.

The reason this game is likely going to end up PC only is due to sales numbers on console projections not being worth porting. I seriously doubt that there is some incredible graphics engine Firaxis is going to pull out of its ass to make this game.
 

Kathinka

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Grouchy Imp said:
Kathinka said:
Grouchy Imp said:
elvor0 said:
008Zulu said:
Xsjadoblayde said:
Hey, what's with shunning the console crowd from this game? I loved EU and EW. Don't make me come out of my filthy peasant hut to shout angrily at the pidgeons due to your betrayal.
The PS4 and Xbone are already showing their age. It is unlikely that they would be able to run the games, not without a massive hit in graphics and/or reduced gameplay.
EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.
According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.
Perhaps (hopefully?) new mechanisms and gameplay complexity additions make it impossible to control with four buttons and a thumb stick.
Please - twelve buttons and two thumbsticks, we aren't Neanderthals. :)

The only 'advance' I can think of that would make relatively unwieldy controller issues a concern would be in real-time play, and I hope to hell Firaxis haven't gone down that route.
Oh god, I hope so too. But I don't think that's it. I was thinking more in lines of features that were in the original X-Coms and got dropped for console-ease-of-use. Detailed inventory system, base placement, fire at positions, that type of deal.


gmaverick019 said:
Zhukov said:
Cool.

I just hope they find a way to even out the influence of dice rolls. Got really tired of having games go pear-shaped because I arbitrarily miss four 80% shots in a row.
the problem I seemed to have was, there would always be that ONE fucker who flanked fucking hard, and it seemed like he/she was ALWAYS the one that was nigh invincible that turn, regardless of how many times I save scummed and had different people move to different spots and take different shots, and due to this, the next turn he'd just go to fucking town on someone and there would go fuck all strategy for that part of the mission.

OT: surprisingly being a mod lover and all, I haven't tried long war yet, might just have to give that a go before this comes out..

will need to see some gameplay though before I get too hyped, as long as it's like the previous one (just more depth perhaps) then I will be looking at a first week purchase.
Hehe, the fun thing about X-Com was that it very effectively broke save scumming. The random numbers weren't generated the moment you took the shot. Instead, there was a bunch of rolls made when you started the battle, and the results were entered into a list. This list would then be used top to bottom for each random chance action. If you loaded a save game, the list (and what rolls were next) was reloaded as well. So no matter how often you reload a save to retry that 80% shot, it would re-use the same list entry next in line, and the result would always be the same.

Also real men play ironman anyway!
 

Fdzzaigl

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Mar 31, 2010
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You can still "savescum" in XCOM, you simply have to take a different action to provoke a different result. It's an effective way of learning from your mistakes and seeing what works better.
 

cathou

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Apr 6, 2009
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Fdzzaigl said:
You can still "savescum" in XCOM, you simply have to take a different action to provoke a different result. It's an effective way of learning from your mistakes and seeing what works better.
or better yet, just activate the second wave option that reroll the dices each time you load your game ?
 

elvor0

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008Zulu said:
elvor0 said:
EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.
They're not using the same game engine. New engine means new requirements. The consoles are struggling to do 1080 @60/fps, in some cases, struggling to do 720 @30/fps. They just don't have the power for modern gaming.
So what if they're not using the same engine? It's still just XCOM 2, a turn based game. Even with upgraded graphics, processing power is minmal, the maps aren't that big and Firaxis have /never/ been one for graphical intensity, I don't know how weak you think the new consoles are, but they're certainly powerful enough to handle XCOM.

If they can handle a slightly downgraded version of Witcher 3, they can handle XCOM 2. No, of course it's not going to be as good as the PC version, but at the end of the day, it's just XCOM, not frikking Star Citizen. XCOM 2 isn't pushing graphical boundries, it's sitting on a beach chair with a martini. If anything, the requirements will be fully last gen, seeing as one of the the minimum system requirements for XCOM EU, was a card SIX years old and the other was a frikkin 2ghz dual core. Are you being obtuse jut for the sake of it? You're not making the consoles look bad, or the PC look good, just yourself to be ignorant.
 

Machocruz

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Sorry to the console XCom bros. Unfortunately you are a small(ish)conclave of elite gentlemen among a sea of peasants who are only drawn to flashing lights and buttons of mashing; you are sophisticated mavericks in a generation of Go Fast.
 

Dalisclock

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onard said:
I really want to like the new X-coms because I just love turn-based strategy games.

But back in my day playing X-com...
-You could deploy 12 soldiers at game start instead of 6 tops end-game.
-You could move after shooting.
-Heck, you could move-shoot-move!
-Anyone could equip any weapon and you had more weapon and item variety.
-You could have multiple bases and multiple transports.
-You could actually fly instead of glorified jumps.
-Etc, Etc. And we liked it!

Alas this new generation wants everything easy peasy and streamlined, so I can't blame the producers for simplifying stuff.
.
I played and finished the original way back in the day, but prefer the remake. Among other things, not nearly as much wanting to murder my squaddies because NONE OF THEM CAN HIT THE BROAD SIDE OF A BARN, OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I know the new one does this as well but it doesn't feel nearly as annoying.

Terror from the Deep. Played the demo....and decided I was good. Seemed far too frustrating to even bother.

One thing I did really miss in the new game was my favorite money making tactic of all time. As soon as I developed laser weapons, mass produce them and sell so many that I never had to worry about funding again. Then again, considering how difficult the original was, I imagine that was a bone thrown to help make the game bearable.
 

blackrave

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A mixture of Xcom:EU and UFO:Aftershock?
Yes please.

I wonder if urban ninja build will be as powerful as in Aftershock
(for those unaware- high level Ranger with katana could run like pissed cheetah and kill like starving bear- 0.1sec for one lethal swing)
Urban ninjas were the frontline, snipers barely had any job >:D

Also I hope that proper dev tools will be released.
Just imagine what Long War team could do with access to those.