XCom Shooter is Alive and Kicking

lancar

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Aug 11, 2009
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I should probably go on a tirade about the xcom shooter representing yet another step in rampant homoginization in the gaming industry, but...

y'know what?

I got my strategy game, so I'm happy and not really bothered by the shooters existance anymore. Let it release, and I might even try it if people say its good. I wish they'd add a suffix to the name though instead of just calling it XCOM.
 

StashAugustine

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Jan 21, 2012
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Now that we've got Enemy Unknown, I'm fine with this. Won't get it unless it has similar research/squad management mechanics, just shooter instead of strategy.
 

Do4600

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Oct 16, 2007
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X-Com has been adequately vindicated in my eyes. The Firaxis remake, while falling a small step short of my expectations, has again proven that the X-com game formula is positively luminous even after 18 years. I believe that Firaxis will make a sequel to it and the X-com series will continue for a while.

However, I really think this game could have potential based on what I've seen.

I hope that now that the Firaxis game is released and successful, they will feel free to take chances because they don't have to address the heavy "canon" of the original series.

What I think this game should be is a spin-off that shows a previous alien incursion having nothing to do with the rerelease or the originals except perhaps have a nod after the credits as to why the next force that opposes alien incursion is called X-com.

I want this game to be like Dark Souls meets Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth meets L.A. Noire, I want them to keep their promises and more that the player may need to get in their car and run away because all of a sudden something appears that's all together terrifying and begins eating whole houses and causing aneurysms in everybody that gets a good look at it. I want the agents to carry 1911s and shotguns but actually have no idea whether they will actually harm the things they are trying to investigate, at least not at first.

There should be times in this game where you are called into situations that are altogether inexplicably creepy, violent, intimidating and the only reasonable explanation is that it must somehow correlate to the alien invaders. There should be times, for instance, that you are called to investigate because somebody found their neighbor's door open in the middle of night, all their lights on, all of the plumbing in the house has vanished without a trace, the windows in the front of the house have somehow melted completely without damaging the frames and the entire family is missing except for a small pool of blood and a what "appears" to be part of a splintered femur that has penetrated eight inches into the engine block of the family car which is now standing straight up and partly fused into the concrete patio in back of the house, that's when you begin to hear the thumping.

That would be a game I would very much be interested in playing, one that represents the inexplicable terror of confrontation with alien beings that don't seem to follow any rules at all, physical or otherwise at least not at first. Eventually we may learn that there is an alien composed of microbes that accustically evaporates the metal in the plumbing and metabolizes it for energy but it travels using the sewer system and bounces off the walls with such force and with such a rate that you can hear it from 20 feet above ground, but the first time you encounter it you are overwhelmed by the unknown to such an extent that you feel you must evacuate or lose your agents. You should feel intense danger, it should feel like an extreme gamble when you see something you can't explain, because more often than not, it will kill you if you wait another 30 seconds.
 

Scorpid

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Jul 24, 2011
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I'm kind of excited for this game. After the success of enemy unknown 2k isn't trying to revive a dead franchise so they don't have to listen financial analysts that always say "play it safe". Plus it's not SpunkGargleWeeWee game so you know that's always a bonus these days if you're a shooter fan. Xcom fans are being far too harsh on a game for a early build trailer of a game of their precious series. The second canon becomes absolutely sacred and formula followed strictly, that's the path to stagnation. Storytellers and developers need the right do their business and make an interesting game. Judge it in absolutes once the game is released.
 

Kreett

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Nov 20, 2009
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The Xcom shooter is poking it's head back out? I guess TakeTwo are doing take two
 

MetalMagpie

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Jun 13, 2011
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Personally, I thought the distinctive thing about XCOM as a franchise was the gameplay. The actual world is fairly thin and generic. So I don't see how it will enhance a shooter in any way.
 

Anathrax

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I've loved Enemy Unknown so much I went back and tried the original and loved it despite it's age. I'm looking foward to this but not that much of high expectations. Who knowns, maybe 2k Marin will do this one justice. But until that happens: THIS WILL SUCK THIS WILL SUCK THIS WILL SUCK THIS WILL SUCK
 

CrystalShadow

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Apr 11, 2009
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trty00 said:
Draconalis said:
trty00 said:
Oh wait, I forgot, any game in a franchise that doesn't follow the exact same formula time and time again is instantly god-awful! How silly of me!
To be fair, fans of a given series are fans because they like what a series offers. If you change the things they like into things they might not like, how are the fans supposed to react?

Fans of this series were fans of an entirely different genre than a FPS, and with so many FPSs saturating the market, I wager seeing their TBS turned into another FPS wasn't pleasant news. Besides, people who like TBSs tend to play differently than people who like FPSs. That's not to say there is no cross over, but the genres require different play styles.

It's like turning Tetris into a space fighter game. The fans of Tetris wanted to enjoy a puzzle game, not a space fighter.

The game may not suck... but it's not what the fans want.
This might sound harsh, but... too bad. Seriously, how are we going to get anywhere if we spend all our time curtailing to EXACTLY what fans want?
And this may sound equally harsh, but if you want to create something that has so little in common with what made a series popular, why not make something completely unrelated?

Or put differently, why tack a completely different game with little in common to anything else in the series onto an existing franchise?
 

Kahani

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May 25, 2011
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Good. I thought it looked like a reasonably interesting shooter. Now that Enemy Unknown is out and letting everyone get their turn-based XCOM fix, maybe people can stop all the whining about how terrible it is that someone dared not pander to their nostalgia and just not play it if they really don't want to.

*Looks up thread*
Ah well, I can dream.
 
Oct 22, 2011
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Since we've received a proper X-COM sequel(remake? reboot?) i'd say: Hell, why not? Maybe it'll come out better than the Syndicate reboot.
 

SonOfVoorhees

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Aug 3, 2011
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Thing is, if you love xcom, dont play it. Dont buy it. Go play your strategic xcom game that they released last year. Why are people still moaning? Its a different setting, different aliens and tech - its a whole different entity and not the original xcom stuck into a nice fps coating. I think the real issue was the name......they should have called it something else. So until we actually know more about this game, the strategy choices, how you build your bases, team mates and weapons. It could be surprisingly indepth for all we know, something original xcom players love.

I guess, what i hope it. The remake strategic xcom will get sequels, like Terror from the Deep. Would love an xcom game where you protect both land and sea.....or even branch out to the moon? Who knows. Also i if the fps game is good, then that could have some good sequels and go in its own direction and add new things like dimensional travelling or travelling to other planets to get more info and tech etc.
 

Draconalis

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Sep 11, 2008
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trty00 said:
As I already said, this new game does not negate the existence of previous titles, if this new iteration makes them that enraged, then they can completely ignore it and go play the previous titles.

Look, I'm trying my best not to sound like some artsy-fartsy dope, but all I can say is that video games are an artistic medium and they need to be given room to grow. Fan service is nice, but you can't really progress if that's all you want to focus on. If you want to be like Nintendo and just feed nostalgia, go right ahead, but don't expect me to consider your games truly interesting by any stretch.
This has nothing to do with Nostalgia. When a person buys a sequel to a game, what they want is the same experience, made streamlined, and maybe new features. They don't want a completely different experience. If they did... they'd buy a different game.

And yes, existing fans can ignore this game... but that means that it's not going to sell well... and every game that fails, hurts the consumers of this industry in some way.

Bindal said:
So, just because developers want to try something different with a franchise, they are not allowed to do it because of the fans of the main-installments? If it's a spin-off, who cares if they like the new style or not?
Besides, there are quite a few examples of games, where changing the genre wasn't a bad thing.
Resident Evil: Main-Installments went from the puzzle-solving fixed-angle survival horror to a TPS with "Resident Evil 4" - nobody complained after they played it. And some of the spin-offs (the two Chronicals, the two Outbreaks) also were - for not being exactly the same as previous installments in terms of genre - not shunned away from the fans either.
Or Castlevania:
Went from a linear (or mostly linear) 2D-Platformer to a MetroidVania game and never looked back ever since...
Metroid: The Prime-Trilogy went from 2D-MetroidVania to a more FPS-styled gameplay. Once again, people loved it.

And I treat this game the same: It is a spin-off for me, so let them try something different with it. It can be good and maybe makes people, who were not interested in the franchise now interested in it...
It's not being sold as a spin-off, it's being sold as a prequel.

Also, as to your examples... Revident Evil... from a third person shooter with puzzle elements to... a third person shooter with less puzzle elements, but the camera follows you now.

Metroid, a side scrolling shooter to a first person shooter

And I have never seen seen gameplay footage of the new Castlevania games so I have no idea what they look like... but I'd suspect, like your previous examples, it's more of a nature evolution of what the players already wanted made streamline.


Granted, it's much less of an issue since EU was announced and released, but if a series isn't providing what the fans came to the series for, then it's not going to do well, and in the case of this particular game... It has nothing to do with X-com gameplay or Lore, as many people have said before, they should have just called it something else.
 

Scars Unseen

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May 7, 2009
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You know what? I'm okay with this. The big hullabaloo about the XCom shooter was that it would destroy the franchise by changing its genre going forward. That obviously has not happened. X-Com: Enemy Unknown is a thing. We have our tactical game; it's even turn based. And you know what? People fucking loved it. There is nothing left to prove, and X-Com as a franchise is alive and kicking.

This won't harm the series any more than Mech Assault destroyed Mechwarrior.
 

tysonn101

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Mar 10, 2012
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i think its gonna be class, i never played the original x-com but i got enemy unknown recently and loved it, being able to explore more of the franchise would be awesome, i guess its just like halo doing Halo:wars but in reverse!
 

Namehere

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May 6, 2012
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trty00 said:
Draconalis said:
trty00 said:
This might sound harsh, but... too bad. Seriously, how are we going to get anywhere if we spend all our time curtailing to EXACTLY what fans want?
How are we going to get anywhere when you have to rebuild your fan-base from scratch because you pissed off the existing fan-base?
As I already said, this new game does not negate the existence of previous titles, if this new iteration makes them that enraged, then they can completely ignore it and go play the previous titles.

Look, I'm trying my best not to sound like some artsy-fartsy dope, but all I can say is that video games are an artistic medium and they need to be given room to grow. Fan service is nice, but you can't really progress if that's all you want to focus on. If you want to be like Nintendo and just feed nostalgia, go right ahead, but don't expect me to consider your games truly interesting by any stretch.
BULLSHIT! Sorry, sorry, something stuck in my throat there...

Maybe when you design video games they're an 'artistic medium'. But there is a fundamental difference between a picture and a picture that is 'art'. These differences are well recognized by professionals called 'commercial artists' whose techniques are vastly different from their 'artsy' counter parts, even though their tools are similar.

X-Com was a pioneering video game series when it was first released, accordingly we like to think of it as art for some reason. Let us not forget that for pioneering that field it made a fair sum of money. And now its back and trying to make more. It created something we call: 'a market.' This is not a Picasso or a Rembrandt, this is a product.

If you wish to make artsy things, go wild. But this ain't one of them. And much as fans of Star Trek lamented every new step taken by Rick Berman, which time and sanity have revealed to have been poor steps to say the least, it is fair that someone should fear the safety of their beloved franchise when it branches off in some weird direction. For something more modern, take Star Gate. The original series was great to its fans. Atlantis went kind of down hill for some reason and then there was Universe, which lasted for all of half a season. There is now no more Star Gate. The money that might have been invested in movies for Atlantis and another one for the original series, was dumped into a failed expansion into the franchise, and now its all but mortally wounded. There are no future releases of any sort planed. End of story, quite literally.

In this instance I don't see X-Com taking a major risk. The fan base their seeking out is so removed from the current one any failures of the shooter to deliver won't be seen as a failure to deliver on the core game, so it shouldn't hurt the core game's development too badly. If it does work out great, another FPS.

To summarize; Art is art, its out there. But commercial art comes with commercial risk. And people fascinated by whatever aspect of X-Com have valid concerns, even if they are somewhat overstated most likely.
 

Denamic

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Aug 19, 2009
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trty00 said:
Draconalis said:
trty00 said:
Oh wait, I forgot, any game in a franchise that doesn't follow the exact same formula time and time again is instantly god-awful! How silly of me!
To be fair, fans of a given series are fans because they like what a series offers. If you change the things they like into things they might not like, how are the fans supposed to react?

Fans of this series were fans of an entirely different genre than a FPS, and with so many FPSs saturating the market, I wager seeing their TBS turned into another FPS wasn't pleasant news. Besides, people who like TBSs tend to play differently than people who like FPSs. That's not to say there is no cross over, but the genres require different play styles.

It's like turning Tetris into a space fighter game. The fans of Tetris wanted to enjoy a puzzle game, not a space fighter.

The game may not suck... but it's not what the fans want.
This might sound harsh, but... too bad. Seriously, how are we going to get anywhere if we spend all our time curtailing to EXACTLY what fans want?
Then why even use the XCOM name in the first place? Fans of XCOM games want what made them like XCOM in the first place. Even if the game's good, it's not what XCOM fans wanted. And catering to fans are EXACTLY what franchises are about. That's why franchises even exist in the first place. Without fans that want more of that shit, they'd just be one-off titles.
 

Doclector

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Aug 22, 2009
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Good, I liked the idea.

Also, I have a confession.

I never played the original XCOM. So when it was announced, I had no idea what the fans felt they had been cheated out of. I was really excited for it, couldn't understand the vitriol.

I played Enemy unknown though, and loved it. However, it didn't change my attitude towards the shooter, I guess because I hadn't been waiting AGES for enemy unknown only to be told it was going to be something completely different from what I wanted.