Zero Punctuation: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

[SweetShark]

Now I need to draw the alien types Yahtzee posted in this video, hehehehehe.

Also I am very glad to see him liked this game as I do ^^

 

[The Critic]

The one real complaint I have is that nations won't rejoin you again if you are doing well. It makes it pointless to keep playing after a couple of nations have left already, plus it's always possible to make a spectacular comeback. It would be great if countries leaving the project can get conquered and you can reconquer them. Might make the game more like Civilization though, which some don't want.

Actually, they just withdraw their support to focus on their own people. They don't get conquered.

I didn't say they did. But I think the game suggests they do - when a country withdraws its support you see a swarming tornado-like thing on the map over that country. I don't see why that would appear simply because of an administrative shift.

The swirling vortex thing, I'm pretty sure, is to show that they've gone so far as to deny you radar coverage over their country. At least, that's what I took it to mean.

 

[Ham Blitz]

Man, now waiting to get this game is going to be even harder. Every source I have heard from says it is awesome.
Also, on a side note, the face of the soldier around the 0:35 area was hilarious. I had to go back and watch that part of the review again.

 

[Setrus]

I kinda lost patience with it and kept save scumming individual turns, but maybe I was going about it the wrong way.

Ohhhh...don't do that, in fact, set it to "ironman", no need to amp the difficulty, just the fact that you can't save without immediately ending the game will make it so more tense and rewarding when you play. No backtracking, no quickloading, your soldier ran into a Muton elite on overwatch? Well sorry, he's goo now, live with it. :-D

It means you have to plan for contingiencies, bring in the odd rookie to train him up, plan your finances and buildings more carefully, because once you're commited there's no turning back.

Man, when I finished that game with a critical hit with the last character with action points left while in a bad position for another turn...I was so DAMN happy. :-D

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Wow,I'm really glad you like this one as much as I did Yahtzee.

The whole thing had me laughing in spades,especially the outro with "missing in Xcom" was brilliant.

 

[Storm Dragon]

That might have been his most glowing endorsement to date.

No, that award goes to Portal. He had no criticisms for that game whatsoever.

 

[Bindal]

That might have been his most glowing endorsement to date.

No, that award goes to Portal. He had no criticisms for that game whatsoever.

Well, except the fanbase.

 

[00slash00]

liar! theres no eggcom!

but yahtzee, seriously, whats with the spiders in all your videos now? i thought a sci-fi tactical shooter would be the one place id be safe

 

[UM536]

All hail the great and powerful yhatzee. I thought this game would get blown right under the rug becuase it is not first person, but this will teach me to never doubt again. I have been kinda depressed lately and this cheered me up alot.

 

[SweetShark]

Yep, I finally draw my fanart for this episode!!!
Here it is:

WARNING!!! THE ARTWORK IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK [NSFW]!! YOU HAD BEEN WARNED

Spoiler

[LINK]http://sweetshark.deviantart.com/#/d5js8hq[/LINK]

 

[Barciad]

Question, in the game, do the Nigerian politicians ever send you letters claiming that they have found large stashes of Alien technology and it only requires a small cash injection to help get them out?

 

[Shintsu2]

This is why I despise the gaming industry anymore. People are so used to game companies TOTALLY ruining a game when they remake it that they will lavish praise endless on a company that manages to not completely convert a game to something new and sucky. As someone who has played X-COM: UFO Defense (The old one) for probably 500+ hours minimum, I was disgusted with this game. Why?

Time Units. Gone. By relegating all tactics to simple one/two move steps and then turning everything into pre-generated battles with far less randomness than the previous this game is a far cry from the original. I was all ready to pre-order this game, then I played the demo. I will never buy this XCOM because I do not support the dumbing down of a great strategy game just to have mainstream appeal. For God's sake, 3/4ths of the people reviewing and talking about this game have never played the original UFO Defense - for these people it doesn't matter. For those of us who have played the better more in-depth game, it does.

Firaxis, you have dumbed down Civilization with Civ V and now you've dumbed down XCOM with Enemy Unknown. Please, stop ruining my favorite strategy series...EA already drove C&C into the ground so I'm starting to run out of titles...

 

[Shintsu2]

Double Post

 

[Bindal]

This is why I despise the gaming industry anymore. People are so used to game companies TOTALLY ruining a game when they remake it that they will lavish praise endless on a company that manages to not completely convert a game to something new and sucky. As someone who has played X-COM: UFO Defense (The old one) for probably 500+ hours minimum, I was disgusted with this game. Why?

Time Units. Gone. By relegating all tactics to simple one/two move steps and then turning everything into pre-generated battles with far less randomness than the previous this game is a far cry from the original. I was all ready to pre-order this game, then I played the demo. I will never buy this XCOM because I do not support the dumbing down of a great strategy game just to have mainstream appeal. For God's sake, 3/4ths of the people reviewing and talking about this game have never played the original UFO Defense - for these people it doesn't matter. For those of us who have played the better more in-depth game, it does.

Firaxis, you have dumbed down Civilization with Civ V and now you've dumbed down XCOM with Enemy Unknown. Please, stop ruining my favorite strategy series...EA already drove C&C into the ground so I'm starting to run out of titles...

Butthurt, much? Most people I saw, who played the original prefer the 2-point-system as it forces you to think more about what you do as you can't just go in, shoot and run away. You also can't just cheaply throw your troops at the enemy anymore because even a single dead Rookie can hurt your current squad quite a lot.
And removing a lot of the unneeded management of stuff that was just there for the sake of being there is also an improvement.
Stop wearing your pink nostalgia goggles and see that this game improves on the flaws the original had.

 

[Irumeru]

This is why I despise the gaming industry anymore. People are so used to game companies TOTALLY ruining a game when they remake it that they will lavish praise endless on a company that manages to not completely convert a game to something new and sucky. As someone who has played X-COM: UFO Defense (The old one) for probably 500+ hours minimum, I was disgusted with this game. Why?

Time Units. Gone. By relegating all tactics to simple one/two move steps and then turning everything into pre-generated battles with far less randomness than the previous this game is a far cry from the original. I was all ready to pre-order this game, then I played the demo. I will never buy this XCOM because I do not support the dumbing down of a great strategy game just to have mainstream appeal. For God's sake, 3/4ths of the people reviewing and talking about this game have never played the original UFO Defense - for these people it doesn't matter. For those of us who have played the better more in-depth game, it does.

Firaxis, you have dumbed down Civilization with Civ V and now you've dumbed down XCOM with Enemy Unknown. Please, stop ruining my favorite strategy series...EA already drove C&C into the ground so I'm starting to run out of titles...

As the 1/4 (probably more than that, but whatever) that you quoted above, I loved, LOVED the original UFO:Enemy Unknown, I even enjoyed TFTD despite its horrible bugs because it was more XCom. This is one of the most faithful remakes in basically every aspect that I've ever played. It's not dumbed down, it's different. As opposed to the strategy of "take one step out from a wall, miss twice, step back" with 5 different soldiers, it makes you think about different things like flanking and elevated positions. I'd ask you to give it a chance, but the odds are that you're so entrenched in your "I am right" superiority you'll ignore the fact that I am one of the people for whom "it does matter".

I'd just ask you what strategy you can use in the first you can't in the second? Besides suiciding rookies to open a small craft with 6 sectoids in it, of course.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Good to see just about everyone is talking about that whole worldwide single American accent thing

Oh, knock it off. No one ever complains when the entire casts of games are voiced by people with British accents, and there are a fucking ton of those.

 

[Squilookle]

Good to see just about everyone is talking about that whole worldwide single American accent thing

Oh, knock it off. No one ever complains when the entire casts of games are voiced by people with British accents, and there are a fucking ton of those.

Those games don't pretend to have a roster of characters from all over the globe. XCOM does.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Stop liking things I don't like!

So you prefer time units because it means you can do more stuff. That's cool. The two-move system means that you can't do as much, but that in turn means that you can't just kick open a door, see there's three sectoids in the room and run straight back out unscathed. Meat-shielding also takes the risk out of your actions - don't want to lose your colonel? Send in a rookie! You've got 20 more of 'em there, and you can even reuse them because they have enough TU left to run straight back out!

Between expendable 'wards', the ability to undo ill-considered moves without having to wait for the game to reload and the amount of stuff that's not even situational, as soon as you have some decent weapons and guys who can aim them, it stops being hard. Sure, you can still get dicked over by the dice, but it's still basically a Sunday picnic from then to Cydonia.

Civ 5 removed stacking so you can't just throw your whole army at the enemy in one go. Same thing - some people don't like the change, but if you can't even see why it was done, you've gone past the point of no return into blind fanboyism. Abandon all hope, ye who enter.

Captcha: hug me
Please don't, I'm worried it's contagious.

 

[MasterProcrastinator]

Yahtzee should review Kingdom hearts 3D after Assassin's Creed, I'm interested to see what his view on the series is.
'

I think Yahtzee should stop listening to requests of fans altogether, ignore what's in high demand, and instead just review games he wants to review, regardless of relevance or popularity. I really hope he doesn't review 'Assassin's Creed III', actually. Am I interested in what he thinks of it? Yeah. But, quite frankly, I'd rather hear an inspired analysis on an obscure title that he sought out himself. I want to hear Yahtzee talk about things he wants to talk about, rather than talk about all of these big AAA titles that keep getting shoved in his face, causing him to keep thinking up new ways of delivering the same criticisms, because big releases keep making the same bloody mistakes.
Half the time, the man's not interested. The reviews are still funny, and brilliantly-worded, but they lack the excitement present in his early reviews. That's why those older videos were so good, and it's also why 'Extra Punctuation' is so much more interesting, because he's not restricted and tied down, but is instead eager to present his opinions on a topic or title of his choice.

So yes, screw the demands of the rest of the gaming world. As far as I'm concerned, they should shove their requests back into whatever orifice they escaped from, and let Yahtzee review whatever the hell he wants to, because good writers thrive off of freedom, not boundaries or set topics. Besides, Yahtzee's always derived joy from pissing off his fanbase, and I can't think of any better way to do that (at this stage) than the outright denial of what they want.

 

[Bindal]

I really hope he doesn't review 'Assassin's Creed III', actually.

Considering that he likes (or used to like) the series, I would say it's more than likely that one of the next reviews is AC3.
After that... well, he might do Halo 4, but I highly doubt it, to be honest. He probably PLAYS it, but a review? Not really. Maybe some lines in Extra Punctuation...