X-COM

[rattle]

I wonder what's so difficult about cloning the original X-COM on a modern engine without changing the gameplay or the colorful look.

Try UFO:AI.

Though i fear the new XCOM might finish that off.

Played UFO:AI for a while... still want a carbon copy :-P

[klapmongool]

2 - i love time units :D too bad it was bugged once the bar reached the end of the screen. (although this would only happen in extreme cases)

Google up the system ... your influence on the marines was very limited. Even when killing all aliens on a mission with just a single marine didn't increased its experience in a similar scale ...
Ah, you mean a different aspect of the time unit system. Again you refer to something being bugged.. Well. If you just play the game and kill some aliens, you get skill increase.. In my memory it did matter if you killed none or at least some aliens, that was good enough.

5 - long rounds, many soldiers = awesome.
6 - Those options give it the tactical depth that made the game so much fun. Much better than just moving a soldier 5 times and setting him to overwatch 10 times and then the game is over (the new xcom).

Too much is just too much. The rounds could have been twice as short w/o a problem (I basically I mean the ship & alien location ones). And you could have cut down like 1/3 of the actions.

yea... they did that in the new one. The map being so large allowed for sending out smaller squads in the search for aliens. In the remake it is just about walking in one direction and there they are, aliens.

7 & 8 - Strong aliens and grenades/rockets made it so important to get the tactics right. Without that the game wouldn't have half a much fun. By moving properly you could prevent these mass killings easily. By moving/guarding properly you could prevent most 1-shot deaths.

You couldn't prevent any of those, sometimes you had to rush all your marines out of the transporter in the first round, sometimes you needed to send out your drone first and investigate for ~4 rounds.
And 1-shot aliens couldn't been prevented in many cases either. Quicksaving might have been popular to that time, but it is a very bad gameplay design ...

Yea, rush out marines. take positions, and make sure you can respond to movement in the aliens' turn. And sure, sometimes you'd have to load a game.

You must love the new XCOM, they made it simple for you.

They likely improved the gamedesign in a lot of places and broke the gameplay in the a same amount in others (e.g. fixed missions).


edit:
And for sure it is ways better than the Syndicate & XCOM shooter games ...

[yuritch]

Many of those points were fixed in XCOM Apocalypse (I don't list obvious bugs like possibly broken research tree in TFTD):

- PSI was heavily nerfed (need LOS to work, uses controller's TU as well as target's) so it wasn't the absolute weapon anymore, but rather a usable option in right situations;

- one-shot kills were made very rare, weapons with that ability only appeared late in the game while rather strong armor was available right from the start

- 'kill at mission start' was prevented by the above and also the fact that your squad spawned divided into 2-4 groups separated so that nothing could affect all of them at once.

Too bad that game wasn't as popular as the first one (plus imo it was too easy as well, nothing like TFTD on superhuman).

[Licho]

In the new x-com hardest part is not losing support early on. Then after you make money for extra sats its piece of cake.

Missions themselves seem to be dragged out - you cannot skip slow animations and have to constantly tab between soldiers and finally overwatch all with remaining moves.

Missions arent very varied.
The environment is just two kinds - city and country basically and even terror missions arent as scary as in old xcom - civilians just stand there and when you touch them with soldier they are magically saved. No more running, panicking and screaming.
There are no base defense or attack missions (except 1 base attack as part of the story)

Most annoying part of game mechanics is the "discover to spawn" mechanism. Aliens dont move/take any action until you discover them with los.

This goes completely against common sense - instead of exploring aggressively you need to stay in tight group and only move forward when all known enemies were cleared out, because moving further spawns more (usually in groups of 2-3 as they are revealed).

I completed the game on classic difficulty, lost 2 soldiers in first 3 missions and then nothing.
If you increase difficulty you wont lose much more people, problem only becomes losing country support early on.
UFO interception plays minimal role - 8 intercepts whole game (and i had full sat coverage since mid game).

[rattle]

Played the game for 2 hours today, it's alright but nothing really special. Pretty much what Licho said, after losing all four people on impossible in the first mission I switched to easy-peasy and I'm losing country support due to lack of sats.

All that excavating for the added bonuses etc. drags the game on for a bit. I don't seem to be getting any missions for scientists, have ~25 engineers but no bloody scientists and am lacking in research a little.

I find it annoying that the aliens always scramble when you discover their spawning locations. On the next turn they bunch up and you can level up a rookie with a single grenade. I'll play it some more the next days.

[Pxtl]

To be fair, the original game had a completely ass-backwards difficulty curve where the game got way easier once you started unlocking plasma weaponry. I could see how they'd want to bolt on some tutorial content before entering proper "classic" X-Com play.

[rattle]

Not in the demo, man, not in the demo... I remember when demos offered you a day full of actual gameplay instead of an hour or less.

[smoth]

not all demos were like that.

[Pxtl]

I can't be the only one that was disappointed that there was no single mission in full X-COM that actually worked like that horrific demo where you're facing down the full menagerie of aliens at a terror site.

[Beherith]

I finished the game, and it was definitely worth it. Sure, there are many nits to pick on the game, but it was well worth the ~20 hours (on easy). The missions are much more varied, and way more compact.

[BaNa]

I am fairly progressed in the game now (killed my first ufo base), still def. liking it, only gripe I have is that ufos are much more rare than in the old game, I dunno if this will pick up or not, we will see.

oh and you cannot sell shit you make, but sometimes peeps request some random shit and pay you a lot for it so that balances out i guess

[rattle]

so... I followed a specific strategy. Begun a new game on classic, I did money missions and rushed asia with sats for engineers, then grabbed africa for the money and kept building sats and uplinks. Researched Carapace Armor straight up followed by plasma weapons and some autopsies to speed plasma/armor research up. Now I've got all countries fully saturated with sats and the game has become very easy and also highly repetitive. Duh... really prefer the old level up system

[BaNa]

you met the walking death droid?

I wouldnt call that shit easy

Im decked out in full titan and archangel armor and still gotta savescum

[dimm]

To be fair, the original game had a completely ass-backwards difficulty curve where the game got way easier once you started unlocking plasma weaponry. I could see how they'd want to bolt on some tutorial content before entering proper "classic" X-Com play.

Maybe this was intentional. Difficult beginning making the game seem very very challenging makes the success all the more thrilling. See Rogue-likes for other games with early difficulty as fun. Rpgs that only show the player that the player's build sucks late in the game are the opposite.

[rattle]

If I fuck up and lose the team I just reload.. the first sectopod I faced died to two sniper crits. Any of you found a use for heavy guys? I find them useless... grenades are useless, heavy plasma doesn't hit shit, rocket launcher is very situational. I've got an offensive and defensive assault, medic and defensive support and two snap shot in the zone snipers. And they don't level their stats up past major this shit is sooooo boring really. This is what I liked about the original X-COM.

I've looted the first alien base and get the pisonic stuff now and have faced a second Sectopod in a terror mission... it does do some hideous damage but dies very fast none the less. Really as long as you play careful, leave some guys on overwatch or suppress frequently so that melees don't rush you and get your snipers on roof tops or the in the air, this game is dirt easy, even on classic. Impossible wasn't any fun in the beginning.

Team sight zone snipers can wipe entire floors I've heard but eh I prefer snap shots because I can use them up front too.

[BaNa]

I used rocket launchers to great avail before i got plasma weaponry

they are still good to destroy the cover for 4-5 ppl

[BaNa]

also: i had graphical issues with the game after 10-20 mins of gameplay, so i installed msi afterburner

temp was at 105 C

>_>
<_<

I underclocked, issues went away

temp still at 105 C

In the end I took the pc apart and vacuumed that bitch

temp at 70 C under load

Moral of the story is: Vacuum ur videocard cooler bro!

[rattle]

does the game crash for you too when you use an ability that has a hit sphere after quicksaving? I ususally get a GPU side system crash after that... silly issue that 9800 GTs apparently have on recent drivers

edit: okay heavies with HEAT are useful after all... their missiles deal 12 damage against the sectopods, so two heavies and an offensive assault can take them out in a single turn

[BaNa]

Well I finished it off on classic

Tried impossible with ironman

Died so fast it was silly

Now Im looking into the modding going on

Its very very promising, Im def. checking out the second wave stuff (things like flanking guaranteeing a crit or more random starting soldier stats are pretty cool)

I want more ufos.

edit:
yeah heat is a must have for heavies, they can 1shot cyberdisks with the heavy plasma if they have it

my way way fave lategame build was chitin plated assault troops with alloy guns just running the fuck in and doubleshotting everything

[rattle]

With the run & gun crit perk you can one shot these heavy mutons too. How about four double shot assaults and two medics? I mean snipers are good, especially against a squad of reckless melees that stand in the open but their damage isn't really beyond the alloy cannon. I quite like the battle scanner to see whats up though. Tough choices. Somehow I really dislike the fly suit, that grapple hook seems to be more useful in the long run.

I dunno why but I've had more fun with the 17 year old TFTD, despite all the bugs it had.