Get the guns. (X-COMplaint thread)

[SwiftSpear]

Actually, I think SWAT4/Rainbow Six style tactical squad combat FPS coupled with X-Com style base management, research etc. might work.

I disagree - the characters in Rainbow 6 were fare less expendable than your X-com soldiers, and in smaller numbers. Managing a large team where you're going to be losing a lot of guys would be damned hard as an FPS. Plus, inaccuracy was a major gameplay element in X-com (to the point of being kind of ludicrous) and that element would be completely lost in FPS-form.

The only way I'd want to see this as an FPS would be to theme it as commanding like Gorman from Aliens - you can't directly control your troops, you just have head-cams for all of them, and a bank of screens. It would make the game quite a horror.

The tactical combat can be different than it was in the original Xcom... The expend-ability of soldiers is, in my mind anyways, an extremely minor facet of the overall game. You didn't have a "large team" in Xcom. You had however many guys could fit on your airplane, and most of the game, that was 6 if I recall correctly. Many of the early missions you'd go out with 3-4 guys if you had taken some losses and what not.

In my mind, it comes down to what is acceptable changes to the game, and what is going to far. Making aliens a little easier to kill and having more of them, and then making the tactical element of the game a squad based tactical shooter, that makes sense to me. It will change the game, but in theory it doesn't destroy everything else the game is so good at. Horror, strategy, and economy.

However, you can't make Xcom a tube shooter, it won't work. And recently, the Bioshock team has been making tube shooters to the extreme.

Xcom needs strategic base construction, capturing and interrogating enemies, research, a sense of your global role as international extra terrestrial police... you'll be doing missions everywhere from the extreme ends of the north pole, to backwater farms in alabama, to city central in Brazilian villages. Xcom was fun because every time you played it, while there were similarities, it was fundamentally different in most ways from the last time you played it.

I just don't see how that can be done well as an FPS. Especially by a team like the Bioshock guys. While they're a great game studio, Xcom is NOT their style of game.

[SwiftSpear]

Eh, reading the article it doesn't sound like they're even going to try. It's going to be CoD with aliens. Useless.

[Caydr]

Partial solace

[Das Bruce]

How is that even going to work?

[Caydr]

You're going to push buttons and blow shit up and it'll be awesome the whole ****ing time, that's how, and I won't hear any other opinions.

[Pxtl]

@ SwiftSpear

The standard ship had occupancy for 14 troops. Iirc, you started with 10. That's a big squad. And troops were cheap (maybe not to pay, but cheap to buy) so I kept my compliment full.

You sure you're not confused with Syndicate?

[Teutooni]

Actually, I think SWAT4/Rainbow Six style tactical squad combat FPS coupled with X-Com style base management, research etc. might work.

I disagree - the characters in Rainbow 6 were fare less expendable than your X-com soldiers, and in smaller numbers. Managing a large team where you're going to be losing a lot of guys would be damned hard as an FPS. Plus, inaccuracy was a major gameplay element in X-com (to the point of being kind of ludicrous) and that element would be completely lost in FPS-form.

The only way I'd want to see this as an FPS would be to theme it as commanding like Gorman from Aliens - you can't directly control your troops, you just have head-cams for all of them, and a bank of screens. It would make the game quite a horror.

When I played x-com, I always kept a core team which was anything but expendable. I used rookies and later mind controlled aliens to scout for them, and rarely lost anyone important. I did lose a lot of rookies, but that was mostly because of the game design - you could not look behind a corner nor did you have any kind of night vision. I think an emphasis on uber elite team clearing areas of aliens with total precision a-la rainbow six would be more enjoyable than knowingly sacrificing tons of rookies so your elite snipers can benefit from their LOS - a very silly mechanic in the first place.

[KaiserJ]

yeahh i got really attached to my xcom team

maybe 5-6 core soldiers that i didn't really want to lose, clad in flying suits... and then as many rookies as i could carry

just send the rookies rushing off ahead as scouts, they die, but you can always take their weapons and give them to more rookies next mission. and on the occasion that a rookie actually does well? give them a flying suit and keep them alive next mission instead.

derail : how about an xcom game from the alien perspective? that might be cool... ive always wanted to invade the earth and be at the controlling end of an anal probe

[SwiftSpear]

Still... if they made a statement like "we're going to keep it an isometric turn based tactical game, but you only have 6 squad members" that would be extremely annoying... but if they're converting it to an FPS during the tactical phases... the whole thing is just different. It's a focus change, you can't have everything exactly the same. There's alot of things they can do to make the FPS elements better that wouldn't work in isometric tactical, and vice versa.

[Caydr]

So it sounds like we're all bastards that send young men and women to their death so our guys in flying armor know where to aim the smart rockets.

Later on I would usually send the rooks out unarmed though, they were too vulnerable to mind control. I wish there was a way to train your guys outside of combat on something besides (relatively unhelpful) PSI. Maybe a screen where you could say what soldiers do in their off duty time - emphasize ranged weapon skills, emphasize mental skills, emphasize movement skills, etc.

This sucks, just trying to think about things to pick on this game about only reinforces how few things there were that really needed fixing. And still, in like 15 years or something, nobody's managed to get the formula right a second time. They get so close, and then tack something on that breaks everything in order to be innovative.

[Master-Athmos]

Holy crap! A X-Com trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNlC19Vc ... re=channel

And with that I mean holy crap! Seriously what where they thinking? This isn't X-Com - this is bullshit (and even considering they just stole the name so don't judge after that the game itself still looks boring too)...

[knorke]

its world of goo!

[Pxtl]

That looks like a very interesting game about an invasion of body-snatching black goo and monoliths in 1950s America that has absolutely _nothing_ to do with XCOM. WTF?

I honestly would be more interested in that game if it _weren't_ called XCOM.

[Mav]

Wow that looked terribad.

[KaiserJ]

[SwiftSpear]

I think it looks fun. But it doesn't remind me of Xcom at all. I'm disappointed they didn't just create a new IP with it.

[KDR_11k]

According to IGN Gamescoop the game has "strategy" consisting of choosing which of the offered missions to take (some give more money, some more fame, some help against the invasion, etc).

[SpliFF]

I love the way games companies don't get it.

Anybody who actually played XCOM could tell you they won't play this one. It's not like XCOM ever really had a story (oh no aliens!), it was famous because it was a clever little tactical simulator where you could demolish entire buildings.

Yes, Fallout 3 got away with it, but only because it managed to be an excellent and novel game in its own right. It wasn't a smart idea, it was just well executed. It wasn't traditional fallout fans who ran out to buy it, it was mostly console kiddies. Fallout had its own world view (a perfect mix of apocalypse and humor) that made the world interesting and fun to explore. XCOM doesn't have that, it's just a stock standard urban cyperpunk setting with aliens.

What they SHOULD have done is talk to Firaxis (Civ series) or Creative Assembly (Total War) about bringing the franchise across to a modern strategy engine. That way they could have kept all of XCOMs strengths. Of course they didn't do that because everything these days is aimed at console kiddies with limited controls and short attention spans.

[SpliFF]

You know, I just read my post again and it made me think. Would any game publisher even have the balls to release X-Com Apocalypse in Post-Oklahoma, Post-911 America? My guess is that a game that features fascist, corporatist, government employees covertly blowing up buildings full of their own citizens would be considered somewhat taboo these days.

[Master-Athmos]

Well I don't think X-Com Apocalypse was as explicit as you describe it here so that's no problem. It had the standard alien invasion scenario with some mad cultists and non-described alien infiltration in the the government and companies - so no big deal...

"Console kiddies" probably was one of the most important points though as overall game complexity really has decreased over the last decade so a game heavily based on tactics and that even worse might frustrate new players is a no-go nowadays (while that's not just the consoles' fault though). People have to turn on their games and immediately have to feel like they've accomplished something. It's a sad thing but people willing to play more complex or difficult stuff just are a minority of all gamers...

This even might be shown outright by the RTS genre. There was a time where developers spammed RTS games - nowadays you can be happy if there is one good RTS game a year (while their sales aren't extremely high afaik) and often get very simplified stuff instead of complex game mechanics (SupCom 2 being the latest disappointment imo)...