TheRPGSite

You should totally buy it.

It's awesome.

I got the demo off Steam last night, gonna try it out this weekend.

Tried the PS3 demo.  90% of it was programmed tutorial bullshit.  The remaining 10% was utterly forgettable.  It wasn't a good demo at all.  I feel it obfuscated the game instead of giving me an idea of what it was like.

I'm still trying to figure out if I want to take a chance on it.  Seriously, the demo was so bad that even after playing it I still feel like if I buy the game that I'm buying it blind.

I'll buy it during the next Steam sale. ;)

Quote from: Gabriel2;591081Tried the PS3 demo.  90% of it was programmed tutorial bullshit.  The remaining 10% was utterly forgettable.  It wasn't a good demo at all.  I feel it obfuscated the game instead of giving me an idea of what it was like.

I'm still trying to figure out if I want to take a chance on it.  Seriously, the demo was so bad that even after playing it I still feel like if I buy the game that I'm buying it blind.

The old X-com that came out 1 billion years ago (or was it 1994?)
was an amazing turn based squad tactical game. You controlled squads of soldiers and built bases, did research, hunted aliens, etc...

This game was fantastic.


The current 2012 version is turnbased, and from the reviews I read is intended to be just as cool as the old one, but with modern graphics.


I would suggest giving it a try, unless you don't like turn based games.

Man did I play the hell out of the first one.  And yes, I cheated (saving often).  So what ;)

The new one doesn't grab me though.

It's quite good, but a little dry. Perhaps the game opens up more as you get into it.

Your squad mates seem to take the longest time to recover from even minor injuries.

This appears to be a game where you can easily fuck yourself up if you don't come out of the starting gate strong. Unfortunately you have to figure out for yourself how do that.

I don't understand why some of the customisation options are gated behind a pass code. Everytime a publishers uses one of these, a kitten is crushed by a baby falling off a skyscraper.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;591395This appears to be a game where you can easily fuck yourself up if you don't come out of the starting gate strong. Unfortunately you have to figure out for yourself how do that.

I don't understand why some of the customisation options are gated behind a pass code. Everytime a publishers uses one of these, a kitten is crushed by a baby falling off a skyscraper.

Are you on console or PC?

Mouse controls for some of the missions with multi-layer battlefields are terrible, putting your view above the ship's roof every time you change soldiers (For example). I'd love to able to use my 360 controller for this, would make it so much more player-friendly.

Quote from: Ladybird;591405Are you on console or PC?

Mouse controls for some of the missions with multi-layer battlefields are terrible, putting your view above the ship's roof every time you change soldiers (For example). I'd love to able to use my 360 controller for this, would make it so much more player-friendly.

console. where instruction manuals are a thing of the past.

The camera is shite. Inverted controls please.

It's a decent enough game but it's far to easy for the mechanics to screw you oever and it takes far too long for your men to heal.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;591475console. where instruction manuals are a thing of the past.

The camera is shite. Inverted controls please.

It's a decent enough game but it's far to easy for the mechanics to screw you oever and it takes far too long for your men to heal.

PM me an email address and I'll send you a copy of the PC manual, but it won't help - this is a game where the information is found in the game (Or somewhere on wikia, probably). This is one you're meant to replay, and you're not meant to know what will happen the first time.

(Which I'll grant isn't a good design choice. A "How to play" book, accompanied by a sealed in-universe "What the Fuck" book, would have been neat... but there's no money for that stuff any more.)

Also, "too long to heal"? Bear in mind we are talking a week to recover from life-threatening injuries. You lose good men for a lot of missions, yeah, but in terms of actual time it's negligible.

Quote from: Ladybird;591532PM me an email address and I'll send you a copy of the PC manual, but it won't help - this is a game where the information is found in the game (Or somewhere on wikia, probably). This is one you're meant to replay, and you're not meant to know what will happen the first time.

(Which I'll grant isn't a good design choice. A "How to play" book, accompanied by a sealed in-universe "What the Fuck" book, would have been neat... but there's no money for that stuff any more.)

Also, "too long to heal"? Bear in mind we are talking a week to recover from life-threatening injuries. You lose good men for a lot of missions, yeah, but in terms of actual time it's negligible.

If it won't help, I won't bother, thanks anyway.

The problem with the game is that it's next to impossible to figure out how you're meant to play it overall, not just what the buttons do and what Dr Vanhalen does. For instance following the directives of the main plot mission should not be prioritised but one assumes that's the case because...that's what you do in video games. Unfortunately if you do your pittance of funding will expire quickly leaving you with nothing to buy when you research stuff.
The game spawns random missions which can leave you completely unprepared. If you have been concentrating on researching armour and then you find your interceptors are crap compared to the UFO's that are detected you're screwed. It's too much bait and switch.
The healing time thing just screws the game up. You cannot reasonably expect the player to never take damage and even a couple of points is enough to put them out for a week. Now I get the realism aspect of it, which is fine, but it just doesn't work in the game. You end up having to waste money hiring extra soldiers who are themselves inexperienced and it destroys any kind of squad balance which is compounded by the random assignment of class when rookies rank up. And if those rookies take a couple of hits of damage then they are out too. It's crazy, especially whenh the game spawns your choice of abduction mission: difficult, difficult or very difficult!
And when they say difficult, they aren't kidding. You need to be prepared but you can't be as your best men are healing up. It's a game that seems to want to penalise you for trying to play it.

I think it's pretty clearly a game you're meant to learn to play as you play it. I played through the hand-holding tutorial and immediately started a new game to play things my way. I had countries leave the project because I didn't put enough investment in satellites. That's clearly more important that I originally thought.

There's a bevy of other lessons I'll put to use in a second playthrough, which was what made the original great, the ability to play through it multiple times.

And yes, it's hard. It's about making choices and managing the resources you need to carry out those decisions.

Your complaint about healing, I dunno what to tell you. You get shot by a plasma weapon and you're out for 15 days. I dunno, that seems fair to me. As far as squad balance and stuff, I think the game makes it pretty obvious that you're suppose to have plenty of guys on your roster to choose from for missions, multiple builds, backups et cetera.

I spent at least 15 minutes last night putting together my squad for an escort mission, just picking who would be best. Got a couple support guys for their extra movement, got my assault and a heavy for laying down fire, then brought out my mobile sniper (who has the ability that lets her overwatch and snapfire a sniper rifle after moving). The thought I was putting in just selecting troops to put on my six-man squad for a single mission, I think, says a lot about the depth of the game.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;591571The problem with the game is that it's next to impossible to figure out how you're meant to play it overall, not just what the buttons do and what Dr Vanhalen does. For instance following the directives of the main plot mission should not be prioritised but one assumes that's the case because...that's what you do in video games. Unfortunately if you do your pittance of funding will expire quickly leaving you with nothing to buy when you research stuff.

You're kinda right, but... the game gives you plenty of warning, when it tells you about the base assault, that it's going to be a hard mission and you should tool up beforehand. If you ignore that and charge in... people will die. And it will be your fault.

It doesn't explicitly tell you how to build up your team, but I think it's assuming that players will investigate the base options they have available, train up their dudes, worry that their squad isn't good enough, do research... that base isn't going anywhere.

QuoteThe game spawns random missions which can leave you completely unprepared. If you have been concentrating on researching armour and then you find your interceptors are crap compared to the UFO's that are detected you're screwed. It's too much bait and switch.

It's not bait-and-switch. It doesn't tell you to follow one path, and then throw something at you that you haven't developed. It tells you to follow every path, all at the same time, because it is going to throw everything at you. Oh, you can't develop everything at once? Well, you have to learn to prioritise. And you will eventually hit something that you haven't prepared for. Tough luck.

But hey, that armour will be far more useful for ground missions than the interceptor would be.

QuoteThe healing time thing just screws the game up. You cannot reasonably expect the player to never take damage and even a couple of points is enough to put them out for a week. Now I get the realism aspect of it, which is fine, but it just doesn't work in the game. You end up having to waste money hiring extra soldiers who are themselves inexperienced and it destroys any kind of squad balance which is compounded by the random assignment of class when rookies rank up. And if those rookies take a couple of hits of damage then they are out too. It's crazy, especially whenh the game spawns your choice of abduction mission: difficult, difficult or very difficult!

Buy more soldiers! Train them up, send them out with the professionals; I've definitely got a top-heavy squad, with about eight majors and the rest all squaddies, but I'm trying to send out one or two rookies on each mission, and have them kill steal. I don't think you're meant to play with just one ubersquad.

If you're that worried about the random class assignment, get the upgrade from the officer school, so new recruits come in at squaddie level, not rookie level (It also upgrades any rookies you have when you buy it, too). It's what it is there for.

My favourite dude is my assault guy, who is named after me. He's going to die horribly at some point, I just know it.

QuoteAnd when they say difficult, they aren't kidding. You need to be prepared but you can't be as your best men are healing up. It's a game that seems to want to penalise you for trying to play it.

No. The game simply isn't sitting back and waiting for you to beat it, like most  do these days. The aliens are playing to win.

Think about it like a roguelike. You probably won't win the first time. You're meant to learn what works and replay the game with your new knowledge.

The game tells you how hard the missions are, but when you have the choice of three missions that are all just as difficult...

It takes fucking ages to build an uplink and satellites. Meanwhile half the world goes mental within a month. This is incongruous without adequate explanation. If it's intentional then the game ought to make this clear so you don't sacrifice researching and buying other things (like new expendable soldiers) that you might be better off. It's certainly superficially obvious that you need satellites quickly because that's your source of income, and the notion of keeping the council together seems important. Unfortunately it's not as simple as that and you only find out the hard way.

You end up relying on the gray market which is fine, but you don't know how much of the stuff you haven't reearched you can effectively sell because you haven't discovered what it does and how much of it you need to do things with.

Quote from: Ladybird;591585No. The game simply isn't sitting back and waiting for you to beat it, like most  do these days. The aliens are playing to win.

Think about it like a roguelike. You probably won't win the first time. You're meant to learn what works and replay the game with your new knowledge.

Name one game that sits back waiting for you to beat it? Is this a sideswipe at the likes of CoD? If so try playing World at War on Veteran difficulty. Cheap doesn't come close.

I find having to replay games in that way an economy of loss. It might be a little different with this kind of game, but there isn't that much in it that offsets the repetition of experience. I have never liked this methodology, regardless of the game type. It's no less absurd in Mass Effect where you might want to play again to experience the paragon/renegade 'ending' or choices. They are never worth having to do it all again.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;591589They are never worth having to do it all again.

For you perhaps.

But this game, much like the original, will be a game I return to and get a ton of mileage out of.

The elements of the game do not work together very well and the random mission spawns are stupid. What;'s the point of giving you missions at the hardest difficulty when all your best soldiers are still healing? Even losing one HP puts them out for days on end, it's ridiculous. Either make the game playable or go home.

Keep a large roster of available soldiers. You can have 99 of them. Don't concentrate just on 4-6 dudes. I have 15 that I use in the rotation. I have a bench of solid soldiers ready to hop in when I have some guys injured, just like a sports team.

Maybe it's not a problem with the gameplay, maybe you just need to change up your strategy.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;591589Name one game that sits back waiting for you to beat it? Is this a sideswipe at the likes of CoD? If so try playing World at War on Veteran difficulty. Cheap doesn't come close.

CoD is never trying to beat you, though. It's just setting up an obstacle for you to get past. You can try again. And again. And again. You can keep going until you get past it. And that's fine, I do like a good corridor shooter, but it's not the sort of game XCom is.

(In the Baghdad section of MW1, there's a bit where you're helping a tank fight off some Brown People who are hiding behind a wall. I died so many times on that bit, that eventually the game just gave up and marked the objective as complete.)

QuoteI find having to replay games in that way an economy of loss. It might be a little different with this kind of game, but there isn't that much in it that offsets the repetition of experience. I have never liked this methodology, regardless of the game type. It's no less absurd in Mass Effect where you might want to play again to experience the paragon/renegade 'ending' or choices. They are never worth having to do it all again.

I think this is another video game that simply isn't for you. Exactly what video games do you like?

The problem with this game is that how you're meant to play it beyond what the buttons do is never explained while it goes against what it seems to want. You are supposed to build satellites but the process of upgrading your base is prohibitively expensive, and takes ages, much like buidling satellites. Meanwhile the world goes mental. What exactly am I meant to do? If i concentrate my pitiful funds on one thing I lose heavily in aother area, such as not being able to shoot down ufo's. I don't think the game is per se bad, I just find the disparate elements completely out of kilter. Training different squads is not made easy when the difficulty of the missions available, which spawn as and when (which strikes me as poor), ramps right up and doesn't change. Once the panic levels start rising the missions are very difficult. This in turn means you need to upgrade your equipment as well as your troops, all of which is more money. How to negotiate this is just not made clear and with these kinds of games you need that clarity otherwise strategy, the whole point of these games, is meaningless.

First it was Dark Souls, now its Xcom. I see a pattern here: Ghost dont like games where you must discover things by yourself (and fail sometimes in the process).

Ghost, what do you think of games like King of Dragon Pass, Faster than Light or Crusader Kings 2 ? All of these are trial-and-error games too. Do you find them good games?

I decided to take a chance on this game.  I'm glad I did.  I like it.

Quote from: silva;591693First it was Dark Souls, now its Xcom. I see a pattern here: Ghost dont like games where you must discover things by yourself (and fail sometimes in the process).

Ghost, what do you think of games like King of Dragon Pass, Faster than Light or Crusader Kings 2 ? All of these are trial-and-error games too. Do you find them good games?

i can't run pc games made anytime after the stone age.

The original X-Com is from the "stone age" and is even more difficult, trial-and-error based and user-UNfriendly than this one, and is regarded as one of the best games of all-time.

Do you also find it a poorly designed/bad game ?


P.S: by the way, Im not so far into the new X-Com yet, but from what Ive seen I think this remake can actually surpass the original for me. I say this because all the streamlined aspects so far just add to the game´s tactical synergy instead of capping it as is the norm in the industry. Lets see how it endures the test of time/lots of replays.

My reluctance comes from the fact that I don't want Steam on my computer. I've heard too many horror stories.

Quote from: silva;591743P.S: by the way, Im not so far into the new X-Com yet, but from what Ive seen I think this remake can actually surpass the original for me. I say this because all the streamlined aspects so far just add to the game´s tactical synergy instead of capping it as is the norm in the industry. Lets see how it endures the test of time/lots of replays.

I'm constantly revising my tactics. Two-man teams, three-man squads, which builds for which class on those smaller teams. Keep everyone together in a tight unit?

I love it and feel like I'm enjoying it on a lot of the same levels that I enjoyed the original.

I love the stress I get when I make a mistake and leave a guy hanging out to dry and have to endure an Alien Activity turn, hoping I gave him enough cover to survive.

Quick war story:

So, got a simple abduction mission and I have a four-man team. I cross a sort of courtyard, with the usual leapfrogging and constant overwatch. I have my heavy (a badass named Shin Shimuzo, who had 5 kills in his first mission). He's skirting along the edge of the map, but I can't get him to sufficient cover on his first move, so I chance it to move him all the way up for high cover against the side of the building. That spawns basically every alien on the map, as a group of Thin Men catch sight of him, as does a gaggle of floaters. The reaction fire from my support guy in the courtyard draws the attention of sectoids. All those assholes decide to come after Shimuzo, since he's the closet. They shoot him and suppress him, but when his turn pops up, I notice they've all had to gather pretty close to get an angle to shoot him. So I pull out the rocket and take out three of them and injure a fourth. The rest of my squad (even the rookie I brought along) clean up the sectoids and the last floater.

I really thought Shimuzo was pull it off....  but the last Thin Man, in cover on the other side of the building, put the final bullet in poor Shin. :(  My sniper was able to put away the Thin Man and complete the mission, but Shimuzo's sacrifice will always be remembered.

Combat needs a patch really. When it works it's great, but there are too many intances of silly shit happening. Aliens that move behind a wall trigger overwatch which of course does nothing. Yet from the other side of that wall, aliens are able to see my guy in cover and hit him, while the wall remains.
You really ought to be able to pick the class a soldier gets when he ranks up, i have about 5 support people just because of this. It's stupid.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;591851Combat needs a patch really. When it works it's great, but there are too many intances of silly shit happening. Aliens that move behind a wall trigger overwatch which of course does nothing. Yet from the other side of that wall, aliens are able to see my guy in cover and hit him, while the wall remains.

Overwatch carries an aim penalty, and soldiers won't make a shot if they can't see the target. What is happening is that your soldiers are missing the shot.

The way it handles walls is a bit daft, yeah. Some walls seem like they should be far more substantial than they are.

QuoteYou really ought to be able to pick the class a soldier gets when he ranks up, i have about 5 support people just because of this. It's stupid.

If you don't want support people, dismiss them. Purchase the start-as-squaddie upgrade, buy some dudes, keep the ones you like, specialise them in different ways. You aren't meant to have a small team, you are meant to have plenty of cover for units who are injured.

Supports are really versatile units, and probably the backbone of a squad.

Quote from: taustin;591751My reluctance comes from the fact that I don't want Steam on my computer. I've heard too many horror stories.

Steam was a bit rubbish originally, but it's been great for the last few years. As DRM goes (And that's exactly what it is), it's probably one of the most painless systems out there.

Played multiplayer with a buddy for a couple hours over the weekend. Really loved it. I dunno about playing power-gaming strangers, that might be terrible, but online play with a pal was pretty awesome and surprisingly deep. We did some "all-alien" teams and "all-human" teams, shit like that.

We played an unlimited points game and I had a crew of badasses with an Ethereal tossed in. He ran his heavy-pointed Heavy on top of a train to rain death on me, a solid move, except I put the Ethereal to work mind-controlling the heavy. I then had her turn on her fellows. She racked up three kills before I lost control. Then I put her away with the Ethereal's Pyschic Lance.

Moral of the story? Ethereals are worth all 9,000 points.

Quote from: Kaz;593909Played multiplayer with a buddy for a couple hours over the weekend. Really loved it. I dunno about playing power-gaming strangers, that might be terrible, but online play with a pal was pretty awesome and surprisingly deep. We did some "all-alien" teams and "all-human" teams, shit like that.

Wait, there's multiplayer???

Holy shit...

Quote from: taustin;591751My reluctance comes from the fact that I don't want Steam on my computer. I've heard too many horror stories.

Sorry about that. All my experiences with Steam have been great.

How ready do I need to be to assault the Alien base?

Right now I can field a 6 man squad all in carapace armor, with Laser weapons. A couple lt. a capt. and a maj.

Will I die?

Quote from: Imperator;594061Sorry about that. All my experiences with Steam have been great.

There was just another story making the round about a security vulnerability in their client last week.

Been using steam since it came out, dozens and dozens of games...as much as I'd like to hate on the Evil Empire, I've only had one problem (though admittedly it ticked me off hard). You have to go online to set up your computer for offline play...so if your internet goes out, and you didn't have the prescience to set up for offline play? You're screwed.

But other than that, it's good, though I still prefer gamersgate for actual buying (eensy bit cheaper, and shopping is easier there).

Evil empire?  Valve are saints relative to other corporations, and their organizational structure blows holes in the "flat/communal development produces shit" argument.

Also, I haven't heard of many horrible Steam vulnerabilities, and I regularly haunt PC gaming blogs.  The latest one still has to be initiated by the end-user (clicking on a link without actually looking at the URL), so it's no more dangerous than running your web browser.

That aside...

Looking forward to picking up XCOM after I finish Dishonored.  I've heard it may actually be the better of the two, but they're different enough that XCOM should be a nice refresher.  I still haven't played much of the originals, but maybe I'll work my way backwards through the series.

Quote from: Piestrio;594066How ready do I need to be to assault the Alien base?

Right now I can field a 6 man squad all in carapace armor, with Laser weapons. A couple lt. a capt. and a maj.

Will I die?

what difficulty level are you on?

Normal - you will take some damage.
Classic - you will die.

I don't play at impossible difficulty levels because it's just a metaphor for a cheap AI.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;594151what difficulty level are you on?

Normal - you will take some damage.
Classic - you will die.

I don't play at impossible difficulty levels because it's just a metaphor for a cheap AI.

Yeah, but what if I don't suck at the game ;)

chiming in that I have a lot of games on Steam and have never percieved a problem.


Oh, and X-Com rules the universe!

Quote from: Piestrio;594152Yeah, but what if I don't suck at the game ;)

Crushed it. Classic, one KIA.

:)

I love this game. It's scary good.

A strategy I found out for the late and difficut missions on alien ships is making ambushes.

Lay ambush on doorways and corridors with your squad and send a scout ahead to locate and BE SEEN by the aliens. Then come back running (assault spec with Run&Gun is great for this) to the trap and thats it. Some enemies will try to flank you and others will relutate on following your scout to the trap, but 90% of the time they will fall on it. ;)

Foolish aliens. No one told them humans are the Gods of War?

Quote from: taustin;591751My reluctance comes from the fact that I don't want Steam on my computer. I've heard too many horror stories.

The last of my patience for Steam ended the day they turned off support for my Windows 2000 box (which I kept up in order to run programs that don't work on newer versions of Windows).

It's unfortunate that this game has only been released for the PC with DRM. I refuse to buy any game with DRM on it unless the price is less than $5 (i.e., the price matches the fact that I'm just renting the game). Anyone who does is either ignorant or stupid.

I fancy ignorance and stupidity in this case, because Steam has never given me  anything but pure love.

There's good DRM and bad DRM. Steam is one of the better ones.

Well, if being able to play this AWESOME x-com game makes me ignorant or stupid, I am cool with that.

The game rocks!

Quote from: Sandepande;598616I fancy ignorance and stupidity in this case, because Steam has never given me  anything but pure love.

There's good DRM and bad DRM. Steam is one of the better ones.

Googling for "problems with steam" produces 24 million resutls. There are entire web sites to devoted to bitching about Steam, out of frustration because nothing else has worked.

I'm happy for you that you're not among those who have had problems. Most, in fact, don't, though the assorted security vulneratibilities that have cropped up over the years obviously affects everyone.

But I choose not to infect my computer with software that has been described as a root kit, and one that leaves the computer open to anyone that knows how to exploit it. (The latest such incident wasn't Steam, per se, it was Ubisoft games, but Steam was the vector that it arrived by, in an automatic update.)

No thanks. I'd rather keep an old XP box around to play the original XCOM on.

Quote from: Sandepande;598616There's good DRM and bad DRM.

No. There's not. I absolutely guarantee you that nothing you like about Steam requires DRM.

And while it's nice that you, personally, haven't suffered as a result of a company like Microsoft or EA turning off their activation servers and bricking your software, I guarantee you that it's only a matter of time if your ignorant attitude towards DRM is "well, it's never happened to me, so I'm sure it'll never happen to me".

You're like a Manhattan landlord who thinks he doesn't need flood insurance because it's never flooded in Manhattan.

And there really are only two options: Ignorance or stupidity. If it's the latter, you have my sympathy. If it's the former, you have the option of educating yourself.

Obviously we'll have to agree to disagree. However, I'll hardly consider myself ignorant or stupid. The thing is that I simply do not care, because the likelihood that something happens is, from my personal experience as well as those of my friends, negligible. In DRM scene, Steam is one of the lesser evils, and they have a bunch of exclusives, so I'll have to choose between having those nice games, or not having them.

And in the end, it is my problem, if something goes wrong. If it helps any, I promise not to come crying to you how everything went tits-up.

Quote from: Sandepande;598778However, I'll hardly consider myself ignorant or stupid.

Yeah, well, the Dunning–Kruger effect predicts that.

Quote from: taustin;598915Yeah, well, the Dunning–Kruger effect predicts that.

Works for me!

Quote from: Sandepande;598920Works for me!

I expect so. If ignorance is bliss, you're in fucking heaven.

Quote from: taustin;598640Googling for "problems with steam" produces 24 million resutls. There are entire web sites to devoted to bitching about Steam, out of frustration because nothing else has worked.

I'm happy for you that you're not among those who have had problems. Most, in fact, don't, though the assorted security vulneratibilities that have cropped up over the years obviously affects everyone.

But I choose not to infect my computer with software that has been described as a root kit, and one that leaves the computer open to anyone that knows how to exploit it. (The latest such incident wasn't Steam, per se, it was Ubisoft games, but Steam was the vector that it arrived by, in an automatic update.)

No thanks. I'd rather keep an old XP box around to play the original XCOM on.

I have had issues with older games on newer windows; I wish I had an xp machine sometimes. I foolishly upgraded my last xp computer.

Steam seems to like me though.

Virtual machine is your friend.

Also, "problems with Windows" got 248mil hits.  BRB.  Either I'll be licking my new iMac's screen or I'll be setting up a Linux box behind 30 proxies.

Well, Im in the last mission right now, so I would like to express my final veredict on the game.

At first I thought this version would surpass the original and even Jagged Alliance 2, but right now I dont think so.

The Tactical aspect is brilliant. They managed to simplify it while keeping all the tactical richness, and still making it more dynamic and fun. Excelent work.

But the Strategical aspect didnt have the same results. The simplification here made it more linear, shorter, and with less replay-value. Special mention to the (short) tech tree, and to the Interception part (how they managed to stupidify something that was already relatively stupid is beyond me).

All in all, a very good game, but not a great one. If Firaxis improve and expand it with future DLCs this can change. But right now thats it. ;)

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;591635What exactly am I meant to do? If i concentrate my pitiful funds on one thing I lose heavily in aother area, such as not being able to shoot down ufo's. I don't think the game is per se bad, I just find the disparate elements completely out of kilter. Training different squads is not made easy when the difficulty of the missions available, which spawn as and when (which strikes me as poor), ramps right up and doesn't change. Once the panic levels start rising the missions are very difficult. This in turn means you need to upgrade your equipment as well as your troops, all of which is more money. How to negotiate this is just not made clear and with these kinds of games you need that clarity otherwise strategy, the whole point of these games, is meaningless.

This is, in fact, the point; you never have enough resources to do everything you need to do. You'll always be tightrope walking with money, elerium, etc. Making hard decisions part of the game, and learning how to make the best decisions possible is part of learning the game. It's true it doesn't hold your hand with this, because this is the point of the game. You need to find out for yourself what does and doesn't work best.

The strategy is, therefore, not meaningless. Every decision you make strategically has consequences. If you're having trouble with grokking this part of the game, I recommend starting on Easy difficulty, as the game is much more forgiving here, and you can go pretty far down a wrong path and have a chance to recover without losing too many countries.

Also, there's a ton of guides online for learning some tips on how to manage your strategy.

One of the most important tips to keep in mind is that when doing Abduction missions, keep in mind that the sites you don't help won't just raise panic in the country targeted, but in the entire continent. And if you have two countries in the same continent being targeted, failing to do either will mean that the continent's panic will increase by 2. Back out and peek at the situation room before picking an abduction site to make sure that by neglecting Egypt, you aren't pushing Nigeria into chaos.

Quote from: silva;599880Well, Im in the last mission right now, so I would like to express my final veredict on the game.

At first I thought this version would surpass the original and even Jagged Alliance 2, but right now I dont think so.

The Tactical aspect is brilliant. They managed to simplify it while keeping all the tactical richness, and still making it more dynamic and fun. Excelent work.

But the Strategical aspect didnt have the same results. The simplification here made it more linear, shorter, and with less replay-value. Special mention to the (short) tech tree, and to the Interception part (how they managed to stupidify something that was already relatively stupid is beyond me).

All in all, a very good game, but not a great one. If Firaxis improve and expand it with future DLCs this can change. But right now thats it. ;)

I tend to agree. The tactical game is incredible, but I agree the strategic game doesn't give enough branching to permit too many different strategies. Engineers are always better than scientists, workshops always better than labs. Also, the research tree is too short.

I recently tried Marathon Mode with Second Wave, and it just made the strategic elements take a ridiculous amount of time instead of actually making the game longer in any fun way.

And the air defense is pretty stupid and annoying.

That all said, I think it IS a great game, because I think it's strengths are strong enough to outweigh the negatives. There's definite room for improvement, and a beefed up strategy game, bigger research tree, a better balance between engineering and research, and a less linear story line would have gone a long way to making this one of the best games ever.

Still, as it stands, it's a very fun game, and the modding community is robust so there's a large number of mods to try out when the base game gets dull. Check out Warspace, probably the best mod out there right now: http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/18

I've had nothing but fun with this game, even when - especially when - it was kicking my ass all over the place. It's good at keeping you on your toes, and that's hard to find these days.

The game is flawed, but quite fun.

The replayability for me, is trying different squad configurations.

Try using four soldiers and 2 shivs.

A squad of all six of the same type.

Play with only using pistols the entire game.

Build labs instead of workshops early and let half the world be lost :)