Now that the game is out in the US (many pardons to our Grogs on the other side of the pond), I figured a place to talk about the game play or any other facet of the game can go here. I would say lets keep spoilers to a minumum until the game releases worldwide. 8)
Arctic Blast has posted some early impressions here
http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=2789.msg68707#new
Looks promising ;)
Does the multiplayer have any facility to comp stomp (co-op against the AI), or is it purely a versus setup?
spelk,
At the moment, it is all head to head across the same systems (IE xbox to xbox or PC to PC). I'm hoping they will expand the play options and also allow crose-platform matches down the road.
Wot I Think – XCOM: Enemy Unknown (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/08/xcom-review/) appears on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. I thought it was a good read.
Since I pre-ordered the physical version of the game and won't receive it until tomorrow, I cannot express my own opinion of the game yet.
hmmm my 13 year old is home sick from school today.. guess what he's doing? .. sigh, I'm working from home :-(
^I hear you on that Tuna. Working from home can sometimes be both a blessing and a curse. Just picked up my copy and can't wait to give it a spin tonight after everyone goes to bed!
I keep going in and sneaking peeks.. looks pretty cool.. advantage of working from home, I can at least make sure the install wraps up properly on my computer!
Okay, some more thoughts after spending an entire afternoon playing this today :
-There is a general story line that is a bit on rails going on, with accomplishing objectives advancing the plot along. Not really any different from the original game, there just weren't little cinematics for it there.
-I really like the loadout choices for your troops. You can only carry one accessory. So do you go with Nano Fiber armour inserts? Or frag grenades? Arc Throwers? Medi Kits? What are you going to need? And this is just based on the early stuff I've opened up. And that leads nicely in to :
-The 6 man maximum squad limit makes things better in a lot of ways. You have very few guys going out, so those equipment choices are nasty. And you'll sure as Hell notice a single casualty here more than you did when one of your 5 rookie fodder dudes went down in the original. I also really like the tactics choices you add to your dudes as they level up.
-Some of the aliens are right bastards. The Thin Men are brutal. They cover A LOT of ground per move, they're fairly accurate firing away with plasma pistols, and they can make huge elevation changing leaps and drops with no effort. The Floaters can also be tough when they start shifting around the battlefield. Also, Thin Men tend to summon more Floaters, which makes for a nasty combination.
And then we have the Chryssalids. They turn people in to zombies. The good news is that those zombies don't turn in to new Chryssalids right away. The bad news is that the zombies can kill your dudes with a single melee strike. And the Chryssalids themselves are going to take a few good hits to take down.
-I think the challenge of balancing your spending is tougher here. No more spamming out laser rifles as a constant source of cheap profit. You need to try to keep your base built up to where you can respond to needs quickly. You need to outfit your troops with decent gear. You need to add squad improvements through the Officer Training School. But you also need to keep spreading out your Satellite/Interceptor coverage, and that gets expensive FAST. Not only do you have to build a Satellite, you also have to add new Satellite arrays at your base...and that requires more power facilities to give those arrays juice.
And the people of Earth are not very patient. I've played maybe 3 months. Mexico has already bailed. Japan and the UK would have, but I took difficult ground missions in those countries to keep them on board. They stayed, but I paid for it in lives by taking missions beyond my capabilities at that time. India and Brazil are on the verge of leaving right now, and Australia isn't far back. It is impossible to keep up with the security demands of the people AND keep yourself equipped to a decent enough level that you can keep up in a firefight. You just have to manage the best you can.
-There is only one way to capture alien weapons intact : zap em with an Arc Thrower and take them prisoner. If you kill them, the weapons fragment. Now, fragments are used in some builds, but you need an intact weapon before you can produce it. That can be brutal, though the improved Carapace armour I can produce now might help...I hope.
That's it for the moment. :)
Ok...I'm likely to preorder tomorrow...and wait until Friday to actually get my mitts on it :-(
Oh yeah, I also had my first Terror Mission...in Calgary. Which is weird, because I live a couple hours from there. ;D
This is where I encountered the Chryssalids. They and a pack of Floaters were slaughtering their way through a city. I ended up saving 11/18 civilians on the map (you get up next to them with any one of your soldiers and they're saved), but it cost me a total noob and an experienced vet. I found myself doing more sprinting around than I wanted to just to try to get to the civvies before the aliens did.
I was stationed in Wainwright in October '89
I ended up getting the 360 version of the game. Played for about an hour this evening. Just a couple of quick comments based on my experience so far.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is brilliantly executed as far as gameplay is concerned. Still playing through the tutorial on one notch below 'impossible' difficulty and it's just sheer joy.
What I have been enjoying is the ability to customize your squad members names and appearance. I named the first couple of grunts after myself and my brother. Had no time to get attached to them though as the third mission saw them clipped from the flank by a 'Thin Man' alien. The lesson I took away was even though a soldier might be behind cover made out of concrete does not mean he's immune to the aliens' weapons.
This particular mission called for the search and rescue of a human that was held prisoner by the aliens. I extracted the target out of the danger zone but lost half my squad. I felt like a failure even as the human council in charge of XCOM lauded my successful extraction of the target. I kept thinking to myself "What about my comrades that didn't make it?"
When I scratch more of the surface of this game I'll provide some more feedback.
Completed my first very hard rated mission.
10 Aliens Killed
0 Operatives Killed
1 Wounded
Was a do or die politically for me. If I didn't take the mission then South Africa was going to withdraw from X-Com. I don't see how you can prevent at least one or two countries from leaving. Right now Nigeria, Egypt, and India are all on the verge of leaving. I also learned that the scientist lady doesn't like it when you blow up aliens with high explosive. Oh well, got two thin man at the cost of one grenade.
If you fail a mission, does the panic in that region still increase?
Edit: Coming off the high of my first very hard mission. I'm doing my first terror mission. A zombie one shotted one of my first operatives. May he be avenged.
Quote from: Kushan on October 09, 2012, 10:42:11 PM
Completed my first very hard rated mission.
10 Aliens Killed
0 Operatives Killed
1 Wounded
Was a do or die politically for me. If I didn't take the mission then South Africa was going to withdraw from X-Com. I don't see how you can prevent at least one or two countries from leaving. Right now Nigeria, Egypt, and India are all on the verge of leaving. I also learned that the scientist lady doesn't like it when you blow up aliens with high explosive. Oh well, got two thin man at the cost of one grenade.
If you fail a mission, does the panic in that region still increase?
Edit: Coming off the high of my first very hard mission. I'm doing my first terror mission. A zombie one shotted one of my first operatives. May he be avenged.
The zombies are NASTY.
And no, there really isn't any way that you can keep all the plates spinning...and I like that. The whole game is one long running tough choice on how to spend your meager funds.
I had to take a couple of terror missions really early that were a high enough difficulty that I knew the casualty rate would be high. Kept the UK and Japan on board, but man...every single guy was either dead or in sick bay.
This is how I know that XCom is a hit :
I always name the troops after family and friends and start mixing in famous people once I run through all of the family and friends. Tonight, I bled to death after my friend Tim (who was a medic type) ended one space away from me on the final turn when I could be saved. I sent him a jokingly angry email asking him why he couldn't get off his ass and maybe try leaping or something to get there.
A few minutes later he replied, laughing, telling me how he had just finished going after another friend on Twitter because that guy panicked and shot him in the head. This sort of thing is likely to keep going for weeks.
I just had a nasty couple of missions. Abduction mission where 1 had 1 KIA, a rookie, but all my vets came home injured. Had 3 floaters and 3 thin men appear in one building. Pinned most of my squad down. Its what I get for getting complacent. I split my squad into 2 groups of 3. 1st group cleared a building of a couple of thin men, then went out the back to deal with some floaters. The other group moved up a street and ended up getting ambushed. Pulled back and regrouped. I couldn't get a good line of site on some thin men in the 2nd building, so I had one of my heavies blow out the adjacent wall.
Then I had a UFO landing, that resulted in one of my sergeants getting KIA and a couple more wounded. Was rough terrain and had 6 floaters right off the bat, then ran into 2 mutons as I approached the UFO.
I seem to be getting my soldiers killed rather often. I think the longest streak is 7-8 missions. I think it would feel a bit weird to get people I know killed in a game.
Do they ever explain why Chevy Chase is in charge of engineering?
Is there a way to scale some of the terrain features? I was trying to capture a thin man that was standing on top of a train car but when I ran up to the side of it, I couldn't find a way up and the game said the bug zapper thingie was out of range. I then lost two guys in the next two turns because of this. If the aliens can get up there, surely I should be able to as well, right?
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on October 10, 2012, 03:45:27 PM
Is there a way to scale some of the terrain features? I was trying to capture a thin man that was standing on top of a train car but when I ran up to the side of it, I couldn't find a way up and the game said the bug zapper thingie was out of range. I then lost two guys in the next two turns because of this. If the aliens can get up there, surely I should be able to as well, right?
Not necessarily. The Thin Men have insane levels of leaping agility : they can jump from the ground to the roof of a building in one shot. Your guys need ladders, stairs or drain pipes.
My unasked for, most likely unwanted and certainly random thoughts on a few hours of gameplay.
1. You make a great 3d map system, but limit control to 4 viewable directions rather than a 360 spin? Really? Frankly this is annoying as it seems that the angles you get are just not quite the angles I want to see. It's 2012 not 1995.
2. I don't really like the way the base view looks. I perferred the topdown perspective. Maybe it'll grow on me in time.
3. Cut sceens are nice...the first time you see them. I get it. A hover copter is dropping my team off at the site. I figured that out the first 3 times I saw the cutscene.
4. I love the customization. Hope they add in more armor skins. I'm going with some sort of Stormtrooper look. I honor TK 421.
5. I can really see getting attached to your squad members as you play and specialize their skill sets. This is a very good thing.
6. I find the movement/targeting controls slightly awkward. It might be an operator issue, but as I am pretty much awesome in all things I doubt it.
7. The squad member choices are great. Really forces you to make some hard decisions. How many medipacks are enough? Scopes? Armor bonus? Grenades? Decisions, decisions....
8. Cover seems off. I might be wrong here, but it seems a park bench offers the same conceal/cover as a car or concrete wall. This just doesn't seem right. I do love the destructable environment.
9. Beyond my nitnoids. I do like the game.
10. Why the hell do I have exactly ZERO Americans in my team? Hello? Anyone? Firaxis do you hate America? I want an Old Glory team member.
FWIW, cutscenes can be turned off.
Quote from: Bison on October 11, 2012, 06:25:01 AM
My unasked for, most likely unwanted and certainly random thoughts on a few hours of gameplay.
7. The squad member choices are great. Really forces you to make some hard decisions. How many medipacks are enough? Scopes? Armor bonus? Grenades? Decisions, decisions....
10. Why the hell do I have exactly ZERO Americans in my team? Hello? Anyone? Firaxis do you hate America? I want an Old Glory team member.
Love the decisions the player has to make when choosing loadouts for your men before 'going in' too!
I hear what you're saying on point number 10. I do have one soldier who hails from the States in my game though but haven't put him in a mission yet. I just can't bear to watch him get killed but sooner or later I'm going to need him out there.
I like having to make decisions as to loadout, as well...however, I do feel as if they are too restricted as is. These guys should be able to carry more gear.
You do get some abilities in certain classes to hold more stuff. I've seen and used the med-kit x3 and the grenade x3 abilities. I would like to have a better selection of weapons for each in the game. Trades in range, damage, and accuracy along with cost/materials would be awesome.
I am sure we will have mods soon to do these things. I wish I had the time to do it myself right now. ;D
Switched ASSAULT troopers back to the Assault Rifle instead of the Shotgun. Too many instances charged ET using run & gun only to have the 12 gauge shot miss at point blank range.
Notice troopers carrying the arc gun now have a blue circle that shows the range of the tazer.
The current upgrade path is Assault Rifle -> Laser Rifle. Would like to see extra improvements for the Assault Rifle in the foundry. Make the migration to terrestrial Laser weapons more of a choice rather than a requirement. Perhaps Assault Rifle -> Improved AR models -> Gauss Rifle as an optional path.
8 hours in and that's all she wrote. Once you have nothing to work with but rookies and all the missions are rated difficult or very difficult, might as well start a new game, because there just doesn't seem to be a way back. OTOH, the losing cutscene is very cool.
I ran into one minor combat bug in the last mission before losing the game - my last man standing took overwatch fire from a Thin Man, but the cut scene showed him firing away from my guy.
Other than that, good times, and once more back into the fray.
I wish the maps were larger and the tactical options were a little more robust. I'm feeling a bit constrained as it is.
If they could use the combat engine from 7.62mm - High Calibre, I'd never leave the PC (well except for cases like now, when Steam is taking it's sweet time to update XCOM.)