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[s0]

It really is about nostalgia. It's always about nostalgia. And when the reality of a game doesn't conform to your nostalgic expectations, you paint it off as being "dudebro" and "shallow."

i first played the original 3 years ago. i hate that whenever you prefer an older game over a newer one your position reduced to "nostalgia."

for me it's not about the "dudebro factor" (whatever that is) or even depth, it's about the game feeling more like a "normal" tactics game than x-com.

[Dragonmaw]

Wasn't really talking about you Sinclair. I've just seen a lot of, as Radix put it, "internet echo chamber" shit about how "the new XCOM isn't XCOM it's just Gears of War, they made it for dudebros and frat boys." It strikes me as an ultimately juvenile way to critically evaluate a game.

I definitely feel like Enemy Unknown and UFO Defense are two different games, thematically, but they still carry that theme of consequence. Enemy Unknown is about war and combat and how your mistakes can have drastic lasting consequences. UFO Defense is about tension and the inevitability of loss during wartime and how some things are just completely beyond your control. In that respect, EU is more of the player-friendly choice, as it makes you feel like the mistakes are genuinely your fault. UFO Defense (less so for Apocalypse, but still there) made you feel like sometimes you were just fucked regardless of what you did and you had to accept the anal reaming you were going to get.

[s0]

In that respect, EU is more of the player-friendly choice, as it makes you feel like the mistakes are genuinely your fault. UFO Defense (less so for Apocalypse, but still there) made you feel like sometimes you were just fucked regardless of what you did and you had to accept the anal reaming you were going to get.

yeah i agree and personally that's what i liked about ufo defense. the game really gave you the feeling of fighting an overpowering and mysterious enemy. there were a lot of moments where i seriously panicked. enemy unknown seems to make more concessions to "videogame logic" for lack of a better word.

i know a lot of people probably don't give a fuck about that and EU is definitely a fun and well designed game, no doubt about it. but like i said, it's less "special" and memorable to me than the original.

[Christian Knudsen]

Can anybody explain to me the logic behind the Xbox demo only being available to Gold members?

[s0]

ancient aliens

[Christian Knudsen]

Those fuckers!

[Dragonmaw]

I can understand that it's "less special" since the original game sits in its own little microcosm cut off of the material world. I do also think that Enemy Unknown is by no means a bad game, or somehow more shallow.

[Radix]

I dropped down to Normal Ironman since Classic Ironman was ruining my shit and I just beat it with 0 deaths. Normal is for casual dudebros.

[CaptainKraft]

I'd like to pick up this game, but because I own UFO Defense, I can't really justify spending the extra money.

From what I've seen on YouTube of people playing it, there isn't much there that would convince me to play it over the original.

Kudos to the devs, the game looks great, but I think it's more for the people who didn't grow up with XCOM UFO Defense.

[Paul Jeffries]

Got this earlier in the week and I love it.  It's mechanically a very different game to the original but it captures the overall feel quite nicely.  I'm in the middle of a terror mission at the moment that has been a genuinely harrowing experience - over the past twenty years I've gradually got over my fear of Cryssalids but they've managed to make them shit-pants scary again.

On the whole I understand the changes they've made - the original X-com is my favourite game of all time but I have to admit it did have some rough edges that the new one neatly files off.  But there are two big things that I think are miss-steps:

1. No randomly generated levels.  I get that by predesigning them you can make them look all purty, but I would trade in all the sparkly running-water effects for the infinite replayability of the original in a heartbeat.

2. Its approach is a lot more rule-based than the original's more simulationist approach, which I think works against it sometimes.  Stuff like hit chance being based just on range and cover rather than actually tracing the tragectory of the bullet and its slightly weird line-of-sight detection make it a lot harder to tell how things are going to go just from looking, and you get a lot less of the exciting emergent stuff happening.

I'm also kinda upset that I can't put my considerable business experience of running laser-cannon sweatshops to good use, but I can see why they took that out.

[Muz]

Holy crap, I love this game.

Just lost a normal ironman game. Got my troops ripped apart by Mutons. I expected them to be dumb, much like in the original XCOM, or like with the sectoids. But shit.. Mutons are smarter than I am. They know how to outflank you, how to use grenades properly, suppression fire, how to draw you into an ambush. I remember people used to joke that the aliens in XCOM were overpowered because they were so damn stupid. Not the case with XCOM EU.

I think part of the loss was because I was not used to the new game mechanics. Did a bunch of dumb things like overmanufacturing on equipment early on, or not knowing how to activate the powers.

Just played multiplayer with my brother. I've always loved a round of Fallout Tactics or Wesnoth with my siblings. So far, XCOM multiplayer beats them. There's just so much depth to it. My brother has this tendency to make one uber-guy, a bunch of little supports. I love how you could beat it with sectoids.

This game is way more hardcore than the original. Also love the ironman system - it reassures me that it's the way the game is meant to be played.

There was one thing I hated about UFO Defense/TFTD - it took 15 minutes to setup your squad equipment and 3 hours to win a shipping level. There were short periods of action, but too much damn bureaucracy. With EU, I can setup a mission in less than 5 minutes (mostly shifting equipment). The missions themselves are even more fast paced than Apocalypse - just move your characters into position, tab, move, 1, enter, 3, 3. It's almost a cinematic flow.

I like how Firaxis managed to simplify a lot of it. It's just missing a Grenadier class. And I don't really like how there's much less collateral fire. I don't like hitpoints either. The new base design is nice. Didn't like multiple bases. Disappointing that you can't get attacked, though.

But yeah, kinda disappointed that they chopped a bit much out. XCOM EU is, as a game, a lot better. It grabs that spirit of the game fucking you over, and laughing at you about it. But at times, it does feel too gamey. The UFO After___ series does a better job at getting the alien war simulation part.

It's an entirely different game, but set in the same theme. I really hope Firaxis sticks with it. I wouldn't mind them skipping over TFTD, but Apocalypse had a great theme, and I'd love to see Firaxis' touch on that.

[Dragonmaw]

FYI the first game had hitpoints.

[Blademasterbobo]

So I'm on a crashed-ship-mission, and I'm down to the last group of aliens, which keeps making noises outside. I figure I missed it, but 20 minutes later I've explored like half the map again, and it keeps making noises in new areas. Finally, I see it. It's the alien ship captain... sitting on the roof of the ship. Apparently the grenade I thought killed him merely knocked him onto the top of the ship. 

[starsrift]

I'm loving this game. I like a lot of the changes they made from the original, I have very few beefs. Without going into detail, my three biggest beefs - though I don't mind losing the TU system, firing your weapon forces the character to end their action for the round (except for the Heavies that get the perk). You can't go full-auto with a shot - making panic rounds often actually work in your favor! And you can't choose your squad's classes, making for some really wierd force mixes to work with.

I'm hoping Firaxis decides to make an aquanaut expansion. I dunno, I really liked the atmosphere of TFTD, even if it was buggy as hell (damn you lobsterman research bug!).

[Muz]

FYI the first game had hitpoints.

Yeah, but it worked.

HP fails when it becomes a mechanical calculation. I find myself regularly thinking "Hey I can kill this Muton with two rifle hits, or a rifle hit and a pistol to save ammo.

Like nobody in a war would ever do that. It really breaks immersion. The old XCom didn't encourage that kind of behavior.

Also agree that I don't really like the class system. Would be good to pick a class for them. I normally want half/third the team to be assault, but they're the first to die.

[Dragonmaw]

The old XCOM definitely encouraged that behavior.

[Paul Jeffries]

The old XCOM definitely encouraged that behavior.

How so?  In the original, enemy max health and damage inflicted was highly randomised, you couldn't even see their current HP unless you used a mind probe, everything had varying resistances to different weapon types (that I don't think were actually numerically stated in-game) and you couldn't even access the ufopedia in the middle of a battle to check the actual damage your weapon did... it's hard to think of any other ways of discouraging that kind of calculating approach they could possibly have used.

[Fallsburg]

I took it more as evaluating shots and time units. 
Less:
"Hey I can kill this Muton with two rifle hits, or a rifle hit and a pistol to save ammo."
More:
"Hey I can take 2 steps and a half turn and fire a snap shot, or I can stand still and do an aimed shot."

[Udderdude]

My twin (who runs TBStactics blog) is writing a review of it.  Doesn't seem like he liked it that much.  I'll post it when he's done with it.

[Alec S.]

Enjoying it so far.  Playing on "XCOM" difficulty and ironman.  Got my ass handed to me on the last two missions.

I really don't like the way enemies can just spawn in in the rescue missions.  The first of my two total party kills involved two thin men jumping right into flanking positions around the guy I was rescuing, then going into oversight.  As soon as he made a run for it, he was shot.

I don't have much of a problem with the lack of time units (although I miss being able to squeeze multiple attacks out of a turn), but I don't like that you can't reassess your movement when you spot an enemy.

Apart from my little problems with it, the game has a great feel to it so far.  There's a lot of fun tactical planning and decision making, plus plenty of that "oh shit, oh shit" feeling from the original.