I had it in my head that this had been properly confirmed ayyyyyyyyyges back, but apparently it’s still stranded in rumourland. Furthermore, it’s a rumour that seemingly had yet to reach everyone’s ears, as evidenced by the internets suddenly talking about Bioshock creators Irrational 2k Boston reportedly working on a new X-COM game as though it’s some sort of ‘news.’ Still, might as well give you fine folks a chance to talk it over here.
2K – the publishery bit – picked up the X-COM rights last year, so it’s pretty much a dead cert to happen at some point, so the mystery remains which dev will make it. That Ken Levine has handed over Bioshock 2 development to a different 2K team further supports educated guesstimation that he’s off working on a super-exciting project like this.
My predictions for this comments thread:
Someone will assert that they believe Bioshock to be rubbish, and so this will be rubbish too
Someone will say ‘noooo, don’t mess with the classics’, or words to that effect
Someone will accuse of it being ‘dumbed down’ for consoles
Some people will shout at each other about turn-based vs real-time combat
Not many people will say ‘hooray! A high-budget take on one of the best games ever from a seasoned, smart developer, and I shall be excited and optimistic until the unlikely event that I see anything to suggest it won’t be absolutely brilliant’.
Of course, now I’ve listed them, they probably won’t happen. Which is no bad thing, really. So, what you could do instead is discuss exactly what you’d like a new X-COM game to do/include.
Another issue worth discussing is whether, regardless of the eventual quality of the game (and presuming the rumours ring true), this is the best thing Levine and co could be doing next. From the outside looking in, it’s a similar dilemma to Bethesda remaking Fallout, purportedly because of the love, and despite the high risk of fan outrage, rather than coming up with an original property. Irrational’s last three games – Tribes Vengeance, SWAT 4 and Bioshock – are all, to dramatically varying extents, originally derived from someone else’s playground. So which do we want more – a new X-COM game, or a flushed-with-success Irrational to try their hand at something entirely fresh? Of course, there’s every chance they are doing the latter. Bloody unconfirmed rumours.
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I think this is going to be an impossible mission for the devs. I don’t think that XCOM, as it was, is something that you could sell to people these days – even to XCOM fans. I love the game, don’t get me wrong, but I also make a lot of allowances for it that I would never make for other games – probably not even for a good XCOM remake. Its just so damn cruel and merciless and brutal! Somehow I can buy into that while playing the original and shout over at my baffled girlfriend “Look at that! That damn alien just threw a grenade into the landing craft and wiped 80% of my squad on the first turn! And the other guys are going berserk! God I love XCOM!”. I suspect it will be very hard for the devs to convince players to be so sympathetic & masochistic with the new game, even if they get it mostly right.
Here’s what I want. Make it a game that can be played with one mouse button and no more than twelve keys (most of them optional). Include a tutorial. Port it to handhelds.
“Due to the game’s size and complexity you may experience difficulties while playing on a machine with only 2 MB of RAM.”
I have metaboli and UFO: Aftershock is in the games collection. Is it a good game? I don’t even know what kind of game are we talking about.
“…and I shall be excited and optimistic until the unlikely event that I see anything to suggest it won’t be absolutely brilliant’.”
I prefer to be pesimistic until the unlikely event that i see something to suggest it will be absolutely brilliant.
I’d like to know how many big budget official remakes of “classic” old games have actually turned out to be decent (above average) games, and how many have turned out to be rubbish. Might be an interesting read.
But I can’t think of many. Populous 3 anyone? :’(
-wolfman
Being a huge TBS fans, normally I would agree with everyone demanding that it be turn-based. But, if it’s actually being developed by Levine and co. at 2K Boston, then it’s being made by the developers of one of the best Real-Time Pausable/Tactical/Whatevers: Freedom Force.
If anyone can capture the same tense atmosphere and brutal fun of the original X-Com, it’s them. And possibly Bioware, although they’d likely be too preoccupied writing dialogue trees.
Psh.
I can’t believe the XCom licence is worth much CASH MONEY any more. It’s not like it was a great creative setting, just some moderately generic alien-o-tat thing to hang more excellent helpings of Gollopgame from (See: all non-Gollop sequels)
And For God’s Sake Don’t Call them the UFO games, or Zombie Gerry Anderson on Strings will come and eat your brains. AND HE’S NOT EVEN DEAD YET.
So there.
It’s worth money because pretty much anyone who has a history of pc gaming considers themself a fan.
Since Levine is the current reincarnation of GOD, this will be a success!
Sorry, I played the demo for Freedom Force and – because it was realtime rather than turn-based – it went too fast for me. I wanted to keep pausing, but then it didn’t seem to work right either… I can’t agree that a Freedom Force-type treatment would be okay.
I’ve never, ever played an X-Com, and I’d wager a lot of people a bit younger then me wouldn’t have played it either, so I’m quite interested to see what direction this new one will go in
If it doesn’t say Gollop, it’s not XCOM.
A port of the original to XBox Live Arcade would be nice, as the only problem I have with my current copy is waiting for my Amiga 1200 to finish making its moves. The PC is running Vista, so I can’t get that release…
what ever happen to the FPS version of XCOM? This is one of those things…if it isnt done right, its going to suck
the destructable terrain and interactivity with 3d objects with supposed to be one of the major selling points of the dreamland chronicles. I’ve tried ufo AI and the writing in the game is awesome but the lack of desctructable terrain completely turned me off, also it just didn’t have the atmosphere that UFO and to a lesser extent TFTD did. Also the aftershock / afterlight / etc games while they had alot of the check boxes also were completely unable to capture any of the atmosphere of the original.
Heh, even if they made it a Flash game, I’d probably buy it. Personally, if they combined 3d (like Incubation) with semi real-time (like Fallout: Tactics) while keeping a lot of the strategic elements I’d be very happy.
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TAZ