By Alec Meer on April 16th, 2010 at 2:11 pm.
The enduring question around 2K Australia’s upcoming XCOM FPS has been “why not just come up with a new IP?” Well, that three posts about X-COM each clocked up triple-figures of comments on Wednesday is the answer to that. A secondary question is “why is everyone so upset that it’s using the X-COM IP?” The IP is not what’s important about X-COM. In terms of fiction, X-COM has only ever been about killing aliens. The important thing is having a game that plays as X-COM did, with its sublime multi-genre cleverness. While it’s unlikely a major publisher would tackle it, the door is not closed to someone else doing that. As has been mentioned by various people, someone like Stardock would be insane to not pick up this baton – there’s a vast and willing audience out there.
First out the gate, though, is indie title Xenonauts, which is militant in its desire to do X-COM properly. It also has a cute genesis – its lead designer Chris England (who is indeed from England) says he was inspired to create an X-COM remake after we wished for one on our podcast. Aw!
Here’s the announcement, and there’s tons more detail on the site.
Yesterday 2K announced that they were working on the official sequel to the classic X-Com franchise, showing as reckless a disregard for history as for hyphens when they revealed it would be a first-person title named XCOM. It may well turn out to be an excellent game, but it’s not exactly what strategy gamers had been waiting 15 years for – a point many people have made, loudly. Goldhawk Interactive is therefore taking the opportunity to officially announce its own title slated for release later this year.
Xenonauts is a planetary defence simulator, putting the player in command of a global organisation tasked with defending the planet against extraterrestrial invasion. Battle alien craft with your interceptors in the skies above Earth, and attack them on the ground in tense turn-based squad combat with your elite strike teams. Construct your bases and manage your budget carefully to keep your forces well-equipped and the aliens at bay, buying yourself enough time to unlock the secrets of extraterrestrial technology and turn it against its masters. This is strategy on a grand scale; commander, tactician, and quartermaster – you must master them all if you are to succeed in defeating the alien menace. Humanity’s very survival rests on your shoulders.
Xenonauts is neither a sequel to X-Com, nor a remake of it. While it shares the same core mechanics that made the original so compelling, Xenonauts has been reinvented and re-imagined from the ground up to fit modern times. The result is a game with a fresh setting and story, a streamlined interface and updated game mechanics with countless new features.
Check out our new site over at http://www.xenonauts.com to get full details on the game. However, for those tragically born without the ability to navigate the internet, the key points are summarized below:
Manage a global organization – build and upgrade your bases, manage research projects and personnel levels, customize and equip your soldiers and vehicles!
Command and control your interceptors against extraterrestrial craft in real-time strategic air combat!
Battle the aliens on the ground with your elite strike teams in tense turn based combat!
Fight a range of unique and original alien races alongside civilians and friendly AI-controlled support troops!
Randomly generated, fully destructible battlefields mean that no two battles will ever be the same!
Research and unlock extraterrestrial technology, eventually giving you the choice from a selection of over sixty weapons and items of battlefield equipment and nine different support vehicles!
Customise and upgrade your soldiers as they gain battlefield experience!
Jetpacks! Flamethrowers! Name your soldiers after your friends and march them to certain death! ‘Accidentally’ forget to defend your least favorite nations!
Xenonauts is a PC-only title intended for release in Q4 this year.
Jolly good – very much looking forward to hearing/seeing more. All we want, all we really want is X-COM at higher resolutions and with a slicker interface. Maybe these guys can do it, if they have the time, know-how and resources.
Obviously it’s relatively early days for the project, and there are multiple other X-COM remake projects around, so it’s still too soon to hold this aloft as The Answer To All Our Problems. There’s surely a reason no-one’s really cracked/bettered the X-COM formula in all these long years since. It’s perhaps a matter of impetus, which has doubtless been lacking for stuff like UFO 2000. That may well all change now – the reveal of 2K’s XCOM, and the scandal thereof, will galvanise interest and enthusiasm in this kind of project.That may well mean it won’t suffer the problems and delays of fan-games such as Black Mesa: Source.
I have to say, though, I’ll be very surprised if the original X-COM doesn’t seem so rejiggeried version for XBLA, Steam, iPhones et al to accompany the FPS. All told, whatever you think about XCOM, I suspect it might be a great couple of years for X-COM after all.
16/04/2010 at 14:16 CloakRaider says:
Hopefully Xenonauts will be the Torchlight to Diablo. And some of that indie flair would go a long way in rejuvinating X-COM for me.
16/04/2010 at 14:51 Divebomb says:
heh, I can’t agree with these being analogous ever. torchlight was made by many of the original diablo guys after all.
16/04/2010 at 15:18 Peter Radiator Full Pig says:
This would make my year. (Along with the new Civ)
Especially if you extend the metaphor, and include some manner of multiplayer (There is a multiplayer only rejigging of X-COM, but it suffers from interface and no tutorial problems, and bad client, and more…)
16/04/2010 at 17:20 Casimir's Blake says:
Please, god, NO. I don’t want QUEST ARROWS (and everything – all the handholding – they imply) in an X-COM game.
19/04/2010 at 09:12 EvaUnit02 says:
@Casimir’s Blake
In Bioshock, you could turn off most of the hand-holding bollocks from the options menu. At least with the PC version.
16/04/2010 at 14:21 Tunips says:
The more X-COM the better I say. If this is picking up ideas from Aftershock and Extraterrestrials, but benefiting from a fresh start, it could be really something. Something X-COMish, ideally.
That feature list certainly looks like a step in the right direction.
16/04/2010 at 14:22 BIG D says:
I’ve come back to the original, its just timeless… if you squint a little!
16/04/2010 at 14:22 Peanut says:
I’ve never played XCOM, although I watched my father play it when I was really young.
After hearing about all the different aspects the game has through these articles I’m really interested in playing something with the same gameplay. I’m looking forward to this particular game, because quite frankly I don’t think I would be able to handle the graphics/resolution no matter how good the gameplay is.
16/04/2010 at 16:28 westyfield says:
Same – lots of older games I’ve never played are hailed as ‘the best [genre] ever’ and I can’t play them because it hurts my eyes. I’m looking forward to this a lot.
16/04/2010 at 17:00 DrazharLn says:
I play X-COM on my phone. Resolution problems solved.
The remake for the phone (called Pocket UFO) isn’t perfect, it doesn’t have quite the same featureset and it’s a little unstable sometimes (just following UFOs doesn’t work, for example, and you can’t bring the graphs up) but the format works really well, and in some cases the interface is much better.
Maybe RPS should cover it… :)
16/04/2010 at 14:26 Mario Figueiredo says:
The IP is important to X-COM. But I agree that in the same vein I argue they should just create a new IP, instead of making an FPS out of X-COM, it is true a game like X-COM can be made with a new IP.
16/04/2010 at 14:30 Dinger says:
You can never go back, only forward, and at some point, only decay and death await.
A new x-com needs to be new.
16/04/2010 at 14:46 Acosta says:
Yes, I can’t wait for Civilization FPS, that 4X thing gets boring and it´s old. We need new and exciting new perspectives, like shooters.
16/04/2010 at 16:56 GetOutOfHereStalker says:
yeahi a gree lets remake x-com hundreds of times. each x-com remake is worse then the last.
16/04/2010 at 16:59 GetOutOfHereStalker says:
seriously how has every single x-com remake got it wrong some how? is it nostalgia ruining everything or a genuine failing on their part?
16/04/2010 at 14:32 jakksoul says:
I found these guys after reading the posts from yesterday.
http://game.jseuss.com/
They are doing an iphone xcom tribute/remake.
Looks like a good fit for me as a *whisper it* mac user (and playing it through dosbox is apparently not so great)
16/04/2010 at 14:57 Divebomb says:
it’s fine. but you have to screw around with the conf file a little
16/04/2010 at 14:37 Solivagant says:
I love X-Com. It’s great that the X-Com fanbase has vocality on the “journalist” side of things. Thats something that Fallout didnt have, to my knowledge. Good Luck!
16/04/2010 at 18:48 Bret says:
They also have a lot more, well, stability it seems.
Looked over at a major X-Com fan forum, and the general response?
“Too bad a TBS won’t be coming from a major studio these days. Ah well. As unlikely as it may be, let’s hope this is good.”
And a minimum of excremental puns for titles.
16/04/2010 at 14:41 Mario Figueiredo says:
BTW, as for Xenonauts I hope they pull it. I’ll certainly contribute during development if I see there is a genuine effort. But I’m a little skeptical (on the success, not their intentions).
The fact no one was actually capable of ever bringing in the ambiance of X-COM has also been making me wonder for the past couple of days if it is at all possible. And even if 2K would be taking too much of a risk doing that — and if they didn’t make this assessment themselves, before coming up with the FPS choice.
In all truth it doesn’t actually need to feel like X-COM. Xenonauts is a new game and the authors said they are inspired by it. They are not trying to revive it; nor they could, for legal reasons. But 2K would have that responsibility. It’s still my firm opinion they should have risked it. But whatever.
To the folks at Goldhawk Interactive my best wishes. Do what you are proposing to do and ask me the price of an AAA title, and I’ll toss the money. Make no mistake. But don’t feel bad I’m not exactly carrying much hope. Coming up with a new game concept just because, is not really something I find carries enough motivational value for what will be a lengthy design and development process with lots of tough hurdles… none more complicated than a viable tactical combat AI.
16/04/2010 at 14:41 Acosta says:
Best of lucks to the team, but I lost the hope to see someone replicating the original formula, I tried the UFO and have kept track on everyone using X-Com as a reference, but nobody has got near to achieve anything close, everyone loses elements or merge them in a way that doesn’t feel natural.
I wish Ubisoft gave Julian Gollop the chance to make a new strategy game as he works on the Sofia production studios, but I lost the hope some time ago (I even bought his last game, Rebelstar for GBA, but it was basically Laser Squadron remix). Ubi Sofia only produces chess games and ports (perhaps Julian like it that way, he was never comfortable in the spotlight).
16/04/2010 at 14:45 Tyndareus says:
First signs are promising; granted, it’s too early, but the period setting sounds interesting, with room for international rivalries/spheres of influence running parallel to the struggle against the aliens.
Let’s hope they stick to what made X-COM great and infuse it with some fresh ideas, because Altar’s UFO trilogy left me lukewarm (oddly enough I likes Afterlight the most, which most people would have me believe its pants, but I liked the character and I ended up caring for my crew) and UFO:Extraterrestrials was one big disappointment for me.
Also, though it’s been pointed out numerous times in the X-COM-inspired threads, I feel I should also say that the original is still a superb game (though some squinting at the graphics is sadly inevitable).
16/04/2010 at 14:49 Divebomb says:
ufo 2 extraterrestrials was also announced a while back, well about a year ago http://www.ufo2extraterrestrials.com/ still with a q4 2010 releasedate. and Altar are hopefully, working on another ufo aftersomething right now, hope so. afterlight was quite good
16/04/2010 at 14:59 Heliocentric says:
I would adore a real time shooter x-com if it still had the strategic management. A cross between swat4 and x-com. Where you don’t always aim to kill and with an x-com/battlefield bad company like destruction. Add in the ability to have strategic level units like a gunship or artillary offering fire support to your ground squad but only if they exist and are local.
Coop campaigns and i will love you always.
16/04/2010 at 15:28 Sobric says:
@ Helio
Yes! So much. I’ll admit I never played SWAT4, but I did play the demo of Rainbow 6 a whole lot (I was rubbish at it too).
Alongside the genre blend, 2K also need to get the atmosphere right. As discussed in a previous X-Com thread, it’s that combination of B Movie tackiness (some of the original aliens where pretty tacky) with sweat-inducing tension and poop-inducing fear (i.e. everytime you see a Chrysalid).
Personally, I would also be happy if they manage to nail that Dwarf Fortress-esque “losing is fun” vibe. The original almost did this (mainly through psych attacks and blaster bombs), but was often more frustration inducing (HOW did you miss from one tile away? HOW HOW HOW? *headdesk*). I doubt a commercial release would have the balls to do that however.
16/04/2010 at 18:10 Heliocentric says:
Stop what you are doing, you need this.
http://www.gamershell.com/download_8426.shtml
16/04/2010 at 18:53 Lilliput King says:
Exactly what I have been saying to anyone who will listen (no-one)! Also why I wasn’t so shocked/weepy/angry at the announcement of a ‘tactical shooter.’ Didn’t seem to rule out the possibility of Swat 4 with X-Com’s campaign map.
16/04/2010 at 19:20 Link says:
Ah, but SWAT4 was developed and released entirely on the PC. Even R6 morphed into the Vegas franchise once it made it onto the consoles, with the tactical planning stage mostly stripped away. Somehow I don’t think that level of pre-mission planning and setup is entirely favoured by the 360 audience.
Seeing as how the next info dump for this X-COM FPS will appear in the Official XBox Magazine — it doesn’t give me much hope that there’s any PC-focused development going on here.
I’ll refrain from further pessimism until new info does come out, but it looks suspiciously like X360 lead platform -> PC port to me.
16/04/2010 at 15:03 Taxbad says:
Xenonauts is to X-com as Torchlight is to Diablo. Ooh that makes me tingle all over.
16/04/2010 at 15:05 Felix says:
I want to believe
16/04/2010 at 15:09 Cinnamon says:
More choice is always good and I hope that these guys can deliver along with the UFO: Extraterrestrials guys who have hopefully learned a lot from their last game. This is shaping up to be a potentially amazing year for fans of turn based strategy on the PC from new indie games like Flotilla to radical changes to behemoths like Civ 5.
16/04/2010 at 15:20 Harlander says:
I have to say, though, I’ll be very surprised if the original X-COM doesn’t seem so rejiggeried version for XBLA, Steam, iPhones et al to accompany the FPS
Come again?
16/04/2010 at 22:17 ascagnel says:
FTFY
There won’t be a rejiggered Steam version (the original is already on there), but I do expect to see an XBLA/iPhone version.
16/04/2010 at 15:36 Jakkar says:
Cthuloid frogmen!
DAGON RISES!
This isn’t X-Com, this is Innsmouth D:
I LOVE IT!
.. Now I want a decent Jagged Alliance 3 D:
16/04/2010 at 16:16 Alexander Norris says:
It’ll never be as good as 1.13′s made JA2. :(
16/04/2010 at 17:07 Yargh says:
Someone did attempt JA in 3D ( http://www.1cpublishing.eu/game/7-62/overview ) unfortunately it suffered from many crippling bugs and some poor design.
16/04/2010 at 18:04 MWoody says:
I’d say a more worthy successor, or rather, a better entry in the X-Com/Jagged genre as a whole, was Silent Storm. A fully destructible 3d environment was fun as hell. I’d frequently send big-gun-wielding brutes into a house where I knew there were enemies on the second floor and fire upwards, tearing apart the floor and sending my foes crashing to their doom.
16/04/2010 at 15:45 blah says:
LOL – I just tried to imagine what Fallout would look like from an FPS perspective, that wouldn’t work at all – how would you know to target enemies behind your character…
16/04/2010 at 15:46 manintheshack says:
@ Jakkar
Seconded, thirded and fourtheded. Waiting for the next proper JA game is like waiting for Christ to return. If the world ends before JA3 hits the shelves I’ll be super pissed.
16/04/2010 at 16:14 boldoran says:
Yes agreed. I noticed that GOG has JA:Wildfire in its catalouge. Anyone got an oppinion on it? Also I was looking into Silent Storm (played a bit of the Demo a long time ago) but could not find it anywhere at a half decent price.
16/04/2010 at 18:20 Devrey says:
Wildfire is okay, but the king remains JA2 1.13
16/04/2010 at 15:54 wcaypahwat says:
I’d totally buy it for as an iPhone app. Better yet, Terror From The Deep. Because you know… It’d be in my pocket. And stuff.
16/04/2010 at 15:56 JonFitt says:
Well I quite liked Altar’s attempts at X-COM. The first one was buggy as all Eastern European games seem to be, but if you persevered there was a good game in there.
It didn’t quite capture the flavour, but I liked the way the Geoscape would be remodelled, and capturing regions made the bases more like they existed in real places, rather than just plonked down in the desert to geometrically cover as many cities as possible.
I didn’t think their sequels needed to continue the story though, I think each sequel should have been a reimagining of the first alien attack.
16/04/2010 at 21:52 jalf says:
Agreed, Afterlight was a surprisingly good game.
It’s also probably the first X-COM clone that dared to be its own game, rather than just a half-arsed X-COM clone with less colorful graphics. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why I liked it.
The first one just made me sad though. Never played the second one, but I’ve heard it had some cool bits too.
16/04/2010 at 15:58 choddo says:
“They” already did an XCOM FPS. Wasn’t it called XCOM Intruder or something? It was so utterly apalling that noone remembers it. No reason why Ubi can’t do a better job of course, but these genre-hopping efforts to cash-in are usually a disguise for a rubbish game that can’t stand on its own.
16/04/2010 at 17:43 JonFitt says:
Enforcer. Speak no more of it.
16/04/2010 at 19:30 Bret says:
Third person arcade shooter. Different genre, although similar.
Apparently, a French gaming paper or somesuch has more data. Base building, troop management, research, multiple missions?
It’s all in. Playing as multiple guys might not be.
So, that’s mostly good news.
16/04/2010 at 16:10 Illium says:
Ooo They are adding more Types then just Commanders as in Extraterrestrials?
“A large number of aliens to interrogate”
Xenonauts, I hope they make the foe’s bases captureable for certain alien tech manufacturing!
16/04/2010 at 16:48 Quine says:
I’ve been wondering how blasphemous a hybrid 1/3rd-person tactical remake of X-COM in the style of Valkyria Chronicles (PS3) would be.
It had RPG-style progression of your cannon-fodder, action points, good tactical combat and looked lovely. Add the requisite base-building, inventory micromanagement an destructible terrain and you could have a workable 3d tactical combat game.
16/04/2010 at 19:24 amishmonster says:
I’ve been playing Valkyria Chronicles alongside my most recent game of X-Com, and cannot stop thinking how it would be even better if those high schoolers were fighting snakemen instead.
And oh god, Chryssalids would be such bad news in VC…
16/04/2010 at 16:57 id says:
The only part of the X-COM setting that actually means anything to anyone are Chryssalids.
…or as they are more commonly known, “oh god fuck no no no NO, motherfucking Chryssalids!”
Beyond that, though, yeah, I don’t think there’s any reason to give a rat’s ass for anything specific to the X-COM IP; I just want to do the stuff I could do in X-COM (build my base, research my tech, send squads on missions, fight tactical battles and blow up neighborhoods in the name of defending the planet), only with a better user interface. Get the core gameplay right, and I don’t give a crap if it’s a war against Ethereals and Sectoids or Klingons and Romulans or Teletubbies and Muppets.
But I might miss Chryssalids.
16/04/2010 at 18:16 plugmonkey says:
“…or as they are more commonly known, “oh god fuck no no no NO, motherfucking Chryssalids!””
Yes, I believe that is their full title.
As all your soldiers solemnly prime a grenade for 0 turns and grip it tightly in their left hand…
16/04/2010 at 22:44 JonFitt says:
Ah yes, the dead man’s grenade. An excellent tactic.
I would often mind control and enemy grunt and in that one turn I could hold onto him I would prime every grenade he had on him!
17/04/2010 at 16:07 Jack says:
chryssalids are fine. tentaculats on the other hand are imbalanced crap which stabs you out of nowhere (99 movement point, flying, tough and one-hit-kill? OH YEAH SO BALANCED)
16/04/2010 at 17:03 GetOutOfHereStalker says:
btw what’s with the bare-ass lizardman?
17/04/2010 at 01:32 Horatius says:
A rooster-man in hotpants is our final hope? *sigh*
16/04/2010 at 17:12 Robert says:
It is apparent that for most people X-COM was about the gameplay details. Just look at the difference between the reactions on RPS. But I’d like to argue that XCOM is as much X-COM as Xenonauts is. Though this has nothing to do with the merit of either game.
The thing that made X-COM ‘legendary’ is the sheer amount innovation and refreshing gameplay. It took it’s predecessor Laser Squad, refined it, and sauced it with awesome. I have seen remark that 2K Marin has no ‘respect’ for the franchise, but I disagree. In that light you could say the same about Goldhawk, and more people would agree to disagree on that. If you look at it that narrowmindedly, it should end with the original (maybe the quadrilogy, as they are more like expansions in my opinion).
That aside, I do look forward to this. And I hope they can pull it off. I never could get into the ‘recent’ plethora of ‘sequels’.
16/04/2010 at 17:19 Chaz says:
I shall look forward to this greatly.
At the same time I’m firmly in the camp that couldn’t give a toss that the new X-Com game is going to be an FPS. So what? I like FPS’s and I liked the X-Com series, what’s the problem? This is the same old knee jerk hullaballoo that came out when Bethesda anounced Fallout 3, and that, in my opinion turned out to be brilliant. That some people are already critscing this new X-Com game just because they missed out a hyphen in the title is pathetic.
16/04/2010 at 18:24 plugmonkey says:
Well, as stated in the press release of this article, I really want a new X-Com game (as in the genre) more than I want another X-Com game (as in the franchise).
When this game was announced, I was rather hoping it would be the former rather than the latter. But if someone other than 2K is going to recognise the market for a game in the X-Com genre – be it these guys or someone else – and deliver on that, then I could get the best of both worlds.
16/04/2010 at 22:09 Chaz says:
To be honest what these guys are doing I think is the only way were going to get another turn based X-Com style game. I just can’t imagine a big studio throwing major bucks at a turn based “shooting” game.
16/04/2010 at 18:12 Sergey says:
Hammer & Sickle’s system was even better then Silent Storm (which is to be expected I suppose considering it was a sort of a sequel). Too bad that game suffered from numerous storyline bugs.
I would drool at a prospect of an X-Com remake using Hammer & Sickle’s system.
17/04/2010 at 07:54 dadioflex says:
I managed a weekends entertainment from Hammer and Sickle, even though I had to resort to a walkthru just to play the thing. You really did have to visit locations in an exact order or the story got reamed. Still, well worth the two quid it cost me at the time.
Gonna re-install Silent Storm (and Sentinels) but I do have these vague memories of turns that took about a month to process…
16/04/2010 at 18:31 Grunt says:
I have ot confess to never having really played an X-Com game. I bought them recently during one of Steam’s mad two-fer-a-pound sales and did start on the first game but realised I didn’t have enough time to really sink my teeth into it so postponed it pending a revisit.
My reason for commenting is because I see X-Com as being in a very similar position to one of my own personal favourites series, Elite (more Frontier and Frontier: FE than the grandparent). Here too we have a critically lauded game, one of the true gaming classics, that is desperately crying out for a modern remake. Not a tawdry re-imagining but a more modern version of the same fantastic experience, tailored to modern computers and modern gamer UI and graphical expectations.
While Frontier is getting something very much like that – http://pioneer.sourceforge.net/ – it has been disheartening to watch so many X-Com projects struggle to do this. The news above, therefore, is exceedingly welcome, and I can’t wait to see if they meet that suspiciously optimistic date target!
16/04/2010 at 18:31 Vinraith says:
Well, that’s two. This one looks encouraging, and the team behuind UFO: Extraterrestrials seems to be trying rather hard to get it right with their sequel as well: http://www.ufo2extraterrestrials.com/
If Stardock joined the fray that’d make 3, and we’d have a real chance of at least one of them hitting somewhere close to the mark. God help me I’m actually starting to get optimistic about this.
17/04/2010 at 01:07 Uhm says:
Vinraith, and this one: UFO: Alien Invasion. Playable, atm and being updated al the time.
16/04/2010 at 18:59 Crush says:
One thing all the X-Com clones always seem to ignore/forget about is the Japanese anime style the first two games had. The cartoonish graphics were always a big part of its appeal to me and always seems to be dropped for drab military/realistic styles.
Even their last game was anime based Rebel Star Tactical Command
http://www.mobygames.com/game/gameboy-advance/rebelstar-tactical-command
Hopefully the xenonauts team will keep this in mind too.
16/04/2010 at 22:22 TurboLento says:
The art style for X-Com 1 was actually based on american comics of the time (heavily inspired by X-Men, done at the time by Jim Lee, which was being imitated by everyone else doing comics), not on anime. Anime needs to be kept far away from X-Com design.
Terror from the Deep went a different path, borrowing from admitedly very cheesy 50′s science fiction designs, but IMHO had a much more interesting and inspired art style.
17/04/2010 at 07:57 dadioflex says:
UFO:Afterlight had cartoon-inspired graphics. More Pixar than Anime though. Decent game, though a bit of a grind towards the end.
16/04/2010 at 19:16 irongamer says:
“All we want, all we really want is X-COM at higher resolutions and with a slicker interface. Maybe these guys can do it, if they have the time, know-how and resources.”
I hope they do it right. I was about to fire up another game of X-com but I would like play with a more modern interface.
16/04/2010 at 19:28 Blather Blob says:
There’s a ton of concept art/model renders at http://www.xenonauts.com/devimages/. The earliest ones are dated as having been uploaded to their web server Sept 2 2009, so they’ve been working on this for at least half a year, already.
16/04/2010 at 19:35 Illium says:
For you who fail to understand, is that we who played Space Crusade, X-Com, HoMM and other games like those, simply dosnt want an sequel of those games in FPS when its turn based tatical strategic games we want to play. Soo guess why we are upset after soo many years of waiting on a worthy sequel of X-Com. It might be a really good FPS but,.. we feel cheated.
16/04/2010 at 20:07 Gabbo says:
It appears that shooters/first person perspectives are the new starting point to test out genre mixing and IP reboots, because only they sell these days I guess.
16/04/2010 at 21:45 Langman says:
It is indeed frustrating that there is one game I would happily throw £30 towards right now – a spruced up, polished carbon copy of the original XCOM that works in Win7 (including the awesome atmospheric soundtrack that was made for the Playstation version) – and yet in all these years it hasn’t been done.
I have a suspicion this game won’t be entirely successful, and I still have questions over how much they’ll be able to get away with legally, but I do wish them good luck.
16/04/2010 at 22:13 GetOutOfHereStalker says:
unless this game can make you 8 years old again it’s not gong to compare to the nostalgic memories of the original x-com
16/04/2010 at 22:14 Zeldrin says:
Is it just me, or is the geoscape very reminicent of the Modern Warfare 2 mission briefings?
16/04/2010 at 22:17 ascagnel says:
Its the whole “satellite map of the earth” thing that has you reminiscing.
16/04/2010 at 22:56 Blather Blob says:
@Zeldrin: Looks like they’re both using NASA’s Blue Marble image, the public domain alternative to paying for satellite imagery.
16/04/2010 at 22:23 Bluebreaker says:
Wasn’t a xcom fps planed after interceptor and got canceled years before enforcer?
16/04/2010 at 23:01 Bret says:
Not years before Enforcer, but yeah.
X-Com Alliance. Looked good.
16/04/2010 at 23:25 KP says:
I want a real-time-with-pausing mode like Apocalypse. it gets a lot of hate from the XCOM PURISTS but it’s my favorite. :)
17/04/2010 at 04:10 pirate0r says:
i loved the real time with pausing too *ducks*. It felt like they had combined x-com with syndicate (minus the persuadatron). Watching your soldiers duck in and out of cover while spraying hallways with automatic weapons fire was awesome. Throw HE weapons into the mix and it was epic.
Hell I used to load up my weakest cyborg guy with HE charges, prime them all and send him running into the nearest alien filled slum. You can take down entire buildings that way.
17/04/2010 at 09:52 Illium says:
You could choose to have the away missions turnbased, I always got outflanked by brainsuckers if I didnt played turnbased.
16/04/2010 at 23:58 Pehry says:
What about an X-COM type of game that somehow uses Google Earth for all of its battle sites. Crash a UFO into a suburban neighborhood and have all the actual buildings to go through/around.
Also, anyone else remember Chaos Gate? Warhammer 40k X-COM style.
17/04/2010 at 10:04 Illium says:
Yes I remeber Chaos Gate, and it was like a tune up from the space crusade amiga game eventhoue Im not sure if they were even related except for GW WH40K. And yes very alot like X-Com. Sadly my retail version of Chaos Gate was too buggy and crashed more often then I got chanse to play it.
I also remember later games like Rites of War where they made WH40k more like Tabeltop.
This game gets my thumbs up for atlest trying to give us what we want, then well see how it turns out ofc. And I wouldnt mind a new version of Chaos Gate, it was pretty cool to shoot from the window slots in TFTD pyramid-sih buildings at the foe. :)
17/04/2010 at 11:21 Hmm says:
Good luck to the Xenonauts team, I’m definitely looking forward to the game!
The more, the merrier, however – are you there, STARDOCK? Do it. You know you want to. DO IT!!!
17/04/2010 at 11:37 Dreamhacker says:
Once more: Silent Storm. This is THE DEFINITIVE spiritual sucessor to X-Com and Jagged Alliance. The graphics look kind of cutesy and the armored suits work best with the No-PK mod, but this is an incredibly brilliant game sporting some way-ahead-of-everyone-else destructible enviroments.
Another game to check out is Fallout Tactics. Good squad- and turn based combat, faithful to the original two Fallout games, mildly hated in the community and extremely atmospheric. It’s got vehicles too!
17/04/2010 at 14:02 Hmm says:
Silent Storm was awesome. It needs a sequel or a spiritual successor, revolving around covert operations behind enemy lines during WWII (“Where Eagles Dare”, anyone?) – turn-based and with no sci-fi elements, of course.
17/04/2010 at 22:02 GetOutOfHereStalker says:
the only bad sci-fi element were the mechs, and only because they were boring, slow, and overpowered.
17/04/2010 at 13:21 SSS says:
Silent Storm was really good (except for the gamebreaking skill system bug that the devs didn’t give a crud about, but hey..that’s what modders are for, right?).
Sentinels was crud as there no longer was much of a “reason” why to do this or that…I much prefer my games to give me a sense of WHY to do WHAT WHERE WHEN…and yes, I did love the original UFO 1+2. As random as they seemed, you always were doing something in terms of research, needing a captured body this, item that..
If you are going to make games like SS then give me a feeling of development and upgrade along with it.
I agree that the destructible environment engine made for a TON of fun, but it could also just plain deadlock missions, too. Still, would love to see more people go for this in a big way and make more JA / X-Com oriented games again.
Might check out H&S, but reviews did not get my hopes up..
Still: developers out there, GO AND GET TO MAKING MORE GAMES LIKE THIS.
Let me research stuff. Let me have a feeling of advancement. Let me feel good about the upgrade. Don’t make meaningless, plotless trite.
Etc.
We want to feel, so let us!
17/04/2010 at 22:45 Iain says:
Forget an iPhone version of UFO: Enemy Unknown. What I want is a conversion for the DS. Actually, I’ve been wanting one for about five years, and I’m still waiting. The GBA version of Rebelstar is nice and all that, but without the freeform goodness of UFO: EU, it’s not quite the real deal.
18/04/2010 at 14:53 Crush says:
X-Com Chibi artwork, really great stuff and ideas for an X-Com title the Xenonauts guys should get in touch with this guy.
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/rebelsquad/rebelsquad.htm#art
18/04/2010 at 15:27 Oak says:
This is wonderful. His reimagining of Quake is also incredibly neat.
18/04/2010 at 21:42 PHeMoX says:
Yeah, but the ‘Indie flair’ of Torchlight is certainly overrated and it goes to show.
It’s a great game and it’s a terrific Diablo clone, but I don’t agree with the analogy above either.
It’s in no way an Indie game when it comes to the experience involved. ;-)
21/04/2010 at 21:42 Jochen Scheisse says:
The AI-controlled civilians sound good to me. I hope they actually build on the ideas they already express on the page. Like a random encounter function. Imagine having a tense fight in the desert and suddenly being aided by Taliban!
27/04/2010 at 23:41 Dean Neilson says:
Did you all know that you can purchased a new updated version of all XCOMs through steam that works on all PC’s.
You so knowit was like christmas for me!!!!!
25/11/2010 at 18:54 Beornyr says:
I dont know.. maybe im getting myself to be flammed but i think the X-Com definatly need a face lift. Not that i agree with the 2k version of it.
To me the new version of X-COm should have 3 parts:
1- the strategy part. This is where you place your bases, manage them, as well as the technologies and resources. This part would look pretty much like the old X-Com except streamlined and updated to today’s standarts. here is wher eyou also equip the transporters and interceptors and also check the troop status and gear and skills.
2- the intercept part. they could make this one a aerial combat game. When you send a interceptor to get a enemy ship it would “zoom” into the combat area and you would control one of the interceptors, giving orders to the others.
3- the ground combat. Make it like Rainbow Six Vegas but withouth any arrows or helps. Xcom troops were deployed into the unknown and they should remain like that. You would only get a baseline quest (kill all aliens, capture a certain indivitual, get a certain item) and a map of the are (maybe satelite cover), other then that you are alone with your squad. Plus you could choose your gear from what was available in the trasnport prior to deployment.
I might just be daydreaming but i think something like that would sell.