By Jim Rossignol on May 8th, 2010 at 3:03 pm.
Mr Meer was the first to take a look at the new XCOM, thanks to the PC Gamer’s exclusive feature. Since he’s currently off having weekend adventures I thought it might be wise to link to an online sighting: GamesRadar have the full text, and some images.
This isn’t a linear shooter, either. Your base’s phonetappers and police-radio scanners present you with choices as to where to go next and what to do, picked from a large map of the US. Rumours of animal attacks and strange weather patterns in a certain state? Sounds like Blobs are on the rampage. Saddle up, Agent Carter. Grab the wheel of your hulking fedmobile, take two of your best men with you, and go see what’s going on.
08/05/2010 at 15:14 Dain says:
Well, 1950s setting already makes it sound more unique than your standard shooter
08/05/2010 at 15:49 M says:
Agreed, it’s an inspired choice. Really nice themes, this sounds great!
Could’ve easily done it without the XCOM title, mind you.
08/05/2010 at 16:30 HexagonalBolts says:
@M
There’s a depression on, dontcha’ know! Old, well known franchises are a brilliant, safe and relatively cheap way to drum up interest and sales (according to the marketing department anyway).
08/05/2010 at 15:25 Garg says:
I love the styling of the alien technology, with that laser drone thing tearing up the place forming from levitating shapes. I hope there is plenty of stuff outside of the shooting bits though, as only half of x-com was the battle phase.
08/05/2010 at 15:32 toni says:
x-com is about an alien invasion on earth. xcom is about an alien invasion on earth.
now THAT’s gonna silence the doubters !! logic wins.
08/05/2010 at 15:37 pkt-zer0 says:
I still can’t imagine why they thought sticking the X-Com name on this game was a good idea.
08/05/2010 at 15:52 Jimbo says:
Brand recognition? People are already talking about it a lot more than if they hadn’t used the name.
08/05/2010 at 16:29 Daniel Rivas says:
I get the feeling they just really liked X-COM, but felt they needed to make it a Doom-Clone for it to succeed commercially. Fair enough, I hope it’s good. I can’t imagine the rights were expensive.
08/05/2010 at 17:25 Uhm says:
Because it’s a lot like XCom.
08/05/2010 at 22:35 Tacroy says:
So was Bioshock, but they didn’t call it “Systemshock”.
09/05/2010 at 00:11 Tacroy says:
Thinking about it some more, it seems like sticking the XCom name on this game amounts to a huge vote of no confidence from whoever made that decision – in other words, “we don’t think this game will stand up on its own, so let’s stick the name of a great game we’ve got the rights to on it!”
09/05/2010 at 00:57 Jimbo says:
That seems a bit of a stretch. Using the name gets the game some extra attention, regardless of whether the game is good or bad.
Fallout 3 reviewed extremely well and is widely considered to be an excellent game (ie. ‘strong enough to stand up on its own’), but the Fallout brand undoubtedly helped that game sell as many as it did, because it invites increased attention.
Bioshock was a great name, they managed to say “it’s kinda like System Shock” whist still giving a flavour of the new game. Maybe they could have called this ‘G-Com’.
09/05/2010 at 17:09 Kryopsis says:
Keep in mind that even if Irrational Games wanted to make BioShock a System Shock 2 sequel, they wouldn’t be able to. The ‘System Shock’ trademark is owned by EA rather than 2K or Irrational.
08/05/2010 at 15:51 stahlwerk says:
The art style looks lovely. The best kind of gadgetry was developed in that period (think about the props of the original enterprise!) and it’s great someone is willing to adhere to this “let’s totally use a household appliance as a scifi utensil” school of propping with little more than an ironic wink (as in, not all-out ridiculing it like NOLF, TF2 or even some of the bond movies did).
Don’t know yet if I’m all for fighting shapeless goo/solid monsters, especially if the squad-AI acts as a perfect magnet. I hope the bestiary contains at least a few “familiar aliens”.. There’s something totally iconic about the “greys” (fast movement from cover to cover, swarm tactics/intelligence, mind control) which will be sorely missed if they are not included.
2k, you may proceed. looking forward to suprises.
08/05/2010 at 15:52 Bruce Rambo says:
It’s X-COM: Delta Green?
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Green )
Sounds neats.
However, I’d rather they let the concept stand on its own merits than involve and pollute so much of a classic.
08/05/2010 at 15:54 Alexander Norris says:
Them’s the magic words right there. Although sadly, not a mention of SWAT 4.
08/05/2010 at 15:55 Thingus says:
It’s a neat idea, but the thing that worries me is whether they’ll be able to pull off locations all across America without making them feel repetetive or samy. Think they’ll use procedurally generated maps?
I never played any of the X-COM games, so I can’t really comment on the use of the title or ‘feel’. Are they really as good as people say they are?
08/05/2010 at 16:13 Unaco says:
Yes.
08/05/2010 at 16:17 Arathain says:
Yes, the XCOM games are that good. There are many who hold the first one to be the greatest game on the PC. It certainly must be included when talking about the form. It’s super-clever, tense, flexible and strategically and tactically interesting. It excels at placing every action in a global context, right down to the smallest battlefield choices. It’s emotionally involving. It has a great sense of fighting a desperate campaign against a foe that is superior in almost every respect. It really is that good, which is why folk are getting so riled up about this version. XCOM’s precious to us, you know?
The second is a hard-as-nails partially underwater version of the first with a couple of useful interface tweaks, but is functionally the same game. Apocalypse is a bit of a departure, and is an excellent game in its own right, while lacking the magic of the first two. Anything after that (Interceptor, Enforcer) can be safely ignored.
They’re also cheap on Steam. Try the first. Be sure to name all your soldiers after people you like.
08/05/2010 at 19:17 Dogar says:
Yes, the first game is totally awesome, and I’m saying this without a wiff of nostalgia. I first played the game in 2007 and fell in love with it almost instantly. Get it, get it now!
08/05/2010 at 20:27 PleasingFungus says:
Also, the UI’s a bit impenetrable – it’s a strategy game from the period when you actually had to read the manual. And, naturally, the graphics will burn your eyes for a bit until you get used to them.
Once you’re through that, though.
08/05/2010 at 21:51 Quijote3000 says:
I can safely say it’s THAT good. I still remember the feeling of dread when spotting the chryssalids. Sure, there are other aliens technically stronger, but still the chryssalids were SCARY
08/05/2010 at 16:03 Flakfizer says:
What the hell does any of this have to do with X-Com ?
08/05/2010 at 16:06 Helm says:
No offence meant but… “We can start believing?” In what, surface level hype? Is that seriously good advice? Sorry to sound confrontational, it just rubbed me wrong.
08/05/2010 at 16:08 M says:
Well, he has played it/seen it.
08/05/2010 at 16:06 Arathain says:
That looks really quite clever. I’m encouraged. Very few games manage to encourage you to run away when things get rough, so I’d be very interested in seeing if they could pull that off.
08/05/2010 at 16:10 Barnz says:
It’s Fallout 3 all over again.
08/05/2010 at 16:50 El Stevo says:
@ Barnz:
So you think it’ll be a great game too?
09/05/2010 at 13:45 Jesus says:
@El Stevo
No, he think it will be console crap made for people that never played any other game in the series.
08/05/2010 at 16:10 Bob Dobbs says:
Grats on your nominally nonlinear atmospheric shooter, but this quote, and the “you can start believing” nonsense, is bullshit. 2K are clearly going for “mystery” and “horror” in a “beautiful, idealized world.” Fine. Hopefully that comes together and the sidekick AI doesn’t suck too much. Maybe it’ll even do more to open shooters up than, oh, I don’t know, Just Cause 2 or whatever. But don’t patronize me by pretending that it’s got anything to do with what made X-COM X-COM.
08/05/2010 at 16:36 Andreas says:
You need to go read the preview. Really, you develop tech, you expand your base, you hunt down aliens all over a hug map – sorry, but it sounds pretty damn X-Com to me. We know bugger all, but what we do know sounds promising.
08/05/2010 at 16:12 cypher says:
Hmmm seems like cthulhu dark corners of the earth meets original xcom, which is no bad thing. If even a third of the hype stands up to the test of time it sounds like it’ll be genuinely interesting.
08/05/2010 at 16:14 Pantsman says:
I think I understand why they’re calling this XCOM. It doesn’t seem much like the original, but it doesn’t seem much like anything else either. I doubt their corporate masters would’ve allowed them to make something this unique without a trusted name being attached to it. If this turns out to be as brilliant as it sounds, then all is forgiven.
08/05/2010 at 16:25 Arathain says:
“If this turns out to be as brilliant as it sounds, then all is forgiven.”
That’s the key, really. It’s a huge risk using the XCOM name, because it evokes exactly the sort of reactions we see on this site. It had better be nothing short of brilliant, or PC gamers will not forgive easily.
08/05/2010 at 16:38 stahlwerk says:
That’s a really good point, Pantsman. Brand recognition will play a large role in the marketing of this game, and I think the fact that they’re doing something “revolutionary” (There never were any first-person games with the x-com name, right? ) with that brand shows a lot of guts.
Also, it shows a good grasp on how marketing works in this day and age of internets: As long as there’s no “dislike” button on facebook, every publicity on this game is good publicity.
08/05/2010 at 16:46 Flakfizer says:
The cynical part of me thinks this is exactly why they are using the X-Com name.
The rights-holders aren’t going to make a strategy game. The developers only know how to make shooters. This way their production line shooter gets loads of free advertising by creating nerd-rage among older gamers. Nobody cares if they trash the name, it’s not like it was going to get used ‘properly’.
An online petition against it will be signed by thousands of gamers. They’ll all buy it anyway.
08/05/2010 at 18:12 Pantsman says:
But this doesn’t sound like a production line shooter at all. It sounds like a clever, oddball sort of shooter. The publishers don’t like that, so to appease them the devs agree to attach a big name that doesn’t have much to do with it. This allows the devs to get on with making their unconventional and possibly excellent game.
08/05/2010 at 18:51 frymaster says:
(There never were any first-person games with the x-com name, right? )
CORRECT. THERE NEVER WERE.
08/05/2010 at 20:10 Jimbo says:
“That’s the key, really. It’s a huge risk using the XCOM name, because it evokes exactly the sort of reactions we see on this site. It had better be nothing short of brilliant, or PC gamers will not forgive easily.”
Are you for serious?? If so: lol.
09/05/2010 at 00:36 Bret says:
Yup.
There almost was one, and it looked pretty good, but then the team got fired, the assets were used to make a mediocre third person arcade shoot-em-up, and the rest is history.
08/05/2010 at 16:17 Bascule42 says:
omfg…X-Com shooter! Brilliant, can’t wai….*shoves the 4 year old away from the PC – and berates him for swearing*.
Tentative hope that it may be…o…o…ok.
08/05/2010 at 16:19 Flakfizer says:
I just realised we’ll never ever see a proper X-Com sequel.
This makes me sad. Time to drink beer.
08/05/2010 at 23:53 D says:
This is pretty much my only bother. It’s the exact same situation for me as with Fallout3. Regardless of the quality of the resulting game, the genre switch is going to stick and we’ll never see turn-based again. Sequels should stick to their roots dammit, some of us like turn based :(
08/05/2010 at 16:19 Tzarkahn says:
Site, so many pop-ups.
08/05/2010 at 16:22 SirKicksalot says:
“Your goal here isn’t to kill every alien in the place. XCOM doesn’t work like that. It’s incredibly unlikely that you’ll comb every area of one of its wide-open mission maps, as health, ammo and armour are strictly limited to whatever you brought in with you. If your bullets – or, more pertinently, those flame grenades – are in short supply, you won’t be able to hold out much longer. The alien presence grows and grows the longer you stay, so you need to make a judgement call between trying to gather more evidence and simply staying alive.”
I assume people that were quick to bash it back when it was revealed will ignore this bit. Among many others.
08/05/2010 at 16:56 Flakfizer says:
I’m not sure what your point is?
Are you really championing respawning enemies in a first person shooter as the pinnacle of the X-Com experience? If you’re saying it sounds new and interesting i’m afraid it’s neither.
08/05/2010 at 18:09 jalf says:
@Flakfizer: So which game has had this flavor of respawning enemies before?
Yes, FPS games have had respawning enemies, but how many of them have tied it into the mission structure like this? How many have given you actual motivation to stick around as long as possible?
Yes, I get that cynicism and pretending to have seen everything before is cool, but…
08/05/2010 at 16:23 Rohit says:
It still doesn’t look interesting – as a shooter, or an X-Com game.
08/05/2010 at 16:24 Larington says:
Still a lot of unknowns, but there’s at least enough info for me to believe it won’t be completely awful. The question is if it’ll be interesting in a “that’s kinda cool” way or in a “oh god, oh god, please make it stop”…
Still, there’s a shortage of games with a proper base mechanic of some sort (Closest I can think of is Unreal 2 and that’s not an especially good example I’m sad to say and sort of Deus Ex but not quite there either) that you return to between the main missions.
On the subject of Deus Ex, this I suspect will be the ultimate test, will it be a case of feeling like a true successor (even if it doesn’t play like one) or will it end up being like DX: Invisible War – IE not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but not living up to the name of the original.
08/05/2010 at 16:27 stahlwerk says:
Hm, the “How dare they take the name of The Game in vain?” complaints will not cease until a turn-based isometric tactical shooter is released under the same name. I want to pose the honest question: As much as we would love to play it, would that genre work in the year 2010, with all we came to expect from games since 1994?
The problem is, that the more complex your game is, the less accessible it is going to be. “Easy to learn, hard to master” is a design goal that is very hard and cost intensive if done right (see last sunday’s starcraft 2 rant). So, a complex game will intimidate most of the game market (the “casual gamers”). Ergo: less projected sales, so less funding upfront by the publisher. Which means that the developers would have to scale back other areas like graphics, engine robustness, QA, sound, amount of content, just to meet the budget needs. Which would lead to a subpar experience, further reducing the target market.
Sadly, it takes more than enthusiasm to develop and market a (“non-indie”) game in 2010/11 successfully.
08/05/2010 at 18:07 bhlaab says:
“They just couldn’t make a game like that anymore!”
moving onto:
“You need to take off your rose-tinted glasses!”
08/05/2010 at 21:39 FunkyBadger says:
I play lots of isometric tactical rpgs in 2010 – its just I mostly play them on my DS.
I say again, a DS conversion of TFTD please.
08/05/2010 at 16:29 Tei says:
This look awesome. Like TF2 meets TChulu 40.000. I love this.
08/05/2010 at 16:29 Unaco says:
Plenty of people have said this before, but I’ll reiterate it again. This is a game with the X-Com name. It is not an X-Com game. X-Com isn’t a setting, a Universe, a colour scheme, a theme, a main character, a name or anything like that. X-Com is a style and type of game… Global Strategic planning and management, and Turn-based (or RT/TB hybrid) tactical encounters (it should also be quite challenging, and somewhat scary).
Saying that, however, this doesn’t look like a bad game. It looks like an abomination of an X-Com game (cos it doesn’t seem to do what X-Com should do). But it looks like it could be a good game… Kind of like Invisible War wasn’t a worthy Deus Ex game (for somewhat different reasons), but wasn’t that bad a game, by itself. Although I’ve judged it as an X-Com game already (it fails), I’m willing to hold off on judgement of it as a game until I see some more.
08/05/2010 at 16:36 Unaco says:
“X-COM was a game about investigating an alien invasion of Earth at your own speed, by your own means. So is XCOM. You can start believing.”
This sums up the argument I disagree, vehemently, with. It’s kind of like saying “Sensible Soccer was a game about playing football by controlling a team, one player at a time, against another team. So is Fifa2010. You can start believing”. That argument just doesn’t work… it misses WHAT the X-Com games were.
09/05/2010 at 17:23 Kryopsis says:
“X-Com isn’t a setting, a Universe, a colour scheme, a theme, a main character, a name or anything like that. X-Com is a style and type of game… Global Strategic planning and management, and Turn-based (or RT/TB hybrid) tactical encounters (it should also be quite challenging, and somewhat scary).”
X-Com is a franchise.
08/05/2010 at 16:31 12kill4 says:
Swat 4 with a meta-game and aliens?
08/05/2010 at 21:40 FunkyBadger says:
MAKE THIS HAPPEN.
08/05/2010 at 22:49 DMJ says:
I say we make 12kill4 our new leader.
08/05/2010 at 16:54 Dan says:
@Daniel Rivas:
Couldn’t find the time to actually read the article, huh?
08/05/2010 at 16:54 teo says:
I bet it’s in the 50′s so they can repurpose BioShock assets, r&d or something
08/05/2010 at 16:57 Horza says:
After reading that, I’m actually expecting this game.
08/05/2010 at 17:07 Arathain says:
I think it’ll turn up also.
08/05/2010 at 17:04 Michael says:
They can do whatever they like as long as they release a decent FPS that isn’t a linear series of scripted levels. Decent squad combat would be the icing on the cake.
08/05/2010 at 17:05 Tim says:
It looks potentially compelling. I’m a bit worried I won’t really like the combat when it does happen though. I just don’t like FPSs that much. I didn’t even like bioshock :/
I’m encouraged by potential base building and research though.
One thing this game MUST have though… A choice of female NPC agents. It frustrates and disappoints me that the only woman in any of those screen shots is dead. If you’re going to be running a radical program to save humanity you’re going to be breaking conventions of the time in all sorts of ways. That’s really all I want to do. I just want to have the chance to do things my own way.
Ideally it should be possible to choose the main character to be female too, but that seems unlikely given FPS history.
If any of you get a chance to question the developers about this it would be much appreciated. I’m not buying into any realism of the time period crap, the most interesting characters in Mad Men are all female.
08/05/2010 at 17:06 7 Seas says:
Seriously? Alec you call yourself a fan of XCOM, and a games journalist? Christ in a pinata, how depressing.
You say:
You are descarding the entire GAMEPLAY of the original title in that paragraph. To discard gameplay when reviewing games is patently absurd! It’s like reviewing a movie sequel and saying, sure the plot and characters and setting are totally different, but man, the costumes are vaguely related.
You act as if you can abstract out the gameplay to by only looking at the gross generalizations that in many ways amount to window dressing, and therefore equate a strategy game with tactical turn based elements to a first person shooter with a couple extras thrown in like cameras.
I think this is a betrayal of your profession as a games journalist, and frankly reeks of kissing publisher ass (for what reason I don’t know.).
Here are the facts Mr Meer. As a GAME, XCOM was a turn based tactical game integrated with a strategic overview game. I can think of only two lines of games in my experience that have done this blend. Both are classics. They are, of course, XCOM and Jagged Alliance. In total, these games comprise 5 or 6 (depending on how you count certain entires and addons) different games of this type of GAME.
Meanwhile, first person shooters exist in an almost ridiculous abundance, with a vast array of different FPS titles coming out each year. Gamespot lists SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY of them. SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY vs SIX.
That Mr Meer is why I’m pissed off that these jerkwads are slapping XCOM onto their title. Not because I think they will produce a bad game, hell maybe it will be a great one. I am pissed because the GAME that they are making is not of the type of GAME which is rarer than honest politicians, the type of GAME that XCOM basically DEFINED. If you were to describe a new game to someone who had played XCOM, by saying it’s an XCOM type game, do you think the first thing that the only thing that would pop into their minds would be some bullshit about aliens?? By your standards, that abysmal arcade shooter Area 51 is practically an XCOM game too! Mars Attacks, the XCOM movie!
The fact that you, as someone who professes to love the GAME so much has no problem with them making a completely different type of GAME, a type which is already in vast abundance is depressing. Especially since you guys are supposed to be the good guys who call it like it is.
The publisher expecting all of us who played XCOM as kids to throw our money down just because they put fucking aliens in it and slapped an XCOM sticker on it is goddamn insulting.
Imagine chess existed in a world where chess players could only play with pieces that fell apart after only a year or two of play, and game makers virtually never released new pieces. Suddenly, a game maker announces HEY GUESS WHAT! WE ARE GOING TO MAKE A NEW CHESS SET! And all the chess gamers rejoice, and the chess magazines go nuts with anticipations and jaded journalists who played chess as boys write melodramatic articles. Then the publisher turns around and says,
“So, this new Chess set is going to capture all the intensity and atmosphere of the original. On this new set you will wear special jerseys decorated like the royalty and clergy of the medieval kingdom game you so dearly love, while playing an intense and exciting game of football. Coming 2011, CHESS: Kings & Bishops take it to the PITCH !”
And then you went and wrote an article about how cool that sounds.
08/05/2010 at 17:21 stahlwerk says:
So you object to Atari’s (?) rightful usage of their trademarks? They’re not saying “We’re completely redefining what the original games are and don’t give a crap about your rose-colored glasses!”, they never announced it to be a carbon copy remake. It shares the name (well, almost) and some underlying themes with the older games (which also included a flight simulator, mind you). If they were indeed able to distill what made the original games exciting, why not try to apply it to a more contemporary and accessible gameplay formula?
08/05/2010 at 17:31 Uhm says:
You read the article and think it’s just an FPS?
08/05/2010 at 17:35 noom says:
Well that was completely unneccesary.
08/05/2010 at 17:37 stahlwerk says:
@myself
ha, shows what I know. The rights to the X-Com name went from Julian Gollop to MicroProse (RIP) to Hasbro Interactive to Atari to Take-Two Interactive / 2k.
wait… if Gollop decides to sue Take two, does that mean it’s SCO vs. Novell all over again?
08/05/2010 at 17:46 Arathain says:
Hmm. I disagree with you almost completely. I’m not sure my worderising skills are up to indicating why.
You’ve picked an arbitrary set of definitions for what XCOM is without realising that those are partially subjective (and indeed, arbitrary). You believe the very essence of XCOM is a tactical squad based shooter married to a global strategic context. Reasonable. But I can say (and Alec has suggested) that the essence of XCOM could be a small scale engagements set in a larger context of a seemingly overwhelming alien menace, with a necessity to fight a rearguard war while your research boys and girls try to catch you up technologically. Also, I think, reasonable. It’s going to be a little different for everyone, especially with such a complex game as the original. Everyone resonates with different aspects.
I will allow the use of a beloved license (because they have to ask me, you know) if they can retain some of the critical ‘feel’ aspects of the original, and if they can make a good game. That last bit is the most important. If the license inspires them to something good we can all be happy.
08/05/2010 at 20:58 Tom O'Bedlam says:
I’m not sure whether you need more lemonade in your shandy, or you need to stand a bit further away from your microwave, but that was pretty bizarre.
As it stands, I own a game called Shuuro. Its a reimagining of chess, which takes the core ideas of chess and expands on the original premise. In the process it takes chess and adds wargames point based unit selection, check it out. http://rss.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/38764/shuuro
Innovation is measured in successful change. Not clinging on to fragments of history.
08/05/2010 at 17:24 Cinnamon says:
Looks sort of dull and uninteresting to me but I am not really a big fan of the genre and am only reading this because of the name.
08/05/2010 at 17:30 Jason Moyer says:
I could use one of those flame grenades for all of the strawmen in this thread.
08/05/2010 at 17:32 Davian says:
Nobody cares for us oldtimers and our deteriorating reflexes. I still like FPSs, but I’d rather have a game that’d let me get a cup of tea while I ponder my next move. Hopefully, this won’t be just another FPS.
08/05/2010 at 17:33 Pleonasm says:
Well, this looks like it might be interesting, perhaps even the bestest FPS of ever. But seeing as they’ve totally changed the gameplay, the storyline, the period, the visual style etc. how in the hell is this X-com? The only thing they’ve kept is that you fight aliens and you can do stuff which lets you unlock new weapons. Neither of these are really peculiar to X-com.
08/05/2010 at 17:33 patton says:
The game will have nothing to do with the original X-COM games. Not in terms of gameplay atleast, which was THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT thing in X-COM that made it X-COM.
Pretty much as I expected. I really don’t care if it’s good or bad. There is no reason to call it X-COM, just as there was no reason to call Fallout 3 a Fallout sequel. It had nothing to do with the originals, beyond the similarities with the setting.
Why can’t they stop taking old frachises and making “sequels” or “reboots” that have almost nothing to do with the originals ?
08/05/2010 at 17:52 VelvetFistIronGlove says:
“there was no reason to call Fallout 3 a Fallout sequel. It had nothing to do with the originals, beyond the similarities with the setting”
Exactly right. Except for the many large intentional similarities in setting, mechanics, plot, character building, humour, and world design, it had nothing at all in common.
I more than half expect you to make the exact same claim about Fallout:New Vegas.
Sigh.
08/05/2010 at 18:10 patton says:
I should have said there is no reason to call it a sequel because it was developed by people who pretty much ignored or missed the entire point of the gameplay mechanics, lore, humour, and overall design.
It has superficial similarities to the originals, it uses SPECIAL, but uses it half-assedly, it has brotherhood of steal, but now they are paladins who champion for the poor and weak, it has enclave, who were destroyed in fallout 2. It really isn’t a sequel. More like a rehash without the soul.
08/05/2010 at 18:17 Davian says:
Please don’t mention Oblibians: Blue Overalls in Desert. Let’s just pretend it never happened.
09/05/2010 at 01:52 Starky says:
You do know that Obsidian = Black Isle (or at least a good chunk of it) right?
You know the guys who made the original fallout games…
08/05/2010 at 17:35 Drakkheim says:
Sounds kinda fun.. doesn’t sound at all like x-com.
My biggest concern is that they’ll pull a bioshock and you wont be able to die, just teleport back to random plot device in the trunk of your gadget mobile or whatnot, thus removing all consequences of death and alleviate what little shreds of strategy are left. Once you realize that the easy way to beat bioshock is to just go melee and not worry about powers or self preservation the game becomes flat and lifeless.
Reading this though kinda makes me wanna go play Stubbs the zombie.
08/05/2010 at 17:37 Joinn says:
I’m pretty sure this will be a fun game in it’s own right, but, pure X-COM it’s not.
08/05/2010 at 17:39 Acosta says:
” So is XCOM. You can start believing.”
Come on Alec, you know this is not true. X-Com was not a game about investigating alien invasion or Earth, was a game about defending the Earth of an alien invasion as a secret mastermind, it was a tactic game first and strategy game second, I don’t see anything of it in this thing at this point.
A game is ultimately defined by it’s mechanics, not by the setting. The reality it’s that we have seen very few good tactic games while we get FPS, good or bad, of some kind every month.
Is it interesting? yes, doesn’t sound half bad and have nice aesthetics, but don’t say “it´s X-Com”, is not. It´s not even comparable to Fallout 3, at least Bethesda did a RPG (kind of) in the wasteland with a (kind of) combat tactic approach, it was recognizable as a brand. This is just taking a name and do your own thing with it, no wonder many fans are not delighted about it.
Do they want to convince us they are serious about doing their own take on X-Com? Make your team fully controllable and put a serious effort in the tactical layout and I will delightfully eat crow and consider this worthy of the name.
08/05/2010 at 17:46 VelvetFistIronGlove says:
I never played X-COM, but I am saddened by many of the reactions here. I guess in a way it’s inevitable. True Fans of a game–like 7 Seas above–rarely take well to sequels, because they consider the original game so sacred that changing any aspect of it is akin to blasphemy. Which makes sequels impossible. Unaco takes this argument to absurdity: that the X-COM name should only be attached to a particular set of fairly low-level gameplay mechanics: turn-based tactical combat, to be precise.
Fortunately, I don’t have a sacred albatross hanging round my neck, so I can say that this sounds quite interesting, and one to keep an eye on.
08/05/2010 at 17:57 Starky says:
A sequel we might be okay with, but this game shares zero resemblance besides a few minor surface details to the X-COM universe, or gameplay.
Seriously you could write a list of features and key setting points of the X-COM games (at least the first 2) and this game hits none of them from what has been revealed so far.
08/05/2010 at 18:02 drakkheim says:
Fortunately, I don’t have a sacred albatross hanging round my neck, so I can say that this sounds quite interesting, and one to keep an eye on.
Imagine the uproar if M$ announced the next Halo to be a rhythm based color matching game, but “hey the master chief is still in it so it’s still true to the Halo experience, but we learned that popcap can move 200 million units of bejewled so with our brand and existing fan, we can make it more accessible to a wider audience.”
It’s like that. We’re fans of x-com because of what it is, slow, methodical, precise, nerve racking, and hard. This new X-com 2.0 is not looking to be that at all.
I don’t hear people saying it’s gonna suck, it could be quite good. But calling it x-com is disingenuous and disrespectful of what the original X-Com was and by extension memory of the original. and THAT’s why people are upset.
08/05/2010 at 18:07 Acosta says:
Would you be surprised if fans of Civilization were shocked to find Civilization V it´s a fps?
God forbid the people who enjoyed a game want more of a kind of game, especially after years of not seeing no more of few good tactic games.
And what means “low-level gameplay mechanics”?
08/05/2010 at 18:21 VelvetFistIronGlove says:
I’d be a little more sympathetic if you didn’t use ludicrous, hyperbolic comparisons, perhaps like “if M$ announced the next Halo to be a third-person action-adventure because Zelda sold millions”.
I’m not denying that you feel hurt by this game being so different, but I’m saying that it’s primarily your own fault for clutching so hard to your own appreciation of the earlier game. Hey, I’ve felt similarly disappointed in the past when new sequels are announced that are completely beyond my ideas of what they should be (see Max Payne 3). But you’ve got to move beyond that, and learn to evaluate things for what they are, not how they differ from what you wanted, or every time someone builds on a previous title you’ll be like the child at Christmas who cries because they didn’t get the really expensive toy they coveted.
Learn to let go and move on.
08/05/2010 at 20:06 Lilliput King says:
It’d be interesting to see how many people actually read the preview before posting here, to be honest. It appears to be essentially an alien-defence management game with FPS away missions, rather than a straight up FPS, and that doesn’t seem to be reflected in a lot of the posts.
Either that or the element of X-COM people really loved was the isometric turn-based squad missions, and to hell with the rest. If that’s what you took away from the first two X-COMs, fair enough, but I really hated those missions, and loved the global-map strategy and atmosphere. I’m looking forward to this ‘un, anyway, just to see what they come up with, but also because if it was up to me, this would be the way I’d continue the series.
08/05/2010 at 21:12 jalf says:
Surprised? I don’t think anyone has ever claimed to be surprised by the raging and whining and complaining. This is the internet after all.
But as a fan of Civilization, let me just say I wouldn’t mind seeing a Civ FPS. Why would I object to that? Why would I object to people trying new things with the games I like? If they can make it work, more power to them.
Of course, I still want traditional Civilization games, just like I’d also love to see a new “traditional” X-COM game. But while we’re waiting for that, I have absolutely no problem with the series branching out and innovating (and yes, I consider the upcoming XCOM game to be innovative in some important ways. I’d have a lot less patience for it if it was “just a FPS”.)
XCOM seems to preserve some of the key features of the old X-COM games that appealed to me. Yes, it tosses other aspects out the window, but as long as it preserves enough of these features to remain interesting, I’m happy to see the game being made.
08/05/2010 at 21:22 Sonic Goo says:
“Imagine the uproar if M$ announced the next Halo to be a rhythm based color matching game”
Actually, wasn’t there a Halo RTS?
08/05/2010 at 21:30 Tom O'Bedlam says:
@Jalf Smartest comment this thread
08/05/2010 at 23:08 Manley Pointer says:
@Lilliput King: Although this preview is interesting, I feel like the style obscured the actual details people might want to know…like when Meer says “take two of your best men with you,” and later mentions that you “develop” your squadmates, does that mean that you have a stable of potential squad-members whose stats are different, and can be increased RPG-style? Or does it just mean you can choose from a few static companions (all of whose weapons/equipment will upgrade when you get the alien tech upgrades)?
While some of the action sounds spectacular (the Monolith sounds nearly as powerful as a helicopter in Crysis), I could see most of it being pretty ehhh if not backed up by interesting ideas under the hood. I feel like the exercise of “going to location, collecting tech, leaving, researching, going to location, collecting tech, leaving…” might get old fast if there aren’t other, significant tactical RPG elements (like the ones that made XCOM so fun). I can imagine the gameplay described by Meer leading players to a repetitive hit-and-run playstyle where you run past everything in the level looking for the magic element, unload all your ammo/superweapons on the aliens guarding the Elerium when you find it, run out, dump it in the research bin at base, rinse and repeat. (And if your squadmates aren’t particularly unique or useful, why not just leave them to die?) It’s exactly the sort of scenario that can be interesting/challenging in a TRPG, yet hard to prevent players exploiting in an FPS. If the game’s design encourages leaving levels early, it seems like it would foster this grind-y sort of play.
Even if some mechanics aren’t fully implemented at the time of the preview, can’t games journalists, you know, ask about how things (like leveling squadmembers) will work? I know previews don’t operate at GameFAQS granularity level, but many of these details DO shape gameplay to a large extent. A question like “should I care if my squadmates die?” could really tell a lot about the game.
08/05/2010 at 17:51 Flakfizer says:
Amen brother.
08/05/2010 at 17:55 Starky says:
It’s not even a shade of X-COM, it might be an interesting tactical shooter, but theX-COM branding is clearly pointless given it (from descriptions so far) seems utterly unlinked in any way shape or form.
Honestly I’d have been fine with first person tactical gaming on ground missions combined with proper X-COM global strategy, bases, research and logistical control – that might even be interesting, and more to the spirit of X-COM.
It doesn’t even seem to share ANY of the setting – FBI agent? WTF? X-COM are supposed to be a world wide independent group, not linked to any one country.
1950′s? Again WTF? X-COM was near future (for the time), not 1950s alien pulp…
This game might be interesting, but it has zero to do with X-COM, only some surface similarities (such as aliens).
It may be a good game, it may even be a great game but it is not an X-COM game.
This sounds more like a Men in Black (of the original concept not the will smith movies) meets X-files in the 50s than X-COM.
08/05/2010 at 17:59 stahlwerk says:
…which sounds totally awesome!
08/05/2010 at 18:02 Starky says:
I agree it does… I like the sound of this game – I just don’t like that they are using the name X-COM.
.
If for no other reason because them using the x-com drastically reduces the probability that a proper, tactical shooter with global strategy elements (geoscape, research, base building, random generated missions so on) will ever happen.
Granted that was a slim hope anyway, but now it is even slimmer.
.
This game sounds really good and fun, just the use of the name hacks people off as it clearly has bog all to do with x-com.
.
(bleh forum editing now allowing paragraphs)
08/05/2010 at 18:13 stahlwerk says:
As of today, the X-Com franchise consists of one really good game (which had its flaws, repetitious micromanagement, randomization bugs etc.), a glorified romhack of said game, a scope-reduced reimagining of the first game (set in the far future), an abysmal flight simulator and a game I never knew existed until I read about it in Wikipedia.
The mere existence of another game with said TITLE should not preclude the creation of another game in the same GENRE as the first one.
Also: as far as I’m concerned the game is called UFO: Enemy Unknown. ;-)
08/05/2010 at 19:14 Bret says:
Sounds Delta Green-y to me.
Which, you know, is kinda boss.
(I’m still hoping for Chryssalids, though.)
08/05/2010 at 17:57 Dr. Derek Doctors, DFA says:
As an Angry Internet Man, I demand that the developers remake their “game” into a proper turn-based tactical shooter, preferably one optimized for 486s using super-VGA in 640×480. I also insist that they ship their so-called “videoelectric entertainment” on floppy disks; anything else will traduce my fond memories of a sixteen-year-old game and its lengthy install process. IF MY DEMANDS ARE NOT MET IMMEDIATELY, I SHALL CONTINUE TO POST ANGRILY.
08/05/2010 at 17:59 Starky says:
Aren’t you a clever boy, have a cookie.
08/05/2010 at 19:41 sana says:
Heheh, “angry internet man”! Such a hee-larius meme us funny boys at Rock Paper Shotgun got! You sure showed them savages!
08/05/2010 at 21:10 leeder_krenon says:
clearly you two guys are “angry internet men”. or americans. not sure yet.
08/05/2010 at 21:23 Starky says:
Except you know, not that angry – because of course having the opinion that this game is X-COM in name only and there any links end (from all information currently available) makes us ragers right?
Angry? No.
Mildly miffed? Maybe.
This is a British site, and it’s our national hobby to have a good moan* about things we disagree with.
*Moaning for Americans/others who may not know, is complaining but with more intelligence, usually accompanied by tea and lots of tutting. We Brits like to tut at things.
08/05/2010 at 23:40 Tom O'Bedlam says:
@starky There does appear to be a bit of a split amongst the naysayers here though, there’s quite a few who are expressing a degree of dread civilly and reasonably. Then there’s the “I think this is a betrayal of your profession as a games journalist”, which is about as AIM as you can get.
More tutting, less shrieking, say I!
09/05/2010 at 13:47 LionsPhil says:
“super-VGA in 640×480″
That’s like demanding that your beer is served in a pint glass with a quarter-litre capacity.
08/05/2010 at 17:58 Mr_Day says:
Personally, I think this looks fantastic, and if it plays anything like it is described I shall be Happy Bunny Petey. So it doesn’t feel like the original X-Com? I have a confession to make. Neither did Apocalypse. The smaller scale and political infighting were nothing to do with the X-com games I had played before, but Apocalyspe was a fantastic game nonetheless. I realise it retained the same turn based tactical map, but it also let you play that in real time and I preferred that – made the bug hunt for one sodding alien at the end a lot more bearable.
I love the first two X-Com games, but replaying them now has reintroduced me to a problem I had back when they came out – having to respond to every terror attack and shot down/landed UFO became a horrible chore which I dreaded. I liked it, but it was a slog, and later on with the bases and battleships it just went on for far too long. I actually preferred the globe view and researching/manufacturing to the combat, and the addition of a real time combat mode for Apocalypse really made the game for me.
And screw you all, Interceptor was good. It was good, I tell you! Get your hands off me! Where are you taking me…what is in that needl……oooh, bunnies.
08/05/2010 at 23:45 Tom O'Bedlam says:
My favourite of the series is Apocalypse, mostly because I preferred to do terror missions in pause real time too. Sadly, I’ve only ever completed it once because after a certain point even one guy can take on a megaspawn singlehanded. I think the fatigue usually sets in on the alien farm level where you have to destroy eleventeen white cubes.
09/05/2010 at 00:51 Mr_Day says:
The sad thing is, the way Apocalypse handled the terror missions kinda sounds like what the new 2k game will be doing – you investigating reports of aliens and gathering up their artifacts to research.
Yes, I know that is how the first two worked, but Apocalypse did it on a more personal scale, it was always an aprtment block or school or factory. Fuck, they attacked schools to subvert kids, and no one complained that it wasn’t in keeping with the X Com franchise.
Yes, you did shoot down UFOs too, I am just pointing out the similarities inherent in the system. Come see the similarities inherent in the system!
I just loved the X Com games, but I am not angry about the new one. Colour me weird, I guess.
09/05/2010 at 01:13 Dominic White says:
Gotta say, I liked Apocalypse the most as well. It was often buggy and unbalanced, but it really did get you interested in the world that you’re meant to be protecting from the aliens. The 50s pulp retro-future sci-fi stylings (kinda the opposite of the straight-laced 50s with 2010-era sci-fi stylings we’re getting here) were pretty damn cool as well.
The missions were way too big and open to play turn-based, I found, but realtime with pause was plenty fun. You could also play it almost like a shooter if you weren’t afraid of racking up a collateral damage bill now and then. Equip an Android with flying armor and an HE-loaded autocannon in each hand, and assume direct control. Chances are that there won’t be a single scrap of building left when you’re done, but any aliens will be reduced to greasy smears on the wall, too.
08/05/2010 at 18:00 clive dunn says:
I hear this game is going to be a sub based single player………..
…………………………….
………….
……
BOOM!
Seriously though, i’m pleased with this. As someone who grew up on rebelstar raiders; i’m sure we used to sit around as 9 year olds wishing that the future held massively powerful home computers where we could actually run around as our squad heroes. Now, i love overhead or isometric games and sorely miss them sometimes but i also love FPS’s when they are done right. This could be a good game; i reckon it all depends on the squad mechanic. I don’t wanna just lose points or resources when a sqaud mate dies, i wanna shed fucking tears.
I want to be able to still use my ‘lucky’ shitty starter pistol in the last mission and i want the game to ‘understand’ this!
08/05/2010 at 18:05 jalf says:
Sounds like fun. I’m more optimistic about this as a sequel than I was about Fallout 3. Of course there’s a lot that can go wrong and turn out to disappoint, but X-COM or not, the basic idea does sound like fun.
08/05/2010 at 18:11 bitterman says:
Game looks interesting.
Still not X-COM though.
I mean, shit, we have games like Jagged Alliance and Silent Storm that were closer to X-COM’s gameplay yet had their own unique premise, unique settings and style. FFS, why didn’t they just make a new IP instead of going George Lucas and doing a prequel to X-COM re-imagined as a FPS.
SWAT style tactics in the 50′s? Will your base of operations and research ever get attacked (probably not…too much development cost to implement, maybe in the DLC)? Did they license Bad Company’s 2 destructible environments? Can you coordinate fire and manuever tactics, bounding overwatch, breaching, or is it just see alien, shoot, whack-a-mole gameplay?
Fuck the mainstream games industry.
08/05/2010 at 18:20 Davian says:
A combination of SWAT 4 mechanics and X-COM setting could be amazing! But that probably won’t happen. Man. :(
08/05/2010 at 18:23 faelnor says:
“…ec’s X-c…” :D
Looks pretty interesting, let’s hope it will be better than Bioshock. Thanks for the feature.
Also it’s rather strange to call XCOM a game which is related to the series only in setting. But I guess it makes sense if you want to keep your “older-gamer-friendly-but-not-afraid-to-try-new-things-developer” cred. Ah, PR.
08/05/2010 at 18:36 Robert says:
Oh, this looks really interesting. Awesome preview, thank you.
I do get depressed by all the people who haven’t read the article and just moan, long live the internet mob. Maybe they will accuse him of being corrupt as well.
Shades of grey would do those people good. Why is it hard to understand that calling it XCOM is a combination of marketing and and just how-shall-I-call-it: showing your influences.
Other arts are FULL of references and other intertextuality, but have less, or at least, less vocal complainers. Strange as videogames are supposed to be the ‘new medium’, while it’s filled to the brim with conservative/nostalgic sentiments that hate change, and would like to live forever in a world where they constantly anticipate their favorite game of all time.(like X-com, or Duke Nukem ;-) )
Anyone that read the article can see the similarities between XCOM and X-Com, and anyone with a sense of ‘regular’ arts can appreciate it not being exactly the same. Dear lord, the horrors of the world where Joyce’s Ulysses was burned before it was published because it was not written in heroic hexameter.
08/05/2010 at 18:44 Robert says:
(I should add that the tone of my reaction is slightly adjusted to blend in the crowd. Sadly I can’t nuance it with an edit, or correct the horrible grammar.)
08/05/2010 at 18:36 Bob Dobbs says:
I did read the preview, and pretty much all the rest of the information that’s come out about this. By now it’s clear to anyone who has kept up that this is yet another FPS that thinks Teh Future Of The Form is in the direction of film, which is the polar opposite of what X-COM stands for. The fact that your static mission maps are scattered across America and you have to pay for a base upgrade before you can build your ball lightning weapon that damages the 2001 monolith with the Transformers visual effects captures essentially nothing of the gameplay that made those choices interesting in the original.
08/05/2010 at 18:50 Polysynchronicity says:
So it seems to me from reading the article that this game is aiming to be X-COM on the strategy level, but with FPS segments in place of the turn-based tactical segments. Honestly I really don’t see anything wrong with that, or with a reworked setting (the original was, admittedly, fairly campy in terms of setting).
With the provision, of course, that they Do It Right. The base had better not be Just Another Upgrade Shop, it should preserve as much of the original X-COM strategy feel as they can. And the FPS segments had better have real consequences for failure that aren’t necessarily Game Over (so, like in original X-COM, you can fuck up really badly and still keep playing in the vain hope that you can recover). Customizable equipment selection is also a must (remember that one guy you had, with nothing but grenades in his inventory? You should be able to be that guy, if you wish.)
And it damn well can’t be scripted.
08/05/2010 at 18:57 Blah says:
@Polysynchronicity
The problem I see is that (according to the preview) you have no control over your squadmates…
I’m hoping the “supress and finish” bit is similar to the Brothers in Arms games but it doesn’t sound like it…you just run around and shoot aliens or run away or take pictures (ala Beyond Good & Evil) to unlock new tech.
08/05/2010 at 18:59 Johbson says:
Not even Shakespearean?
08/05/2010 at 19:04 Dominic White says:
I’d just like to point out that the X-Com series has had five games so far. Only three of them being strategy-oriented, and only two of them being turn-based. Only two of them were good, too – whether that’s 1 & 2, or 1 & 3 is a matter of taste – I fall into the latter camp.
As great as the first game was, there has literally been a whole generation of gamers grow up since it was released. It was dead and buried years ago. Yes, they’re using the name, but really, it’s been so long that we might as well just shrug, calm down and just see what they can deliver here. It’s a new generation. Time has moved on. Aren’t we meant to be the grown-ups here?
08/05/2010 at 19:20 patton says:
Well, I belong to the group of people who played X-com for the first time recently, so scew the “new generation”. Sometimes, games are good enough to survive longer than expected. I wasn’t old enough to play the game when it was released either.
It’s not that I hate that they are using the name of a old classic, it’s the fact that there is no real reason to use the name, beyond hyping a game that really doesn’t seem to have much to do with the original 2-3 games. Why bother using the name and IP if you only intend to make an entirely unrelated game ? I just don’t get that. It might be a good or even a great game, but it still isn’t related to the original work. Only thing you accomplish by doing things like this is causing fans of the older games taste the bitter knowledge that there won’t be another game like they like.
Is the industry so intellectually dead and soulless that they HAVE to use the name of something older to release a new game that isn’t a grey, boring cash-in made for a series that has been twisted and mangled ?
Damn. I feel old. I am in my early twenties. I feel so old and tired
08/05/2010 at 20:01 Dominic White says:
I’m in my mid-late twenties now, and I grew out of being tired, bitter and cynical about five years ago. Life is so much more fun when you’re not wasting large chunks of it kvetching about how much better your childhood was.
The way I see it, even if this game is only half as good as anything else the developers have done, it’ll still be twice as good as X-Com Interceptor or Enforcer.
08/05/2010 at 20:25 Robert says:
You know what’s the fun detail here? Man has been saying “BACK WHEN I WAS YOUNG IT WAS BETTER!” for quite a while now, you should think we would be evolving backwards this way.
08/05/2010 at 20:43 Arathain says:
@ Dominic “I’m in my mid-late twenties now, and I grew out of being tired, bitter and cynical about five years ago. Life is so much more fun when you’re not wasting large chunks of it kvetching about how much better your childhood was.”
Nothing has made my life better (with the exception of my wife, who catalysed it) than going through this transformation in attitudes.
09/05/2010 at 00:01 D says:
Did you guys miss the part about him playing X-COM only recently? The annoyance here is that the name choice blocks off any chance of someone coming along and saying “Lets remake this properly and just call it XCOM!” — there is no cynicism here. It happened to Fallout, it’ll happen to Syndicate (ok, thats cynical) and sooner or later, it’ll happen to your favorite genre too. And you’ll bitch about it, because you really wanted a proper sequel.
09/05/2010 at 00:18 Robert says:
But what is a proper sequel? Is that objective, or subjective?
I for one, am looking forward to both this XCOM, and Xenonauts.
09/05/2010 at 08:28 GT3000 says:
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
— Mary Schmich
08/05/2010 at 19:11 Blah says:
@Dominic
I’m guessing a lot of fans don’t want to see those repeated failures happen yet again and ruin the X-COM name of which they are proud zealous fans of?
Hypothetical scenario from the future:
“Dude you said X-Com was one of the best games ever? That crappy FPS? What’s wrong with you and your taste in games?”
08/05/2010 at 19:19 Bret says:
That’s when you say “Not XCOM, X-Com you hooligan!”
And beat them to death with your cane.
08/05/2010 at 19:22 Starky says:
UFO: Enemy Unknown you young whippersnapper!
08/05/2010 at 21:41 Tom O'Bedlam says:
@Blah currently thats still the case, “X-Com that crappy FPS?” applies to Enforcer. I see your point but, equally: “C&C? that crappy FPS?”, “Doom, that crappy movie?” “Mario? The graffiti cleaning simulator?”
09/05/2010 at 01:03 Bret says:
See, now that’s what tees me off.
Enforcer wasn’t an FPS, it was THIRD person.
Dammit, these things matter!
08/05/2010 at 19:19 Cinnamon says:
Oh man, I hope that I have the will power not to read comments about this game again but I know that I will not. Double sad face. It’s going to be a miserable couple of years of fans of UFO coming under constant attack for not being super positive about this game.
Enjoy your FPS if you want, I may not, all anyone is saying really. Now leave me alone.
08/05/2010 at 20:05 Robert says:
“It’s going to be a miserable couple of years of fans of UFO coming under constant attack for not being super positive about this game.”
While ‘not being super positive’ encompasses ‘aggressively negative’ it’s not entirely fair, is it?
08/05/2010 at 20:18 Cinnamon says:
@Robert; More than one way to be aggressive and unpleasant.
08/05/2010 at 20:19 Robert says:
Indeed, that is why I found commenting on your extreme polarisation was in line.
08/05/2010 at 20:21 Cinnamon says:
You are imagining extreme polarisation when none was there, almost like you are aggressively taking sides.
08/05/2010 at 20:29 Robert says:
Excuse me? I just made fun of your extreme understatement. This comment thread is full of (passive-)aggressive comments and you make it sound as if they are marginalised.
If I take a stance, it is one of neutrality. Against immense prejudices of people who haven’t touched this game yet and cry out murder. I don’t know if it’s good until I see it.
08/05/2010 at 20:40 Cinnamon says:
I save my immense prejudices for dirty foreigners, the working classes and women. For unreleased video games I prefer low expectations.
08/05/2010 at 19:36 R_Duke says:
Alec you’ve grabbed your ankles and taken every inch of their P.R.
This better turn out good or you’re dead to me :P
08/05/2010 at 19:41 Arron ZaX says:
X-Com wasn’t just a game about fighting and investigating aliens. At it’s core, X-Com was Laser Squad 2. A tactical wargame with a long ancestry of games made by a boardgame fan who made his boardgames on computer .
The economic and strategic layer was added only because Microsoft wanted another strategic game because of success of Civilization.
This game has nothing to do with X-Com.
08/05/2010 at 19:42 pilouuuu says:
It looks fantastic. Really, people, I understand nostalgia, but if they release a game like that nowadays then it would be a commercial failure, because teenagers are too dumbed down to undertand such complex mechanics.
It’s better to have a good and quite different game than no game at all or an average standard FPS.
Just take it as a spin-off series in the X-Com universe.
08/05/2010 at 19:46 Bassism says:
This kind of reminds me of that time Bethesda said they were going to make Fallout 3, and base it on the Oblivion engine. I was shocked, outraged, and wondered how they could bear to do this to such a hold franchise.
Eventually the game came out, I enjoyed it, and I was happy that they were inspired by one of my favourite IPs to make a great new game.
Except this time I’m more like the Oblivion fan who never really got into the original games in the series but thinks the new one looks like it could be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Though, to be quite honest, from what I’ve read so far it seems to me like XCOM will be more interesting and bring more new ‘stuff’ to the FPS genre than FO3 did.
No, it’s not the same game as the original, but the chances of that ever happening while the IP is owned by a large publisher are essentially zero anyway. From the limited time I’ve spent with the original X-COM and what I’ve heard of this new game it seems to me that despite replacing tactical turn-based combat with an FPS, and changing the setting from current day to an imo much more interesting atomic family setting, the feel of the game may very well survive intact. And more importantly, a team of talented devs might be inspired by a great IP to make a great game. I like great games.
Anyway, I’m off to discover why the original is such a lovely game.
08/05/2010 at 23:03 bhlaab says:
This reminds me of that time Bethesda said they were going to make Fallout 3, and base it on the Oblivion engine.
And then they completely fucked it up.
It also reminds me of when 2k were making the spritual successor to System Shock 2.
And then they fucked it up.
09/05/2010 at 11:47 FunkyBadger says:
Yes, but Fallout 3 and Bioshock are both good games.
08/05/2010 at 19:51 Zenicetus says:
“So it seems to me from reading the article that this game is aiming to be X-COM on the strategy level, but with FPS segments in place of the turn-based tactical segments. Honestly I really don’t see anything wrong with that, or with a reworked setting (the original was, admittedly, fairly campy in terms of setting).”
Yeah, although I’m a huge fan of the original game, I could still get behind that concept, if it’s done well. I hope it’s not just some basic rock-paper-scissors thing, where you have to research and build Weapon X to counter the latest outbreak of Alien Y. There’s a hint of that with the flame grenade thingie vs. Blob mentioned in the preview. I hope it’s more involved than that.
Also I’m wondering about the mention of “armor” in the preview — “Also, there’s Elerium here somewhere. This incredibly rare alien element is crucial for the construction of new weapons, armour and gadgets.”
I like the visual style of the classic 50′s FBI guys in the preview images It’s like someone else mentioned above: Men in Black, in the 50′s. I like it. But how does that work with armor upgrades? Are these guys going to be running around in the late game wearing Fallout-style power armor? Or wearing those same suits inside a force field bubble? Oddball weapons I can see, but I’m not sure how armor maps onto this visual concept. One of the reasons Men in Black was so much fun, was that they always looked the same but used wild weapons.
Anyway, I do give them credit for aliens that are truly alien and difficult to understand. You don’t see that very often in videogames.
08/05/2010 at 20:06 FhnuZoag says:
Yeah, I hope they are careful with the armour, or else the player is going to be another bunch of space marines.
Really, the original XCOM had this problem as well. Most people who liked it mention the extreme attrition rates at the start – but this doesn’t actually last long through the game. Soon enough, you get power armour, then flying power armour, and then ridiculous guns from at first what the aliens have, to what the aliens have but the AI can’t understand well enough to use effectively. By the end game, every player unit is a walking tank who can one hit KO any alien, and your psychics can take over entire alien armies without line of sight. Apocalypse, too, had the same issue.
Maybe this new game can make a better job of keeping the danger level up. It sounds good that the one research item they mention seems to be a glorified molotov cocktail.
09/05/2010 at 01:06 Nick says:
Until they get turned into zombies! There was always at least something to fear. But that was kind of the point, you eventually got advanced enough to take the fight to them.
09/05/2010 at 17:38 Pleonasm says:
Yeah, to me one of the strengths of the original was the way the gameplay changed over time like this. Granted, the start-game was scarier and more fun, but it needed the pay-off of the end game as well – it provided a natural narrative arc that I can’t think of seeing in many other games.
08/05/2010 at 19:52 drakkheim says:
Unfortunatly yup it is, every memory you have from your childhood will be exploited over and over. And just wait until you have kids and you watch them just become trained to mindlessly accept that there will sequel after sequel after toys and movie tie ins and more toys and happy meals of everything. It’s really sickening.
We eventually got rid of live TV because we couldn’t stand what was on it, and almost overnight there was a seismic shift in what my son found to be acceptable entertainment.
It’s really really really amazing to see how much more intellectually curious he is when the deciding factor on what’s cool is up to him not the screaming advertising monkies, oh sure just cause 2 and l4d are cool, but he spent a week learning his way around Dwarf Fortress, does all sorts of weird physics experiments in Garrys’ mod and we’ve been playing Sleep is Death in the evening lately. (I pointed him to RPS and he pokes around every once in a while looking for neat stuff and I encourage that.)
But watching his friends who live in a world bombarded by advertisements, the mass commercialization of everything is clearly an easy way to make gobs of cash, even if it crushes the imagination.
08/05/2010 at 23:58 Tom O'Bedlam says:
I just picked up Dwarf Fortress two weeks ago and I’m captivated. I can imagine its the perfect game to play for any child with an inquiring mind. I’m trying to get everyone I know playing it, but too many people are put of by the massive complexity.
09/05/2010 at 00:29 Robert says:
Well, personally I don’t think it’s the complexity, but the interface. A mouse would go a long way here.
09/05/2010 at 01:29 Tom OBedlam says:
Thats certainly true. I don’t really notice it too much, the first computer game I ever owned was Civ1 played with no mouse. Trying to explain the construction trees to people who didn’t cut their teeth on settlers is pretty tricky, and the sight of 15 part tutorials is a bit daunting.
09/05/2010 at 11:50 Robert says:
Well, I remember playing Railroad Tycoon like that as well. But I remember having to walk to a phone cell to make a call when I’m not home, and I can’t imagine me doing that now. Am I spoiled? Certainly, years and years go by and I’m used to my comforts, but that’s life for you.
08/05/2010 at 20:18 durr says:
Consider what those original strategy games were about. An implacable alien menace threatened the world. You were in charge of an agency that investigated these otherworldly horrors, engaged them in direct combat when it could find them, and poured vast funds and research into developing and improving countermeasures.
Ugh. No. No this isn’t what “those original strategy games were about”. They are famous for being one of the most detailed micro-management simulation of all time. They are about strategic planning, tactical finesse and… depth.
I said it a couple of times before: There is no “core experience” to a game like X-Com. It’s the package. The variety. The sheer amount of things you can do. From this preview, I mostly got a good picture of the art style and various scripted sequences. The strategic depth seems of the “press A to research” type. FFS, you can’t even control your squad mates?!
If only they didn’t use up the X-Com brand for this… it could be a really great shooter (well, at least an OK one. Bioshock 2 wasn’t that hot). But now I will always be reminded of the original game and how much this is not it. Why use a name that is popular among fans if your target group are actually Halo fanboys? The people this is marketed at probably don’t even know what X-Com originally played like.
If you are an existing X-COM fan, the key concern you’ve probably got is the AI-controlled backup agents, who you’ll notice didn’t figure highly in the Blob/Titan skirmish. Yeah, it’s a bit of a worry – in what we’ve seen so far, they were little more than silent drones who could suppress but not finish enemies, and required an awful lot of rescuing. It’s a far cry from the large, entirely controllable squads of the original X-COM trilogy, but apparently there’s a lot yet to be shown in that regard.
Oh yea, promises… as if a first impression was ever wrong in these cases. :/
08/05/2010 at 20:23 Mantel says:
This ain’t no sequel, it’s a re-imagining. It’s not a prequel either. Most see this as a them just making another FPS, it’s more than that, they’re just making another console fps. Halo wars sold about a million units, imagine how well X-COM would do with more complication than HW and 20 year old franchise that’s just been dusted off and most people don’t remember. Yeah, it would tank.
How about all of us bitter old X-COM vets chip in and buy the name and just give it to Relic to make a game.
08/05/2010 at 20:40 Robert says:
If you want more of the old X-com, I can recommend http://www.xenonauts.com/ . It looks good so far.
09/05/2010 at 08:35 GT3000 says:
You can only buy if they’re sellin’ and they ain’t sellin’, boy.
09/05/2010 at 15:58 Robert says:
True, but it was actually a reply to “How about all of us bitter old X-COM vets chip in and buy the name and just give it to Relic to make a game.”
08/05/2010 at 20:25 nate says:
This sounds really awesome. Maybe it’s just the quality of the writing, but I’m excited.
Running away isn’t used enough in FPSs. Occasionally, you’ll have “get in, get out” missions, but there’s always problems with difficulty– it’s either too hard, or too easy. Allowing the player to make the judgment of when to get out is a great way of controlling that. More, focusing on this kind of play allows it to be done well, rather than just as a break from shooting dudes.
Being introduced to something unimaginably powerful, and slowly gaining the ability to overcome it, is really the appeal of RPGs– it’s what justifies the grind. In fact, it’s one of the things people were saying was so great about XCOM: feeling hopelessly outpowered until you’re gradually able to turn the tables. Now, of course, this can be implemented poorly. But I can easily imagine this game doing it right. When you figure out that your bullets aren’t doing anything to that blob, is there a sense of dread? Like, “Holy shit, how the hell am I going to be able to make it through the rest of the game with bad guys like that?”
08/05/2010 at 20:43 Stu says:
Alien: creepy, tense horror thriller.
Aliens: militaristic action flick.
I think it’s fair to say that, in the main, “the plot and characters and setting are totally different” but very few would say that Aliens was an unworthy follow-up. Not every installment in a series has to be a carbon copy (or even just a slightly updated version) of the original.
I could go on, but quite frankly that’s all your condescending and twattish comment deserves.
08/05/2010 at 20:44 Stu says:
Oh COME ON.
That was supposed to be in reply to 7 Seas’ rant. Now *I* look like a dick as well.
08/05/2010 at 20:50 Hunam says:
I just want to be a fed running around in those big coats blasting stuff with shotguns. This is almost there. Now it just needs the trenchcoats.
08/05/2010 at 21:13 Zogtee says:
If it’s not turn-based, it’s not Xcom. You may argue otherwise, but you will be wrong.
08/05/2010 at 21:39 Dominic White says:
3 (2.5, maybe) of the 5 existing X-Com games would argue otherwise.
08/05/2010 at 21:56 Acosta says:
Those games being vastly inferior to the original (one being utter crap) may have some relationship with why fans would want something closer to the source.
08/05/2010 at 22:11 jalf says:
So by the same logic, it’s not a Sonic game if it doesn’t run in a 320×200 resolution?
It’s not an Alone in the Dark game if it has textures?
It’s not a Civilization game if you can skip the intro?
08/05/2010 at 22:50 Starky says:
Except that isn’t the same logic at all. So your “by that logic” is a complete fallacy.
Yours is comparing petty graphical or gameplay features to one of the core mechanics and the base genre of the game.
More genuine “by that logic” choices might include…
Is it Doom, if it takes some of the Demons from doom sets them in modern day earth, in the New York subways and is a 3rd person action game Gears of War Style?
Is it a Sonic game if is a puzzle game in which sonic does not make an appearance, but in the game you collect rings and chaos emeralds?
For the record… I don’t agree with his standpoint, X-COM could work in realtime, even in first person. So long as it tries to retain those aspects that made UFO pretty much unique (the grand overview of the Geoscape, the logistical control, the research paths and base building so on)… then moving to a real time first person tactical game in the missions. A feature like Fallout 3 used with VATS could be used to bridge the divide between turn based tactical play and real time action.
Simply the ability to puase the game go into a overhead view and issue commands to your teammates before zooming back into first person yourself could cover that.
So if this game offers something with the depth of strategy that X-COMs geoscape offers, I’ll embrace it as a spiritual successor, but so far it seems there is nothing like that level of strategy gameplay.
I’d even take a 1st person action game, if it seemed to be linked to the plot of X-com in some way, was you were just a sergeant getting sent on missions while working for X-COM. You had your squad of 3-7 men, and you had to fight the aliens on the ground, while having no say over the larger mission – could even be story based and scripted.
But it has to share some key aspects with either the X-COM gameplay or the X-COM setting (preferably both) – This game so far is looking like it may not share anything beyond “there are aliens”.
It seems to me this game (and it may be a great game) is something that should have been a new IP, but someone from marketing said “Hey this has aliens right? We own that X-com name that keeps getting high up in those top 100 lists right? I have an idea…”
09/05/2010 at 00:36 Zogtee says:
“3 (2.5, maybe) of the 5 existing X-Com games would argue otherwise.”
Every X-Com veteran knows that there are only two games in the series.
09/05/2010 at 00:41 Zogtee says:
“So by the same logic, it’s not a Sonic game if it doesn’t run in a 320×200 resolution?”
Hardly the same logic. Playing in turns is a fundamental game mechanic that have defined X-Com all the way back to it’s Laser Squad roots. Textures and skipping intros is not.
09/05/2010 at 01:08 Bret says:
One turn based, one real time with pause, yeah?
So Turn Based is just nice. not essential.
09/05/2010 at 01:16 jalf says:
True. Because there was no logic to any of it in the first place. Being turn-based was *one* of feature of the first two games. Even if we take it to be the single most important feature, the only one that matters, it only applies to 40% of the series.
Its Laser Squad roots are irrelevant, since we’re talking about what defines X-COM. And by definition, X-COM can only be defined by what X-COM games do.
And again, this “fundamental game mechanic” was somehow only used in two out of five X-COM games.
And of course, what’s “fundamental” is kinda subjective. To me, the unskippable Civ intro was pretty damn fundamental. It tricked me and a friend into believing it wasn’t a game at all, but some kind of slideshow describing the history of the Earth. (true story. We were going to write an essay for school on the subject, went to his place to load up the “slideshow”, and were shocked to learn that there was a game at the end of it)
I don’t think being turn-based was at all essential to the X-COM games. The two first games were turn-based because it was the simplest thing to do at the time, and Apocalypse’s realtime mode wasn’t quite perfect, but I see no reason why realtime couldn’t work just as well.
It’s certainly not a defining characteristic, or a *requirement* for an X-COM game.
To me, the tactical depth, and the split between high-level strategy on the Geoscape and low-level tactics during missions was what characterized the games. Whether it was realtime or turnbased doesn’t matter much, so long as those aspects are there.
09/05/2010 at 01:40 Starky says:
Jalf I agree with you (well except on the Civ bit, I prefer it skippable), the turn based part was never the hook for me either, nor was the setting – replace aliens with vampires and supernatural critters or demons and it would have worked just the same.
The missions could be real time, I’ve played plenty of real-time games that offered equal if not greater tactical control over a battle – Dragon Age is a fine example. That kind of blend between real time action and overhead tactical AI control would be perfect for X-COM. With Fallout 3 like first person mechanics, and maybe some riff on the VATS system to give you that turn based feel.
In fact Sci-Fi mashup between Fallout 3 and Dragon Age is basically perfect for X-COM Battlescapes.
Then, in between that basically give us the original X-COM geoscape but better (less random, more purpose and intelligence behind the aliens. Maybe even story driven elements loads could be done.
Something like that would be worthy of the X-COM name.
This game sounds like something I’d like, but seems like it would be better as a new IP.
09/05/2010 at 15:25 jalf says:
Oh, I prefer skippable intros too, in Civ and in all other games. I’m just saying that the fact that it wasn’t skippable in Civ1 is one of the key characteristics of the game to me. ;)
09/05/2010 at 15:59 Robert says:
“If it’s not turn-based, it’s not Xcom. You may argue otherwise, but you will be wrong.”
Fact. Opinion. Fact. Opinion. Fact. Opinion. I AM CONFUSED!
08/05/2010 at 21:13 irongamer says:
Take the title away from the game and the game itself sounds interesting. A open ended alien conflict, exploratory, management game with FPS maps.
I do like “clearing” a map so the aliens getting strong as you hang around sorta turns me off a little, but could be a fun game. Just give it a different name.
For those that want the original X-Com style gameplay there is always: http://www.xenonauts.com/index.php
09/05/2010 at 08:36 GT3000 says:
IRON! Get back to the forums, and stop getting shot with your tazer.
08/05/2010 at 21:35 Kompi says:
I’m actually starting to look forward to this; part of me feels like I should be having some sort of outrage and be all oh the humanity, but really.. it’s starting to sound like it could actually really nail it. A much different setting and aesthetic of course, but if they manage the same kind of feeling of polish and completeness – and as much baiting you along a path of figuring out what’s going on – I think I would well end up embracing it. Sure, it’s not the original UFO: Enemy Unknown by any stretch, but to be perfectly honest.. I didn’t think Apocalypse was either. In spite of trying to cling to a similar play, the radical change of styles, the overall incompleteness and lack of polish made it feel far more like some kind of so-so fan game than an actual sequel of any type. I realize some people love it, but it never quite did it for me.
In spite of that, I actually really looked foward to X-Com: Alliance back before it got canned; something about it just sounded like it could really nail the overall feel in spite of the genre shift. In hindsight, I might’ve been a tad naive about it, but I was perfectly ready to roll with the tactical first person shooter gig for X-Com then already. This will be.. different, but I think it might actually end up being quite good.
As for the old genre.. I’m still idly hoping that Altar Games will continue tweaking the formula for their UFO:Afterstuff series and eventually strike gold with it. Aftershock and Afterlight were quite good; now if they’d give us interceptors back. And.. well.. much larger squads.
08/05/2010 at 21:35 geldonyetich says:
We already know how this will play out for two reasons:
1) X-Com already released a FPS, called X-COM: Enforcer. It performed lackluster, but it didn’t cause a massive outcry from it’s fanbase.
2) Fallout versus Fallout 3. Was it really Fallout? No, not really. Were there enough gamers who knew about the original Fallout to care anymore? Apparently not: it scores about 90% on review aggregates.
So, you’re going to uproot X-COM and turn it into a 1950s G-Man FPS experience? Fine. Whatever. I might even enjoy it. It still won’t really be X-COM.
08/05/2010 at 21:46 Kompi says:
To be fair, people (or in the least, previewers) seemed fairly positive to X-Com: Alliance back when it was being worked on, contrasted with a more negative reception towards the simplistic third-person action romp that was X-Com: Enforcer.
08/05/2010 at 21:54 Acosta says:
Enforcer didn’t cause a massive outcry from it’s fanbase? maybe not from the fanbase of Mickey Mouse, but it certainly generated a massive outcry from X-com fans, finished with the rage screams when it was finally released.
And, again, Fallout 3 is still a RPG , the new X-com it´s not a tactic game, learn the difference and you may have a better understanding the issues.
09/05/2010 at 01:02 geldonyetich says:
Not my point. Learn the difference and you may have a better understanding of how to write a comment.
09/05/2010 at 04:07 Skeez187 says:
I agree with this comment the most. But for now I will just wait and see.
08/05/2010 at 21:49 Zenicetus says:
Maybe that’s the answer to the armor (or armour) question: Kevlar-lined trench coats, with static fields to deflect alien blasters. And blaster-proof sunglasses and hats. Also patent leather dress shoes with Flubber soles, for flying… although they’ll have to call it something else to avoid the dark hordes of Disney lawyers.
With Stardock’s “Elemental” game on the horizon (http://elementalgame.com/), I guess I’m not too upset about this not being a turn-based game like the original. Turn-based games are almost a dead category, but not quite. There are still a few indie devs working in that form.
08/05/2010 at 21:56 Jay says:
The curse of any game trying to be X-Com is that it isn’t X-Com.
08/05/2010 at 22:01 Iain says:
“John X-COM, you have to use the BLASTER RIFLE to kill the black blobs”
*arrow appears on screen pointing to nearby blaster rifle with infinite ammo”
*blob attacks, the A button appears on screen”
“John, mash the A button to get the black blobs off you!”
*blob is wrenched off and punched to death by John, screen is red and covered in blood, breathing sounds are heavy”
“John, your health is low. Take cover until it regenerates”
08/05/2010 at 22:23 Tom O'Bedlam says:
Did you even read the article?
08/05/2010 at 22:22 Alexandros says:
The dream will NEVER die. Someday, somehow, someone will make the perfect X-Com sequel, even if doesn’t have the official name. Too many people love it for it to fade away.
08/05/2010 at 22:53 Zwebbie says:
Oh, you people. The problem is obviously not that it’s not like X-Com, because there are a million games that aren’t like X-Com, and you can still play the original. The problem is that it takes its title.
That happens a lot these days, and eventually your rage for it snaps. I had it with Dante’s Inferno. A book – my favourite book – about humility turning into a game about beating people up? SNAP! Now I don’t care anymore. It’s bliss – they could name something as awful as Spore 2 or World of Warcraft 2 after my mother and I wouldn’t care. I sincerely hope that XCom will be terrible enough for your devotion to names to snap, because it makes life better.
08/05/2010 at 23:10 Iain says:
Actually peopl hate it because it’s taking a series renowned for being a VERY good RTS series and making it a boring FPS shooting game. It is being made in place of a proper sequel and is going to be bad.
“JOHN X-COM, I AM YOUR SUPPORT CHARACTER. 2/3 THROUGH THE GAME I WILL BETRAY YOU TO THE ALIENS FOR NO REASON. GET BEHIND COVER TO REGENERATE HEALTH AFTER BLOB ATTACKS.”
btw NMA was right.
08/05/2010 at 23:31 Starky says:
Except that X-COM was a TBS not an RTS.
08/05/2010 at 23:52 Robert says:
I had my fit of rage back when James Joyce took Homer’s Ulysses and made a friggin novel about it.
IF IT IS NOT IN HEROIC HEXAMETER IT’S NOT ULYSSES!
09/05/2010 at 00:44 Zwebbie says:
Iain: They’re not changing a single pixel to your series. They’re making a new game. That happens to be called XCOM. Would you have been upset if it were called Aliens of War: Shooting in the ’50′s? They’re just re-using the name.
OMZG Steve Jobs took one of the BEST FRUITS EVER and turned it into a COMPUTER COMPANY! RAGE! ANGER!
09/05/2010 at 03:53 nate says:
I’m shocked that Robert had that much patience. Goethe’s Faust is not Faust! Faust is not about redemption! This is not a simple reworking. This completely changes the entire theme, not to mention the structure, plot, and even medium.
08/05/2010 at 23:14 Mister Adequate says:
I… don’t know how to feel about this.
I think this looks like a pretty great game. It does seem to have potential to bring something new to the FPS field, especially as your danger is mounting up and it seems fairly plain that – at least in the early game – you’ll have to balance the risk of continuing vs. the rewards. I like that. A lot. Tt’s not X-Com exactly, but it’s damned close in spirit.
But I’m not convinced that it will be freeflowing enough, tactical enough, or indeed have a sufficient depth of strategy. X-Com was one of very few games to be genuinely strategic, in that everything you did have an influence on everything else. You COULD direct your tactical operations in a scorched-earth fashion, which might reduce danger to your troops, but would also reduce your oppurtunities for research and bounty. You could be gung-ho, but that carries cost in lives, and with lives being expensive to replace in money terms and even more expensive to replace in experience terms, that might not be so good. You could be very cautious and methodical, but that’s liable to give you grief in a terror mission.
I’m not yet seeing how this sort of stuff all ties together in XCOM. I’m not writing it off at all, I hope it incorporates this stuff, but your two sidekicks seem, well, non-characters. That was fine in the original because the nature of it meant you grew attached very easily, and we controlled everyone. If you have a pair of dunderheads who get caught on the scenery or shot in the back and don’t react, if you have a couple of nobodies who you just have to keep saving from death, I don’t know.
I suppose I’ll say this: I’m fairly optimistic that this will be a good game. I’m less optimistic that this will do justice to the X-Com name.
08/05/2010 at 23:15 c-Row says:
A demo might be a better way to judge this, but after reading the preview I fully understand why they are going to stick the X-COM label to the game: personally, from the description I couldn’t care less for this game at the moment, so the use of a well-known brand name is the one thing that creates at least some interest.
08/05/2010 at 23:39 Spd from Russia says:
DOW2 is more Xcom than this.
08/05/2010 at 23:57 Flimgoblin says:
Colour me optimistic, but sounds like it could be pretty decent.
Take X-COM, replace the squad based tactics with FPS, but keep the outside strategy part of the game…
My initial cynicism has been somewhat reduced, this is now a “wait and see” rather than a “wait and then say I told you so” :)
09/05/2010 at 00:51 Omnipotent says:
As someone who has not played the original X-Com games, I can say I honestly approve of this new title. Plus, all of you fans who played the original X-Com games should also note that this new title will drum up interest about the previous games. For example:
Fallout 3 came out, I played it, and then played Fallout 1 + 2. I loved them both. (More than Fallout 3 incidentally)
Bioshock came out, I hunted down a copy of System Shock 2 and played it. It made me hate Bioshock a great deal due to the huge amount of obvious “borrowing” going on, but I will always remember it as the game that introduced me to the Von Braun.
So, you can rage, hate, and doubt the new X-Com as much as you like, but bear in mind it could very well not only be a great game, but also introduce the younger generation of gamers to even better games.
Or it could crash and burn, in which case I too, will become an Angry Internet Man.
09/05/2010 at 01:04 Mr_Day says:
Bioshock was made by the same people as System Shock 2 (but not SS1, I believe, but feel free to correct me on that) so it being similar is understandable.
It did annoy me that a lot of the plot elements or characters were a case of “seen it!”*
Personally, I think the main differences between SS2 and Bio was simply that with Bioshock they had learnt to make sure the game was hyped up properly – I might not be remembering properly, but when System Shock 2 was nearing release date hardly anyone I knew had any idea what it was, despite a lot of magazines previewing it every few months up til that point.
Also, Ken Levine (him done do work on SS2 and Bio) also did Swat 4, which if you read the Bargain Bucket is super cheap right now. Go get! Taser old ladies!
* SPOILAH – though I gave more of a shit with the same plot element in SS2 than I did when I found out Atlas was Fontaine.
09/05/2010 at 00:57 Zogtee says:
The remarkable thing is that X-Com was way ahead of it’s time back when it was released and in many ways, it still is. For those young ones crying nostalgia and rose-tinted glasses, keep in mind that the real reason we haven’t seen a proper X-Com game in all these years, is that the devs consider it too complex and difficult for you lot. Another FPS with the X-Com title slapped across the front is appearantly all they think you can handle.
Don’t you think you deserve better?
09/05/2010 at 01:01 Wilz says:
Did Gamesradar just take that link down?
09/05/2010 at 03:29 JonFitt says:
I know, I get Page Not Found too.
This was literally the only thing that has ever been worth reading on GamesRadar and they took it down.
Perhaps, they needed to rewrite it into “10 Things That Are True About XCOM”
09/05/2010 at 01:02 Pirate0r says:
Does any one have a copy of the preview? I had to go out to do non computer game related stuff and when I returned the article had gone.
09/05/2010 at 01:56 Torgen says:
TOTALLY putting aside the whole “is this a worthy successor to X-Com” firestorm, it seems that this new game destroys its own premise with its basic gameplay. You’re supposed to be a secret FBI unit trying to prove the existence of aliens on Earth, yet you’re causing total destruction of suburbs by giant alien weapons by investigating them in FPS mode and running when the alien hordes get too strong.
Now HOW in the name of Sam Hill is that supposed to fit in with the basic premise of the game? You’ve started the War of the Worlds for Christsakes! How is this *possibly* still some unproven secret when you’ve caused a giant alien craft to obliterate entire blocks of houses?
09/05/2010 at 02:53 Radiant says:
“I think this is a betrayal of your profession as a games journalist”
Jesus titty fucking christ.
Box quote.
09/05/2010 at 03:13 Bob Dobbs says:
Using the XCOM name is a bit annoying, but that’s not really the issue. The issue is that 2K makes statements about how they are fans of the series and are “preserving the core elements of X-COM” and the like. No. They aren’t. There’s no interception, no geoscape, and probably not even any tactical elements. It could have been similar to Valkyria Chronicles, or SWAT 4, but it’s not. It could have had some flight or space sim elements, but it doesn’t. It obviously could have come much closer to the core elements of the first three or four X-COM games, but they wanted to design some new aliens, put ‘em in a idyllic setting, and make a cinematic FPS. FINE. GREAT. WONDERFUL. There’s no shame in having no real overlap with the core elements of any X-COM game except maybe Enforcer. There’s nothing wrong with Bioshock meets X-Files. But quit glossing the fact that 2K obviously cares more about the alien art direction than whether or not you have the slightest bit of control over your squad mates. Stop talking about XCOM like it’s got anything in common with what made UFO Unknown a great and unique game. It’s transparent marketing bullshit, and it’s annoying to see it get propagated by journalists.
09/05/2010 at 04:23 Uhm says:
Base management: Yes.
Squad management: Sort of. Handle equipment and development, but no direct control? Can’t even issue orders through the main character (yet?)? Which is pretty sad, admittedly.
Tactical overview (with map): Yes.
Interceptions: Unclear, but mentioned base facilities to detect alien activity.
Non-linear progression/Mission selection: Yes.
Research & Development: Yes.
Unknown Enemy: Yes.
Just Another FPS: No
I seem to remember “men in black” being cut from the originals because of time constraints (but I can’t remember where I got that from). So, some sort of overlap there …I guess.
09/05/2010 at 04:04 Snooglebum says:
Is the link broken for anyone else?
09/05/2010 at 04:13 kulak says:
whats with the idiots who are acting like this sequel is “using up” the X COM name? That now they’re making a game with FPS in it, there can never be a turn based RPG of it.
As if theres a finite amount of X-COM to go around, and now its been used up.
As if a major studio would make a complicated turn based RPG.
As if an indie developer can’t make said complicated turn based RPG with another name.
Clearly the name doesn’t matter, since this game will have the same name, and you’re all het up about it.
So how would a game made by indie developers (which is the only way you’re going to get a turn based strategy) with a different name, say Xenonauts, or F-COM, be any worse than one named XCOM?
A license worth lots and lots of money is never going to be bought by anyone other than a big studio. And a big studio is never going to make a game like X-COM in this age.
So get over it. A rose by any other name……
In other news, this XCOM looks genuinely intriguing. If they can get the genre blending and AI right, it could be absolutely brilliant.
09/05/2010 at 05:07 Mink says:
Rats. Link is busted. I wonder if it was killed due to some legal reason? Or maybe 2K just didn’t like what he said…
~mink~
09/05/2010 at 06:16 Bob Dobbs says:
@Uhm
Blase summations like “Base Management: Yes” miss the point so hard….
You don’t even mention the manufacturing, which is one of the two things (along with the research) that even comes close to capturing a CORE ELEMENT of the X-COM games. What decisions will there be with base management in XCOM? Not how many to have, whether they should specialize, and where to place them, because there’s only going to be one – wanna bet you don’t get to choose where it starts either? Not how they’re laid out, because the screenshot and descriptions we have show pretty plainly that that’s fixed and/or irrelevant. Not how much living space to have, because you’re only getting a few teammates (you can’t even call it a squad) and one small science team. How many meaningful decisions do you really think there will be about how much space should be devoted to manufacturing and how many engineers to hire? Think there will be any meaningful decisions at all about how much storage space is necessary? Any need for radar, or hangers? I think they can at least manage to have the aliens attack your base, but wanna bet it happens exactly once, at a more or less predictable time? (You have to be there, at minimum.) You sure aren’t going to be allowed to lose it. Base management is a CORE ELEMENT of the first three (four?) X-COM games, and it’s almost completely gone.
Tactical overview? What are you talking about? The map of the United States? The mission chooser? Are you kidding me?
Interceptions: wiretapping and intelligence reports are not interceptions, they are the explanation for why you know something about a mission before you start. They are there to help you pick missions. If you’re lucky you’ll have some choices to make about spending resources to increase the quality of the information or something, sort of like building a bigger radar or upgrading to the hyperwave decoder. If you’re really lucky, it might even be tied into some kind of research. But basically this is your stock mission briefing, which is standard for every mission based game ever; cross your fingers that it’ll add even one meaningful decision to the game (other than through using the reports to choose missions, obviously). By every report, the interception element is completely missing from the game. A CORE ELEMENT of three of the X-COM games simply isn’t there.
The squad management stuff they have talked about is hardly even worth noting, even by FPS standards. I think you’ll be lucky if the dudes even have stats, but who knows. Regardless, *THE* CORE ELEMENT of the first three X-COM games, for all practical purposes, does not exist in XCOM. They aren’t interested in giving you decisions to make, they just want you to “care” about your mates. That’s not X-COM, that’s Mass Effect.
Random maps with destructible terrain? CORE ELEMENT missing, blah blah blah. Nonlinear missions? Sorry, that’s another Mass Effect thing; the core elements you are looking for are actually semi-mandatory terror missions, a potentially infinite number of alien bases that must be detected and eliminated ASAP, and shooting down alien craft without doing any ground missions at all for months at a time if one so chooses. CORE ELEMENT gutted beyond recognition.
Research and manufacturing. Yes! You’ll take photographs, one scientist will develop alien technology, and you’ll get new armor and weapons. Will you have to do anything more interesting or difficult to get information, like capture aliens alive? Cross your fingers. Will you have the option of spending resources to hire more researchers or engineers? Cross your fingers. Can you sell manufactured stuff for a profit? Cross your fingers. But we can be pretty sure than even if you can hire more dudes, it won’t be very many. Can you build a spacecraft? Cross your fingers. So I give this a CORE ELEMENTS PRESERVED, but even here the number of meaningful decisions have gone down significantly from the first two games.
Unknown enemy: guess what, this isn’t a core X-COM mechanic, despite the name. After the first playthrough, you know what all the enemies are, but the game is just as good as ever. Why? Because the real CORE ELEMENT of (at least the first three) X-COM games is how the other CORE ELEMENTS work together to multiply the number of meaningful decisions that the player can make. That’s right, it’s not that you simply have bases, or get interceptors, or have squads, it’s about MEANINGFUL DECISIONS. You know, the things that comprise a game? Meaningful decisions? Ring a bell? The magic of X-COM is that they add up to a lot more than the sum of their parts. Most of those parts aren’t in XCOM, and the ones that are are pale shadows of their earlier selves. And this is not a surprise, because anyone with half a brain who reads these previews can tell that 2K thinks nonlinear missions, weapon upgrades, and random placement of goodies and baddies are neat, but what really turns their crank are cinematic aliens juxtaposed with an idyllic suburban milieu and the narrative possibilities they afford. All fine things. But they add no meaningful decisions and they’ve never been CORE ELEMENTS of X-COM. In fact, they are sort of the antithesis of those CORE ELEMENTS. 2K is, if you like, getting their thesis/antithesis groove on here, but come on now. Think for two seconds here. We all know it’s mostly antithesis. We’re talking about what is, after you strip away all the marketing and branding hype, an evolution of the Bioshock approach to shooters.
09/05/2010 at 13:45 Uhm says:
Yeah, I was being flippant. I can’t read the article anymore so I can’t check anything… But you seem to be making a lot of assumptions from information that isn’t there.
Did it say you don’t develop facilities for your base or hire scientists and engineers? I assumed it was included because it mentioned the R&D and named some base facilities. But you assumed it wasn’t. I’ll have to check again. Not too sure about the number of bases, but some small hints it’s only one. It’s possible there’s only a single main base, but you can set up safe houses, or something? But then I’m just making stuff up.
The map is the geoscape equivalent. Apocalypse used a single city, so it works even if it isn’t on a global scale. You’ll wait around until your base facilities pick up hints of aliens, then (you may be able to intercept) a combat mission will appear. Choose whether to attend or not (I assume there are consequences for not going). Your team travels to the destination with the equipment you assigned it.
Interceptions, I know they’re not the same as wiretapping, etc. But it didn’t say they’re just not there. But, since one has the ability to detect alien activity (like a radar would) that could lead to interceptions, or it couldn’t. We don’t actually know. Or, at least, I can’t remember.
Squad management. Yes. Possibly the biggest let down. It’s pretty sad how it seems to be handled. Hopefully there’s at least the possibility to issue orders through your character. But it didn’t seem to be the case.
Whole buildings were destroyed in the article. That sounds pretty destructible. Maps may not be random, but we don’t know how many or just how huge they are. Providing the aliens aren’t in the same positions every time, it could still work well. I’m not sure what the Mass Effect comparison is.
Research & manufacturing. You seem to have made up numbers and got angry about them. And clearly we don’t know enough yet.
Unknown Enemy. That was a joke. But random placement of goodies? You think missions have ammo and equipment lying around to pick up? That’s one thing clearly stated not to be the case…
Hopefully the photos are just the primary step of evidence gathering. If your weapons are useless, you gather evidence safely, research it, then develop something allowing you to capture and study it further. If the photos are just a replacement for the whole process of capturing and interrogating, then that would be pretty sad too.
Really, we’ve both made assumptions on the information. Yours are just more negative, which is understandable enough. I think the approach they’ve taken can work as a new X-Com. It can retain the meaningful choices. But they still have to do it well.
09/05/2010 at 06:53 Abi79 says:
For those who can’t access the article, try Google’s cache.
09/05/2010 at 06:59 Abi79 says:
Scratch that, only works with the first page.
09/05/2010 at 07:06 Lars Westergren says:
I’m cautiously optimistic. XCom is one of the few PC classics I haven’t played, so I don’t have a sentimental attachment to it, and from the article it seems the devs are heading in the right direction.
Only possible problem for me is that I too prefer full control of all team members, and in my experience that rarely works well with shooters developed with consoles in mind. It usually means too simplified control, like in Republic Commandos where you basically just can click on an icon to make squadmates go to pre-scripted cover places.
09/05/2010 at 07:24 Bret says:
Of course, Republic Commando is pretty fun.
So, I guess that kind of command system would work. Also: You need to play UFO: Enemy Unknown sometime. Get over the first hump, and you’ll be rewarded.
09/05/2010 at 10:05 Lars Westergren says:
@Bret
“Of course, Republic Commando is pretty fun.”
People keep saying that, and I bought it because the RPS writers kept gushing over it. I forced myself to play it to the end, but I never felt like I had any fun at all…
Don’t know why I didn’t connect with it, but I think I would have liked it a lot better if there had been just a few non-fighting levels or cutscenes to build atmosphere or character. After a really epic battle it would have been fun to see how life was for a soldier in the oppressive Republic. Instead, 5 seconds after a spaceship explodes you are running on a new planet towards your next enemy.
“Also: You need to play UFO: Enemy Unknown sometime. Get over the first hump, and you’ll be rewarded.”
Yes, I have it on Steam somehow, part of some sale I suppose. Together with 50 other titles I haven’t had time to start playing yet.
:-/
09/05/2010 at 07:40 Jon says:
It isn’t a proper X-com game unless one man returns in a Skyranger (Cadillac?) filled with the shrapnel riddled corpses of rookies that met their fate by a mind controlled thrown grenade, while the veterans all lie as smoking husks on the charred remains of grass somewhere in the Midwest.
What was once fourteen men who never knew what an Ethereal was, reduced to one man who is all too aware of their awesome power.
Seriously without destructible terrain, flammable material and waves of rookies being slaughtered by aliens, is it really X-com? Forget isometric vs first person, if it has burning buildings and ultra disposable sidekicks, it could be alright.
09/05/2010 at 07:40 The Great Skratsby says:
heh.
Reminds me of the original SWAT series, being a action strategy centric police quest spinoff, changing to the tactical shooter SWAT 3.
The changes were massive, but both were great games despite their huge differences and being under the same IP.
To be honest Fallout 3 vs Fallout 1/2 is a horrible example, quite frankly Fallout 3′s take on role playing compared to the originals is laughable, despite it being a decent game.
Now.
While X-Com isn’t a series I hold close, rather respect immensely, it does look interesting, and the art style is downright fantastic.
The biggest concern is the games strategic and tactical flexibility. Being a pewpewalienshootar is one thing, but the focus on that alone during combat scenarios could be a concern.
Still, as interested as I am Bioshock’s ridiculously huge hype train has me bitter about the 2k babbling; sure make a great game, just don’t over promise and shoot yourself in the foot, while the mainstream gaming press gushes in admiration before someone actually calls out the prodigy’s faults.
Rant rant rant.
09/05/2010 at 08:24 GT3000 says:
Exercise your pause button.
09/05/2010 at 08:53 Flint says:
If it didn’t have the X-COM name attached to it, people would be screaming bloody murder on the game ‘ripping off’ the franchise.
09/05/2010 at 08:53 bill says:
Yeah, that’s what I thought about Bioshock too.
;-)
09/05/2010 at 09:05 drewski says:
I really want to read this, but every time I try GamesRadar is borked. I was getting script errors in Firefox to start with, so I tried IE, and now all pages past the first are inaccessible.
*sigh*
09/05/2010 at 09:13 bill says:
Is it weird that I had no problem with Fallout 3 and I thought all the complaints about it were kinda crazy. But I totally get where the complaints about XCOM are coming from?
I’m not exactly sure why, but I think the jump from turn-based isometric RPG to first person (semi-)real time RPG isn’t that big. It’s more a question of dressing and peripheral mechanics.
But a jump from turn based tactical squad combat to real time fps style combat sounds like a much bigger jump. But I think it’ll possibly depend on how much depth there is in the combat. If each scenario plays out more like an FPS then i think that’ll have lost what made X-com X-com. If each scenario plays out in a more tactical way, then maybe I’ll retain what made X-com X-com.
So, basically, it’s not as simple as a list of things that did or didn’t make x-com x-com. It’s about whether you get the same kind of experience and rewards from the game. Abstractly, Doom, Rainbow6 and Rainbow6-Vegas are similar games, but the experience and rewards that you get from Vegas are much closer to doom than Rainbow6. If you get a rainbow6/swat4 vibe from this then I think it’ll give the same rewards. If you get a bioshock vibe then it won’t.
09/05/2010 at 10:09 Iain says:
Is there something wrong with the link ?
I keep getting “Sorry, the page that you requested cannot be found.”
09/05/2010 at 10:15 Nyst says:
‘Page cannot be displayed’
I can read the first page, but none of the others.
refreshing doesn’t work (it just gives a server error), firefox, chrome and IE don’t work.
09/05/2010 at 10:21 mcnubbins says:
SOunds pretty cool. An FPS version of X-Com but with the map and all that is something I’ve secretly wanted for years (because I don’t like turn-based strategy no more, unless it’s on a handheld). Though I do prefer a futuristic setting over this fifties thing. Unless there are humongous lazor guns in the fifties, cause then it’s alright.
09/05/2010 at 10:27 Tei says:
————-
http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/xbox-360/news/new-xcom-revealed-by-oxm-first-screen-inside/a-2010041317556922006/g-20060321132945404017
Sorry, your request is invalid for the following reason:
The resource you are trying to access is only visible in the United States. Click here if you would like to be redirected to view that content.
If you need to reset your region, you may do so in the footer.
————
Seems we europians are inferior people, and sould be stoped from wasting precious USA bandwitdh.
————————————————
About X-COM:
X-COM is the very definition of a game that can have more games inspired in it. Is a game that killed itself. Is a experience that you can only have once. Like the First Love, or the First Time you mount a nuke from the sky to the ground.
Is a experience that only can move forward. You can undo the X-COM experience, or REWIND it.
Games like UFO Extraterrestrial tried and failed. Games like the FPS “XCOM Enforcer” where travesties.
I welcome anyone trying to make a X-COM game, but is pretty much a suicide task.
And adding to that, for lots of people, X-COM is a sacred cow. You don’t fuck with the name X-COM.
I dessire this guys success, I already like the idea, sounds good (other than the land missions). I hope is any good. And I feel I don’t know enough about the game to have the slightles opinion
09/05/2010 at 10:35 sfury says:
After looking at the cached article (damn you GamesRadar, ty Google) – it’s promising stuff – the choices they took with the setting, the aliens. Give me some good research mechanics and tactical choices (and hopefully co-op) and that would be a game I’ll definitely be looking forward to.
Plus – the guys making it really have the experience to make it. I just hope it’s not to X-Com like BioShock’s to System Shock 2 – would be a shame to throw away some of the good ideas just to make a next-gen accessible-for-everyone albeit still interesting shooter.
09/05/2010 at 10:58 rocketman71 says:
Great. 3 tries on the same url 20 seconds apart: 1 empty article with 1 comment on the first try. A page not found in the second. And a Tomcat Exception page in the third.
Give a pat on the back to GamesRadar’s webmasters for me.
09/05/2010 at 12:26 kyrieee says:
Is this the same Alec who wrote the two X-COM articles here on RPS? After skimming the PCG article I find that hard to believe. The game appears to have very little in common with X-COM other than there being an alien invasion; I’m pretty sure no one’s done a game with an alien invasion before.
The whole article sounds apologistic. If the game seemed like a good X-COM continuation you wouldn’t have to try so hard to convince the readers (and yourself?) that it is. It had nothing to do with it being a world exclusive… I’m glad I canceled. Have some fucking balls if you’re going to be a journalist, be critical in print too
09/05/2010 at 12:31 cdm says:
I was born in the 1970s.
I read the article, and it doesn’t sound much like the game I played in the 1990s beyond very broad thematic similarities; ie investigate and oppose a concerted alien incursion.
The primary gameplay mode of the original was turn based tactical combat. The new game is a FPS.
It may turn out to be a worthy game, but it has little to do with X-Com: Enemy Unknown.
Commercial realities dictate that it is coming out on console (obviously the lead platform in terms of market share), made for today’s audience and thus very likely to be banal simplistic drivel. If you disagree with this prediction, you have either never known any other form of gaming besides consoles and are part of the target audience, or have forgotten what computer games used to be like.
I understand that game journalists must write articles like this to pay the bills, perhaps feigning enthusiasm a little, however it seems Alec really is optimistic about the new game. I would love to be proved wrong and him right, but I just don’t see it happening.
09/05/2010 at 13:45 LionsPhil says:
Click the link. Blank page. Refresh. 404. Refresh. Content!
Ok, page 2. 404. Refresh. Blank. Refresh. 404. Again. Again.
It’s like they don’t actually want me on their site viewing their ads.
09/05/2010 at 14:24 Nyst says:
Oh the actual ads are coming through fine. Banners, pop ups, the works. Just the centre where the words that make up the article should be is empty.
09/05/2010 at 14:33 KillahMate says:
This sounds like an interesting shooter that has nothing to do with X-Com.
That’s really all there is to it. The game might be good, it might even make me change my mind through some sort of game design magic, but for the moment, I clearly recall the feeling ‘X-Com’ represents in my mind and the turn based tactics and strategy gameplay is an inseparable part of that experience. Aliens vs Feds in ’50s America, less so.
I have no problem with this game – I’d just really love to play something new that’s like X-Com.
09/05/2010 at 14:34 Rich says:
I’m actually pretty interested in this. I never played the original X-Com (although I did play its UFO spiritual successors), so I’m basically coming at this without any predispositions. If the article on GamesRadar (or what I could actually access) turns out to be true, then it’ll actually be something fresh in the FPS genre.
09/05/2010 at 15:06 EthZee says:
Okay, people. Here’s the main thing to remember:
For the games company this is, above all things, a product. An event. Their main concern is not the genre, or the gameplay; their main concern is, “Can we market this? Is this product something we can market to a large audience and derive profits from?”
Using a brand name with fan-recognition attached to it, a name like X-Com which resonates with most videogamers (even, and this is most importantly, people who never played the original), will result in an increased interest and a higher recognition for the title. Even if the game attracts negative attention from the fans, it’s still attention; Fallout 3 has proved that this approach works regardless of the anger from fans of the original (importantly, though, as long as the fans of the original are not either the current userbase or part of a potential new userbase). People who haven’t heard much about the game hear about the anger generated by the old fans; enquire about the game receiving this attention; like what they see; and purchase the game when it is released, to become new fans.
Negative publicity is still publicity, as they say. And there’s nothing to say that this game would get the same amount of attention it does now if it was part of a different, original IP.
I do have a question about this new title, if it’s possible for Alec to answer: what parts of the demonstration that you saw, if any, had definite quantitative links to the original X-Com? Fallout 3, for all its’ complaints, had these: the Vaults. The Enclave, the Brotherhood of Steel. Pip-Boys, Deathclaws, etc etc. This distinguished it from games with similar gameplay styles and settings (Borderlands, STALKER, etc.)
Aside from the genre (Alien Invasion) what is the link with this and the X-Com games? That will be the best way to determine whether this is a specifically-designed IP, or an alternative IP reskinned to be able to fit an older IP with high brand recognition.
PS: Personal note. I have never played the X-Com games. I don’t plan to try; the strategy genre is not enjoyable for me, turn-based less so. However, there is a good chance that I could enjoy this game, as I find the entry requirements for shooters to be more for my liking (less decision-making and thought required).
09/05/2010 at 15:22 jalf says:
So the main thing to remember is something completely irrelevant to the entire discussion?
Why does it matter to anyone what the publisher’s motivations for selling the game are? It doesn’t do anything to cool the fears of those who think the X-COM name is being dragged through the mud, it doesn’t affect those who never had a problem with the name, it doesn’t matter to those who never heard of the game. Regardless of how you feel about the game or its name, the publisher’s reason for using the X-COM name is irrelevant to you.
Yes, obviously they use the name because they believe it’ll sell. And so what? Why is it the main thing to remember? What does it have to do with anyone or anything?
09/05/2010 at 15:34 jalf says:
Actually, that sounded a bit harsher than intended. But still, while you’re obviously correct, I don’t think it really mattters to anyone outside the publisher’s executives.
09/05/2010 at 19:17 EthZee says:
You’re right. I forgot to make a point. I was probably going to say something to the effect that as it’s a product, the publishers are less likely to care about the subject matter and are more likely to care about producing something that will sell a lot and produce a big impact, and since FPSes are all the rage nowadays that’s the natural direction for them to go with something like this.
Sorry about that. I’m not good at arguing things.
09/05/2010 at 15:23 KillahMate says:
Oh, and now I’m going to lose my semi-objectiveness and become an Angry Internet Man:
50′s America? Really, developers? “A secret taskforce that is Earth’s last and only line of defense” and by Earth you mean the United States?
Now you listen to me, you brain damaged sons of bitches. I just went and checked my atlas, and I’m pretty damn sure the US is not the whole world. I mean, I know they’re trying, but so far other countries, and – would you believe it – entire continents exist that are not America! I know plenty of Americans couldn’t name them or point them out on a map, but trust me, they exist.
Which, by the way you should already know because you live on one of those continents. Is the prevailing opinion on the average gamer IQ so low that Australian developers have to pander to them by forgetting their own country? I can understand why you wouldn’t set this new organization in Queensland, but why didn’t you make it an international taskforce? Because that would have been in keeping with the spirit of the original, right?
Up yours, you herd of Ameriphiles. I like the US just fine, but I can still tell the difference between it and the rest of the globe. Not every flying saucer needs to land in Washington DC.
/Angry Internet Man
09/05/2010 at 19:23 jalf says:
At a wild guess, perhaps they made it FBI rather than international X-COM because it’s more of a hush-hush investigation than a defense against a full-scale invasion.
Do you think that one of the world’s two superpowers would, at some point during the cold war, step up to the microphone in the UN and say “hey guys, we need a hand here. Wanna establish a multilateral organization to develop hyper-advanced weaponry and defeat these aliens that are harrassing us?”
Or would they perhaps try to keep it quiet and just try to handle things internally, without alerting their rivals to their potential weakness, and without having to share any of the loot?
Of course, there’s also the quite interesting possibility that you only *start out* as a FBI agent for the above reasons, but that throughout the game, as the alien forces grow in strength, a new international organization is formed to deal with it? One perhaps called “Extraterrestrial Combat Unit”?
Just sayin’, plot-wise it might make perfect sense to present the game in a US setting. Yes, it’d seem ridiculous if this was one of the old X-COM games, but it isn’t.
09/05/2010 at 16:36 Ergonomic Cat says:
“Actually, wasn’t there a Halo RTS?”
Yup. It was possibly the best console RTS ever released.
Let me point out there were more than two X-Com games. Several more. While I agree that only two were really worthwhile, the bulk of the franchise was not the first two. So you could well make an argument that Ufo and TFTD don’t fit the theme, what with their focus on pure turn based combat. I’m just saying. And I have Ufo Defense installed at this moment on my computer, twice (once from originals, which is annoying to play, but I never removed, and once from Good Old Games).
For those of you that think the essence of X-Com is the turn based alien killing, get a Gameboy game called Rebelstar: Tactical Commando. It is basically X-Com redone on the Gameboy, removing most of the base management.
09/05/2010 at 17:24 Bob Dobbs says:
@Ergonomic Cat
Apocalypse also includes tactical squad based combat. Interceptor retains the interception along with more meaningful base management decisions. The core mechanic is not the turn based combat, the core mechanic is the multiple interlocking decisions that are made in several different game systems, of which turn based combat was the most detailed in three of the five games.
The core mechanic in XCOM is that you get better by appropriating the technology of the horrible alien threat. An iconic X-COM idea, and one could even make the case that it was one of the core mechanics, but read Why X-COM Matters (To You) again and note especially the bit where it says: “They care because they want the one game that genuinely did it all to come back.” We aren’t getting something that’s even attempting to do as much as Interceptor, let alone doing it all. We’re getting a game mechanic that’s about as interesting as collecting powerups for weapon upgrades. Yeah they’re calling it elerium, but they’re removing most of the actual decision interactions around elerium in earlier games.
You can argue that that’s just as X-COM as Enforcer if not more so, and you’d be right. You can argue that the “core mechanics of what makes X-COM X-COM” are so diluted by the last few games in the series that they are essentially meaningless, and you might be right about that too. It’s still pretty lame to write an article that praises the original UFO Unknown for what actually made it great and then tell people to “believe” wrt XCOM when it’s clearly going in a very different direction.
09/05/2010 at 19:30 jalf says:
@Bob Dobbs:
So in other words, you’re assuming that when we’re told that they’re not yet ready to showcase base building and research and other metagamey stuff, it really means “actually, you’re going to do nothing more than collect powerups in a first-person view throughout the game”.
That’s a… creative… interpretation. I’m just glad it appears to have little to do with the actual game, because that would suck.
09/05/2010 at 17:33 Pirate0r says:
Here’s a link to a file with all the pages of the preview
[URL=http://filebeam.com/95cf1e4d5614e4746d3d9ddffad665ac]DOWNLOAD NOW![/URL]
09/05/2010 at 17:34 Pirate0r says:
dammit, this one
DOWNLOAD NOW!
10/05/2010 at 04:09 drewski says:
Cheers.
10/05/2010 at 20:55 Levictus says:
Thanks Dude!
09/05/2010 at 17:35 Diogo Ribeiro says:
After Bioshock, can 2K do anything other than firstperson shooters set in the 1950′s?
09/05/2010 at 18:31 GT3000 says:
Mafia II, Spec Ops: The Line, and Civ V.
You argument is invalid. GET OUT HERE DIOGO.
09/05/2010 at 20:40 Zogtee says:
America during the 1950′s is rapidly becoming the new WW2 in gaming. It’s what all the hip kids like, appearantly.
09/05/2010 at 21:46 rocketman71 says:
@GT3000
2K is not making those. Just publishing them. Mafia 2 is done by the old Illusion Softworks. Yeah, they’re now called 2K Czech (fuck you 2K for renaming classic companies like this), so you could argue that in some way they’re doing it. Spec Ops is from Yager Entertainment. And Civ5, of course, from Firaxis, Meier’s company.
Visiting a page like RPS, you should now a bit more of the basic things before opening your mouth (or touching your keyboard to post).
09/05/2010 at 23:08 Tei says:
“America during the 1950’s is rapidly becoming the new WW2 in gaming. It’s what all the hip kids like, appearantly.”
And everything from the 50′s is public domain now. So you are free to pick anything you like, music, images, culture… (note: I can be wrong, the copyright lobbys are always extending the termination date, so you never know what is public domain this week. the bastards)
10/05/2010 at 01:12 GT3000 says:
@Rocket
You best be trollin’. These are 2k Games and they own all these studios, just because they refuse to rename them doesn’t change what they are. Marin is Irrational Studios (Well half of it anyway), Czech is Illusion Softworks,
Now Marin is responsible for the Bioshock Series and XCOM. (They’re slated to make both XCOM and BS3.) But 2K Czech and Friaxis are for all intents and purposes 2k Studios. As is 2k China and Irrational which has gone through enough name changes to put Rusty Shackleford to shame.
So I suppose I’m incorrect in that they’re diverse but I’m not incorrect that it just isn’t shooters set in the 50s. It’s shooters in the 50s, Civilization, and a Mafia game.
10/05/2010 at 17:02 Diogo Ribeiro says:
@GT3000:
2K as in Irrational, natch. But come to think of it, wasn’t Freedom Force also set in the 1950s? Hmmm.
My jibe is simply questioning the coincidence. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that setting, I’m just curious how much thought was given to it. Of course, a conscious decision would have been made somewhere along the development road, but I’m wondering if they felt they could do something worthwhile with it or if the thought process was somewhere along the lines of “well, Bioshock. It had a ’50′s setting. It was a shooter. Profit!”.
Not looking for reason to hate XCOM. If I want I can replay the older ones without a problem. I’m just wondering what’s the reasoning here. Are studios now not only trying to gain recognition with shooters but with past settings they worked on as well?
10/05/2010 at 17:03 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Actually, I think FF was set after the 1960s or somesuch.
09/05/2010 at 19:35 geldonyetich says:
Sure is a lot of “X-Com is the best game ever, the master mold for which all games should be wrought” sentiment going on here.
Well, no, X-Com was created by the same guys who created Laser Squad. X-Com came together as rather cool, especially with the world metagame and whatnot, but it wasn’t the master game. It was just a really cool turn-based squad combat game.
You want to see what X-Com 4 would be like? Go check out Laser Squad Nemesis – that’s where most of the original talent went.
An open-ended 1950s G-Man game could be rather cool. Men In Black done right, so to speak. However, time will tell if what is delivered satisfies.
09/05/2010 at 21:20 Acosta says:
Laser Squad is completely inferior to X-Com in every level. What’s your point?
X-Com was a great game, people want more of that great game. It´s not so hard to understand.
09/05/2010 at 21:31 geldonyetich says:
That’s a matter of opinion.
Only that, if it’s more X-Com you wanted, guess where it went? By the original creators’ own hands, to Laser Squad Nemesis.
To think it would have gone somewhere else is only something you have imagined.
Speaking as a novice game designer myself, it’s really not that easy. You need to be more specific. You need to isolate what made it great. If being a squad-based tactical combat game with a global interview and aliens was all there was to it, then many have tried and failed. .
So, here we have a FPS set in the 1950s. It has next to nothing to do with the original X-Com. However, considering it seems the gaming community rejects anything that resembles the original X-Com (such as Laser Squad Nemesis or Aftershock/Aftermath/Afterlight), can you really blame them for this in this direction?
09/05/2010 at 23:06 Tei says:
X-Com addresed the main problem of Laser Squad.
There where like.. humm.. 5 maps. I know these maps like my own house. Thats a problem, because strategies get stagnated. Random map generation fixed that.
Another problem of Laser Squad is the decisions about the number of weapons and type of soldier. Why these Marsec Autoguns? why no other different tactical weapons, maybe more pistols that can shot with less AP’s?. X-Com fixed that with the strategy side.
X-Com is not not less than a Laser Squad mission generator— no less, but much more, since these “patchs” to make the Laser Squad parts good, was also very good at itself. Hell there are people on this thread that loved the strategy side, only that part.
09/05/2010 at 20:59 Tim says:
The best thing about UFO was that it was clever. This looks like it will be clever and for that I applaud.
09/05/2010 at 21:24 Matt_w says:
All this fuss about the name of a game from a company calling itself Atari in 2010. What a joke.
It’s irrelevant – let this game live or die by it’s own merits. If there ever is a true, worthy spiritual sequel to UFO:Enemy Unknown I doubt it’ll be called XCOM or have anything to do with whoever owns the franchise IP at the moment.
09/05/2010 at 21:25 Matt_w says:
Wait, it’s not published by Atari is it…? Doh!
Anyway… point still stands.
09/05/2010 at 21:48 rocketman71 says:
After finally reading the article, it looks like an interesting game that doesn’t deserve in the least to use the X-COM brand.
And I agree with the rest, Alec. It really read like you were apologizing for the game.
10/05/2010 at 01:04 DrazharLn says:
Anyone else getting a broken link?
10/05/2010 at 01:17 Deston says:
Yep, the article is down on the GamesRadar site for some reason. Just copy the link URL and paste it into Google to get the cached version of it that they have.
10/05/2010 at 01:33 Pijama says:
Considering the verve that Alec put into talking about the classic game, I must say that some serious drugging is going on here.
I haven’t played the original, though I am somewhat tempted to. It seems to me from what I have gathered that this will be Fallout3: XCOM edition – a good game but nowhere fucking near the awesomeness that made the originals so great.
(quick note for you developers – you are all free to get the ball rolling and bring changes to more contemporary standards, but that doesn’t mean you should kill the game’s spirit in the process. Fallout’s humour was something simply amazing to see and Bethesda, lo and behold, simply threw it all away)
So, lessee: a game where you in command of a strategic global initiative against an alien threat to the whole of mankind, in which you had to face terrible enemies infiltrated all over the world while simultaneously developing and researching technology to face it and turn the tide against this superior opponent, becomes…
…A FPS (in which the “strategic” goes to hell) where you take command of a single character ahead of a FBI segment (thus killing the “global” aspect of the classic) in the 50′s (Hello Bioshock!). But hey, R&D and base-building will be in*!
Errr.
I take it back, this is going to be worse than Fallout 3, for at least Bethesda had the decency to try and keep it a RPG at least.
* – not that changing genres so dramatically will mean that they will keep it a proper and prime feature. If anything, I sense Bioshock vending machines for all the clever upgrades you might need to face all these blobs!
10/05/2010 at 01:51 GT3000 says:
I’m curious, what’s with the exasperation of the 1950s? I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s an okay decade (Give me the 1980s.) and the history is rich but there’s been a nary of a game set in that decade. Bioshock I&II, Stubbs the Zombie, Destroy All Humans, Resistance I&II, and Fallout 3 (Hardly even considered the 1950s and more so retro-futuristic art direction inspired by such) but that’s it. 5 shooters and two 3rd person games about zombies and aliens. Never-mind that 2k Marin did the Bioshock Series so they’re sticking with an era they know really well.
Bastardization aside of course.
10/05/2010 at 08:42 Turin Turambar says:
It’s not exactly the same, Fallout 3 is a RPG, like Fallout 1 & 2. X-com was a TBS, Xcom is a fps.
10/05/2010 at 04:11 drewski says:
I’ve played the original.
This sounds fun.
Couldn’t care less if it’s not a tactics games.
10/05/2010 at 07:52 Zogtee says:
Laser Squad, while great, was a collection of cool ideas looking for game to give it structure and context. This all came together in the first two X-Com games. As with any other successful series, fans expected more games to be released, to build upon and improve on the previous ones. The third game surprised everyone by going backwards, ie instead of having a game that took place in the whole world, we got a game that took place in a single city. Not everyone appreciated this, but the third game is grudgingly accepted into the X-Com canon.
However, after that there was a very sharp drop in quality, as developers tried out new ideas that all failed in epic fashion and here we are today to see someone try again. The fans aren’t asking for that much, really. At this point, we would be happy to see a carbon copy of the original game, but with updated graphics. Seriously, it would be enough. Still, this seems to elude devs and instead we get almost-there stuff like the Afterlight games. I’m not sure why this is so difficult for most developers, as others have managed just fine over the years with titles like Jagged Alliance, Incubation, and Rebelstar.
For the record, I don’t object to X-Com being remade like this. What I don’t get is this peculiar ambition to somehow kick and push the game into completely different genres. This hasn’t turned out too well in the past, so why not simply go back to the original gameplay and see if you can do something with that? The Afterlight games came close, I’ll admit, but there was something missing still.
As for the amusing nerdrage from us oldtimers, consider how you would feel if your favorite game was turned into something completely different? Here, I was going to suggest Halo being transformed into a turnbased strategy game, where the various units used action points for doing stuff, but goddamn it just sounded too awesome! Why don’t we see that, then? X-Com has been shoved into other genres before, how about other games being shoved into the X-Com game structure? :D
10/05/2010 at 12:13 Sobric says:
I can’t belive this hasn’t been mentioned yet, but isn’t this fairly obviously a prequal? In the original UFO: Enemy Unknown, XCOM was set up as a global response to the alien invasion, and so was set appropriately enough in the near future.
This XCOM seems to be more in a Men in Black/X-files vein. You’re investigating these occurances, but it’s all hush-hush and secretive. I really would not be surprised if, at the end of the game, your character demands that a new, globally supported, counter-alien group should be set up to prepare for a future alien invasion, and it shall be called… XCOM. Sets up nicely for another game too.
Somehow, with that premises in my mind, it makes the use of the XCOM licence so much more acceptable.
10/05/2010 at 12:22 Zogtee says:
I’m not sure that’s the intention, but it’s certainly a clever idea and a positive way to look at it. :)
10/05/2010 at 12:56 Magic H8 Ball says:
Fallout 3 is definitely not the RPG Fallout 1 and 2 were.
10/05/2010 at 13:04 gulag says:
They’re still making X-Com games? How quaint!
10/05/2010 at 13:16 lhzr says:
could someone reupload the screens from gameradar? Pirate0r’s link has just the text of the article in it.
10/05/2010 at 13:55 lhzr says:
nevermind, http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=21166419&postcount=872
10/05/2010 at 19:04 Jad says:
What is more of a Civilization game? A FPS starring Julius Caesar and Montezuma, or Alpha Centuri?
What is more of a System Shock game? A match-three puzzle game with SHODAN messing up the board at the most inopportune time, or Deus Ex/Bioshock?
What is more of an Operation Flashpoint game? A racing game on the islands of Everon, Malden, and Kolgujev, or ArmA?
What is more of an X-Com game? XCom or Jagged Alliance?
—-
Now none of this precludes the above being good games, or even great games. I, personally, would be more interested in that OpFlash racing game than ArmA 2. But if you liked the actual gameplay of Operation Flashpoint, then ArmA 2, even though it takes place in Chenarus, not OpFlash’s islands, would be preferable to a game with entirely different gameplay set in the same locale. For many (if not most) games, the setting and the characters is not as important as the gameplay. This is in fact one of the main things that separate games from movies, books, etc. X-Com was definitely one of those games.
11/05/2010 at 08:57 mcnubbins says:
I would definitely buy an FPS starring Julius Caesar and Montezuma.
I can already imagine the amazing storyline. It would be as awesome as ‘Hercules in New York’.
11/05/2010 at 18:13 Bret says:
I’m thinking buddy cop.
But is Caesar the loose cannon, or the by the book officer?