Rock, Paper, Shotgun

XCOM: The First Trailer

By Jim Rossignol on June 12th, 2010 at 10:51 am.


This looks awesome.

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500 Comments »

  1. 12/06/2010 at 10:55 Dubious says:

    That looks… blobby.

  2. 12/06/2010 at 10:56 faelnor says:

    “This looks awesome.”
    It looks good, yes. But it looks boring as hell.
    It seems that Irrational want to become the worldwide specialists in generic, uninspired shooters in unusual and beautiful environments.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:01 Jim Rossignol says:

      Boring. Right. I’m really not getting “generic shooter” from that. “Shooter”, certainly.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:06 faelnor says:

      You probably liked Bioshock.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:08 Jim Rossignol says:

      Or I could have been disappointed by it. MYSTERY TASTE CONUNDRUM!

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:09 DJ Phantoon says:

      Tastes like… victory. And Courtney Love’s spit. Oh god victory hooker spit why god whyyyyyyyyyyyyy

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:11 fnsmatt says:

      Out of curiosity, what from that trailer doesn’t give you the “generic shooter” vibe? I see nothing there that hasn’t been done before, and nothing outside the X-COM brand that would make me the slightest bit interested.

      It is hard to tell anything substantial from a trailer, but this doesn’t seem like a promising start.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:12 faelnor says:

      I’m sorry, I realise I do sound like a rambling idiot.
      But for me, this and Bioshock suffer from the same syndrome of really pretentious, tedious and unforgivably shallow mechanics with an terrible “console FPS” aspect tackled on.
      It’s shiny, it’s atmospheric, it’s probably written better than most games, but I don’t trust Irrational to know what makes the core of a good game.
      If I get the time later I’ll try to explain what I mean by analysing the trailer.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:13 faelnor says:

      “with an terrible”, really!

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:30 Tusque d'Ivoire says:

      i do understand what you mean with consol-ey flavor to an FPS game, though, we’ve been getting that a lot since someone decided you could play an FPS with an analogue stick, which i still don’t understand (honestly, how do they do it?). But even though 2K have been known to do that in the past, I’m decidedly keeping my hopes up for a smart shooter with a nice novel feel to it, maybe like Prey (that might be subjective).

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:33 James G says:

      Pretentious?

      It probably doesn’t help that that is one of my least favourite words in the entire English language, but to see it applied to Bioshock is a bit disappointing.

      I also think it is a little unfair to class XCOM as generic on the basis of a few seconds of gameplay footage. Certainly, Alec’s preview suggests that the game has the potential to be nicely removed from your most generic FPSes. Maybe not necessarily mind blowingly innovative, and obviously some of the neater ideas could be implemented in the most uninspired of manners, but it does sound that we certainly aren’t talking corridor shooter.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:37 Jim Rossignol says:

      So what do you guys regard as the characteristics of a console-y shooter, then?

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:43 Larington says:

      I’d like to know the answer to that question as well, because I’m not sure myself either. The only time I think console shooter is when it looks as though the players aim is shifting in an odd way akin to how it would work when played on those damned analogue sticks and that’s a commentary on how the game is being played rather than how it’s been designed.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:44 Jimbo says:

      Don’t worry, Jim, I liked it too. JIMS UNITE FOR OPTIMISM!

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:00 Theory says:

      Characteristics of console shooters, eh? Let me try. I’m not being specific to the XCOM trailer here.

      - Easy
      - Autoaim
      - Slow moving player/hostiles
      - Huge, chunky UI
      - Big, open environments with little cover (those which do have cover dedicate it an entire button and advertise it as a USP!)
      - Yet at the same time, combat sans sniper rifle is close-quarters
      - Regenerating health (I quite like this, actually)
      - NO DEDICATED SERVERS

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:03 Theory says:

      - Little/no z-axis moving or even looking

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:08 Alexander Norris says:

      Yeah, I’d qualify the stupid slow clunky movement as the most “console-ish” aspect of console FPSes.

      Also, I’m a bit disappointed that the blobs move the way they do. I was expecting more slithering and less fluttering.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:30 Hodge says:

      I say no to optimism! Kick out the JIMS!

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:30 Daniel Rivas says:

      Bioshock had pretentious mechanics? My. Calling the plot of Bioshock, let alone its game mechanics, pretentious strikes me as setting a depressingly low bar.

      I haven’t actually played X-COM (cry for me, for I am young), but it did have men with guns, yes? This seems like a decent attempt at moving the series into shooter territory. As far as I can tell the defining feature of X-COM is investigating towns, finding an alien threat that is far too powerful for you, taking some pictures and running away until you can return with more powerful weapons. That seems to be what the trailer is going out of its way to promise, while also showing off some shooting.

      I also like that they seem to be going for relatively few enemy styles. It’ll be interesting to see if they can pull it off without taking the usual menagerie-of-aliens approach.

      As for the shooting, that looks a little, well, Bioshock-ey, which worries me. I didn’t think the shooting in Bioshock was up to much, and this doesn’t look to have a plasmid system to prop it up.

      All in all, though, looks good!

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:06 kyrieee says:

      Generic? Maybe not the right word, it has a somewhat unique setting at least.
      Uninteresting is more apt.

      I would’ve dismissed it as ‘another-shooter-I-don’t-care-about’ had I not known it was X-COM. I think that trailer made the game look about as interesting as Singularity (which nobody cares about). As for the ‘consol-y’ part I think that what makes the trailer convey that is how sluggishly they aim and move in it. BioShock was that way too though.

      Anyway, zero interest

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:36 MD says:

      I reckon tiny FOV qualifies as a symptom of consolitis. If it’s going to be small by default, please let us change it!

    • 12/06/2010 at 16:31 Don says:

      @Rossignol: So what do you guys regard as the characteristics of a console-y shooter, then?

      Well I’d say:

      1) Any necessity for button mashing, usually in the form of QTEs.
      2) Unavoidable situations, such as in Dead Space where the tentacle thing in the wall was always going to grab you when you walked past. The option to lob a grenade down the hole and sprint (or in the case of Dead Space’s protagonist, amble) past is never allowed even when previous experience should allow your character some alternative to waiting to be grabbed followed by (1).

      Neither are console exclusives of course, but games designed primarily for consoles seem to use (or overuse) these kind of things more than PC games.

    • 12/06/2010 at 16:37 Coded One says:

      If you thought that this and Bioshock look “generic”, then what would you say makes a game unique?

      The only links I see from Bioshock and XCOM that could make them “generic” is the fact that they both are FPS’s. Everything else is largely different. Sure the time period’s similar, but does a 50′s era shooter really come off to you as “generic”?

      Maybe the problem here is just that you don’t want XCOM to be ruined by porting it to an FPS, especially one that is consolefied. I agree that most console ports (FPS’s specifically) are terrible pieces of shit that rely too much on pandering to the common joystick. However, simply because your favorite series is being turned into an FPS is no means to instantly hate it. From other articles on XCOM, it seems that the developer does want to take this game in a strategic, investigative direction. However, the only gameplay footage we are seeing is from the shoot-y bits. Give them some time till we see some deeper gameplay footage, then we can judge them like the demanding children we are.

      Also, if you think Bioshock was “generic”, then you probably just hate all FPS’s.

    • 12/06/2010 at 16:56 Michael says:

      @theory

      You just described Doom (except for regenerating health).

      When people say call something a console game, what they mean is that the developer has simplified some aspects of the game in order to give it more popular appeal. This has nothing to do with consoles really, except that a more popular title is more likely to get ported to the consoles.

      For example, the simplifications in Deus Ex 2 weren’t really about making the game suitable for console release – the original didn’t sell very well on the PC – they were just trying to make a game people might actually buy.

    • 12/06/2010 at 17:08 FunkyBadger says:

      Generic shooter? Well, it has men in it, with guns.

      But then… SO DO ALL SHOOTERS.

    • 12/06/2010 at 17:51 Jimbobb says:

      I’m with Jim.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:19 snv says:

      The worst console FPS atrocities harbour from the inferior hardware.

      This does lead to forcing bad design decisions. Because it is not possible to be fast and precise this leads to the spray and pray mechanics.
      Typical: the player and an enemy stand (because moving increases the spray angles) and shoot at each other by the clips. Occasional hits which the player receives reduce the shield / health, but after the fight it will recharge so this is not a tactical element, but rather just a way of forcing you to wait occasionally.

      Movement almost always feels remote and sluggish – more like unreal engine games than id tech games. (Never have tried an actual id tech game on a console though)

      Also everything has to be rather huge and chunky, or else you could not really recognize it on a TV.

      Overused post-processing effects, like depth of field ( hate that one ), bloom (because it is cheaper than antialieasing).

      Also bad control schemes, because of the limited amount of controller buttons – the low user interface bandwidth, which just can not compete with simple point & click – you have lots of nested submenus. Strange bindings, usually not even changeable.

      Checkpointing istead of free saving/loading.

      I could go on and on why consoles games suck, but in here its like preaching to the choir, so…

      But (!), the problem is that this does not affect just console games. I couldn’t care less if that was the case. Instead, not just ports, every game designed to be also playable on a console gets diminished by the consoles limits. And lots of these effects can`t be corrected by some checkmark in an options screen or by increasing the resolution – the whole look & feel and balance of the game is inferior to what a PC only title could be.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:52 Suprore says:

      This is NOT irrational games. It’s 2k marin, formerly 2k australia.

    • 12/06/2010 at 19:39 Theory says:

      You just described Doom (except for regenerating health).

      Which was designed to played with…drumroll please…a keyboard! Not a coincidence at all. :-)

    • 12/06/2010 at 22:09 jalf says:

      But for me, this and Bioshock suffer from the same syndrome of really pretentious, tedious and unforgivably shallow mechanics

      Really?

      Leaving Bioshock out of it (which was a major disappointment for me),
      what on Earth are pretentious mechanics? I can understand pretentious stories (cough cough braid cough, etc), but how can game mechanics be pretentious?

      And how do you, from a trailer, determine that the game is going to have tedious and shallow game mechanics? Given that it hasn’t actually shown off that much gameplay, yes, you do sound like a rambling idiot.

      It’s shiny, it’s atmospheric, it’s probably written better than most games, but I don’t trust Irrational to know what makes the core of a good game.

      Oh, I see. So you’re saying that because the trailer actually looks good, and you haven’t experienced the gameplay yet, the gameplay must suck.

      Yes. I’d say “rambling idiot” fits the bill. No offense ;)

    • 12/06/2010 at 22:24 Daniel Rivas says:

      I think by “mechanics”, he means the Little Sister choices, and by “pretentious”, he means “I didn’t like them”.

      I’d call them unsubtle and ham-handed, perhaps, but not pretentious.

    • 12/06/2010 at 23:20 WiPa says:

      Everyone is arguing about this, but nobody would care if it wasn’t called X-COM.

      So marketing win there then.

    • 12/06/2010 at 23:56 GameOverMan says:

      Even if I am and always have been a PC player using mouse + keyboard in FPS games, I think that the sluggish aim when using a typical console controller gives an impression of weight, in fact, when watching YouTube videos I find dissorienting the twitch aiming. One frame the player is looking towards the horizon and the next one it shows a completely different scene, without any transition, since a quick mouse movement resulted in a 180 degree turn, however, if the video shows a console game the same action seems more “realistic” and there is a trade-off every time you configure the controller’s sensitivity setting, as it should be, high sensitivity = less precise turning and/or aiming.

      When using a mouse it seems like you are controlling a weightless camera, not something attached to a body. I admit that console controllers aren’t ideal either, (I think their sensitivity should be adjustable on the fly, and apply some kind of acceleration, for example) but to me they seem more suited to “simulate” how a humanoid creature turns and aims a weapon. That’s not to say that they are the best controller for every game genre or sub-genre, far from it. A FPS game like Quake Arena is (and should be) based on twitch movements, fast reaction times and even faster aiming, ultra-quick scoping, “I have been just shot in the back but I’m going to do a lightning fast 180 degree turn while jumping at the same time and I’ll shoot that bastard in the face”, all those things only possible with a mouse. Other types of games benefit greatly from using it, too, so both controllers can complement each other, not being exclusive.

    • 13/06/2010 at 01:12 fnsmatt says:

      One major trait of a “console-y” shooter is the lack of a fluid movement system. With a stick that only allows for gradual changes in the camera’s PoV, console-y shooters by necessity are made to play more slowly than PC-native shooters do, and usually end up feeling clunky when ported to the PC and played with a mouse.

    • 13/06/2010 at 02:24 Nick says:

      “Or I could have been disappointed by it. MYSTERY TASTE CONUNDRUM!”

      I love you, Jim. All is forgiven for the MoA:AA misunderstanding. Ok, so I may have been harbouring that myself all these years, but still.

    • 13/06/2010 at 03:23 Bret says:

      Ah, that’s better. Now do I have what it takes, Jim team wise?

    • 13/06/2010 at 04:21 whalleywhat says:

      “Pretentious” has been rendered almost as meaningless as “hipster.” It’s just a blanket pejorative for people who don’t know where to direct their anger. And console shooters have arrows that tell you where to go. Also, I’d say one of the major differences between SS2 and Bioshock is that how you choose to “level up” in SS2 has profound consequences on how you’re able to play the game and choices you’re able to make, whereas in Bioshock, much like in Dead Space, it largely just affects how easy it is to kill things.

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:53 Shalrath says:

      “- Little/no z-axis moving or even looking”

      Interesting side-note to this – at the companies I’ve worked at that do cross platform shooters (usually PC/360, but occasionally with the PS3 ruining everything) entire levels made for the PC will be reworked for the 360. Why? Because almost all movement in 360 shooters is strafing. Because the analog stick is, what, 100 DPI? That means you can’t have things pop up behind you, or rapidly changing from left to right. Try to imagine any fight in Stalker where your left-right movement was about 1/10th that speed and precision.

      So what ends up happening is that you generally ‘guide’ the area you want to shoot at, not the actual SPOT. Picture it as the difference between sniping at someone with a big rifle, and ‘fire-hosing’ at someone with a machine gun. The techniques therein are similar to the differences between PC gaming and console gaming.

      Also, the average 360 gamer tends to ‘need’ to be lead more. There are more bright highlights showing where to go, and VERY linear paths. Even if one area has multiple entrances, they are almost always supposed to be heavily lit by level lighting, HUD arrows, etc.

      When designing for the two for multiplayer, the main theories I’ve heard/discussed/etc are: Make It Like Quake Three for PC, and Make It Like Halo for 360. That meaning: quick, fast, flowing gameplay for PC, and slow, methodic, ‘ambush’ style for 360.

      Hope that helps some.

    • 14/06/2010 at 19:26 Merc says:

      Console controller joysticks are now analog, but have a massive dead zone, so they’re almost impossible to aim precisely.

      To me, this game doesn’t look like all that much fun, but I’m not a huge shooter fan either. It just gives me hope that the franchise will be given a bit more life, and we might see a turn-based strategy X-Com (or at least a RTS XCOM).

  3. 12/06/2010 at 10:57 Baka says:

    To be honest, this trailer didn’t impress me very much.
    I’m still keeping my hopes up though!

  4. 12/06/2010 at 10:58 Krimson says:

    When did X-com become the X-files? Where are the greys?

    to be honest, I was never the biggest fan of X-com to begin with, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the series. Why not call it something else? If this isn’t an attempt to cash in on a beloved IP then I’m Mahatma Gandhi.

    Despite that, yeah, it does look pretty good.

    • 12/06/2010 at 15:25 bananaphone says:

      My guess is Irrational had this game in the works for a while and someone figured it would sell better if it had a recognisable name, hence the reason it doesn’t really seem to have much to do with the XCOM of old (from what I know, anyway, never really played ‘em).

  5. 12/06/2010 at 10:59 Tusque d'Ivoire says:

    looks like incredible fun!

  6. 12/06/2010 at 11:00 Alabaster Crippens says:

    That does look incredible.

    It doesn’t look like X-Com, natch, but it looks pretty gorgeous and exciting and like a shoot em up. I think it’ll be a rock solid shoot em up. Perhaps even the one FPS every two years I consider buying, but still, that’s something, right?

  7. 12/06/2010 at 11:02 fallingmagpie says:

    zomg the blob totally went in that guys face and ate him

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:18 DJ Phantoon says:

      That right there is what got me interested in the game. However, I’m gonna wait on it.

      It’s very likely this is all just of the first “level”.

  8. 12/06/2010 at 11:03 Conlaen says:

    The trailer suggests that all you’ll be doing is fight black blobs.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:12 fnsmatt says:

      I think it’s supposed to be a social commentary on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:47 Jimbo says:

      Huh, that was my first thought too. At the very least a metaphor for US dependence on oil.

      (I’m serious)

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:55 Jason Moyer says:

      Haven’t the devs indicated that there are a lot of different kinds of alien, but that they’re trying not to give all of them away? Maybe I’m imagining that.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:05 Taillefer says:

      Jason, as though they don’t want to give everything away and leave some surprises for when one actually plays the game?

      What a strange idea.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:28 Conlaen says:

      I get that there probably will be different aliens too. But just saying that the trailer doesn’t really suggest that. I have high hopes for this being a good game, even worthy of the name XCOM. But the trailer needed a bit more diversity for me.

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:24 Taillefer says:

      Well, I’m not sure seemingly instinct-driven blobs could construct and fly a giant, shape-changing, inter-dimensional monolith of awesome power.

    • 12/06/2010 at 15:24 Conlaen says:

      @Taillefer: You don’t give seemingly instinct-driven blobs enough credit :)

    • 12/06/2010 at 16:53 Tei says:

      Give genetic engineering some time, and we (humans) we will start adding technology concepts to our own genetic heritage, so people will born with enough science to build things at 2 years old. This could be usefull, nowdays our first 20/30 years are wasted, because we have to learn a lot of things. Is ineficient. So embeding all our science and technology on our genes will able for productive civilians very quickly. Also, in case of a war, is pretty much a need to have a more powerful industry than the enemy (human or alien). We will probably need that gigantic engineering push, so people start helping in the industry of building letal militar drones at 4 years old.

    • 13/06/2010 at 02:26 Nick says:

      hmm, oddly prescient of them.

    • 14/06/2010 at 18:46 jsdn says:

      @Tei No idea where that came from, but I’m pretty sure that’s still science fiction at this point in time. We barely even know how the brain works. It may not be possible to put a complex thought into a gene.

  9. 12/06/2010 at 11:03 Thiefsie says:

    Hmmmm average trailer but they get kudos for gameplay… only 1 enemy type shown?? hmmm.

    Will wait for more info on this one. Looks happily a fair bit like Swat 4 tho so that could be good.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:24 Rinox says:

      Actally, the obelisk in the sky is also a sort of ‘enemy’.

      It looks amazing, and I must admit that my earlier scepticism has been completely overcome. From this trailer and the extensive previews I’ve read so far, it looks pretty damn amazing.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:57 Sonic Goo says:

      Yeah, people go on about the blobs and the shooting but the floating ….things seem much more intrigueing.

  10. 12/06/2010 at 11:04 Sam Crisp says:

    I liked the trailer. I can’t wait to see more from this game. I want to see some of the other enemies and locations.

  11. 12/06/2010 at 11:04 DrugCrazed says:

    Holy hell that looks like fun.

  12. 12/06/2010 at 11:05 Greg Wild says:

    As I’ve said elsewhere, the style looks awesome, but the shooty-bangs looks like it plays like console fps shit. Could just be down to it being a console it was taken from, and that more detailed combat hasn’t been implemented yet, but frankly I can see the combat being a major let down compared with the rest of the game… which is frankly a misuse of the xcom license. Switching to a new death ray while you squad mate is melted isn’t enough depth in the next episode of one of gaming’s greatest tactics game series.

  13. 12/06/2010 at 11:06 Zaphid says:

    Killing it with fire has to be enough, because you can’t nuke it from orbit (yet).

  14. 12/06/2010 at 11:07 tunnel says:

    OK, I’m excited about the game now. I’m also going to stop complaining about it using the X-Com name. Although I really wish it didn’t use the X-Com name.

  15. 12/06/2010 at 11:08 tikey says:

    With everything they’ve shown I just don’t understand the need to attach de X-Com ip to this project.
    It seems interesting in its own right but it doesn’t seem to be am X-Com at all.
    And I’m not saying it because of the art style or the theme. X-Com could have been about a werewolf organization fighting mummies that travel in parapent but if it kept the gameplay it could still be an X-Com.
    This seems to be an FPS with some management elements.

    And I just don’t understand why the X-Com franchise. Is it really that popular/known/relevant that it could have an influence in the sales of the game? Because it seems to me that X-Com despite being awesome games, they are more of a cult following.

    (I’m sorry if there are any grammatical mistakes, it’s 7am, didn’t sleep and english is not my native language)

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:25 robrob says:

      @tikey

      Sorry, didn’t notice your post before venting so I said pretty much the same thing as you. But I totally agree, it seems like a bizarre choice of licence for something which seems a lot closer to Bioshock than X-COM.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:00 Jim Rossignol says:

      Possibly the same logic that gave us Fallout 3? The devs are fans, but aren’t going to get paid to make an X-Com game, so they’re taking the name and making the game they’re allowed to make?

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:25 tikey says:

      I was thinking that maybe it was actually a requirement from the publisher. Like the game was attached to a known IP so it would be “less risky”.

      I just wish they would give us a new IP that has its own merits, rather than clinging to an older ip just to play it safe . I’m really tired of remakes/reimagining/reboot. Not only in games, but in movies too.

  16. 12/06/2010 at 11:08 Ybfelix says:

    Someone write to BP tell them cleaning up oil spill with shotgun is super effective

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:14 DJ Phantoon says:

      Do you REALIZE how much ammo that would take?

      Probably like 5% of our (us Americans) supply!

      Then WHO would fight the zombies?

      Actually the WHO would probably be adept at eliminating zombies since they’re unhealthy. (Not The Who.)

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:21 kyynis says:

      @DJ Phantoon
      That’s it, your pun licence is officially revoked as of this moment. I hope it was worth it.

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:12 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:

      @DJ Phantoon
      Knock, knock
      “Who’s there?”
      “Yes!” (Or alternatively: “No, Yes!”)

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:16 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:

      I fail (at life):
      The first Who should’ve been WHO
      :)

  17. 12/06/2010 at 11:09 salasq says:

    The juxtaposition of bland retro setting and uncommonly alien aliens might very well pay off.

  18. 12/06/2010 at 11:10 Skinlo says:

    I imagine this will be one of the game, probably like the new Deux Ex, that all the people with rose tinted glasses who played the original when it came out will think is rubbish, whilst all those who have never played it before will like it. I’m predicting 70-80% in the magazines for this.

    I personally think it looks quite entertaining, but I’m too young to have played the original!

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:17 robrob says:

      “Rose tinted glasses” is a term that comes out every time there’s a discussion of a venerable series but in the case of X-COM it’s complete nonsense. I played it for the first time just recently with no experience of it at a younger age and it still stands on its own as a powerfully compelling strategy game. Deus Ex is similarly just as good today as it was at release. It’s a baseless pejorative to throw around, implying that the only reason people enjoy these games is because of misplaced nostalgia.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:16 poop says:

      dont forget that the term is also a very useful way to indirectly call people who are not excited for old franchise FPS reboot #6598 Dumb Nerds Who Are Living In The Past

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:45 Fede says:

      X-COM is still valid today. I played it for the first time this year, and I would only improve pathfinding (at times the movements aren’t optimal, but it’s just a small fix), the UI and add some more tooltips.

    • 12/06/2010 at 16:06 Alexander Norris says:

      This “rose-tinted spectacles” argument is most often used by people who argue that you’re not allowed to like an old game if there’s a newer sequel/remake out. It’s pants-on-head retarded. I’ve had it spouted at me non-stop for the last two days because apparently, Fallout 3 is inherently better at everything than Fallout 1/2 (including being Fallout 1/2, apparently) and Fallout 3′s existence immediately makes Fallout 1/2 irrelevant and shit.

      No. Some games still have all of their legs to stand on, regardless of age. Some games are even better than their remakes/decade-late-sequels because they were made in an age where the primary market wasn’t teenaged console players (it was teenaged PC players instead). Yes, the sequelmakes sometimes have their own merits, but they’re never any good at being sequels or remakes because they’re so far from the originals.

    • 12/06/2010 at 19:57 Bret says:

      Rose glasses do not apply too much to the first X-Com. Had flaws, but it is an all time classic.

      Does apply to TFTD. Geesh.

    • 13/06/2010 at 02:30 Nick says:

      “Does apply to TFTD”

      Not really, its brilliant. I still play it today and its bastard hardness is a great appeal. That and I much prefer its alien design and general asthetics to UFO’s.

      Could do without the two part terror missions on the ships though, jesus.. an alien hiding in a toilet is extremely unfun.

  19. 12/06/2010 at 11:12 robrob says:

    This looks like it could be an interesting game but what does it have to do with X-COM? It has a surface similarity to Apocalypse in the 50s aesthetic but that is pretty much it. Couldn’t they have called it Kennedyshock or something and saved themselves a lot of trouble? Just watching the trailer it looks like 2K are trying to do something different and original but the association with X-COM makes it very difficult to appreciate it on its own merits. I think a lot of people would have even been fine with it being called Enforther 2 since it at least sets expectations at a more reasonable level and is more representative of the kind of game it is.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:16 Ybfelix says:

      Well, to people who knew the XCOM name, they did get your attention; for those who didn’t, what’s the harm? It’s not like the former crowd would go out and tell the latter to boycott the game.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:21 robrob says:

      @Ybfelix: I would guess that fans of the series, already burned by Enforther, wouldn’t be much interested in it. So who are they trying to appeal to? People unfamiliar with the series? In which case, why not just use a different name altogether? I just don’t see the sense in it. They’re setting expectations unreasonably high just to target the few people who will buy anything with the X-COM name attached.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:28 Ybfelix says:

      Ah I think in this case its intention is likely to catch the attention of videogame journalists, a lot of whom probably recognize the franchise due to professional osmosis, but not actually played the old games. So it has a bullet point other than “from the creator of Bioshock 2″

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:55 Jimbo says:

      A handful of people bitching about it on RPS is hardly “a lot of trouble” though is it? They only use these brands for recognition and the extra attention it brings. Why should they care if a few old-timers don’t approve? They aren’t asking for our permission. We (you) aren’t that important.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:08 robrob says:

      @Jimbo

      I think there’s a crossover between people who enjoyed the original and potential customers of this game and that many of them will feel the brand is being exploited. The reaction in these comments threads certainly supports that idea. It’s not going to be a huge amount of sales but at the same time there aren’t a great number of people who are going to recognise the brand. It is not a huge amount of trouble but it does seem to be unnecessarily generating ill will. Ybefelix’s suggestion that they’re doing it to appeal to journos is a little too cynical, I think it’s more likely being done to generate discussion like you suggest. Still I think they need to be aware that generating a lot of negative responses from fans of the series is not necessarily a positive activity.

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:49 Jimbo says:

      Yeah there is a crossover, but as I said it’s a tiny number of people compared to how many copies these guys will be aiming to sell. And even most of that small group will end up buying it out of curiosity anyway.

      Sad to say, but I don’t think ‘that’ audience (the big one) really cares about negative buzz from ‘this’ audience. Chances are, if your intention is to sell multi-million copies and you find yourself pissing off the fanbase of an old game along the way, then you’re probably doing something right.

      The exact same thing happened prior to Fallout 3 coming out and that was a massive success, outselling all previous Fallout games combined. Deus Ex 3 will comfortably surpass Deus Ex sales, etc. etc.

      Branding just works, whether they take the original fanbase with them or not.

  20. 12/06/2010 at 11:16 madU says:

    I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!

  21. 12/06/2010 at 11:16 fnsmatt says:

    I’m no graphics snob, but did anyone else think the animations looked a little stilted (particularly the woman chopping towards the beginning) and the character models look a little low on the polygon count?

    Looks like No One Lives Forever-era graphics coated in a massive sheen of bloom.

  22. 12/06/2010 at 11:18 Tinus says:

    XCOM: Shoot Blobs.

    That was depressingly shit.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:30 Azradesh says:

      I’m sure that blobs are not the only thing you fight. -_-

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:46 Jim Rossignol says:

      Well, you only fight Head Crabs in Half-Life, right?

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:03 HidesHisEyes says:

      Jim; these were the people who, years ago, were saying:

      HALF LIFE 2: USE GRAVITY GUN TO SHOOT THINGS AT COMBINE

      “Well, that looked remarkably shit. Why even call it half life, if it’s not going to be about a theoretical physicist trapped in a science facility shooting aliens? Who are these combine guys, what happened to the headcrab zombies? Where are the marines?

      Just looks like a console port built around a gimmicky gun that lets you fire toilets.”

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:10 Tei says:

      “Just looks like a console port built around a gimmicky gun that lets you fire toilets.”

      I don’t remember people calling HL2 a console port because it whas not.

      This one (XCOM) don’t feel particulary consoley to me, but probably It will be.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:43 Pew says:

      Trailer made it look like a fun shooter to me. Looks like a game that has little to do with the original (why not show any strategic impact in the trailer?) with a different feel, weapons, and level design. Probably the younger audience will think it’s the best thing ever, while old farts go “why isn’t this weapon in the game” or “the atmosphere in the original was far better’. Name-wise, I think it won’t come close to its predecessors.

      So, kind of like Half Life 2 then! Ho ho ho.

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:47 Tinus says:

      Alright, alright. I was obviously overreacting to something that contains so little actual information. I’m not actually as shallow as you’re all hurrying to point out. ;)

      Here’s the thing: I’m disappointed that while they create such a lovely mysterious and genuinely alien context, the only way they show the player interacting with it is through a shotgun. There’s just so much they can do with this, and thus I sincerely hope that what we get is not a mere corridor shooter. “But what if you could talk to the monsters”, and all that.

    • 12/06/2010 at 15:46 drewski says:

      @ Pew – for the same reason Dragon Age trailers were full of sex, violence and heavy metal music, because inventory management is boring.

      Trailers are designed to hype a game, not give you a realistic overview of the gameplay. Nobody wants to watch someone wander around a base talking to people and clicking menu screens in a trailer.

    • 12/06/2010 at 19:18 Pew says:

      @Drewski: I can understand it from a marketing perspective, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t disappoint me personally :)

      Also, it speaks volumes on the target audience. Or the one they think they will get the most profit from? Hmmm! Who I am kidding though, I’ll get it anyway to see how it turned out in the end…

    • 12/06/2010 at 23:05 Rive says:

      I still remember the first Half-Life trailer. Thought the same thing. With the trailer only showing head-crabs. Not.

    • 13/06/2010 at 04:35 DrGonzo says:

      Looked gash to me. Awful, awful graphics in my opinion. And the gameplay did seem Bioshocky, which while I enjoyed I don’t really want to play again.

  23. 12/06/2010 at 11:24 TheApologist says:

    That did look fun. I like the slow, deliberate looking pace of the shooting-carefully-to-save-people-from-the-blobby-things play.

    Maybe this is a weird connection, but did anyone else get a Zelda Twilight Princess vibe from the bad guys. Shadowy type thing and big black flat vortexy things in the sky.

    Tops.

  24. 12/06/2010 at 11:25 Larington says:

    I do wish these trailers would stop focusing on one aspect of the friggin game.
    I know it has a base element, and you can do research at the base, and presumably some other things like getting new gear built, but HOW CAN I TELL IF YOU FAIL TO SHOW IT IN THE TRAILER?
    Huh?
    By failing to show the game in full, you’re going to give people the wrong impression about your game and by doing so potentially fall into the trap where everyone will assume it’s just a game about shooting.

    This is something that’s really starting to wind me up, to be honest.

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:45 D says:

      Shooters sell well. There’s more than a year to release. It wasn’t all CGI, and I’m thankful enough for that.
      Can’t blame the commenters here who go “Generic shooter!” but they should do themselves a favor and read up on it instead of writing. Trailers will be trailers.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:03 Wulf says:

      I agree with this completely, they really need to show short clips of all aspects of the game, even if they’re just mock-ups (and they could warn us of such), just to give us an idea of what the full game is about.

      To be honest, all I got from that was a retro-future B-movie where blobs are shot, so I can’t say I’m interested, but I would have been more interested if they’d told us a bit about all elements of the game, like, as you say, gear, and procedural content, and so on.

      I mean, if I want my retro-future B-movie fix I’ll just play Stubbs the Zombie, as nothing could really do it better.

    • 12/06/2010 at 15:09 laikapants says:

      @Larington

      What the deuce, it has ONE sodding trailer so far. We are two days away from E3 during which we are sure to get a flood of trailers. If after next week we have no visual information other than that which is provided here, get uppity. I was unaware game companies needed to represent every aspect of their upcoming game in their very first trailer for it. The more you know, I guess.

    • 12/06/2010 at 17:53 Larington says:

      Yes, I expect a trailer for a game to give a good overview of the whole game, not one element. I don’t care if it’s the first trailer or the last, I wouldn’t want to say, play the first part of Brutal Legend only to find the rest of the game is completely different (Not that I’ve had a chance to play Brutal Legend, but it’s a brilliant example of how a trailer should get across how the whole game plays, not just how it looks & sounds).

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:39 Lilliput King says:

      Trailers are marketing tools, not public service broadcasts. Readjust your expectations!

    • 12/06/2010 at 23:22 Patrick says:

      Then as a marketing tool, this made it look like a shitty game where you shoot at oil then something blows up and kills you.

      Even the graphics sucked, with the same damn UE3 plastic faces, quivering shadows, and retarded bloom lighting on everything.

    • 13/06/2010 at 04:44 DrGonzo says:

      Brutal Legend is a bad example. Because it was wise to not show how the rest of the game played as it was quite lame.

    • 13/06/2010 at 10:27 I'm with Jim says:

      I assume there may be more than 1 trailer. Some people are NEVER happy

  25. 12/06/2010 at 11:28 Mitza says:

    I’m sorry, but no. Jim, you go out of your way to promote this game. I got it, you love it. You know stuff that we don’t know. But please, let us know what this has to do with X-COM?

    It looks like an interesting X-FILES shooter, with a bit too much Bioshock in it (there’s a scene where you see the shadow of a lady being attacked by aliens or something, which would be cool if it wasn’t done to death in Bioshock already), but there’s nothing here that indicates DEPTH. Maybe they are trying hard to appeal to the shooter crowd, so they come out with a trailer where you mow down alien blobs and creepy ladies, keeping the research/team/management elements out of sight until launch. But I find it worrying that NONE of the elements specific to the X-COM series are present in the first trailer for the game. If they really were in touch with their fan base, they would at least have shown a glimpse of the Geoscope, research or team play.

    That they choose to ignore all these (“RESEARCH THEM” says the trailer, immediately followed by footage of the player killing the aliens – now that’s comedy!) makes me think we probably have another Fallout3 in the making. An OKish game, but one that sh*ts all over it’s own heritage.

    I’m eagerly waiting to see what other old games I’m very fond of will get the same treatment in the following years, because it sure seems this is the new way to do things in the video game industry (maybe a Transport Tycoon where you play an up and coming transport mogul that takes over rival companies BY SHOOTING THEIR EMPLOYEES IN THE HEAD).

    • 12/06/2010 at 11:50 Jim Rossignol says:

      It has nothing to do with the original X-Com, clearly. But for some reason I’m able to not get hung up on branding exercises.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:00 D says:

      It’s funny to me, the importance people allow trailers to have on their lives. Compare with the Deus Ex 3 trailer, which was complete CGI, and got the RPS comment thread filled with cautious optimist and varying degrees of ‘meh’ – versus this trailer, which completely freaks people out because there is shooting

      The trailer could easily have done the same trick as DX3. Show a couple half cutscenes. Blend them together with some effects. I say, finally a trailer that isn’t afraid of showing some gameplay. Of course, it’s going to be the most actiony gameplay they focus on. The rest of the features, you can read about, or wait until later. There’s no rush.

      tl;dr: Trailer.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:02 Mojo says:

      But for some reason I’m able to not get hung up on branding exercises.

      What I don’t get is: Why are they trolling us with the XCOM brand, then? Seriously. This game seems to be aimed at:

      a) People who love XCOM but are able to forget everything it stands for, gameplay-wise, in order to turn a same-named game into a horror FPS with “strategy elements” (maybe an excellent horror FPS with “strategy elements”, I can’t tell yet).

      b) People who never heard of XCOM (and that, it seems, is the most important group).

      Why bother with the branding? Why not make “Alien Invasion: Operation Black Blob” (or a more seriously good sounding name). Why “XCOM” if it doesn’t take anything from the original game but… the brand.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:04 D says:

      I apologize in advance, because I missed the chance that alot of people may not have known about the XCOM re-franchiseing (aka. ‘shitting on’) before seeing this. The dig above is not meant for those people. No, it’s not X-COM, it’s a shooter’ish game.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:08 HidesHisEyes says:

      Mojo- existing successful IPs make it easier to present ideas to publishers and get funding. The X-com series was a successful bunch of strategy games about a military organisation trying to save humanity from a mysterious alien threat; this looks like an FPS in which an FBI like organisation is trying to save humanity from a mysterious alien threat.

      What do you care? The games industry is a business, not a church to keep your favourite IPs of the 90s ‘holy’.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:17 Wulf says:

      I’m going to be as cynical as I possibly could here, and say that I realise exactly why they’ve gone with the branding, that it’s even perhaps a little bit too obvious, but a reason that no one would really want to face.

      If this game really has nothing to do with X-COM, and if it’s just a retro-future B-Movie shooter that stole the name of X-COM, then therefore there must be a reason for calling the game X-COM that has nothing to do with its contents.

      So let’s stack up the possibilities.

      - Faithful Remake
      - Faithful Reboot
      - Unfaithful Reboot
      - Marketing

      So, it’s not a faithful remake, we can get that out of the way right away.

      It’s not a reboot, either, is it? You can’t call it a reboot if it doesn’t contain any of the core elements, not even an unfaithful reboot. Enterprise would be an unfaithful reboot, but it’s still Star Trek at the core. This, however, is not X-COM at the core, no matter what angle one looks at it from, or how much one squints, so it can’t really be considered a reboot. I mean, whether reading about it or watching the trailer, it sounds like a good game, but it doesn’t sound… X-COMy.

      That leaves marketing.

      Let’s say you have a good game, a retro-future B-Movie shooter, one with some strategic elements, and you don’t know what to call it? What would sell best?

      X-COM is one of those names that perforates the gaming consciousness, that percolates in the minds of even young gamers, they heard of it from older gamers, family, they see it as a game they recognise, and they know it to be something good, but just not for them, it was gaming from a different time. So even young gamers recognise X-COM as something quality.

      Now what if a game was being marketed as X-COM for them? An X-COM for the console-shooty young hipsters who couldn’t get into the PC version? It’s X-COM, so it has to be quality, and it has to stand for all the great things the PC version did, right?

      To draw this to a conclusion, attaching the X-COM name to it seems like a bit of a marketing stunt, and, not so coincidentally, this is why I have a seething hatred for marketing, because marketing will pull just about any stunt to sell me their questionable wares, even if the stunt involves social engineering.

      I’m not saying it’s not a good game, but from what I’ve been exposed to thus far, I feel it might have been a better game if they hadn’t gotten their hands dirty with marketing.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:57 Wilson says:

      The way they’ve called it X-Com bothers me somewhat too. I understand that it’s only a ‘branding exercise’ and ‘business’, but it’s still a little disappointing. Just because something is the way of the world doesn’t mean you have to like it, right? I suppose in a way it’s kind of like some individual you idolize ‘selling out’.

      People know that they can get burned when stuff they like is used purely from a business/branding perspective, and they don’t like that. It’s also like you’ve been tricked into paying attention to something that isn’t really relevant to you, and nobody likes being tricked.

      I don’t think people should be complaining about it quite as much as some have, but I can sympathize with why they do it. People get hung up on this branding exercise because it involves something they care about, and because of how they view branding exercises. Maybe journalists are somewhat more used to this kind of thing, so they don’t care so much anymore. I don’t know.

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:00 Mitza says:

      It has nothing to do with the original X-Com, clearly.
      Thank you.

      Look, I’m not against this game, per se. Please, we do need FPS games with a little bit more substance, it’s a good way to advance the genre. One more macho post-apocalyptic shooter and I’ll tear my eyes out.

      But I can’t accept the way legendary video game brands are treated these days. There is more to X-COM than the name, and that’s something publishers like 2K (or Bethesda) seem to not get. By slapping a known brand on a totally different product, you basically throw away all the great ideas brought forth by the original game. What do you think Fallout will be known for in 5 years time? For the freedom of choices, deep gameplay and branched storyline? No, it will be remembered for slow-motion carnage. That’s something that saddens me deeply, because it feels like a step backwards. Why can’t we build on something already exceptional and help this industry move forward? We prefer using whatever type of bland gameplay seems to be working at the moment, slap a known name onto it and release it as the next big thing. That’s lying to ourselves.

      We have lost faith in our own ideas and capabilities, so instead we focus on recycling anything that seems to appeal to the mass market at that particular moment. It’s a vicious circle that we will eventually kill any kind of originality in the games industry and we will end up together with other soulless blockbuster industries. And that’s a damn shame!

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:24 Mojo says:

      No offense (well, actually, OFFENSE!!!), but why the f*** are gamers so self-deprecating that we bow to corporate bullshitting to the point of actually defending companies for doing things we hate to make more money? When did that start? There’s a movie “industry”. But there are also guys like Darren Aronofsky, Charlie Kaufman and Quantin Tarantino who actually get major press, budget and mainstream appeal without totally selling out to “the industry as a business”. Why can’t we have at least a bit of that? Some dignity of treating good ideas (even if they’re for a silly medium like those “digital playing stations”) with respect?

      Ironically, my point wasn’t even aimed at that. What I’m asking is, what’s a “big name” (was XCom ever seriously “big” for today’s standard?) worth, if the people who actually know the big name and the gameplay the “big name” stands for aren’t even considered? Isn’t that even, from a business standpoint, a waste of a brand? You got a total niche brand and market it at pretty much everyone except the niche?

      The only way I can see this helping is that the games press, consisting mainly of gaming nerds who actually remember good games, tells people who never heard of the game before that the original was good, then show the remake next to it and maybe even offer a front cover out of nostalgia. It just really bothers me how little of a role the actual new game plays in this setup. On top of that, I now saw the kind of footage that was praised as “really feeling like XCom!” in the previews and it is, anticlimactically, just as dull in gameplay as it sounded. And that’s the kind of pattern I’ve seen repeated over and over again since Deus Ex: Invisible War. Sorry, but I hate artificial hype and calculated optimism. Kill me.

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:36 Robert says:

      I can only disagree and say that gamers need to grow up. Centuries ago there was this discussion about intertextuality and how it lacks originality. Nowadays, intertextuality is one of literature’s biggest “pro’s”.

      Even beside that. Taking a brand and ‘claiming’ it. E.g. saying X-Com is TURN-based or one of the other so-called defining traits and complaining when this one is not is quite ironic. Blame ‘marketing’ for ‘mis-using’ the name is amazing because the name in itself is a brand, the cornerstone of ‘marketing’. The identity of a brand is PURE marketing. So complaining it’s not like the old brand is like complaining that coke should come in bottles instead of cans. You might be right, but either way.. you fell for marketing.

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:35 Mojo says:

      It’s funny that you mention intertextuality, because, the logical extension of it to games would be to set the same gameplay in a different theme, since gameplay is what a game is all about. My main gripe with developers not “getting” the power of an original game they are making a sequel to, is that they take the background story and superficial stuff and add arbitrary gameplay on top of it. What does XCOM 2011 take from XCom 1994? Aliens invading earth? Guys fighting them with high tech gadgets? Well, that’s not the strength of XCom. It’s a management/build-up/tactical combat game. Known for it’s incredible depth.

      You know what game I found to be closest to the original XCom in recent years? Mount & Blade. A medieval war simulation. It generally has no obvious connection (even in gameplay). Yet I found it to play very similarly, to really capture the same feeling. Just as I found Portal to be closer to Half-Life 1 than Half-Life 2.

      I really don’t buy the argument about “just wanting the same game with new graphics”. Hell no. Actually, this new XCOM game feels a lot like “the same game with new graphics”… and several features cut (with no significant replacements for gameplay depth). I’d love to see a completely re-imagined XCom with hundreds crazy new ideas that have nothing to do with the 1994 original. Make it an FPS, too! But don’t sell me pretty 1950 art direction with dull shooter gameplay and then call me anti-innovation for disliking that…

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:58 Robert says:

      I would disagree with your ‘logical extension’. Your analogy would mean “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters” while it might be more “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead”.

      That aside, in your last paragraph you do seem to agree. XCompletely different and “Make it an FPS, too!” however does contradict with your statement about what you think X-com was about. There is no single term, no single characteristic that defines it. For me, it’s the feel, the setting, the discovery of more, the increasing pressure, the feeling you don’t have enough time to get what you need. As little as I know of this XCOM, that is in it. Maybe there’s more, I don’t know, even fancy mechanics you dreamt about.. but you won’t find that in trailers. Hell, have you ever read the summary on the back of novels? I don’t believe that has ever done justice to a -good- book.

    • 12/06/2010 at 16:46 Alexander Norris says:

      It has aliens, terrifying aliens, secret organisations dedicated to fighting the aforementioned aliens, alien-fighting, nameless mooks on your side and according to the super-early previews, it has you taking pictures of victims to get more funding and capturing alien specimens to research new technologies.

      That sounds a lot like X-COM to me.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:45 Lilliput King says:

      What I don’t understand is why everyone is getting upset at big business dragging X-Com’s name through the mud now. If you were worried, well, you’re about 12 years too late.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:48 Vinraith says:

      @Lilliput King

      I’m not one of the people that’s upset, for the record, but isn’t this considerably more hype and attention than any of those shitty X-Com sequels and spin-offs got? I agree with you, but I think the reaction is being driven by having this particular “corruption of the franchise” shoved in their faces on a regular basis.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:55 Marar Patrunjica says:

      This has more to do with Bioshock then with X-COM. And since Bioshock was an average shooter at best I fail to see why I should get excited by something that looks like it will be even worse then the aforementioned game.

      We had the taking of pictures and doing research in Bioshock, that was not fun, we had the clunky first person shooting of bullets in that one too, and again it was not much fun, the ONLY, and I do mean only redeeming factor of that game (yes, I considered the story awful) was the setting, and that got quite repetitive rather fast, this game (judging by the previews/ss/trailer) doesn’t even have a good setting/atmosphere.

      The reason why I’m against this game is because they have given no reason why I should think otherwise, if they really want to show us that they care about the original game, well… I am waiting.

      (btw, Mitza, fancy meeting you here :p)

    • 13/06/2010 at 02:21 Uhm says:

      The trailer makes it look more like Bioshock, admittedly. But we have more information than that, and it’s not Bioshock.

      You know you have a base, right? You don’t have a researchometer in your inventory.

  26. 12/06/2010 at 11:28 Brumisator says:

    I want SWAT 5

  27. 12/06/2010 at 11:32 Jimmeh says:

    This looks awful, I don’t see why everyone’s saying this looks good.

    What’s actually exciting about this? Based on the trailer it’s a completely generic FPS with nothing new about it. Oh look, he’s shooting at… black blobs! How exciting.

  28. 12/06/2010 at 11:41 terry says:

    This looks excitingly Bioshock-y, but not terribly X-Com-y.

  29. 12/06/2010 at 11:48 Sobric says:

    The comments in this thread make me fully understand Alec’s post on the X-COM fiasco. RPS usually restores faith in PC gaming, but some of you tossers on here really put a dent in that.

  30. 12/06/2010 at 11:49 Dominic White says:

    This is a pretty poor trailer, but it also only shows off what seems to be stuff from the very start of the game, so the people trying to pass judgement and use this as proof that they should go and firebomb the developers offices are really stretching here. Not that they aren’t always, but, honestly, Stretch Armstrong would be impressed at the wild clutching-at-straws going on around the internet.

    Nerds seem to be getting a lot angrier lately. Anyone else get that feeling?

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:30 archonsod says:

      It’s because the guys old enough to remember the original (all ten of them) now have job and offspring related stress.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:34 DiamondDog says:

      I definitley feel the need to post more often, to balance out the increasing levels of nerdy entitlement on display in most RPS comments. It’s getting quite depressing.

      How about, you know, waiting to try the game before marching out to burn the developers building to ground?

      “console FPS”
      “generic shooter”
      “it isn’t xcom”
      “why isn’t it still the 90′s”
      “they’ve ruined my life”

      blah blah blah

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:41 Mojo says:

      >How about, you know, waiting to try the game before marching out to burn the developers building to ground?

      Oh boy, how often I tried that. And always felt dumb for defending the sequels to classic games that looked dull in previews… because they always were exactly as good or bad as the previews suggested. Believe it or not, they choose the parts that best represent the game for previews.

      This is a blog for (and may I suggest… by) nerdy nerds with a sense of entitlement to their nerdy opinions on games. It’s a gaming blog, FFS, what do you expect except for gaming criticism and discussion? What do you expect for a sequel to one of the most famous PC games of all times? That people don’t compare the sequel to the original? Of course we do. If you just want to hear how awesome the game is and how everyone will love it, I have a site you’ll love: http://www.2kgames.com/#/

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:36 DiamondDog says:

      Well, that’s a lot of questions. I’ll just say now I’m one of those weird people that has never actually played an XCOM game and I’m not greatly bothered about this new one. I suppose it just gets on my nerves that people are so quick to judge and sometimes for no reason other than to come out with a snarky quip. I mean, you yourself said “Doom 3 in the 60′s” which if meant in jest I apologise but, I suspect it was a pointless insult.

      Of course I want to see interesting critical discussion rather than blind optimism, but a discussion based on more evidence than is shown in a short preview trailer. These days people will go fucking nuts over a screenshot. That’s why I say wait, because really we still don’t know much about it.

      As for the whole XCOM thing, well I can undertand it and have felt the same about some thing I love being changed in a way I didn’t like. All I’d say is why not forget about the game? If it’s that repulsive (as it seems to be, judging on some of these comments) just ignore it and pretend there is no new XCOM game. The developers aren’t going back and changing the originals, they still exist as they are.

  31. 12/06/2010 at 11:51 Taillefer says:

    This post contains Apocalypse spoilers in the second paragraph.

    I’d agree the trailer doesn’t elevate the game much above a shooter, but we know other information about the game to suggest it’s more than that. The combat didn’t look very tactical, though, and, unless I missed it, had no hints of ordering your squad mates around. Not even a “Cover me!”. From what we know, I suspect that’s not going to feature. I don’t mind the fact they’re using FPS style combat at all, even with the XCOM name. But stripping it down too much is disappointing.

    Why people would want to see all the enemies you’ll be facing in a trailer, I don’t know. Seems like it would ruin the surprise. The blobs may even be linked to Apocalypse as SPOILERS: it was intelligent microbes controlling the inter-dimensional aliens that initiated the invasion and not the aliens themselves. /spoilers

    As a whole, I’m still looking forward to it. The management mixed with FPS missions is something that hasn’t been done before (has it?). The approach to how they’re handling the missions themselves is promising too.

  32. 12/06/2010 at 11:52 Eiskalt says:

    “don’t trust Irrational to know ”
    What does this game have to do with Irrational?

  33. 12/06/2010 at 11:54 Mojo says:

    So it’s Doom 3 set in the 60ies?

  34. 12/06/2010 at 11:56 Dracogeno says:

    Apparently you study aliens by shooting them pointblank with a shotgun.

    I don’t know about the game, but the trailer is more of the same.

  35. 12/06/2010 at 11:56 Seol says:

    No, I don’t see how shooting oily blobs under a borrowed (defiled, even) name is awesome. The Scott Pilgrim game, on the other hand, does look totally sweet, I hope it will be coming to PC at some point. This E3 is looking good.

  36. 12/06/2010 at 11:57 Tei says:

    This is looking great. I don’t look like a strategic game with tactical elements, but It looks like magically fun, terrorfull. These ….things, are the Horror. While may not be a XCOM game, I think will be a game to be proud to have the XCOM title.

  37. 12/06/2010 at 12:00 Turin Turambar says:

    Looks ok. The most interesting part is the art style, the 50s half-cartoon look with the abstract (shapeless blobs, monoliths) aliens.

  38. 12/06/2010 at 12:00 Zinic says:

    Curse you Jim, what do you know that we don’t?

    All I have to say other than that is: It looks interesting, but they’ve yet to prove it’s XCOM.

  39. 12/06/2010 at 12:00 I don't remember says:

    looks uninteresting.

    What’s the point in calling this xcom anyway

  40. 12/06/2010 at 12:01 Flaringo says:

    Hey look, it’s Bioshock with blobs.

  41. 12/06/2010 at 12:02 Rond says:

    Some cartoonish guys fight black homicidal blobs, and then get attacked by a mysterious levitating obelisk. The game is called X-COM. Riiiiiight

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:15 James G says:

      Yes. Its not X-COM, we get that. We got that when it was first announced. If people can just shrug and move on, then perhaps they might be able to begin judging the game on its own merits/faults rather than complaining that it isn’t similar to the game that shares its name. If it makes things easier for you, just pretend its an entirely new license, after all, it is lacking a hyphen.

      Note, I am not saying that this means people should automatically like the game. I’m not a huge FPS fan, but this has piqued my interest enough that I might end up picking it up if reviews are decent enough.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:46 pupsikaso says:

      @ James G

      If we simply just shrug and move every time these corporations decide to take what we hold dear and s**t on it for the sake of making a buck, then we gamers will never be treated with any respect by them. How long do you think we can take this abuse?

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:10 James G says:

      Sorry, but shit on it? Abuse? You don’t think that you might be displaying a bit of hyperbole? The originals are there unchanged, and the new version is so far removed that you can’t even complain about retconning disagreeable elements into the originals.

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:31 Rond says:

      I just don’t get it. Judging from what we’ve seen, the game looks like yet another console shooter, therefore it’s target audience must be casual console gamers, who, most likely, have never heard anything about XCOM and don’t care what the title is. On the other hand, if they were trying to attract people who played the old XCOM, this game would have some resemblance, wouldn’t it? I just don’t see how developers would get that “extra buck” from using the franchise. To my opinion, this title is pointless.

    • 12/06/2010 at 15:00 Jimbo says:

      The game will receive extra coverage *with* the XCOM name than without it. I guarantee it. Even on console-focused sites.

      That’s where the extra buck is.

    • 14/06/2010 at 15:51 Jason says:

      Ugggh, the X-Com franchise ALREADY contains a shooter, people! One where you’re a robot, of all things! There is no purity in it left to defend. It’s like saying “Dr. Pepper cherry flavor is an abomination, it doesn’t even have any real Phos-Ferrates in it!”

  42. 12/06/2010 at 12:04 Jason Moyer says:

    Hardcore PC gamer madlibs.

    That looks like [current gen console shooter]. Whatever happened to [plural noun] like [game from 1998] when games made you [verb] with your [body part]. I don’t know how anyone can think this looks [adjective] – it’s just another [noun] where you [verb] [plural noun] with your [verb]. Another [noun] that’s dumbed down for the [adjective] [plural noun].

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:07 Jason Moyer says:

      Also, [crappy 4-chan meme].

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:14 Dominic White says:

      Brutal, yet completely on the money. Well done – you’re one of the few people who can play PC games without actually going insane.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:27 poop says:

      Videogame defender madlib:

      Honestly, I just dont understand all the hate for [upcoming game], I mean, sure it is not [actually good game] or [other actually good game], but what is?. I think you hardcore types need to [Take off your rose coloured glasses/stop living in the past/ stop being so picky] and stop thinking that [promotional material] is a reasonable indicator of the quality of a game.

  43. 12/06/2010 at 12:05 Margenal says:

    Hmmm…. as a prequel of themodern X-Com this game sounds perfect, honnestly if you follow the evolution of the team to real alien fighters specialist this will be trully awesome…

    And hell just seeing team mates dying or getting absorbed by aliens remin me the weakling we were in the first X-Coms… So if they put the chrysalis back…..

  44. 12/06/2010 at 12:07 Andy says:

    X-com always came across as a secret military organization rather than some secret investigation bureau of 1950′s USA.

    I guess if you’re used to making games set in that 50′s kind of style you should carry on, but like others have said, don’t slap the x-com label on it just because you have the rights to it.

    I’m sure I remember reading that the guys developing this “understood” the x-com IP and are fans of it (I’m sure someone will correct me if I dreamt this!) So far I’ve not seen any sign of that understanding, but hey this is only the first trailer right?

  45. 12/06/2010 at 12:09 Antsy says:

    It does look good. Kind of a Dark Skies vibe to it. I’ll be interested to see some evidence of other aspects of the game than just the shooting though.

  46. 12/06/2010 at 12:10 Grey! says:

    Where’s Scully and Mulder?

  47. 12/06/2010 at 12:11 Pmeie says:

    That looked terrible. If terrible means awesome!!!

  48. 12/06/2010 at 12:11 protobob says:

    Nice style. Looks boring. Would love to see a high quality turn-based x-com though. sigh.

  49. 12/06/2010 at 12:12 Alexandros says:

    So this is the game that Alec said “we can start believing” in? And apparently we have to like it because it is “awesome”, or else we’ll be accused of wearing rose-tinted glasses, of being stuck in the past and other such nonsense.

    Apparently it doesn’t matter that this game has absolutely nothing in common with X-Com in terms of gameplay, story, style or genre, we should just be happy that the developers “who are fans of the original” came up with this because “that’s the game they were allowed to make”.

    So it doesn’t matter at all that they just make a Bioshock-style shooter and just slap the name XCOM on it in order to gain some free publicity.

    Great job guys, keep it up.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:50 Hmm says:

      My thoughts exactly.
      That’s not X-COM. I’ll stay away from it, just as I stayed away from Oblivion with Guns 3.

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:11 RogB says:

      agree. There wasn’t a single second of that trailer that had anything to do with XCOM. it might be okay, but it is wearing the wrong name

  50. 12/06/2010 at 12:16 Jakkar says:

    Very strange split of opinion here.

    I see several comments echoing my immediate reaction, namely; ‘Ooh, but the enemies are from Mario and the movement and shooting are slow-paced, unresponsive and look incredibly Bioshock/Boring.’, but mostly people say that looks ‘lots of fun’. The character could barely move, appeared to be on rollerskates and the weapon had no audio or kick, while the enemies seemed immune. I’m fine with immune, but if they really were, why would the player still be shooting or the gameplay involve that?

    Perhaps this trailer is too early. It looked like a very rough build, in some ways.

  51. 12/06/2010 at 12:18 [21CW] 2000AD says:

    As long as there’s still research, base building and the like and the main change is that combat has gone from turn based squad action to FPS then I’m fine with this X-Com reboot. Fallout 3 taught me not to judge a book by it’s FPS cover so fingers crossed. Roll on 2011.

  52. 12/06/2010 at 12:19 CMaster says:

    Got to say I’m surprised by all the really enthusiastic responses to this. Looked like a fairly standard FPS with some not very-bright AI allies vs blobs (and presumably later things) with a rather nice 50s/horror aesthetic. Not saying it looked bad, but it certainly didn’t wow me.

    Also, was left going “what the hell does that have to do with XCOM?”

    Funny, too big PC franchises being revisited at the moment. Deus Ex, where the necessity for setting the game in the Deus Ex universe appears to be sadly restricting the developers (looks to me like they would make a better game like Deus Ex if they didn’t have to try and make it DX) and this XCOM reboot, which just doesn’t seem to have anything at all to do with the old games.

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:47 Mojo says:

      DX3 is closer to DX1 than the new XCOM is to the original. And that says a lot about the new XCOM.

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:11 CMaster says:

      My point is that I’m not angry about these uses of brand names that kinda miss the point or go rather off from the originals. Hell, I’ve really loved some odd remakes/sequels out there.

      It just saddens me a little that developers wind up boxing themselves in, or mislabelling what they are doing by using old, irrelevant series and either trying to keep to them too closely, having to do horrible things to the timeline/story to make them fit.

      I think that there is a massive space in the market for someone to make a game with both strategic and tactical combat elements (look at Total War’s success, and consider that if you make the game asymmetric, you don’t even need to make good strategic AI). The tactical stage could be turn based, real time overhead or FPS, SWAT style, or maybe even something new (each of these have different production costs and markets. Turn based would probably be the cheapest to make, but sell the least). I don’t think there is any need at all for it to be humans vs aliens. I certainly don’t think there is any need to call it XCOM. I do think destructible scenery would be a very useful addition. I’ve got two different settings and designs sketched out for this kind of thing already.

      I guess I’m just saying that I wish there was more appreciating for the fact that the gameplay structure matters, not the setting and story. People seem happy enough to do this with the “big genres” – everyone is happy to make a military FPS, or a sci fi FPS or a whatever. As soon though, as people want to make an First person spy-em-up though, it becomes “Deus Ex” or nothing else. Etc.

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:45 Mojo says:

      I’m not sure if you thought the new XCOM is trying that, but I found it to actually be a good example for putting a setting before gameplay. So it’s set in the 50ies with the TF2 art direction. That’s fine and all, but it’s not gameplay innovation. It’s hardly innovative, aesthetically since both the blobs and the 50ies sceneries have been done to death in various movies and comics. Maybe it’s more original for a game, I don’t know…

      I’m just really disappoint at how easy it seems to be for this trailer to wow everyone with art direction when the actual gameplay displayed is… minimal. Really, did they do anything but shoot black goo? There’s the camera from Bioshock flashing up for 2 seconds. That’s about it. Besides that, I remember the exact same scene sounding rather awesome when described in the previews that popped up a few weeks ago. I kinda filled the gaps with hopes for really innovative details to show up on the side lines, but there is nothing there. Nothing that would elevate this above a shooter.

      Is that really all it takes today? A stylish setting?

  53. 12/06/2010 at 12:19 Tunips says:

    I’m all in favour of unknowingly alien murderous polyhedra.

  54. 12/06/2010 at 12:23 SpinalJack says:

    I don’t know why you’re all hating on this game, just because the camera isn’t high up looking down? I’d be happy if it had squad management and base building and alien researching (which I think it does). If they had all lizard men and worm people it’d just look really camp and not have any of that uncertainty and threat atmosphere.

    If technology has moved on why not take advantage of it?
    I doubt anyone would by the original xcom if it came out today.

    I bought it and loved it in its day but lets not give rabid internet fanboys a bad name on RPS

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:34 J-Man says:

      Because the original is one of the all-time great turn-based squad-strategy games with top-notch worldmap (geoscape) which worked/works like a charm.

      The isometric-strategy is -helluva- lot different than your generic stupified and consolified FPS like this one seems to be.

      This crap has -nothing- to do with the original X-Com/UFO game, it’s Fallout 3 all over again.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:52 Antsy says:

      Right, because this is the game that’s made a mockery of the X-COM franchise.

      I love X-COM. Loved it on the amiga, loved it again on the playstation. I still play it on the PC. Its a great game. But this is where its at now and all the gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair isn’t going to change that.

      To be perfectly honest I think that just getting a good game with XCOM on it would be a win at this point.

    • 12/06/2010 at 15:49 SpinalJack says:

      I liked Fallout 3, if I were making another Fallout game it certainly wouldn’t have been a point and click turn based game

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:18 J-Man says:

      What I hated in Fallout 3 was the story, dialogue and writing. Fallout 3 was like Fallout made for afternoon kids show, with horribly written dialogue. They should have named it “The Tribe” instead of Fallout.

      I don’t mind Fallout-kind of game being 3D or even first person, but the original X-Com game was isometric strategy game, and doing a new X-Com game as generic shooter is a huge no-no. It’s like remaking Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkNLzoTV_Zw

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:40 Psychopomp says:

      And why does that have to be?

      Sales?

      Oh, yeah, great integrity there, developers.

    • 13/06/2010 at 23:20 SpinalJack says:

      No, not sales, it’s simply fun to play.

  55. 12/06/2010 at 12:23 Davian says:

    Grabbin’ a Blobatov!

  56. 12/06/2010 at 12:27 Inigo says:

    I have no reaction to this trailer whatsoever.

  57. 12/06/2010 at 12:33 Sirbolt says:

    @ HidesHisEyes

    Straw man, straaaw maaan!

    I didn’t really understand this trailer. So you shoot at blobs with a shotgun? Why would that affect it? And if a blob jumps up towards your allies face, you’re supposed to shot him there to kill it?

    The graphic style was cool though…

  58. 12/06/2010 at 12:35 SuperChimpanzee says:

    Gadgets. Guns. Team-based infiltration of small sandbox environment. Reminds me of SWAT 4.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:43 Dominic White says:

      ‘SWAT 4 with aliens’ is pretty much exactly how I’d go about making a first-person XCom, so yeah, if they can manage to repeat that gameplay formula, and bulk it out with freeform mission choice, multiple mission outcomes, research and gradual progression from ‘freaked out FBI guys’ to ‘stalwart defenders of earth’, it could well be pretty neat.

      And someone is going to be utterly convinced that this post was a troll.

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:56 Mojo says:

      In fact, I secretly hoped it would use the concept of “District 9″, Irrational’s sadly canceled zombie game. Boy, I would so have preferred this over Bioshock (although i like Bioshock). Would have been a really original concept. Here’s a preview (postview?!) of the game that will never be: http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/01/12/trailer-for-irrational-s-scrapped-zombie-game.aspx

      In fact, my only hope is that it would eventually move in this direction, but from the previews (which go beyond the short clip posted) it doesn’t look like XCOM will be a rather linear, “cinematic” experience instead. It’s made by the Bioshock 2 guys after all. Who removed backtracking from the Bioshock formula because “nobody did it anyway and it’s so much work”, thus robbing the game of the last elements that would distinguish it from a straight-forward corridor shooter.

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:57 Mojo says:

      Argh, “Division 9″, of course. Damn similar names.

  59. 12/06/2010 at 12:39 pupsikaso says:

    @ Sobric, post #29 (since the reply doesn’t seem to work)

    Woah, slow down there. You don’t believe that this game is being made for the PC, do you?

  60. 12/06/2010 at 12:40 Kast says:

    Well I liked it. I liked it a lot.

  61. 12/06/2010 at 12:42 Bursar says:

    That raises an interesting point. Do we know if this game was originally planned as “X-Com” or had it been in development for a while before the idea of calling it X-Com came about?

  62. 12/06/2010 at 12:43 Muzman says:

    As someone with no investment in the name what so ever, the idea of a game -any game- doing a take on Invaders from Mars in the 50s and everything made me squee with delight.
    Yes, you heard me. Squee with delight.
    Yeah, I probably should be speculating on the gameplay. But I can say this for it; It’s been quite a while since a game teaser immediately caught my interest.

  63. 12/06/2010 at 12:44 Bursar says:

    ^ ^ was meant as a reply… question still stands though.

  64. 12/06/2010 at 12:46 John says:

    This could be a fascinating game to play. I hope they emphasise the exploration and research side of it, and keep shooting to a minimum. The shooting in that trailer looked very dull, with mechanics straight out of BioShock. I do hope it’s not essentially a BioShock total conversion.

    Also, a debut trailer with gameplay in it!? It’s like 2K has reverted back to 2001, the wonderful people.

  65. 12/06/2010 at 12:46 Nosredna says:

    Wow, was really enjoying this trailer…….. until the logo “Xcom” popped up :C

  66. 12/06/2010 at 12:48 Piispa says:

    This looks stupid.

  67. 12/06/2010 at 12:49 Xurathar says:

    Man, it’s only ONE trailer, the first one, for a game which is going to be released for PC and CONSOLES. They don’t want to sell only to X-COM cult followers, but also to all the console owners who don’t care about what X-COM is, except a new shiny shooter with lots(and when I say lots, it’s really-fucking-much LOTS, this remembers me to the main city in Oblivion) of bloom. For that purpose, they do a trailer with shooting, and things that look shiny, because that is what sells a game. The other details will come later. Moreover, there is a moment where the character does a PHOTO! OMG, that is researching xenomorphs as it’s best :P.

    Therefore, saying that this game sucks by looking at one trailer it’s a shame. I’ll wait for more info to come.

    P.S: Yeah, it looks Bioshock-y as hell :P.

    • 12/06/2010 at 12:52 Xurathar says:

      Wow, sorry for replying, but re-reading the comment I’ve realised I don’t know how to write English. That’s the problem of being Spanish xD.

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:01 pupsikaso says:

      “They don’t want to sell only to X-COM cult followers, but also to all the console owners who don’t care about what X-COM is”

      Exactly our point! Why take a cheap shot at something we love WHEN THEY AREN’T EVEN TRYING TO SELL IT TO US.

      It’s like… I don’t know.. taking a Shakespeare play, replacing the plot with generic good guy goes saves good girl from bad guy, hiring hot actors, plastering it with uninspired generic shooty and explody scenes AND THEN CALLING IT ROMEO AND JULIET. You’d probably understand why fans of Shakespeare would be pissed off at that, wouldn’t you?

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:13 Xurathar says:

      Hm… Yeah, You are right there, but I think it’s a bit early to judge the real intention of the developer. There could be lots of reasons of why they have chosen to call it XCOM (As someone said before in a bright comment): From marketing (The most obvious and the most pessimistic of them) or because they are fans too. That’s why I say that with only a trailer you can’t see that, because they are trying to sell a product, they live with that, although they are fans and they want to make a trustworthy sequel of the game.

      No one knows now, but we’ll see. I hope they’ll follow the right way, and maybe, who knows, the game deserves the X-COM game.

      But as you say, from this trailer(remember, the first one) we can only see one thing: A Bioshock clone, this time in the surface and not with water, and with insane amounts of black blob killing.

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:00 Boldoran says:

      @pupsikaso
      Well they did something similar and it was not all that bad:

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:02 Boldoran says:

      oh no! linkfail:
      retry

      and just to be sure again:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S6IJWilpx4

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:19 CMaster says:

      @Boldoran
      That doesn’t really fit, as despite the changes in setting and some noticeable chunks being cut, the dialogue and story is all straight from the play.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:17 Dworgi says:

      Why do developers get off the hook so easily for trying to make a quick buck at the expense of quality? More importantly, why does the community feel like it needs to defend the developers? Trust me, 2K are big boys – they can afford to buy your consent for their actions.

      Gaming is not the underdog anymore. Every developer is not important and I for one will continue to call them out on making lackluster and uninspired games.

    • 13/06/2010 at 11:53 Boldoran says:

      @CMaster

      I know hence the “similar”.

      I don’t like the tacking on of a brand name for pure marketing purposes either. However just because something is different than the original does not mean it is bad.
      If we become so unflexible that we can’t allow developers to change anything in the gameplay of our beloved games then frankly we deserve titles like “generic spacemarineshooter #23″.

  68. 12/06/2010 at 12:51 Langman says:

    The game itself looks quite interesting. Silly idea to use the XCOM name perhaps, but the game could still have merit.

  69. 12/06/2010 at 12:57 Hodge says:

    This reminds me very much of that time they remade Citizen Kane.

  70. 12/06/2010 at 13:01 mrpier says:

    Three alien thumbthings up for the trailer, I don’t care about what they brand it as

  71. 12/06/2010 at 13:01 Flakfizer says:

    Dear game publishers / developers, please stop messing with my stuff.

    Also i think the only reason they went for non-humanoid aliens is to avoid any ‘why can’t i pick up and use their guns’ questions…

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:15 Taillefer says:

      Well, I think it’s to make them more …alien.

      To follow the traditional XCOM route, though. The blobs will be the footsoldiers, leading to more complicated forms later. It looks like they can either take over human hosts or they turn humans into blobs too.

      We should all know that the blobs aren’t the real threat behind the invasion. Or are they!?

  72. 12/06/2010 at 13:01 Miles of the Machination says:

    I like this trailer. It’s refreshingly honest.

    That’s probably why you’re all whinging about it.

  73. 12/06/2010 at 13:03 ErikM says:

    The shooty stuff looks cool enough. Could be fun with the added R&D and base-building! I don’t see why people judge it so prematurely, we’ve yet to see where all “study them” goes. Excited!

  74. 12/06/2010 at 13:14 airtekh says:

    Unlike some people here, I don’t judge a game by previews and trailers: that’s what reviews and demos are for.

    That said, I love the 50′s, L.A. Confidential-style setting.

  75. 12/06/2010 at 13:31 jti says:

    X-Com: The Oil Spill

  76. 12/06/2010 at 13:32 Stense says:

    I may be alone in this, but I got a sort of LA Confidential mixed with Metroid Prime 2 vibe to this. Thats no bad thing.

    I don’t know the original x-com games very well, so I don’t have any nostalgia values to temper my expectations with this new game. So I’m keeping an eye on this and it’s looking fairly cool to me so far.

    • 12/06/2010 at 23:03 Bret says:

      I say this as a probable fan of the upcoming X-Com:

      Ohmanyougottaplaytheoldx-comitsthebestohman!

      So much fun. #1 most played in my steam listings.

  77. 12/06/2010 at 13:42 Corrupt_Tiki says:

    I am interested in this game, not enough to slap down a preorder, but never the less will still be watching.

    I think they should’ve maybe tried a bit harder on the blobs, I know it may sound like a graphics whore problem, but I think it wouldve given it heaps more atmosphere if they actually flowed like water/liquid

  78. 12/06/2010 at 13:46 Link says:

    Bleh, it looks like a modded/reskinned Bioshock. Does not interest me at this point.

    *Waits for more details*

  79. 12/06/2010 at 13:46 tomeoftom says:

    I apologise for this comment thread.

    • 12/06/2010 at 13:52 Rinox says:

      Me too.

      I think many people complaining in this thread need to read some of the previews, because it sounds like so much more than “just a shooter’. The research aspect, the tactical choices made at the meta-level (do we run or fight? where to we intervene if there are two sightings?) and the HQ workings all sound very promising, so I think just posing a “meh lame shooter” opinion here is rash and undeserved.

      Those who are just upset about the name, well, not much you can do except for hoping this turns out to be an amazing game in the spirit of X-com, eh?

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:12 Mojo says:

      > … the tactical choices made at the meta-level (do we run or fight? …

      And you don’t see any irony in that? One of the main “tactical choice on the meta-level” is “do we run or fight?”. I did read the preview, combed through it in hope of finding anything that would make me a believer. But there wasn’t anything in there. In fact, I believe most of the strategic stuff they mentioned was intentionally left vague to keep fans of the original guessing while everything is pretty much cut down to… well, “tactical choices on the meta level like run or fight”.

      It’s not like we pick any sequel to a classic and call it bad because it’s a modern sequel. Portal 2 looks excellent. Civilization 5 promising. Starcraft 2, despite the horrible BattleNet changes (thanks, Kotick!), looks like an excellent sequel. It’s just that “XCOM” looks like a very generic game that focuses more on “cinematic” effects than the deep strategic gameplay, of the original.

    • 12/06/2010 at 14:14 CMaster says:

      @Rinox
      But all this trailer showed was people shooting things in small rooms. (well, and things in small rooms dissolving people’s faces)
      How are people meant to divine the existence of all the things you talk about from that.

    • 12/06/2010 at 15:59 Rinox says:

      @ CSMaster:

      Fair enough, but that’s why I’m saying that people should try to find more information about the actual/supposed game mechanics first before yelling about the trailer showing a poor FPS. I guess that still doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll like it or look forward to it (like it didn’t for Mojo) but at least there won’t be as many kneejerk reactions.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:51 Alexandros says:

      You don’t understand. From your point of view, this game may actually be deep, challenging or whatever else you’d like to call it. You only have today’s shooters to compare it to, whereas anyone who has played the original can assure you that this “XCOM” looks primitive and dumb by comparison.

    • 12/06/2010 at 21:52 Rinox says:

      How can you compare the original Xcom to this game and say this one is primitive and dumb when you haven’t even played it? It’s one thing to be optimistic or pessimistic about this game’s chances, but it’s another to declare it to be dumb based on a trailer.

  80. 12/06/2010 at 13:49 Huggster says:

    How can you slag this off so much!
    Its INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS – FFS!
    Go back and watch the 1950s original and then tell me its a rubbish trailer.

    This looks really good.
    Bioshock + Mad Men (Don Drapers nightmares) + Bodysnatchers + some X-COM (hopefully).

    Yes its a shooter but what isn’t nowadays – games like X-COM are as good as gone for now until the industry matures a bit more.

    It looks fine. It looks more interesting than the generic Deus Ex reboot. You are all smelly.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:54 Alexandros says:

      And you’re fine with that? It doesn’t bother you that the industry thinks you are an idiot who only enjoys shooters? That you would buy anything if it had a fancy name slapped on it?

    • 13/06/2010 at 08:32 Huggster says:

      Of course I am not fine with it, but what can you do? We can only hope that the games industry is like the film industry and over time there will be more of a “sellable” market for more esoteric (non-FPS) games.

  81. 12/06/2010 at 14:08 jaheira says:

    The blobs looked pretty interesting enemies, but the monolith/circle in the sky was amazing. Very cool to see an alien menace which feels genuinely ALIEN ie. very weird indeed. HL2 managed it with the Advisors, but it doesn’t happen much.

  82. 12/06/2010 at 14:15 FortifiedToaster says:

    @ Jim: Didn’t you get the memo? Every early preview posted on here recently is to be initially met with an apathetic and unimpressed “Blah, looks like an uninspired generic consoley shooter”.

    Then later on when the better posters have had time to articulate their thoughts, we can get some actual insightful or interesting discussion going on rather than just unreasonably prejudiced knee-jerk reactions.

    If you have access to the RPS database, run a:

    select count(*) from comments where comment like ‘%generic%’;

    It’d be funny to see how many times that particular term has been regurgitated. Ironically enough, they’ve become the generic RPS omgfirstpost on all big name preview articles. :)

  83. 12/06/2010 at 14:16 Radiant says:

    “SHOOT IT BAXTER!
    SHOOT ITTTT” *motorboat sound*

    Very bioshocky even has a ‘take the picture of the weird stuff’ that bioshock 2 had.

  84. 12/06/2010 at 14:22 gnodab says:

    “This looks awesome.”

    No.
    No it doesn’t.
    The opening looked like a Heavy Rainy version of the Wonderyears. Which could at least be mildy interesting, if not really original. But then the Team Fortress guys come blasting in through the door and start shooting at badly animated goo and it all turns to shi…shame.
    It also reminds me of the X-Files, when they realized: hey now one is watching this shit anymore so we could as well stop trying.
    Actually it reminds me of a lot of unpleasent things, but is think the most important point is, what it doesn’t remind me of, and that is XCOM.
    Seriously, when the logo appeard at the end of the trailer I actually loughed out loud. Iwasn’t even pissed off, because I had totally forgotten what I was watching at this point. It just seemed so completly random. Like watching a homevideo of someones puppies and at the end it says DUKE NUKEM FOREVER.
    It’s hilarious.
    But oh so sad…

    Well, at least we still have the indies, and our old games. Back to VVVVVV.

  85. 12/06/2010 at 14:25 Tom says:

    I like the syle of it. I really the dig the 50s vibe. That tar-thingy looks nice. But, it isn’t X-COM. Probably why they dropped the – from X-COM eh? Also, the gameplay looks pretty generic.

  86. 12/06/2010 at 14:30 Nobody Important says:

    Wahhhh console X-Com name Bioshock waaaahhhhhhhhh

    Looks pretty good to me. But then again, I’m a stupid console gamer with no taste.

    I didn’t mind X-Com, but I didn’t love it either. Well, I don’t really love any gaming brand to the point where, if they stuck it onto some other game I’d be disappointed, so figure that one out.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:57 Alexandros says:

      That’s pretty easy to answer. You have low standards and happily gobble up everything that the companies deem “appropriate” for you.

    • 13/06/2010 at 04:31 Nobody Important says:

      No, I just don’t have YOUR standards, which are quite frankly skewed and silly. But then again, you can predict the future from trailers. How’s that weather coming? Got any lottery ticket numbers?

      Considering Super Mario Galaxy 2 was the first video game I’ve bought in months, I’d have to say your snide comments on my buying habits was not only snarky and foolish, but also wrong. Try again, friend.

    • 13/06/2010 at 07:33 Alexandros says:

      Ok, I will try again. Since you didn’t care much for the first game, you lack the proper frame of reference to understand the real issue here. That didn’t seem to stop you from commenting in a sarcastic tone, attributing the negative reactions to some sort of PC elitism, wildly missing the point.

      In fact, if you believe that the whole “console gamers= dumb people” thing is stupid, you should be the first to object to the widely believed notion that console gamers only play shooters because they are simpletons. If you do enjoy deeper and more complex games, you should be equally angry at this “reimagining” as I am.

  87. 12/06/2010 at 14:41 Link says:

    A more valid reason as to why I’m feeling more optimistic towards the new Deus Ex as opposed to the new XCOM – the release policies of their respective companies. Consider:

    2K Marin (BioShock 2):
    - Over-the-top DRM for both retail and digital releases (GFWL + limited authentication Securom + Steam)
    - Unfair pricing, especially in the Australian market (BioShock 2 costs USD$60 on Steam, more at retail)

    Eidos/Square Enix:
    - Much more tolerable PC release DRM (Steam only for digital, Securom disk-check only for retail)
    - No price-gouging

    The only exception is Arkham Asylum which got hit by the DRM silly-stick for its Steam release; even then, you can always get the retail version with just a disk-check. Granted, it may only be me who cares about such things, but it makes a difference.

    I certainly didn’t think BioShock was OMG-game-of-the-year worthy and I didn’t feel I was missing out on anything brilliant by picking it up years later for a fiver during one of Steam’s sales. I’ll probably do the same for XCOM even if 2K live up to all of their (as yet unproven) promises.

  88. 12/06/2010 at 14:53 Huggster says:

    Welcome to RPS – the Real Pessimistic Soulless.

    Anyone who was not, to coin an american phrase, “pumped” by that trailer, obviously has not watched the film and TV I have. It borrows from some really, really good source material including many old Sci-Fi movies – Bodysnatchers, War of the Worlds, the Day The Earth Stood Still. These are some of the best sci-fi movies ever made.
    How good were the striders in HL2? They were epic – and based on the “tripods” from War of the Worlds and the BBC series.
    If they get anything close to feeling like you are in those movies I will wet my pants.

    Disgregarding the X-COM name, it looks fantastic. The art direction and production will be as strong as BioShock – but I guess it will be about as deep. It seems pretty obvious what its going to be – R&D goes into new weapons, so more like Syndicate than X-COM then, with is R&D between levels.

    • 12/06/2010 at 16:23 cjlr says:

      @Huggster
      “disregarding the X-COM name”

      Aaaaand there’s your problem. It’s just a little bit annoying to have that name (with all the features and history that implies) attached to something like this here game, which granted we’ve seen very little of but even its defenders in this thread agree has very little in common with its namesake.

  89. 12/06/2010 at 15:02 mpk says:

    I agree with Nick Jim

  90. 12/06/2010 at 15:06 DK says:

    This trailer is “Generic Bioshock mod that has you fighting low-res amateur FX covered black blobs (saves on the texturing budget if all your enemies are monocolour) with reskinned Bioshock weaponry”.

    It actually looks worse than Bioshock 1, graphically. Everything about this trailer screams C-Team.

    It’s generic garbage, pure and simple, and that’s ignoring the raping of the X-Com franchise.

  91. 12/06/2010 at 15:20 Frankle says:

    Blobs?
    And using SHOTGUNS on said blobs?
    Silly Americans. Give me Henry the hoover and Me an old Henry could sort the invasion in about 5 mins.
    On a side note, why do I have an image of a little sister saying “Come on Mr. Blobby. This way!”
    Maybe he’s the final boss. Dear god Noel Edmunds is behind the invasion!

  92. 12/06/2010 at 15:27 Rohit says:

    Even if I never played X-Com (which is pretty good), that would still look boring.

  93. 12/06/2010 at 15:41 c-Row says:

    First Alec’s XCOM feature tried to explain to us that most of the game was about taking pictures and suspense, and now 2K release a trailer that makes it look like it’s only about shooting and the camera is nothing but a gimmick. Oh, whom to trust?

  94. 12/06/2010 at 15:45 Kadayi says:

    Game looks pretty good (I like the art style), albeit the movement has something of the floaty bioshocks about it. Colour me interested to see more.

  95. 12/06/2010 at 15:47 Mister Adequate says:

    I really don’t know. It looks like an interesting game, with a great aesthetic and stuff, and I’m not going to say that something I haven’t seen doesn’t exist and so the game is awful.

    But the shooting looks like the same clunky mess that BioShock was. I’m not really interested in getting into a console vs. PC fight, all I’ll say is that I’ve seen good and bad on both, but I thought BioShock was wildly overrated. Oh, the narrative stuff was all clever and well done, and I played through it very quickly because I was compelled, but the gameplay itself was, at least for my money, not even generic – it was subpar.

    And this, to me, looks like that. If I’m right, I know one area the original beats this by a country mile; replayability. I’ve never once even thought of going back to BS since I finished it and if this end up the same, I expect that I won’t play XCOM more than once or twice (Depending on how many branches there are and how variable they really are). Contrast to X-Com, which I still play today.

  96. 12/06/2010 at 15:51 zal says:

    - Give me squad control as good or better than Mass Effect 2 (go here! shoot that thing now!)
    - Give me investigation and research as good or better than Call of Pripyat (place detectors near important sites, protect observation equipment, investigative equipment instead of a gun out!)
    - Give me AI that won’t block the door! (I swear THATS why games went to sci-fi, FPS bots are incapable of handling a door less than 8′ wide, and these ones didn’t look like geniuses either)
    - Give me some sort of branching research and gun customization (not just the next gun/ability/armor/alt-fire I’d pick up in any other game just playing, handed to me as a research present at the mission end screen under the pretense of science)

    Don’t give me, polaroids = science. (we took 3 pictures so now you do double damage, repeat for all enemies please, and thank you for being the worlds best photogra..err… researcher)
    Don’t give me, research = booby prize for losing a mission. (well you died again, but since you failed you get double damage, please replay the same mission but on easy mode I mean “researched” mode)
    Don’t give me, 10-20 rail shooter corridors and then an I win screen after 8 hours. (I want some serious play time)

    Lastly, if you play a name drop get my attention you need to ante in something extra to make up for it. So its gotta do something else cool above and beyond that list. If it meets those criteria I’m in.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:05 Taillefer says:

      “Don’t give me, research = booby prize for losing a mission. (well you died again, but since you failed you get double damage, please replay the same mission but on easy mode I mean “researched” mode)”

      If that was inferred from my post, then I gave the wrong impression. You wouldn’t replay the mission; the odds were too overwhelming; you had no choice but to run. Maybe you got something out of it to research which will help with the next mission. “I can’t win, but I can grab some goo to take home, at least.”.

      In fact, I’ll have to check again, but I think it worked so that you don’t really win a mission, it continues until you decide when to leave (or everybody dies, presumably).

  97. 12/06/2010 at 15:59 watashi says:

    So i saw those black blob things and had a mild heart attack,
    but thats because i read “john dies at the end”
    That said, it did not realy look like an xcom game
    but maby, but maby, im just sick of all my favourite old games being
    turned in FPS wich i suck at

    • 12/06/2010 at 17:33 HYPERPOWERi says:

      Hey! Someone else got a John Dies in the End vibe from this apart from me!

      I liked the trailer, but I would’ve rather had a (please don’t hurt me) “proper” X-COM/UFO game. Isometric and VGA! (o:

      Hooray for Xenonauts!

  98. 12/06/2010 at 16:02 Miktor says:

    Study them with shotguns?

  99. 12/06/2010 at 16:05 Jayt says:

    It is very refreshing not knowing what this IP is for once. The trailer looked interesting… I will be keeping my eye on this.

  100. 12/06/2010 at 16:22 Tom Davidson says:

    I’ll just say now I’m one of those weird people that has never actually played an XCOM game and I’m not greatly bothered about this new one.
    This is a lot like saying “I’ve never had chocolate, so I don’t understand why people are upset about Cadbury going to an all-carob recipe.”

  101. 12/06/2010 at 16:49 Matt Nothing says:

    How is there anyone over the age of 10 that doesn’t understand marketing well enough that they have to ask why the X-com brand is being used for this game.

    Seriously.

    What the hell is wrong with you all?

    Also: This is 100 times more “X-COM” than Enforcer ever was so quit your whining for 10 minutes.

    • 12/06/2010 at 16:55 Tom Davidson says:

      This is 100 times more “X-COM” than Enforcer ever was…
      Well, true. But to be fair, so was “Barbie Horse Adventures.”

    • 12/06/2010 at 17:35 Greg Wild says:

      I think everyone understands the marketting reasons for using XCOM. Infact, it’s the very fact that they understand it that some of us are annoyed.

      And the difference with Enforcer is stark: Enforcer was always going to be a cheap cash in. It was never meant to revive the license with front-page exclusive previews. People just didn’t care. This new XCOM is to be a definitive statement of what the license is to be from now on.

    • 13/06/2010 at 02:56 Sunjammer says:

      Really, what about Interceptor? Because that was a steaming pile as well. What about Apocalypse? Garbage.

      Face it, this franchise is already fucked up beyond all regard. You could draw a crude drawing of a gray and it’d be an improvement.

  102. 12/06/2010 at 17:00 ErikM says:

    The comments here really bother me. Everyone is so quick to judge based on a trailer. The same with Deus Ex 3. People are so goddamned lodged inside the original title’s arse that they can’t wait for a proper hands-on before saying it’s rubbish. As per usual devs wait with showing off all aspects of the gameplay. Such as seeing what the polaroids will amount to in researching etc. etc. etc.

    Take a chill-pill. I love the X-Com series dearly. And I for one think this has potential. But, we’ll just have to wait and see.

    • 12/06/2010 at 17:09 Tom Davidson says:

      People are so goddamned lodged inside the original title’s arse that they can’t wait for a proper hands-on before saying it’s rubbish.
      Again, to be fair, I don’t think everyone being critical of the title here is saying that the game is or will be rubbish. Rather, they’re saying that the game is quite clearly not evocative enough of what they liked about X-COM; it preserves a somewhat Stubbsified version of the setting, but the setting was always the least important part of the X-COM franchise. I agree that it’s still too early to tell exactly how important things like research and resource allocation will be in the final equation, but certainly I think there’s reason for people who want a heavy emphasis on those elements to be “concerned.” And bear in mind that when I say “concerned,” I mean “mildly put out;” no one here is wailing and gnashing their teeth.

    • 12/06/2010 at 17:38 Greg Wild says:

      I disagree. We had quite a bit of the combat sections shown off in that trailer. And to me, it reeked of hamfisted console FPS, where the primary “tactic” is to pull out your shiny new death ray. Not a thoughtful tactics game at all.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:40 DK says:

      “We’ll just have to wait and see”
      Why. Why do we have to? We already know what’s going to happen from the dozens of times it’s happened with all the other old brand revivals. The wait and see crowd is always there, and disappears when the game is released – and lo-and-behold, it’s just as shitty as excpected. Just as shitty as the old brand revivals before it.

      Have some perspective for once and take a look at history – don’t accuse people of wearing rose coloured glasses while looking backwards, when you’re wearing them looking forwards.

    • 12/06/2010 at 22:16 jalf says:

      @DK: So that’s why everyone hated Prince of Persia: Sands of Time so much?
      And the new Battlestar Galactica?
      How about Fallout 3? I didn’t like it as much as the old games, but plenty of people considered it a masterpiece.
      Yep, I thought so.

      Brand revivals can *never* turn out worthwhile products. Never ever.

      I guess I’ll have to write off Deus Ex 3 too then, even though it actually looks really promising.

      The wait and see crowd is always there, and disappears when the game is released

      Perhaps you don’t understand the words “wait and see”. They do not mean “this game is going to be awesome, and it will shame me deeply if the game turns out to suck because I have invested so much of myself and my gamer cred in it”.

      They simply mean that “we will see if it sucks when it is released”.

      But tell me, since you don’t ever intend to wait and see about anything whatsoever. Would you rather none of the games you cared about were ever revived? Never another X-COM game, never another Beyond Good & Evil, never another Alpha Centauri, never another Deus Ex?

      I think I prefer the “wait and see” strategy.

    • 12/06/2010 at 22:45 Tom Davidson says:

      Would you rather none of the games you cared about were ever revived? Never another X-COM game, never another Beyond Good & Evil…
      You got me. I would LOVE to see “Beyond Good & Evil” reimagined as an isometric, turn-based strategy game playable only by keyboard.

    • 13/06/2010 at 01:15 bwion says:

      @jalf:

      Would you rather none of the games you cared about were ever revived?

      Actually, yes, this is exactly what I would prefer, given my druthers. Quite often, the reason that a game becomes a classic is because it does something that nothing else is doing (or doing well) at the time. There’s a certain irony in the common “Wow, that game was totally awesome because it was completely unlike everything I ever played, now I demand thirty more just like it” attitude.

      The way to do a new X-Com, or a new Fallout, or a new (whatever) is to just damn well do something new.

      That said, a sequel, or even a marketing-based re-use of a particular property’s name, being a good game in its own right is certainly all I *really* demand.

    • 13/06/2010 at 04:59 Psychopomp says:

      “How about Fallout 3?”

      I want someone to tell me what exactly Fallout 3 did better than the first two, aside from graphics. The combat was essentially the same, I’ll give it that. However, the writing was worse, the characters actually managed to show less emotion than the first two’s digitized heads, and the quest’s as a whole were simpler. In addition, the choices knew nothing other than hero, and cartoonish supervilliany.

      Guess what things many of us cared about.

    • 13/06/2010 at 14:13 Jimbo says:

      “I want someone to tell me what exactly Fallout 3 did better than the first two, aside from graphics.”

      Sell?

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:34 Psychopomp says:

      I didn’t need that shred of hope in gamers anyway, Jimbo

      :’(

  103. 12/06/2010 at 17:13 Gritz says:

    Who knew that after a decade and a half of waiting for the reinvigoration of the X-Com: UFO Defense tactical turned based strategy franchise we’d be rewarded with a game where you shoot black blobs with a shotgun from a first person perspective?

  104. 12/06/2010 at 17:19 ShaunCG says:

    Too much whining. :(

    I am excited for the promise of this!

  105. 12/06/2010 at 17:30 MacQ says:

    My opinion: Bioshock Overwater. The guy even has his hand all alien-y, so I suppose they’ll integrate some kind of plasmids to make it even more shocking. :D

  106. 12/06/2010 at 17:43 Galigod says:

    I thought i would say that this is what i think a sequel should be, its used the original game as a starting point, and gone in a different direction, as opposed just to re-hashing the game again and again. And in the least it doesn’t look generic, as in its not another space-marines-versus-aliens game, i mean, how many other games are based in the 50′s, where you fight aliens, study them and evelope new weapons to fight them more effectively? Not many, so i am glad to say that it is original from a concept point of view, and has not just resold the first games, i liked them as much as the next person, but a new direction was needed

  107. 12/06/2010 at 17:50 Cutman says:

    B-Movie shooter! But not a shitty B-Movie shooter!

    From the looks of the trailer that is.

  108. 12/06/2010 at 17:52 Pundabaya says:

    It seems to me that some people care far too much about what a game is called, rather than how it plays.

  109. 12/06/2010 at 17:52 Chris says:

    What do you think Fallout will be known for in 5 years time?

    I think Fallout 3 will be known for its horrific original ending, which defied logic so deeply that a patch had to be released to fix it. That patch, naturally enough for a late capitalist society, had to be paid for in the form of DLC.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:12 Dominic White says:

      Yeah. You keep on believing that. The divide between hardcore PC gamers and reality seems to be widening further and further every day.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:26 Dworgi says:

      The divide between the mainstream gamer and sanity seems to be widening daily.

    • 12/06/2010 at 20:47 Tom Davidson says:

      I’m a gamer. I am not, however an obsessive, rage-fuelled, tantruming nerd with an entitlement complex the size of the moon. It seems that a large number of the people in this comment thread, along with the Deus Ex 3 one, are. And that’s sad, because if you’re even close to as old as me, you SHOULD HAVE BLOODY WELL GROWN UP A BIT BY NOW.
      Care to elaborate, Dominic? I read these posts and I don’t see rage-fueled tantrums — except from the people, like you, who’re complaining about hypothetical rage-fueled tantrums. Are you perhaps shadowboxing a bit?

  110. 12/06/2010 at 18:03 DepravedIndividual says:

    I can’t wait for the first mod to color that goo white so it looks like you’re fighting alien semen.

  111. 12/06/2010 at 18:17 Kester says:

    I love the aesthetic. We didn’t see too much variety in the gameplay though – it seems a classic case of putting the one finished level into a trailer. And it did seem a bit Bioshocky, but that isn’t a bad thing. I will keep an eager eye out for more revealing info!

  112. 12/06/2010 at 18:20 Max says:

    I don’t see how anyone could get excited about that trailer. Strip out the epic music and it’s just shooting vague blobs with a shotgun repeatedly and some shiny particle effects.

  113. 12/06/2010 at 18:25 Vinraith says:

    As with most trailers, really, I can’t tell much of anything about how the game is actually going to play from that. I hope the alien design is more varied than what’s shown, but there’s no reason to conclude it isn’t based on that tiny snippet of gameplay. Regardless, the most interesting elements of this game for me aren’t the shooting, but the X-Com like base and team management. Show me some of that and maybe I’ll get excited.

  114. 12/06/2010 at 18:39 Murdering Jack says:

    I’ll sum up this whole debate with a historical example.

    “Good news everyone, we just invented a way to sterilize medical scalpels!”

    “Boo, you suck. We like being cut open with rusty medical instruments and getting an infection. The old way is the best way!”

    “But this is, on the whole, plain better.”

    “Tradition over results!”

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:43 DK says:

      And here’s what’s actually happening:
      The opposite.

      This is going from variety, complexity and options to shallow, shiny and short flavour-of-the-month.

    • 12/06/2010 at 18:44 Mad Doc MacRae says:

      This analogy only works if the people introducing the new scalpel don’t know what a scalpel does and don’t plan to use it for surgery.

      Seriously, have you ever played one of the original X-COM games? They’re cheap on steam. Try them.

    • 12/06/2010 at 19:22 Murdering Jack says:

      I own every Defense game up Enforcer. Know what the best part is? This game coming out doesn’t stop me from playing my old games! It’s genius. It’s like, if I liked the original so much, I can just go play the original. Instead of, you know, forcing everyone who hasn’t played an old X-COM to play an archaic, inaccessible game with updated graphics (the new XCOM that I feel most people in this thread would have wanted).

      Honestly, so much innovation has come about since this game was made. The advent of sandbox games, uncluttered UIs, non-keyboard dependent control bindings. Can’t you be content to play your old game (which is, apparently, perfect) and be happy the franchise is getting newfound attention?

    • 12/06/2010 at 20:00 Mad Doc MacRae says:

      So Godfather 3 was the best of the series because it was made most recently?

      And Gigli is better than all of them, too?

    • 12/06/2010 at 20:35 Tom Davidson says:

      Can’t you be content to play your old game (which is, apparently, perfect) and be happy the franchise is getting newfound attention?
      I’m confused, MJ. Why should anyone be happy just because a franchise they love is getting new attention? Do franchises have feelings? Do they get insecure? Should people be patting X-COM on the back and saying, “Hey, look! People do remember you!”

      Seriously, I care about this only insofar as it impacts the chances of a game being developed that I would like to play. The thought that I should be glad that X-COM is getting “attention” baffles me.

    • 12/06/2010 at 21:28 Vinraith says:

      @Murdering Jack

      You argument appears to be that shooters are inherently superior to (and more modern than) turn based games. This is, at best, a matter of opinion, and not an argument that’s going to get a lot of traction among X-Com fans.

    • 12/06/2010 at 22:23 jalf says:

      So Godfather 3 was the best of the series because it was made most recently?

      No, but it added more to the series than re-releasing Godfather 1 or 2 would have.

      This is going from variety, complexity and options to shallow, shiny and short flavour-of-the-month.

      How can you tell? Are you perhaps so busy hating the game that you refuse to accept that perhaps this trailer didn’t show all the content in the game?
      I love that you even criticize the game’s length.
      I’m sorry to burst your bubble, although I’m sure you can find another game to hate. But this trailer is not the game. The trailer lasted a few minutes, but that does not mean the game will be short.

      Grow up.

      MJ. Why should anyone be happy just because a franchise they love is getting new attention?

      Perhaps because it means that new games get made in the franchises we love?
      I love that a new X-COM game is being made. Even if it ends up mediocre, it’s better than not getting another X-COM game. It raises the chance of another sequel being made.

    • 12/06/2010 at 22:44 Dworgi says:

      “Perhaps because it means that new games get made in the franchises we love?
      I love that a new X-COM game is being made. Even if it ends up mediocre, it’s better than not getting another X-COM game. It raises the chance of another sequel being made.”

      To which the answer already came up: “Seriously, I care about this only insofar as it impacts the chances of a game being developed that I would like to play.”

      The X-COM franchise isn’t being revived – neither the gameplay nor the setting. There’s nothing except the name being used.

      As for the argument that X-COM is outdated and archaic – yes, in some ways it absolutely is. The UI and visuals haven’t stood the test of time. The game absolutely could be improved upon, I don’t think anyone’s arguing differently. However, the very idea that turn-based strategy games are outdated is absurd.

  115. 12/06/2010 at 18:44 True says:

    @Vinraith

    I’m also worried that they didn’t show those elements because they’ll possibly just be smoke and mirrors shallow mechanics put in place in an attempt to justify the XCOM name or taken out altogether.

    Surely they’ve read some of the criticisms heard ’round the internet since the original announcement…and they come up with a trailer like this showing off shotgun to spooge (or taking pictures of people covered in spooge) gameplay?

  116. 12/06/2010 at 18:44 m_s0 says:

    This actually looks playable if a bit tedious and possibly not all that fun in the long run. Hoped for something much worse, though. At least it seems as if Irrational has a goal and doesn’t just piss on the franchise… Well, OK, it does piss on the franchise but in a somewhat meaningful way. Still won’t be playing this one, not a fan of console shooters, but I might watch an LP just to see the narration and the pretty scripts they put into this.

  117. 12/06/2010 at 19:05 Quests says:

    That’s the problem, it looks awesome

    PC games don’t look awesome, they ARE.

    This has lovely setting, lovely story, lovely effects, lovely coolness and sexiness.

    But videogames are not movies, you know?

    Videogames require interaction, “tings that you do” beside shooting and looking at those COOL cinema cutscenes that give you a woody.

  118. 12/06/2010 at 19:07 John Peat says:

    I’ve never played an XCOM game – should I?

    • 12/06/2010 at 19:17 Mad Doc MacRae says:

      Yes.

      Don’t do what I did though, I got Terror From the Deep first and it’s way, way harder than the first one.

    • 12/06/2010 at 19:24 DK says:

      As I remember the Terror from the Deep difficulty is mostly the result of some bugs and damage resistance table screwups. And the usual X-Com problem of obtuse research dependancies that can also bug and lock you out of research. And it’s still a great game despite that – which says a lot about how damn good it is.

    • 12/06/2010 at 21:03 Meat Circus says:

      Old-school XCOM games require the kind of patience that a modern gamer (such as me) could never hope to offer.

      When you’re looking at a single encounter taking 2-3 hours, you realise why nobody makes games like this any more.

      Maybe somebody should ask Ice Pick Lodge. They’d make games like this any more. After all, they made bloody Pathologic.

    • 12/06/2010 at 23:49 Dworgi says:

      @Meat Circus, re: “Old-school XCOM games require the kind of patience that a modern gamer (such as me) could never hope to offer.”

      Why are modern gamers unable to offer patience? Have they been trained onto it by the industry or has the audience just become dumber? What does that say about games? To use films as an example: yes, there are Scary Movies and White Chicks and the like, which are clinically braindead entertainment. But there are also complicated, convoluted movies that challenge the viewer. Is the modern gamer fundamentally opposed to complex games? If so, what hope do games have of challenging that perception?

      I honestly think that the main reason modern gamers like simple games is because that’s all they’re offered. Challenging games are regarded as too risky to make, and innovation is shunned as a result. As for this XCOM – why wasn’t it launched as its own brand?

      The major publishers are so risk-averse that I don’t think their model can work much longer. Eventually, people must get bored of rehashing the same formula and someone will give them something more substantial. At least, I hope someone does.

    • 13/06/2010 at 02:12 Meat Circus says:

      It’s not about simplicity, per se; What makes the original XCOM inaccessible to the modern gamer is not how difficult it is, but rather how long it takes to play even the simplest encounter.

    • 13/06/2010 at 04:35 Nick says:

      It takes a long time to play a simple ecounter in Xcom? In what universe?

  119. 12/06/2010 at 19:15 Frye says:

    If this is how a randomly generated urban setting looks just as in the old games, we’re in for a treat. If the weapons used are all researched / looted it could be awesome.

    But if this is indeed some boring linear shooter riding the XCOM wave then the negativity would be justified.

    I, for one, can’t tell yet.

  120. 12/06/2010 at 19:15 Freud says:

    I wish someone would remake UFO: Enemy Unknown instead.

  121. 12/06/2010 at 20:07 BoxFace says:

    Flakfizer – Were you – or even are you – seriously expecting this FPS release in 2011 to be the same as an isometric strategy game from 1995?

    It’s simply not going to be the same game – but that doesn’t necessitate it being a terrible game.

    The choice of name is perhaps a poor one given how universally loved the original X-COM titles are, but let’s wait and see hey?

  122. 12/06/2010 at 20:19 Zogtee says:

    As far as shooters go, it looks fine, but not overly impressive. It also looks very far removed from what made Xcom Xcom. You could easily slap any old title on that trailer and no one would be able to guess that it had anything to do with Xcom. I can’t figure out why they even bothered. Oldschool Xcom fans wont like it. People who never played Xcom before have no idea what it is.

    But yeah, I know, haters gonna hate and I hate it already.

  123. 12/06/2010 at 20:41 Desmond2tru says:

    I love the apparent lack of anthropomorphic enemies (bar the beginning bit). Looks chilling.

  124. 12/06/2010 at 21:04 DJ Phantoon says:

    I think the real lesson here is that the hivemind is actually just one mind.
    And Jim is the id.

  125. 12/06/2010 at 21:39 sfury says:

    I don’t know…

    Setting looks great, aliens too.

    But everything else in the trailer is a bit “meh”, they should have put more interesting stuff for a first trailer. Which worries me that there isn’t that much in it, lets hope they reveal more in E3.

  126. 12/06/2010 at 22:20 DD says:

    Hell yea this looks great. Been playing UFO defense based off the comments on rps and am enjoying it. If we get some more aliens besides the sludge monsters in the new x-com I could see this being amazing. Really quite exciting trailer.

  127. 12/06/2010 at 23:11 Marco W. says:

    Body snatchers? *meh*

  128. 12/06/2010 at 23:12 Sunjammer says:

    There is so much whining in this thread. It’s been so long since I’ve seen this degree of whinery I almost forgot this community had the potential for it. Shame on me.

    Grow up you jerks. Come the fuck on.

    I played UFO and Terror from the deep as much as if not MORE than most of you (that’s right), and jumped ship when the series got crazy at Apocalypse and never recovered.
    You are holding the X-COM brand in much too high regard; It has been gang raped to shit and back already; There is little if anything left to have in any regard at all. Enforcer was a “real” X-COM brand game, look at how flipping fantastic that was, eh?

    This looks fantastic and I’m anxious to play it. It’s the least the brand has been fucked over in a decade.

  129. 12/06/2010 at 23:51 Rive says:

    I come here for a while now, but over the last year or so, articles or discussions seem to have become more arbitrary and sometimes even malicious. Im sorry Jim, but Schopenhauers rhetoric lessons and GENERIC sarcasm doesnt become you.

    Everyone is entitled to his own opinion i guess, and i can see how that trailer can appeal to someone. But most of the arguments made against it that you chose to reply to in a spiteful or dismissive manner very pretty valid.

    - Right now, the trailer and everything else we know about the game has really nothing to do with the X-COM name at all. With a lot of goodwill, the catchphrase “study them” could invoke a tingle of X-COM nostalgia.

    - Besides the squareish de-morph effect the game looks absolutely generic indeed. And quite shitty as well. Animations are horrid, from the guy gardening, to the woman in the kitchen and the Feds walking into the house. The weapon models are boring (shotgun looks like the one from bioshock with the tecture slightly altered), the lighting is static.

    - All in all this game looks very much like a full mod of Bioshock and from the panning in the gameplay it even would appear to have the same weight to the camera control. The camera feature looks exactly like the one in Bioshock, with Bioshock really not being the first game to implement that feature. The hand holding the grenade, the revolver etc. etc. The feds also dont look TF2´y at all.

    - There is no dialouge and besides the body-snatching black blobs, which have appeared in popular fiction once or twice if i resume correctly, the ending of the trailer is the only thing that hints at anything interesting. Not because of the whining monolith but at least because the scene has some style to it and the execution does not seem as uninspired and boring as the rest of the trailer.

    As many others i really dont see at all why it is necessary to tack the UFO name on to this game. Oh, im pretty much sure that this will be a nice “prequel” that ends the either sneaky or guerilla-style invasion of the aliens with a full retreat and the dramatic ending sequence hinting at the things to come in 1998… Throw in a chrysalid or two and upgrade your weapon with the newest findings via camera and alien technology and we got a winner here. Or. Do we? Because i was really rather disappointed with Bioshock 2. Which felt like Bioshock 1 without the twist. Which basically felt like System Shock 2. Without the RPG-Elements and the semi-open gameplay and progression. So what is so awesome here that obviously so many of us here are missing?

    P.S.: Approaching your readers in that condescending and cynical manner makes you seem like a butthurt twat.

    • 13/06/2010 at 00:34 Dominic White says:

      So, we’re at the ‘hurling confused insults at the RPS writers’ phase now, eh? Has anyone accused them of being in the pockets of every developer in the world simultaneously yet? That used to be so fun.

      It must be really depressing to be one of the guys running this blog now. What was once a small, jokey, light-hearted community has turned into one of the most rabidly aggressive enclaves of angry internet men around.

    • 13/06/2010 at 01:37 Jimbo says:

      On the contrary, my respect for RPS is increasing by the post. It’s about time somebody took the “Everything new sucks! / How dare they abuse my childhood like this!?” brigade to task. The sense of entitlement is almost unbearable. Your collective opinion on the matter just isn’t that important anymore outside of these comment threads; that’s why they don’t care if their use of this brand upsets you.

      I just don’t know what response you’re expecting from the rest of us. You are annoyed that they’re using the name; that’s fine, we get it and being annoyed is your right (and for those whose attitude ends there, I have no issue at all), but what’s the point some are trying to make beyond that?

      That we should all be annoyed about it too? (We aren’t)
      That the staff should be down on this game just because you don’t approve? (They aren’t you)
      That the developers have an obligation to make the game you want them to make? (They don’t)
      That they shouldn’t use the XCOM brand? (They obviously have the rights to use it)
      That they don’t gain anything from using it? (They clearly do)
      That the trailer doesn’t show enough? (This trailer isn’t pitched at us. Very few are)

      There is literally no significant downside for them in using this brand. How is this causing so much trouble to understand?

    • 13/06/2010 at 02:47 Tom Davidson says:

      There is literally no significant downside for them in using this brand. How is this causing so much trouble to understand?
      Why do you think the people being critical of what they’ve seen of the game so far don’t understand the marketing strategies being used here? For that matter, why do you think they should, when forming their opinion of a game, take into account the intent of the developer’s PR department? If my conclusion, upon viewing the trailer, is “that isn’t what I’m looking for in a X-COM game,” should I be swayed from that position by the knowledge that some guys in suits see financial advantage in putting the X-COM name on there anyway? If so, why?

    • 13/06/2010 at 14:26 Jimbo says:

      Because of the “Why didn’t they just call it something else?!” responses here and in the Deus Ex thread. It’s perfectly clear that some either a) don’t understand why they keep doing it, or b) believe they need their approval to do it.

      I already addressed the rest of your questions in the previous post.

  130. 13/06/2010 at 00:03 sigma83 says:

    What is a ‘console shooter’?

    1) It is made by Rockstar
    2) It features guns that handle like molasses and have terribad spreads to account for stickshooting
    3) Little to no z-axisery because console players are used to having stickshooting do all the work for them in the form of cover systems, bullet time and or auto aim
    4) in the case of a ‘proper’ shooter like Modern Warfare, have weapons that kill so quickly and spray so fast that it doesn’t matter that your aim fails, just keep firing and the law of averages will sort you out.
    4a) I’d like to see Quake 3 on gamepads. Nuh uh. Keep on walking.
    5) No dedicated servers
    6) No PC port worth mentioning, ever (see 1)

    Btw no I am not bitter at all not one little bit about Red Dead Redemption not coming out for PC. No sir.

    It exhausts me to think about shooters being made for consoles because the control schemata fails so hard at anything approaching what to me are normal levels of precision and dexterity that games destined for cross platform releases _by design_ must have gameplay that is ‘dumbed down’, even if said dumbing is done only on the platforms which are sans mouse.

    I’m trying to imagine doing stuff that comes so naturally; 180 degree snapshots. Rocket jumps. Twitch snipes. Can’t, as far as I know, because you can’t make the sticks move quickly and precisely enough (I am _SO_ keen to be proven wrong in this regard.) to let any of these basic moves, which have been around for, oh, 15 years to work on a platform that most developers seem to want to create shooters for anyway.

    I blame society.

    • 13/06/2010 at 00:10 Tei says:

      Maybe a new controller can change that. if a new controller add precision to console gaming, maybe this will stop the need for dumbification in console games, and as a result, in multiplatform games.

    • 13/06/2010 at 00:13 sigma83 says:

      Yep, I believe in good design being the key to overcoming obstacles. The mouse is not an optimal solution for a system that is mainly played on the couch.

  131. 13/06/2010 at 00:09 sigma83 says:

    Oh yes 7) The FOV is set to cardboard tube. And there will be no way to change it. Ever.

    • 13/06/2010 at 00:41 Muzman says:

      Re: sigma83

      Somewhat aside. I’ve come to think FOVs are as much fashion as anything else. The old PC standards for FPSs of 90 degrees on a 4:3 monitor is ridiculously wide. At typical viewing distances it’s more like 65 degrees or below for proper spacial representation. I reckon developers noticed this and so started going that way in the early 2000s. It carrying over to consoles is probably for reasons of composition; as with film it’s easier to make a nice looking frame if the view is smaller. Wide angles leave everything looking small, detached and distant if not used correctly. All this applies doubly if designers have no control over where this view is looking at any given time.

    • 13/06/2010 at 03:06 Tei says:

      @Muzman

      The screen is not a painting. You have to navigate and fight there. Small fov values make that painful, fisically painful. Is fisically imposible for people like me to play with low fovs, and very annoying to even try.

    • 13/06/2010 at 04:38 Nick says:

      If your gun isn’t half the size of the screen and sticking out of your ear, I don’t want to play it.

    • 13/06/2010 at 08:34 sigma83 says:

      My issue is chiefly with ‘non-settable options’, not FOV in particular.

    • 14/06/2010 at 02:37 Muzman says:

      Tei et al
      Fair enough. It is techinically a better way to represent things a lot of the time, particularly in FPSs. I haven’t played a lot of recent stuff but I can imagine it being over used.
      A bit like heavy compression in music and rapid jump cuts/shakey cam in movies; a natualistic FoV is a useful method in the right hands but crowding the frame is also a cheap trick to make things seem more exciting than they really are.

  132. 13/06/2010 at 00:14 bc says:

    looks interesting: a bit of the good old horror creature feature in there, though it does seem like early 20th century americana is getting a little bit dead-horsey kicked (fallout, bioshock, yadda yadda…). I kinda hope they camp the hell out of it, like “The Blob” “The Crawling Eye” or what-have-you.

    Props to the System Shock mention… I did like the bioshocks, but they were definitely pretty brainless, “kill all this stuff” affairs. The nice thing about System Shock and Deus Ex (both very lacking in polish and polycount by today’s standards), were that you could use the abilitied you had developed to solve the problems you were presented with – sneaking, hacking, lockpicking, explosives, whatever. Not seeing that so much in recent shooters.
    ummm whatelse… oh yeah: you are all a bunch of possum hemorrhoids!
    jump

  133. 13/06/2010 at 00:19 Kevbo says:

    I like the setting and concept of entering random houses and hunting down the aliens for info and eventual kill. However I did get a very console FPS feeling with low FOV and slow moving enemies. Time will tell if this will be something fun but I’ll keep my eyes on it for now.

  134. 13/06/2010 at 00:55 Sizematters says:

    Meh….

  135. 13/06/2010 at 01:12 pkt-zer0 says:

    Too much generic first-person-shootiness. Still don’t see what it has to do with X-Com. Kind of disappointing.

  136. 13/06/2010 at 01:28 Uhm says:

    X-Com is meant to be diverse and genre-bending. Now it’s adding some FPS to the mix. If it turns out to be good, then it’s welcome.

  137. 13/06/2010 at 01:29 Sunjammer says:

    PC gamers are apparently all conservatives. No wonder the scene has gone to utter shit.
    This whole thread is embarassing.

    • 13/06/2010 at 01:39 Mad Doc MacRae says:

      Conservative like using old franchise titles instead of being creative and coming up with your own? Or conservative like recycling gameplay mechanics from the last major game you released as a studio?

  138. 13/06/2010 at 01:35 bwion says:

    The trailer looked all right. I’m not really a shooter fan (though I did like Bioshock), so I’m kind of hard to wow with shooter footage (especially shooter footage that looked a little jumpy and not terribly technically adept to my untrained eyes).

    I haven’t played the old X-Com games (and I likely will at some point, since they sound right up my alley) so I’m obviously not that attached to the name, so I can’t really comment on that basis. (Ironically, I missed the original X-Com because it came too late, not too soon. Or, rather, because it came in that intervening period where I had neither the time nor the resources to pursue computer gaming to any real degree. Some people call this time ‘college’.)

  139. 13/06/2010 at 01:38 bwion says:

    Also: Clearly the XCOM people completely failed to answer one critical question in their trailer:

    Are the blobs shouting catcalls at the housewife, and where were the little tombstones?!? WITHOUT LITTLE TOMBSTONES WITH BLOBBY CATCALLS THIS GAME IS COMPLETELY DISRESPECTFUL TO ITS SOURCE MATERIAL!

    Er, which game was it based off again?

  140. 13/06/2010 at 01:38 The Telemetrics of Robert Francis Bailey says:

    Wow, some of these comments are depressing.
    I, for one think this looks like a lot of fun, despite being a huge fan of the original 2 x-com games.
    I also believe that I will live longer than most here, because all that latent rotting black hate cant be healthy for the digestion.

    People love to complain, it would seem.

    • 13/06/2010 at 02:22 Tom Davidson says:

      Which posts would you say have contained “latent rotting black hate,” except the posts accusing people of having some? I mean, “this doesn’t look like a game I’m interested in” or even “this game looks terrible” aren’t exactly statements I’d consider hateful.

    • 13/06/2010 at 10:26 The Telemetrics of Robert Francis Bailey says:

      Well considering I lack any form of humour and my comments are always Literal, I suppose you are right.

  141. 13/06/2010 at 01:45 vash47 says:

    I haven’t played the original X-COMs but this looks horrible, it’s like they somehow managed to make an even worse version of Bioshock.

  142. 13/06/2010 at 02:15 jackflash says:

    Sorry Jim, that looks like crap.

  143. 13/06/2010 at 02:28 Uhm says:

    Also, the depiction of women is palpable, viscous misogyny.

    • 13/06/2010 at 02:29 Uhm says:

      That was a blobby, liquid pun, and not a typo…honest…

    • 13/06/2010 at 04:42 Psychopomp says:

      >New game in old franchise announced
      >Completely different genre
      >Nothing in common with original game
      >If it’s successful, there’s no hope of a AAA sequel in the vein of the old ones
      >We’re expected to be happy about this

      You make no sense, internet. Well, I hope you look forward to the Nethack, Spelunky, Civilizations, Baldur’s Gate, and Witcher shooters down the line. Maybe, we’ll enter bizarro world, and Half Life will become a series of JRPG’s, Counter-Strike will become an turn based strategy game, and Led Zeppelin will come back as a country band.

    • 13/06/2010 at 04:47 Psychopomp says:

      OH CRUEL REPLY GODS

    • 13/06/2010 at 16:06 D says:

      >If it’s successful, there’s no hope of a AAA sequel in the vein of the old ones

      This is a crucial difference for me between this situation, and Fallout3 a while back. (I am avidly anti-F3). Fallout 3 absolutely ensured that any more Fallouts will never be turn based, isometric, text heavy adventures. This on the other hand? We don’t need another old-style X-COM sequel, we just need an exact remake of the first one, every ten years. This game coming out does nothing to stop that from happening, IMO.

  144. 13/06/2010 at 03:11 Capt Fatbeard says:

    This is a very early trailer so I think its a little harsh to dismiss out of hand because of what is shown in the trailer the game isn’t out until 2011 and there is a lot more to see of this game before people start lambasting it with criticism.
    Furthermore saying its just a ‘generic shooter’ the ability to gain information and knowledge without actually having to ‘win’ makes it stand out from other games, if you have to run away at least you’ve gained something instead of just reloading that level or sleeping for a bit and coming back and trying again. Plus its not shooting Nazi’s, Zombies or Aliens that look just like disfigured humans which is a refreshing change of pace.

  145. 13/06/2010 at 04:19 Psychopomp says:

    You have zero control over your squad mates, if I recall.

  146. 13/06/2010 at 04:26 Frank says:

    The vocal parts of the X-COM fanbase are disappointingly shit.

  147. 13/06/2010 at 04:39 Nick says:

    It looked.. erm… ok? I was looking forward to it (and am a huge fan of the first two) but it didn’t look all that great too be honest.

  148. 13/06/2010 at 05:33 Zyrxil says:

    Black puddles of goo? Who thought that would make good enemies? Who thought that actually looked good as an enemy?

  149. 13/06/2010 at 06:36 Surgeon says:

    This looks really X-CELLENT!

  150. 13/06/2010 at 06:51 GT3000 says:

    Reboots are about ripping your guts out and serving it to you in soup. You can only sit there and stare at it while it gets cold. You can’t throw it out because you’ve already paid for it. So you sit there and you eat it. Maybe it’ll taste like chicken because everything tastes like chicken doesn’t it? They’re about crushed dreams and maybes. If you’re lucky you’ll end up liking it. Maybe not that much but better than hating it.

    @SpinalJack
    Page 2, about quarter of the way down.

  151. 13/06/2010 at 07:15 ManaTree says:

    Holy shit, you people. Man.

    I understand your feelings of them using the X-COM name (well, XCOM, not X-COM), but wow, this is pretty knee-jerk. That’s about the nicest way I can say that.

    Whining does not help anyone. It does not help yourselves, even.

    Give this game a fair shake; it’s only had 1 trailer; who knows what will come next? We’ve yet to see what’s under the mask, yet you people (some of you, there are voices of reason in this crowd) are so willing to jump at the slightest movement.

    Let’s not get angry. Yes, maybe it won’t turn out to be a good game. But 2K Marin I have more respect and hope for than a lot of studios; they have some very cool dudes and gals working there.

    Reasoned thinking is what gets heard, at least here.

    • 14/06/2010 at 21:17 Bhazor says:

      Knee-jerk?
      More c**t-spasm quite frankly.

      You react like this at seeing a shooter trying so many new things yet thrash yourself into a great big circle jerk at the slightest hint towards Episode 3? Really?

      I’m losing the last of my faith in PC gaming fans.

  152. 13/06/2010 at 07:21 Alexandros says:

    The first game had a global strategy part and tactical turn based battles, this game is basically a FPS. Need I say more?

    • 13/06/2010 at 07:23 Alexandros says:

      This was meant as a response to Rinox’s comment on Page 2

    • 13/06/2010 at 07:36 Vinraith says:

      @Alexandros

      Actually no. This game has a national strategy part with base building and recruitment ala the original X-Com, but battle resolution is done via FPS instead of turn based tactical battles. Complain all you like, but do make sure you have your facts straight.

    • 13/06/2010 at 07:41 Alexandros says:

      I know all about the strategy part, whose depth and magnitude remains to be seen. The “basically” part refers to the thing that you will spend most of your time doing, ie battles. I think what I’m saying is pretty simple and reasonable.

    • 13/06/2010 at 07:47 Vinraith says:

      My sole point is that there’s more to it than a standard FPS. How much more, as you say, remains to be seen.

    • 13/06/2010 at 15:02 jalf says:

      I know all about the strategy part, whose depth and magnitude remains to be seen. The “basically” part refers to the thing that you will spend most of your time doing, ie battles. I think what I’m saying is pretty simple and reasonable.

      Couple of flaws in your logic. (Apart from nitpicking such as “how can you “know all” about something which “remains to be seen”?)

      How come you’re willing to include the strategy metagame in your description of the original games, but not this one? A fair comparison would be either:

      The first game had tactical turn based battles, this game is basically a FPS. Need I say more?

      or

      The first game had a global strategy part and tactical turn based battles, this game is basically a national strategy part and a FPS. Need I say more?

      Either the strategy part counts on both sides, or on none of them.

      And when you make such a fair comparison, the issue is no longer quite as clear. So yes, you do need to say more if you want to tell us that the new game is going to suck.

  153. 13/06/2010 at 08:13 The Defenestrator says:

    TEXACO, HALLIBURTON, and CHEVRON are particularly happy with your progress in dealing with local oil spills and have agreed to increase their funding.

    BP has signed a secret pact with unknown oily forces and have withdrawn from the project.

  154. 13/06/2010 at 10:05 I'm with Jim says:

    I am I’m with Jim. Set phasers to OPTIMISTIC!

    • 13/06/2010 at 14:34 Dominic White says:

      I’m not so much optimistic, as aware that there have been people who have seen more of the game in action, and seem quite pleased with it. Yes, even people who played the originals.

      So I’m going to wait until I’ve actually seen more of the game beyond walking around a house and shooting a single enemy type. If you’re going to reference the original, this trailer is the equivalent of having two soldiers trading shots with a single sectoid in a small 6×6 block house for a few turns. It shows you very little of substance.

      I just hope it’s good. Declaring it to be bad based on this trailer is just reactionary to the point of childishness.

    • 13/06/2010 at 23:30 SpinalJack says:

      Well said

  155. 13/06/2010 at 11:00 Alexandros says:

    Fair enough, but this change isn’t going to come by itself. It will come if people and journalists raise their voice and openly criticize such practices, not by waiting for it to magically happen. If Alec, Jim and gamers keep praising game companies like this, it will never happen. They (and we) should realize that they have an obligation to help push gaming forward as a medium, unless they are content with being glorified PR tools for publishers.

  156. 13/06/2010 at 11:38 PHeMoX says:

    Cool video indeed!

    Prey meets HL2 and a bit of L4D it seems… seems quite tasty to me.

  157. 13/06/2010 at 11:40 Chaz says:

    Wow that does look really good, I especially like the way they seem to have nailed the normalness and domesticity of the locations which are then invaded by those horrifying out of this world blobs. It reminds me of a series of Sapphire & Steel where these peoples meat dishes come alive and slither around their futuristic apartment, very creepy.

    Is anyone else reminded by the blocky face coming apart thing, of the Judge Dredd “Judge Child Quest” story, where that chap is infected with a jigsaw disease and pieces of him keep disappearing?

  158. 13/06/2010 at 13:08 Seamus says:

    If they could nail having an atmosphere of subtle dread and uneasiness in the 50s suburban setting, I could see this being pretty cool. At the moment though, after the less-than subtle trailer, this looks rather just like Bioshock without Rapture. And let’s face it, the only decent thing about Bioshock was Rapture.

  159. 13/06/2010 at 13:25 Luou says:

    I can’t identify or sympathize with the 50s USA setting at all. At least UFO had a global angle to it (and visuals much more open to interpretation, of course).

  160. 13/06/2010 at 16:02 CloakRaider says:

    Loving the way that people have accurately determined all aspects of the game, and believe that it is nothing like the original from a 2 minute trailer.

    Good job internet detectives!

    • 13/06/2010 at 16:09 D says:

      It would’ve helped alot and done no harm if the trailer had shown a modest amount of free-roaming. I think people have jumped to the conclusion that this will be the corridor shooter of Bioshock with aliens. You can’t blame them for it, but they should know better than to be so vocal with so little information.

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:10 Shalrath says:

      “I think people have jumped to the conclusion that this will be the corridor shooter of Bioshock with aliens.”

      Oh fuck, now I know exactly how the pitch went, and no I’m not kidding. “Bioshock with Aliens” is the exact wording of a typical pitch doc.

  161. 13/06/2010 at 17:01 Capt Fatbeard says:

    Anyone else think ghostbusters? blobs of goo attacking you getting you all messy then trying to kill them with guns that shoot lightning? Maybe collecting samples in little shoe boxs to take back? As long as you don’t cross the streams you should be a-ok!

  162. 13/06/2010 at 17:15 Haterade says:

    I don’t get all the negativity. No wander PC gaming is dead. 2k said they are going to have base building and research and other xcom stuff even if they didn’t show it and Ken Levine himself is a big XCom fan as well as RPS writers and they all said it’s gonna be good. Why can’t you just have faith instead of complaining all the time?

    • 13/06/2010 at 20:32 Alexandros says:

      Because it doesn’t matter if the game is good or not. People don’t want a strategy game to turn into a FPS. Apparantly this is some sort of crime, as anyone who voices his concerns is labeled as an Angry Internet Man or a PC Elitist. Funnily, noone seems to mind that game companies pretty much say to their face that “you only like shooters so we are turning every franchise into a shooter”. If this is your idea of what gaming should be, it’s no wonder you think PC gaming is dying.

    • 13/06/2010 at 23:20 DK says:

      “Ken Levine himself is a big XCom fan as well as RPS writers and they all said it’s gonna be good. Why can’t you just have faith instead of complaining all the time?”

      Oh Ken Levine said that. Well, I guess then we’ll just have to believe him. He’d never lie to sell a game of course. Never. It’s not like he claimed Bioshock was a worthy successor to System Shock, going so far as to call it a “spiritual sequel” – verbatim.

      Why the hell should anyone take the word of a corporate employee on the quality of a product the employee is involved in (even if it’s tangentially)

  163. 13/06/2010 at 17:18 Mad Doc MacRae says:

    This is my problem.

    >Trailer is posted
    >Jim says, “this looks awesome”
    >No one says “JIM YOU CAN’T COMMENT ON THE GAME IT’S JUST A TRAILER YOU HAVEN’T SEEN EVERYTHING
    >Some people say “this doesn’t look awesome
    >People say “YOU CAN’T COMMENT ON THE GAME IT’S JUST A TRAILER YOU HAVEN’T SEEN EVERYTHING”

    • 13/06/2010 at 17:23 Dominic White says:

      You’re now tantruming in two threads now. If you were a grown-up, you’d have looked at the trailer, said something like ‘That doesn’t show much at all. Can’t really get interested or say much at this point’ and leave it at that, rather than going on a sprawling tirade, wrapped in a growing persecution complex.

    • 13/06/2010 at 17:45 Tom Davidson says:

      Dominic, I think it’s in rather poor taste to insult people for voicing their opinions, then insult them for being upset by your insult. Pick a position and stand by it: either you were “just kidding” about the insult, and they shouldn’t take your criticism seriously, or you and the other people on this board going on about “festering black hate” and the like actually meant those insults, and the people so targeted have every reason to be annoyed.

    • 13/06/2010 at 18:04 Mad Doc MacRae says:

      Exactly. I probably overreacted in the Kings and whatever thread, but many, many people in this thread wrote perfectly valid criticisms of both recycling the XCOM name for this game, and the quality of the trailer and the gameplay within it. Those people were not met with reasonable counterarguments, but were immediately denounced as whiners and angry internet men. The latter I think is becoming a term thrown around to mean “voicing an opinion I disagree with” which is probably not good at all, and is only going to contribute to supposed problems of communication on the internet.

      But no, everyone here with a negative comment about the game or the trailer is a hate-filled intellectual midget throwing childish tantrums. Especially if they try to explain their frustration with how this discussion has gone on. Then they also have a persecution complex.

    • 13/06/2010 at 19:56 CloakRaider says:

      Perhaps he was saying that the trailer looked awesome?
      because if he was your entire point sort of falls apart.

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:25 Jim Rossignol says:

      I’m looking forward to when the new Syndicate game turns out to be a shooter… Haha, oh fuck, that might just happen.

    • 14/06/2010 at 08:49 mrmud says:

      Would still make a lot more sense than having X-COM be a shooter.

    • 14/06/2010 at 08:54 poop says:

      yeah but dominic you love and will passionately defend every single AAA shooter you buy

    • 15/06/2010 at 08:59 Dominic White says:

      Yeaaaah except no. And I’m amazed that this meme follows me EVERYWHERE ON THE FUCKING INTERNET.

      I just don’t talk about games that I don’t like, because why would I want to do that? I could go into a page-upon-page diatribe about how Doom 3 bored me into a coma, or how Prey was the most crushingly easy, repetitive game I’ve ever played, but that’d serve no purpose other than to fill the internet with yet more angry white noise.

      But y’know what I do? I play games that i DO enjoy, and talk about them. I don’t throw multi-year-long tantrums. There’s some people here still incredibly bitter over Bioshock, I notice. And are they having fun? Fuck no, they’re still whining.

  164. 13/06/2010 at 17:43 Yoyoyo says:

    I find the lack of destructible environments and squad control in the trailer disturbing.

  165. 13/06/2010 at 17:56 Bashful says:

    Looks like a great strategy game has been turned into another crappy FPS to me.

  166. 13/06/2010 at 18:01 toni says:

    that looks … retarded

  167. 13/06/2010 at 18:15 7 Seas says:

    christ what a turd. I see RPS continues to pretend this won’t suck, are they paying your hosting bills this month or something guys?

    the engine/gameplay really reminded me of Postal for some reason…

    Additionally, this is almost guaranteed to be a commercial failure. “studying” is not exactly on the top ten desired USPs for your average Call of Duty gamer.

    • 13/06/2010 at 18:39 Dominic White says:

      And there we have it! Accusastions that RPS has sold out and is in the pockets of corporate interests! I knew you could do it, kiddo. Have a chocolate coin.

    • 13/06/2010 at 20:43 Alexandros says:

      Can you blame him? Pretty much everyone who loved the original game is upset at this change in direction but Alec Meer, self-professed X-Com fan seems to think that this is actually a good thing. Alec creates a couple of X-Com tribute articles to cement the feeling that he is indeed a fan, so that he can “sell” us this new game that has nothing to do with the original.

      Especially the line “come on, did you really think that it would really be a strategy game” is just plain insulting. Does he criticize the company? No. Does he voice his objection or his concerns? No. Does he at least voice his own opinion on whether this change is justified? Nah. All he seems to do is try to hype the game, while his job is to be sceptical and critical. He is a journalist, you know. I’m not saying that he sold out, but I certainly think that he isn’t as impartial and objective as he should.

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:14 Shalrath says:

      “Can you blame him? Pretty much everyone who loved the original game is upset at this change in direction but Alec Meer, self-professed X-Com fan seems to think that this is actually a good thing.”

      Guy sees a game series he loved with a change in genre, voices opinion that he likes it? What an asshole.

      I bet that guy liked Fallout 3, the sellout.

    • 13/06/2010 at 22:06 Dominic White says:

      Yeah, this is really amazingly broken logic. Someone isn’t irrationally furious about a videogame, so OBVIOUSLY they’re a corporate sellout, rolling in the money that their nefarious masters pour upon them.

      I’ve been a PC gamer since the early 80s, and y’know what? I like Halo as well. I never liked Sensible Soccer. I enjoyed Far Cry 2 when people were flipping out over how it’s the worst thing ever made, too. I haven’t recieved a single penny from these big companies. It’s called a difference of opinion, and retreating so far into your own little world that the only POSSIBLE way to someone to think differently is if they’re on someones payroll is fucking moronic.

      Grow up.

  168. 13/06/2010 at 18:24 Speculation says:

    I’m starting to think the research by taking photos will be annoying like the flashlight in Doom 3. Slowly walking around documenting the scene and then “OH no!” blob flying towards you, switch to weapon, shoot, switch to camera, go back to taking photos.

  169. 13/06/2010 at 18:48 Wootakin says:

    You guys shouldn’t knock a game until you’ve played it. Also LOL at the armchair designers…how many games have you developed? Didn’t think so. You shouldn’t criticize professional game developers unless you know what its like and how hard it is.

  170. 13/06/2010 at 20:25 Alexandros says:

    @jalf: You see, that’s where you’re wrong. I am not trying to tell anyone that this game will suck. It may very well be the best FPS of 2010. That is not the issue. The issue is that game companies think that the modern gamer is too stupid to play anything other than shooters or shooter-like games. Nothing more, nothing less. I want gaming to encompass strategy, rpg, action, stealth, sports, racing and everything else. I don’t want every single franchise to turn into a shooter. Is that so hard to understand? Does it offend you that much that there are some people who actually want to play a strategy game instead of some fps-strategy hybrid?

    • 13/06/2010 at 20:41 Jimbo says:

      Not enough of you/us it seems. This being a shooter has nothing to do with the publisher thinking people are stupid and everything to do with the publisher being smart enough to know what sells and what doesn’t.

      If they put out a straight X-Com remake, sure, you’d buy it and *maybe* a few hundred thousand other people would buy it. The much, much larger (paying) console audience would totally ignore it. That’s not to say that nobody could justify making that game, but it’s way too small-fry for these guys to bother with.

    • 13/06/2010 at 20:52 Vinraith says:

      @Jimbo

      That’s pretty much the story of modern PC gaming, isn’t it? The development houses that are small enough and independent enough to want to make games like the classics can’t afford the licenses to name them as part of the franchise that inspired them. The houses that can afford the licenses can’t afford to make a game with classic gameplay elements because shooters are the only reliable large revenue game type these days in their eyes.

      On the up side, in the case of something like X-Com, the name doesn’t matter so much anyway. Several smaller houses are making true follow-ups ot X-Com, it’s just that none of them can afford to call them X-Com.

    • 13/06/2010 at 20:53 Chaz says:

      I don’t think the problem is that modern games designers think we are too stupid to play anything but shooters. I think the problem is that it’s more likely to sell a lot better if it does contain some shooting elements.

      Lets be realistic here, if they were to pump millions of pounds into making it a big budget hardcore strategy game, they’d probably be lucky to see a return on their investment let alone make a profit. Would you risk millions of pounds of your own cash on a risky investment, I doubt you would do, and neither will many developers and publishers. The only way you’re going to see a hardcore X-Com strategy style title in todays market is by looking to the smaller independant developers.

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:00 Alexandros says:

      Yeah, but why would they ignore it? I mean, all these people in this thread are trying to convince us that the genre doesn’t really matter if the game is actually good. So, if the console audience does enjoy deeper games, why wouldn’t they enjoy a good strategy game? I mean, that’s the first thing we should care about, isn’t it? If a game is good or not? You can’t have the cake and eat it, either the audience is mature enough to appreciate a good game or it only cares about action games and dismisses everything else. Which one is it?

      Look, at some point people are going to have to wake up and smell the roses. The design team didn’t say “we want to create a new X-Com game, what’s the best way to do it”. They said “we want to make another Bioshock, what’s the best way to market it”. People (and the RPS staff) want to pretend that isn’t the case, but someone has to call their bulls***.

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:14 Alexandros says:

      @ Chaz: I think that Sid Meier (Civilization) and Blizzard (Starcraft 2) would disagree with your assessment.

      Bottom line: If you want to create a big-budget strategy game and you can actually produce a good game, it will be profitable. On the other hand, if you only know how to make shooters, you start spouting crap about “reimaginings” and “bringing the game to the modern audience”.

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:19 Psychopomp says:

      “This being a shooter has nothing to do with the publisher thinking people are stupid and everything to do with the publisher being smart enough to know what sells and what doesn’t.”

      And this is why I pay near zero attention to triple A devs, now.

    • 13/06/2010 at 22:04 Jimbo says:

      @Vinraith: Yes it is, I absolutely agree with you. Which is why I don’t care at all that these guys are using the name for this and that some other X-Com clone won’t carry the name. It just doesn’t matter.

      @Alex: I don’t think anybody is pretending that isn’t the case (though whether it is exactly like Bioshock remains to be seen). I know that’s probably the case and just don’t find it particularly offensive, or see why I should. So “Sorry”, I guess.

      Why would they ignore it? Why not? Is there a single scrap of evidence to suggest that pure strategy games have the ability to sell well on a console? Console gamers will play games exactly as deep as a couch, a pad and their lifestyle permits them to be – figure that out for strategy and maybe it will sell, but nobody has demonstrated it yet that I can think of.

      If we want to see games like this being made by top tier studios again, the question isn’t “How do we force this genre on console gamers?”, it’s “How do we recover a sizeable PC audience that is actually willing/forced to pay for their games?”.

    • 13/06/2010 at 23:25 DK says:

      “If they put out a straight X-Com remake, sure, you’d buy it and *maybe* a few hundred thousand other people would buy it. The much, much larger (paying) console audience would totally ignore it. That’s not to say that nobody could justify making that game, but it’s way too small-fry for these guys to bother with”

      Then don’t spend fucking 10 million dollars developing it. Stop investing in every single game you make in amounts that simply require it to be a completely unreasonable success.

      Here’s an easy hint for all you publishers and developers: If you don’t try to finance and develop a million seller game – the game you are going to make isn’t going to have to SELL millions of copies to make a profit.

      Of course, if you make yet another tired old Next Gen shooter – you’re going to have to compete with other stupid publishers who make tired old Next Gen shooters with big budgets. A novel idea from me? Try another genre. How about turn based strategy – I hear they’re way cheaper to make.

    • 14/06/2010 at 02:17 Corporate Dog says:

      My two cents?

      A turn-based strategy game with the production values of a modern-day AAA title (cinematic cutscenes, top-notch voice acting, completely 3D presentation) might sell decently in this day and age.

      Consoles still get the occasional turn-based import (albeit, with little fanfare) because it’s cheap enough to translate a game that already sold well in Japan, throw it into the Western market, and make a few extra bucks on it. But these games have production values that are already four-to-five years out of date when we get them, and have no marketing to speak of.

      Put a little more ‘oomph’ behind a similar release, focus on the shiny graphics in your promotion materials (as most shooters do) and I bet it sells in amounts that make it worth a developer’s effort.

      Exhibit A: Dragon Age. Throwback gameplay from the 90′s, with modern-day production values, and Bioware made good bank on it.

    • 14/06/2010 at 18:05 Jimbo says:

      @DK: That’s why I said ‘too small fry’ and not ‘unprofitable’. You take go from selling 3 million copies of Bioshock 2, to aiming for sub 1 million sales on your next project.

  171. 13/06/2010 at 20:39 The Unbelievable Guy says:

    Are RPS comment threads getting worse and worse, or is it just me?

    • 13/06/2010 at 20:42 Jimbo says:

      You are unbelievable.

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:04 Alexandros says:

      Yeah, they are. It used to be so much better when a new trailer would pop up and everybody would go “ooh” and “aah”. Nowadays there’s actually a discussion where people criticize a game company for the direction they took on a new game and presenting valid arguments. Lame.

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:10 Vinraith says:

      RPS is getting a higher profile and consequently more posters. That means you’re going to get some trolls and some inarticulate idiots, yes, but it also means you’re going to have more intelligent individuals discussing matters passionately. I think it all balances out, myself.

    • 13/06/2010 at 21:19 Jim Rossignol says:

      They’re no “worse”, there’s just more going on. The traffic on RPS is increasing all the time, so we’re going to see some more, uh, colorful opinions.

      I think RPS’ core readership has always been pretty critical, but we’re just as critical of commenter stupidity as we are of corporate boneheadedness.

  172. 13/06/2010 at 21:45 Shalrath says:

    “but we’re just as critical of commenter stupidity as we are of corporate boneheadedness.”

    Proof Jim thinks XCom is being ruined! ;)

  173. 13/06/2010 at 22:09 Pesseroth says:

    They should have just named this World of Gooshock and everyone would be happy.

  174. 13/06/2010 at 23:13 Hryme says:

    Blasphemy. *sniff* Why couldn’t they spend resources on making a good turn-based strategy successor to X-com instead of this worthless fps. Modern AAA developers are so boring. What happened to choice, gameplay and strategic depth in the last 10 years? All the high budget games made today by large western studios are just interactive movies instead of games (I know this is hyperbole but I am pissed off right now).

    Ah well I just have to keep buying games from eastern european and independent developers to get quality games in the future too.

    This game will be a generic, useless FPS that would have been better off never being made. Sadly it will probably sell quite a bit to the mindless crowd and convince developers and publishers that they will have to continue making shit to earn money.

    And for the record Bioshock was a shallow, unimaginative and boring game compared to System Shock 2. Bioshock was a better movie though.

    • 13/06/2010 at 23:39 Hryme says:

      Btw, I know this rant is generic and has been said a thousand times before. Like when Fallout 3 was about to be released. But as I said I am pissed off now and this is the first time I have felt the need to voice my opinion. Because the original X-com is one of my all time favorite games. I am aware it is just an opinion and that no worthwhile discussion can come out of it. I will just vote with my wallet and try to forget this game is being made.

  175. 13/06/2010 at 23:21 screeg says:

    Whoa! A first person shooter. Anybody remember playing these back in the day? I’m talkin’ mid-90′s, pure old school action. Why don’t they make games like this anymore?!

  176. 14/06/2010 at 00:41 Finn says:

    Still waiting on a fps/strategy/whatever game that let’s the player play as the invading evil space aliens and yes, I know there was a game a couple fo years ago with that premise but it wasn’t that great.

  177. 14/06/2010 at 00:53 Lizardman says:

    That was a great trailer for Gish 2.

    Seriously though, I think it looks interesting. I’ve very much enjoyed the first XCOM games, but strangely enough don’t find this one to be offensive to my sensibilities.

  178. 14/06/2010 at 01:08 Silly2k says:

    STUDY THEM
    *shoots blob with shotgun*

    FIGHT THEM
    *shoots blob with revolver*

  179. 14/06/2010 at 01:33 Corporate Dog says:

    Not for me, unless there’s some sort of vaguely tactical squad-command layer that they just aren’t showing in the trailer.

    I like their twist on the concept and setting, and the period details are pretty sweet, but if I dip a toe into shooter territory, the game has to have something else going for it that skews a little closer to my preferred genres (like RPG mechanics, or the fiddly management bits that give original X-Com a good chunk of its essence).

  180. 14/06/2010 at 07:39 RadioactiveMan says:

    Well, I read through all the comments (yes, i love X-Com that much), and I want to discuss something that hasn’t been directly mentioned yet:

    The RPS article a few weeks back and this trailer both emphasize a RUN choice in the new Xcom game. I think this new feature highlights my main gripe about the new Xcom. From reading what is available, my interpretation of the RUN concept is that you, the player character, can retreat if the situation is beyond your depth.

    And that’s the problem right there: Everything in this trailer, and in everything else I can find on the internet, suggests that you play as a single character throughout this game. If I had to guess, you are the older looking gent with the glasses and hat who shows up in the trailer and in some of the other promotional materials. For me, this is the antithesis of everything that Xcom was. The soul of Xcom, for me, was your interchangeable-but-precious soldiers. When you took command of a squaddie his fate was in your hands, for better or worse.

    If the new XCom places you into the shoes of a single character for the duration then, for me, its completely divorced itself from everything that made X-Com great. I’m not interested in Levels, or Save Points, or a Base (the way that your ship in Mass Effect was a “base”). I don’t want the success of my game to rely on my character’s survival (or the survival of the only base I am allowed to build). Sh!t, I don’t want a game, I want a campaign. I want that additional layer of removal that makes honest strategic and tactical decision making possible. I want that flexibility, and that ability to try different strategies and to live with the repercussions. The original X-Com had this, and it added significant depth and weighty-ness to your decisions. Sometimes you made a bad decision- your favorite soldier caught in the open with no TUs, your primary base with no defenses, your troops without adequate gear to handle a terror mission; and all you could do was say well, that was bad, lets do better next time.

    As has been mentioned by others- this reboot of XCom appears to suffer from consolitis and general dumbing-down. From what I have seen, the game developers are basically saying, we discussed this, and decided we have to make the game THIS dumb and simple (for purposes of sales, most likely). We can’t give you too many options, or too much flexibility, because we don’t trust you to invest in our game if we don’t go right for your adrenaline-craving inner adolescent. They are saying, basically, that even though 15 years ago a game was made that was beloved by all game-playing demographics; they are now not going to push the bar for gameplay, but instead are going to give us shiny graphics, simplified mechanics, crappy AI companions, and to tie the experience to a single character. Which is what every other shooter already gives us.

    This lack of faith, which for me is summed up in the apparent decision to make you a single character throughout, is hugely disappointing.

    • 14/06/2010 at 07:54 RadioactiveMan says:

      Just a quick afterthought: I have no problem with XCom as a first person shooter. Just make me some kind of over the shoulder tactical commander, rather than making me a non expendable character (like Brothers in Arms did). Give me something like the old Space Hulk FPS, but streamlined. Or like the shoulder cameras the marines had in Aliens…. how cool would it be to be Gorman?

  181. 14/06/2010 at 08:24 Alexandros says:

    @ Dominic White: Your position is very different to the one Alec and Jim are in. You are a gamer, you are under no obligation tobe critical and sceptic. If you enjoy these games, fine, no problem with that. As I’ve said before, it may actually turn out to be a great game, but that is not the issue.

    Alec, Jim and every other games journalist has an obligation to the readership to be critical and sceptical. Because of their position, they have to criticize. They have to ask the tough questions, they have to be the medium through which every opinion can be heard. It’s not their role to hype a game, simple as that.

    Seeing as RPS is a PC-oriented site, it’s really dissapointing that the chose to evade the issue of turning a strategy game into a FPS by saying “did you really think it would a strategy game?” and “this looks awesome”. They completely dismissed one side of the argument, as if it doesn’t matter at all.

    When you become a journalist, you have certain obligations. You can’t just use your own preferences as a rule to what everyone else might like. You can’t say “I don’t really like strategy games and Blizzard is turning Starcraft 3 into a FPS, so yay!”. You have to present both sides of the argument, keep a certain amount of objectivity and then state your own opinion on the matter.

    When you choose to immediately take sides from the beginning of the article (Alec) or just plain mock everyone who doesn’t agree with you (Jim), then you can’t really blame people for thinking that you’d rather befriend the company than serve your readers.

    @ Jimbo: I really don’t see a problem with creating a turn-based game for use with a console. I would have accepted your argument if we were talking about a real time game, but I don’t understand why a turn based game would be problematic with a gamepad. There have been tons of turn-based games on console, so that’s not really the issue, is it? You may not want to admit it but the real reason that companies create mostly FPS and action games is because the console audience simply wants instant gratification games and classifies everything else as “boring”. If that isn’t true (and I really hope it isn’t, as it would mean better games for all of us), then the voice of the people that like deeper games isn’t being heard. Why? Could it be because the press seems comfortable in praising each and every decision the game companies make, while branding every other opinion as “fanboyistic”?

    • 14/06/2010 at 08:43 Dominic White says:

      RPS is a personal blog. Jim, Alec, Kieron and John can all write whatever the hell they want, which is kinda the entire point of the site. They have no ‘obligation’ to be angry and cynical. That’s just ridiculous.

    • 14/06/2010 at 08:51 Archonsod says:

      “Seeing as RPS is a PC-oriented site, it’s really dissapointing that the chose to evade the issue of turning a strategy game into a FPS by saying “did you really think it would a strategy game?” and “this looks awesome”. ”

      2 of the 5 XCom games were not strategy games. Of the two in production when Hasbro shut down XCom, one was in fact a first person shooter. Seems to me that the XCom brand covered various genres and was not in fact restricted to a single genre. If they had stated explicitly they were remaking UFO and then made an FPS you might have a point, but given an “XCom” game at present could refer to a third person shooter, a dogfighter style flight sim or a turn based strategy I don’t understand precisely where you’re getting this “XCom games must be strategy games” from.

      Personally, I enjoyed the XCom series myself (apart from Enforcer, that was dire) and couldn’t really care if they turned out to be making Guitar Hero : XCom. I’m more interested in whether it will in fact be a good game rather than whatever IP they happen to be associating it with.

    • 14/06/2010 at 11:53 Corporate Dog says:

      @Dominic: I largely agree with your point about what this blog is, but note that ‘angry and cynical’ is NOT the same thing as ‘critical’.

      The latter IS what journalists should stive for: take nothing at face value, ask questions, and when all the facts are in, deliver a verdict that is neither too gushing, nor too bombastically destructive.

      That said, I never really considered RPS to be saddled with some sort of moral obligation to provide us with strict journalistic integrity. I always considered it an outlet for these game journalists to be able to exercise their gamer side (and for Keiron to name drop obscure pop bands).

    • 14/06/2010 at 11:55 Corporate Dog says:

      “2 of the 5 XCom games were not strategy games.”

      @Archon: 2 of the 5 XCom games were also pure, unadulterated SHIT.

      Just sayin’.

    • 14/06/2010 at 22:55 Psychopomp says:

      They were also spinoffs, not the future of the franchise.

  182. 14/06/2010 at 08:51 Anthony Damiani says:

    It looks pretty and atmospheric, but– really, how is this XCOM?

  183. 14/06/2010 at 09:42 Alexandros says:

    @ Dominic White: Of course they can write whatever the hell they want. I didn’t say angry or cynical though, did I? I said sceptic and critical, which is basically the whole point of being a journalist.

    • 14/06/2010 at 09:45 Alexandros says:

      @ Archonsod: True, there were other X-Com games that tried to deviate from the turn-based strategy path. Both of these games were universally panned by the fans and given low scores by reviewers, so I’m not really sure what your point is.

    • 14/06/2010 at 10:18 Rich says:

      I think his point is that this new developer isn’t the first to try this. The original creators of X-Com, arguably those with the most right to do so, tried to move their IP in a new direction long ago. They already turned X-Com into a franchise.

      Now, where’s that cheque from the developers?

    • 14/06/2010 at 10:35 Chaz says:

      @ Alexandros

      I thought the point of being a journalist was to bring stories of interest to the attention of a news hungry public.

  184. 14/06/2010 at 10:33 Testicular Torsion says:

    So I clicked through, expecting to see something about X-Com. Instead, there’s this trailer where Ward Cleaver shoots a bunch of black blobs. Apart from the name, there’s not a single X-Com-related thing in it.

    I am willing to believe that the RPS guys liked what they saw of this game. I am even willing to accept that it could turn out to be a good game. But you’d think that if they wanted to capitalize on the X-Com brand, they’d try to show something that would appeal to anyone who’s actually played an X-Com game? I am honestly baffled.

    (Forlorn hope: Maybe they accidentally released the trailer for a different game?)

    • 14/06/2010 at 10:41 Chaz says:

      Yeah but watching a mouse pointer hover over a management screen doesn’t really make for exciting viewing.

    • 14/06/2010 at 10:56 Testicular Torsion says:

      Yes, but neither does this!

      If you’re going to play on the cachet of the X-Com name, the people you’ll attract with it are people who remember playing the original games. Right? So why would you let their first glimpse of your game be… this? Two minutes of some vaguely tired-looking shootery corridor bits?

      Maybe some people would find it boring… but as for me, I think it would’ve been fucking sweet if they’d showed the strategic stuff in the trailer. This just… meh.

    • 14/06/2010 at 13:17 Chaz says:

      You know, I agree with you, I would also have really liked to have seen some of the managment stuff, which I believe will still be part of the game. However with this being their anouncement trailer as it were, I guess they thought they needed to start things off with an action packed bang and who can blame them. Plus they probably didn’t want to scare off any potential newbs to the series by showing them 20 seconds of management screens. I’m presuming that they’ll expand on more of the available gameplay in later trailers. I for one, are just glad we got to see some of the in game action rather than the usual CGI intro movie.

  185. 14/06/2010 at 11:00 Alexandros says:

    @ Rich: Ah, well you are both wrong. Mythos Games (the company that created the series) developed the first and the third game, while the second one was developed in-house by Microprose using the same engine that Mythos Games created. X-Com Interceptor and X-Com Enforcer, the games that went “in a new direction” were NOT developed by the creators of the original game. So, would you care to revise your former comment?

    • 14/06/2010 at 11:03 Alexandros says:

      @ Chaz: So their main purpose is to report the news eh? Fair enough, but there’s one little problem: They didn’t just report they news, they took a definitive stance and declared this trailer “awesome”. So help me clear this up, it’s ok to express your opinion if it’s positive, but you only have to report the news when there is something negative that needs to be said?

    • 14/06/2010 at 11:15 jalf says:

      Good grief, so much whiiiiniiiiiing…

      I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but that whole thing about RPS is OBLIGATED BY LAW to hate the game? It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not true.

      Alec, Jim and every other games journalist has an obligation to the readership to be critical and sceptical. Because of their position, they have to criticize. They have to ask the tough questions, they have to be the medium through which every opinion can be heard. It’s not their role to hype a game, simple as that.

      And? Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that Alec asked the tough questions when they showed him the game, and he was convinced that they were on to a good thing.
      Is that not allowed? Is that some kind of Crime Against Journalism?

      No, it is not. Journalists are actually allowed to say “from everything we know, this is going to be awesome”.

      Even if it hurts a few fanboys’ feelings.

      Seeing as RPS is a PC-oriented site, it’s really dissapointing that the chose to evade the issue of turning a strategy game into a FPS by saying “did you really think it would a strategy game?” and “this looks awesome”. They completely dismissed one side of the argument, as if it doesn’t matter at all.

      They’re right. It doesn’t matter
      What matters is if it’s going to be awesome or not. FPS, RPG, strategy or puzzle game just… doesn’t… matter…. RPS is not The National Institution For Preservation Of Old-School Strategy Games. They’re not inthe business of whining when developers make changes to games. They’re in the business of talking about games, and of letting people know which games are going to be awesome.

      When you become a journalist, you have certain obligations.

      Er, says who?
      Have you ever read anything written by a journalist?

      When you choose to immediately take sides from the beginning of the article (Alec) or just plain mock everyone who doesn’t agree with you (Jim), then you can’t really blame people for thinking that you’d rather befriend the company than serve your readers.

      Why shouldn’t Alec take sides from the beginning? If he was convinced the game is good from the beginning? What else should he be waiting for? Are you saying journalists are not allowed to say “this game looks promising” until after it is released? It might surprise you, but “previews” are actually pretty common in the game journalism biz.

      while branding every other opinion as “fanboyistic”?

      Not every other opinion. Just the incoherent, illogical and exceedingly angry ones.

    • 14/06/2010 at 11:28 Rich says:

      Fair enough. I was really just clarifying Archonsod’s point. If he’d been right that all previous X-Com types had been made by the same people, then I’d still agree with him.
      I still think the trailer looks good though, and the game looks interesting.
      Of course, I didn’t play X-Com, so I’m just basing my opinion on what I see here. What I see looks cool. I don’t think it looks all that generic either. The setting and the lack of traditional monster-like aliens is pretty unusual. Also, there wasn’t a barely covered boob in sight.

      I can understand the annoyance from fans of the game though.
      As a former Mac gamer, I was a huge fan of Bungie.
      When they got into bed with Microsoft, Halo went to the XBox and Myth got fobbed off to Take Two, my teenage winging could be heard in forums throughout the internet.

    • 14/06/2010 at 11:31 Rich says:

      “When you become a journalist, you have certain obligations.”

      As jalf pointed out, you clearly don’t read many newspapers.
      Especially not British ones.

    • 14/06/2010 at 11:35 Alexandros says:

      “I can understand the annoyance from fans of the game though.”

      You know, that’s all we ask, for someone to acknowledge that what this company is doing is considered wrong by some people. That’s all. Instead, both Alec and Jim chose to immediately dismiss that point of view and Jim also saw fit to make fun of the people who protest. It’s not fair and I certanly expected more from RPS in this matter.

  186. 14/06/2010 at 11:06 marilena says:

    “Yeah but watching a mouse pointer hover over a management screen doesn’t really make for exciting viewing.”

    To each his own. I was very excited to watch the Elemental gameplay video where this was pretty much the only thing that was going on.

    Seriously speaking, though, it is quite normal for a first trailer to be light on gameplay details, in fact this one beats the odds by having some gameplay footage included.

    It could probably be a bit better – the last scene, especially, was a better concept than the final product makes it. You don’t quite get why the FBI agent does nothing and why his animations are so poor.

    The fact that you only see blobs definitely feels a bit weird, especially as you do see the player using several different weapons. Bioshock also had this – only a few types of enemies and very many ways of killing them.

  187. 14/06/2010 at 11:30 Alexandros says:

    @ jalf: Look if you need to use strawman arguments to defend your views, such as “they are obligated to hate the game”, then go right ahead. I’m not going to follow the same path, I thought we were actually trying to have a proper discussion.

    Like I’ve said before, the issue of a game changing genre is a pretty important one for some gamers. The journalist may like the new game, love it, hate it or whatever and he’s free to voice his opinion. However, it’s important that he also takes his position into account and at least try to see “the other side”. The issue I have with Alec and Jim is that they dismissed the other opinion as irrelevant or fanboyistic, not that they liked the game. Why is this so hard to understand?

  188. 14/06/2010 at 12:13 Chris D says:

    This one’s just going to run and run, huh? I seem to recall that people have made more or less direct imitations of X-Com before (UFO: Aftermath, light and shock, anyone?) Nobody seems to have liked them. So it seems to me that making a direct reboot of a classic isn’t exactly the path to everyones hearts that people are claiming. My prediction is had they tried it again there would be just as many complaints, only they’d be about how they’re just churning out the same old stuff and never trying anything new.

  189. 14/06/2010 at 12:40 Phydaux says:

    It’s a pretty standard game trailer. I think if 2K had given it a Valve style spin, they could have hooked up all the old xcom fans plus pulled in a whole bunch of new ones.

    Maybe I just like Valves style, but this trailer didn’t seem to have any detail that the fans could quibble over. Just simple things like changing the shot from the front of the car to the rear and having the car’s model as “Interceptor”. Little details. A hint to it’s origins, even if the game is only similar in name. Or maybe some light-hearted joke referencing it’s B-movie style. But no, it’s like it’s trying to take its self very seriously, and make the threat seem dark and scary, when it’s just blobs and oblongs.

  190. 14/06/2010 at 13:24 Andrei Sebastian says:

    The post must ironic…

    The trailer looks downright horrible. Not only it looks like the blandest shooter possible (nothing of originality), but it looks as an extremely bad shooter too, the equivalent of Rogue Warrior or something.

    Let’s get this out of the way: I’m not an X-COM fan, I didn’t even play a X-COM more than three levels or so. I think this effectively removes any danger of fanboyism.

    Even dough I have no actual experience in playing the game itself, I have met quite a few friends that were obsessed with it. From what I see, there is absolutely no connection watsoever with X-COM, no respect for the game canon even. “X-COM” is simply a marketing gimmik, like Fallout 3 was, in order to more effectively pitch the game ideea to the publishers, and to try to appeal to a larger gamers target.

    Seeing how we’ve established there is no connection with the X-COM games (as many posters here argumented) – on with the post and the game itself…
    This, doesn’t, by any means, look awesome. Everything about the trailer is made in the cheapest manner possible. It also looks like one of the worst shooters ever to appear on the market. Shooting blobs – ’nuff said! Shooting blobs has been made here and there, but most of the times there was a slight twist that provided the salt and pepper needed to make it work. It’s unbelievable that someone could actually come with such a game concept in 2010, it’s pitiful. The whole game looks like the equivalent of a C-Movie (not made so on purpose, like “They Live” or “Duke Nukem”). Also, techincally, the game looks disgusting; who exactly was the genius that allowed this trailer to be released, does he know anything about games or AAA games graphics? Normally graphics is’nt on the priority list, but in this particular case… I’m picking on it because the trailer evidently is geared towards this particular market. Visually the game is, so far, jarring. There are at least 20 rendering glithces I counted, the quirky depth of field being one that’s unforgivable. The editing of the trailer is, likewise, one of the most stupid, redundant and clicheyed I’ve ever witnessed (I work in this particular field, so this was the first thing that jumped to my mind). You also have to keep in mind this is, after all, the trailer – I don’t even want to imagine how the game’s gonna be like.
    There’s nothing that suggests intelligent gameplay or depth, so you’ve got to have at least a feasible shooter gameplay and shooter mechanics. The shooting looks as clumsy and visually unsatifying as Fallout 3 (clumsy whitout a proper argument or purpose like in Cryostasis or Metro 2033). The atmosphere and environment also is, in a facile development manner, borrowed from Bioshock and Fallout (it’s worth here to mention the original Fallout ,and latter Bioshock, at least bringed some sort of novelty with it – which is definitely not the case here).

    Oh my god! I could go on and on, but I think the trailer efficiently speaks for itself.

    P.S.
    I so don’t get the post… I don’t get it, really. Is there something I’m missing?

  191. 14/06/2010 at 14:04 Ohnoes says:

    Oh look, it’s ghostbusters the video game part 2.

    (You say no? I say: Blobby slimey things, a – possibly once more TOTALLY ANNOYING – ectometer to “find” crap, a ton of carnage and screaming people, and the supernatural. I haven’t read much yet, but if there’s also a 3-4 man team and one is called either Ray, Bill or Egon, I think someone should file a lawsuit. Also, this game has about as much to do with X-Com as a Vegan has to do with meat.)

    On a more positive note:I do hope they go with blood and gore rather than console violence and blobs only though..I am so sick and tired of dust puffs instead of blood and comicbook deaths without a single sign that anything ever happened to the body..
    There are 1-2 nice things, such as the character actually screaming “DIE!”..god I miss games like Blood, Duke and friends where you actually played a character that had, well, character, feelings, emotions and an attitude.
    100% of that is missing in most modern games.

  192. 14/06/2010 at 14:37 FilthyPalpatine says:

    Whoa. A 21st century reboot of a property I love over all other games that turns out to have F nothing to do with the game I actually loved and played. Didn’t see that coming when I heard UE3 and one trick pony 2k marin. It’s almost like, the guys who made oblivion got the rights to fallout(then spoiled it a bit, if you are actually in the know and remember that oblivion with guns is a bad thing) . Nah, will never happen.

    And whats with this 50s asthetic. You know, people, maybe the later, dumber x-com games were using some dopey 50s theme, but the one I played, the one that was actually important to pc gaming, had more in common with a cartoon or comic book.

    For those of you who don’t remember, or are just pretending to have loved it, The intro shows you a bunch of spikey haired protagonists, leaping about in blue armor, wielding extremely futuristic pulse weapons, ventilating purple aliens in green jumpsuits. THERE IS NO FIFTIES. NO FIFTIES.

    You start with a group of guys with future pistols, in cleaner outfits, dropped off in SKYRANGER ONE. Skyranger one is a flying crysis APC for anybody who missed it, maybe with a couple of impala fins on it, but it’s a crysis APC, not a little black 55. Looks awesome? What is wrong with you people. Idiot developers already grossly misinterpreted the part the 50s played in another game series I loved.

    And now, we have a game that proudly featured strange, spiky gatling guns the size of mans, your first goddamn research project was lasers. And not some dumb 50s lasers, laser pistols, followed by rifles, followed by cannons and heavies, for your, you know, SKYRANGER, F-22(INTERCEPTOR), and FLYING POWER ARMOR. NOT YOUR FIFTIES.

    What the hell? The bioshock 2 team? WHY? WHAT THE HELL? X-com right?

    This is the game where I’d loot downed spaceships (that I shot down, myself) for the intact reactors (because I had the choice to use minimally destructive weaponry) and more alien alloys, to build power armors for my janitor mans, who die in one snap shot to the face from greys (sectoids, who I got to dissect after looting bodies from a battleground, could be captured alive, and SOLD ON THE BLACK MARKET, OH AND PSYCHIC PROBE YOU)

    All of a sudden it’s full of retardos number one forever dudebro bullcrap blobs eating people into squares and people, meaning, everyone ever who played x-com isn’t suddenly wtf furious? Where are the chrysalid egg implantings in full 3d? Idiot devs catering to idiot masses with no respect for the original IP.

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