Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The enduring question around 2K Australia’s upcoming XCOM FPS has been “why not just come up with a new IP?” Well, that three posts about X-COM each clocked up triple-figures of comments on Wednesday is the answer to that. A secondary question is “why is everyone so upset that it’s using the X-COM IP?” The IP is not what’s important about X-COM. In terms of fiction, X-COM has only ever been about killing aliens. The important thing is having a game that plays as X-COM did, with its sublime multi-genre cleverness. While it’s unlikely a major publisher would tackle it, the door is not closed to someone else doing that. As has been mentioned by various people, someone like Stardock would be insane to not pick up this baton – there’s a vast and willing audience out there.

First out the gate, though, is indie title Xenonauts, which is militant in its desire to do X-COM properly. It also has a cute genesis – its lead designer Chris England (who is indeed from England) says he was inspired to create an X-COM remake after we wished for one on our podcast. Aw!
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Funny thing. Whenever I try to write about X-COM, as in X-COM the game, not X-COM the place in my heart, I stall. It’s too big. I need to do it at the right time (or perhaps for the right paycheque, I suspect). Where to start? Where to end? There have been superb summaries, makings-of and play diaries. It’s a well-documented game, for sure. Yet I’m not sure there’s been that simple one-two punch of why our collective knickers remain so thoroughly entwisted by it. Perhaps the words of one are not enough. Let’s try the words of many.
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Oof, tough day. I totally get why people are upset, but once again it’s worth waiting for a few more details before you decide the new XCOM is the end of all that is sacred. Maybe it will be, maybe it won’t, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a little honest hope. Today does, however, spell the end of a decade-long dream that someone would throw really serious money at resurrecting the fantastic hybrid genre 1994′s X-COM created. There is a great sadness there – so many ideas left to die, never bettered in the long gap between then and now. So let’s be hopeful, cautiously or otherwise, about XCOM, but let’s also raise a glass to X-COM. We owe it so much, and we may never see its like again. Sniff.

This is the first of two posts exploring why I (and many others) unwaveringly believe X-COM is one of the most important and greatest games ever made. We’ll talk about the game itself in the second one, but first please allow me to indulge myself with this autobiographical prelude. This is why X-COM matters to me.
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Yeah, you heard me. X-COM, the game to end all games, is finally getting its long-rumoured remake/sequel. [Boom. Internet explodes.] Wahoo, basically. Yes, it is indeed a first-person shooter – it is extraordinarily sad to wave away X-COM’s traditional genre, but c’mon, did you really think a AAA title in 2010 (or 11, or whenever it ends up being released) was going to be a turn-based strategy game? Let’s wait and see where they take it, at least.

Contrary to ancient prophecy, this tantalising do-over isn’t being made by Ken Levine, but rather is pitched as a game from 2K Marin, the Bioshock 2 chaps. Though it also seems 2K Australia (née Irrational Australia) are heavily involved. Sparse announcement details and the first in-game screenshot are below…

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Not at all inspired by John’s visual homage to Day of the Tentacle, I find myself compelled to present this large roster of attractive images from a game I’m rather taken with. UFO: Enemy Unknown, also known as X-COM: UFO Defense, is an exciting new science-fiction tactical action game from British developers Mythos, due for release in October 1994. You’ll need to make sure your IBM-compatible personal computer has been upgraded to 2Mb of RAM and a VGA monitor for this one!

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Just a quickie to mention this latest offer over on Steam: All of the Steam X-Com catalogue for $4.99 in the US, and £2.99 in the UK. It’s reportedly only on sale for this weekend, although that’s not made clear on the Steam site, and I suspect that’s a pack that we might see cheap again in the future. That’s some classic gaming for very little and hey, at that price you don’t have to feel guilty about not bothering to play Enforcer. Hooray!

Hooray for olden games! The entire X-COM collection is now on Valve’s digidownloadwebtertainment store. Terror From The Deep’s been there for yonks, but we finally get the first game, Enemy Unknown/UFO Defence. Which is possibly my most beloved game of all time, and I proudly take personal responsibility for getting it into the top 10 of PC Gamer UK’s Top 100 list for the last two years running. If you’re a real retro fetishist, you might also want lesser third game Apocalypse (which I’ve never actually played. Now’s the chance, I guess). If you’re a crazy person, you’ll want rubbish FPS Enforcer and slightly less rubbish action flight sim Interceptor. It’s $5 per game or $15 for the lot.

If you run Vista, you won’t want any of them (I think – am double-checking). No doubt ways and means to get ‘em running do/will exist, but right now it seems there’s no official support. [Sad face].

Update – got word back from Valve – all of ‘em except Interceptor should run fine on Vista, apparently. Woo! I know what I’ll be spending the weekend doing, then.

I had it in my head that this had been properly confirmed ayyyyyyyyyges back, but apparently it’s still stranded in rumourland. Furthermore, it’s a rumour that seemingly had yet to reach everyone’s ears, as evidenced by the internets suddenly talking about Bioshock creators Irrational 2k Boston reportedly working on a new X-COM game as though it’s some sort of ‘news.’ Still, might as well give you fine folks a chance to talk it over here.

2K – the publishery bit – picked up the X-COM rights last year, so it’s pretty much a dead cert to happen at some point, so the mystery remains which dev will make it. That Ken Levine has handed over Bioshock 2 development to a different 2K team further supports educated guesstimation that he’s off working on a super-exciting project like this.
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Ask me what my favourite game of all time is, and I’ll probably say Planescape if I want to seem arch, TF2 if I want to seem contemporary, Peggle if I want to seem kooky, maybe Dungeon Keeper or AvP if I want to succumb to nostalgia. If I’m feeling balanced and honest though, there’s a very strong chance I’d say UFO: Enemy Unknown, the first X-COM game.

It’s a game that’s been endlessly… let’s be generous and say ‘homaged’, both commercially and by dedicated fans. Nothing quite seems to recapture it, sadly – either it’s too different, or too similar, or, most often, it pulls off the underlying structure but doesn’t bother with the gentle surface charm and humour of the old DOS dear. UFO: Alien Invasion, though, is one of the more impassioned and direct clones – a community effort that’s entirely free, and built upon the Quake II engine. Read the rest of this entry »

Spent last week reviewing UFO: Extraterrestrials for Eurogamer. Ended up being very mildly warm towards it, which was more than I was expecting. Because it’s taking from such a well-conceived source – UFO: Enemy Unknown or X-COM: UFO Defence, depending on whether you’re in Europe or the US*, it ends up often being highly entertaining because it’s such a determined plagiarist. And God knows, everyone would like a decent successor to the Gollops’ masterpiece.

I suppose that’s one of the most interesting things about it. While true, it’s not really fair to paint them as just plagarists. They’re more akin to a covers band for a group who’ve long split. While other people have taken some stuff from X-COM – the UFO: Afterlight/Aftershock/Aftermath series – this is something that’s deliberately much more faithful. Even then, it’s not good enough. There’s a determined mod community around the game who are increasingly altering closer and closer and closer to what they’re actually looking for. In most mod communities, there’s a clear division between the developers and people who like the game enough to want to mod it… but here, perversely, the fanbase for the game aren’t actually the fanbase for the game. They’re actually the fanbase of an entirely different game… exactly the same as the developers. They’re like the Rabbis in Pi, searching for the name of God by re-arranging the alphabet of whatever.

Of course, it’s interesting to wonder whether “A New X-Com” is even achievable. For both sides of the argument, see this debate between a load of journos and Devs over at Quarter to Three.

If you’re interested in investigating, it’s available to purchase by Digital Download over at Matrix Games, but only if you’re in America. Everyone else will have to go down the shops, seemingly. How 20th-century.

*Dunno what it’s called anywhere else. Sorry!