X-Com Enemy Unknown

swaaye

Entirely Suboptimal
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Is there really no thread for this game?

Well I am a guy who bought the original in 1994. The box said Microprose and it sounded like a cool game idea. Loved it. I remember it had a cheap box made with folded brown cardboard and a colorful sleeve on top..... But anyway.... :)

New game is very similar to the original. I'm enjoying it a lot. It plays similarly so it's easy to get back into. For total newbies, it has an effective tutorial. I love the new visuals and gameplay ideas. It plays somewhat easier which I approve of because the old game is very difficult. Of course you can up the difficulty.

Soundtrack is obviously Michael McCann since it sounds very much like Deus Ex HR. Pretty sweet. Atmospheric and motivational. Has nods to the original soundtrack too.

Anyone else play it?
 
I played quite a bit of it, though never finished a campaign. I like the base mechanics and the choices on research and fielding satellites/interceptors, really liked the squad choices and upgrades, but some of the game is amusing in how poorly designed it is. You'll quickly notice the actual missions are pretty much creep forward, flank, creep forward, flank, repeat, rinse-wash. . .zzzzzzzzz. And nothing like getting $5 on the black market for an alien body; guess those are all over eBay these days.
 
That might be oversimplifing the missions lol. The turn-based combat that is the core of what people enjoy about the game. I'm not sure how far you progressed. But certainly there are strategies to explore as you develop tech and better soldiers, and face tougher aliens.

The economics of the whole operation have been simplified a bit. It's not dollars this time. They went with credits for some specific accounting simplicity reason. The old game had a lot more buying/selling/recruiting going on though. But it didn't have mission rewards aspect exactly.

The more I think about the two games, the more differences I come up with, even though they are very similar in general.
 
This was probably GoTY 2012 for me, although I still haven't finished it. It's definitely a game that rewards patience, and yeah to some degree inflicts boredom in the process as John says, but I found that to contribute to the tension and make it that much better when shit sets off. Each mission was unique and memorable for me, not so much for the setting or objectives, but just the way the battle actually played out. I actually like the management streamlining as well, especially the this-or-that skill trees.

If you like this game make sure to go back and play Silent Storm if you haven't already.
 
Loved the original. The recent reboot was good but not as good. The combat is just too dumbed down/simplified. I liked the choices in the first of how far to move versus how many AP are left over for other actions. The fact that some of my soldiers in the first didn't have as many AP but were more accurate or had some other benefit associated with them. I liked the semi-random leveling up of each soldier.

The newest one basically took out most of the stuff that was fun in the original, IMO, in favor of making it more appealing to casual players and thus a wider audience.

I replayed the first one tons of times. I have yet to replay the recent one even once.

Now if only the original had graphics as good as the reboot, I'd probably replay it a ton more.

Regards,
SB
 
It was fun and I finished it. It lacks the replayability of the original because of the streamlining of the gameplay. Waiting for mods to replay.
 
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