I can honestly say that change is what made me preorder
Because every time they allegedly fixed that teleporting bug, I'd fire up the game and somehow almost immediately run into that bug
I honestly don't think I've ever run into this bug, and I have no idea why, because it's been something that people have been complaining about since day 1. How does it work again?
In my experience, it usually occurs when an alien moves far enough back into the fog of war that they switch back into their teleporting movement
If I had to take a guess, it'd be that moving far enough back into the fog of war causes them to switch back to that movement behavior, but that alien is also still considered "activated" so they will try to find a waypoint toward the closest point to your squad. Because they've switched over to the "teleport" movement rules though, they just end up showing up right in the middle of your soldiers, and then usually they will melt someone's dome.
The best for me was when a Sectopod took their turn, overwatched... then promptly teleported away.
I was miffed and proceeded to try and test it's ability overwatch from it's new unknown position with someone who did not have Lightning Reflexes. A fatal error.
If they started the marketing wtih EU, everyone would've been NEW XCOM BY FIRAXIS WHAT YOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
oh and you guys are also making some kind of shooter spinoff or something okay that's cool i guess NEW XCOM STRATEGY GAME YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Maybe Firaxis didn't have enough to show at the time. Or maybe it was more cynical and they thought propping up an exciting new shootmans game to reintroduce a classic franchise was The Right Marketing Thing. Whatever. If people know that EU was in the pipe, XCOM 2010 wouldn't have nearly got the horrendous backlash it did. (Yes, that was me too, I remember. I thought it looked cool, but using the Xcom name for it was straight booty.)
Honestly? I think the bass-ackwards way they handled things actually helped, on the net.
If they opened with the strategy game, five gets you ten there'd be a lot more grog noise about losing time units, the loadout system changes, the four man fireteams, the "consolfied" skill system, and on and on. Sure, grogs gotta grog, but it doesn't exactly help word of mouth when you're appealing to a (supposedly, at the time) niche audience. Follow up with announcing a shooter, and it gets even worse.
Go the way they went, though, and most people will be too busy being happy about the TBS existing to get into rage mode about the changes.
I could see that. Like you said though, grognards gonna grog, and for these folks nothing but a near 1-to-1 conversion of the original game will do anyway. At least, at the time, Xenonauts was a thing to look forward to (and OpenXcom now for antediluvian devotees). Hell, last thread ended with yet another argument on how really xcom-y EU is, like it was 2012 again.
Related, someone on reddit posted this interview with Jake Solomon and Julian Gollop from a few years back, and it's adorable how flustered Jake gets with Julian praises EU. Far be it for me to pull appeal to authority, but when the grandaddy of xcom says, "Yo this game is pretty awesome guys," I think that says something.
OldCOM is one of those titles that just oozes Microprose; it's incredibly deep, putting together a surprisingly precise ballistics simulation (they used a raycasting technique, if memory serves, alongside a pioneering method of stacking bitmaps together to create 3D objects & terrain) alongside an intricate UFO ecosystem & base economy simulation.
It was also very fiddly, the UI was convoluted and the pacing wasn't very tight (most noticeable during the tactical phase when you're looking around for the last Goddamn alien on a map and quickly burning-up your patience for the game. Or when you've done your 20th mission in a month and are just exhausted with the rote disembarking procedure with your 12 man squad.
NuCOM is much tighter in terms of pacing (and I find the tactical maps much more engaging with the smaller squad & modern movement system. Fuck action points, they can go burn in 90s Hell), but I do still feel they cut a little too much in EU/EW. Munitions & weapons loadout choices were more interesting in OldCOM, I personally enjoyed the immersion & measured downtime provided by studying the UFO Activity charts and hunting for saucers / bases, they were lots of different approaches to individual base layouts & overall strategy layer approaches (many specialized bases; one super base and many fighter bases; heavy manufacturing vs xeno containment zoos; etc), and I can't help but think this was a concession to the console market.
We're getting interesting loadouts back in NuCOM 2, which is awesome, but alas the deep strategy layer seems to have been permanently binned. Oh well. At least they got rid of the pointless NuCOM interception 'game', and the FFG-esque strategic board game looks interesting enough on first impressions anyway.
Firaxis had a prototype that was a bit of disaster and had to go back to the drawing board. Took them a while to get the basic gameplay down, and to figure out how to do the strategy layer. There's an interview somewhere where Jake talks about how he put his best foot forward with the initial design only to have to start all over. Also talks about doing a lot of board game playtesting of strategy layer with Sid.
Firaxis had a prototype that was a bit of disaster and had to go back to the drawing board. Took them a while to get the basic gameplay down, and to figure out how to do the strategy layer. There's an interview somewhere where Jake talks about how he put his best foot forward with the initial design only to have to start all over. Also talks about doing a lot of board game playtesting of strategy layer with Sid.
If they started the marketing wtih EU, everyone would've been NEW XCOM BY FIRAXIS WHAT YOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
oh and you guys are also making some kind of shooter spinoff or something okay that's cool i guess NEW XCOM STRATEGY GAME YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Maybe Firaxis didn't have enough to show at the time. Or maybe it was more cynical and they thought propping up an exciting new shootmans game to reintroduce a classic franchise was The Right Marketing Thing. Whatever. If people know that EU was in the pipe, XCOM 2010 wouldn't have nearly got the horrendous backlash it did. (Yes, that was me too, I remember. I thought it looked cool, but using the Xcom name for it was straight booty.)
Honestly? I think the bass-ackwards way they handled things actually helped, on the net.
If they opened with the strategy game, five gets you ten there'd be a lot more grog noise about losing time units, the loadout system changes, the four man fireteams, the "consolfied" skill system, and on and on. Sure, grogs gotta grog, but it doesn't exactly help word of mouth when you're appealing to a (supposedly, at the time) niche audience. Follow up with announcing a shooter, and it gets even worse.
Go the way they went, though, and most people will be too busy being happy about the TBS existing to get into rage mode about the changes.
Did you coin the term 'grognoise'? If so, you're my hero.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Firaxis had a prototype that was a bit of disaster and had to go back to the drawing board. Took them a while to get the basic gameplay down, and to figure out how to do the strategy layer. There's an interview somewhere where Jake talks about how he put his best foot forward with the initial design only to have to start all over. Also talks about doing a lot of board game playtesting of strategy layer with Sid.
Guys this is the age of the internet, a TV commercial doesn't have to sell you on anything, it just has to let you know about it.
They aired a commercial on a show about little grey men showing an ominous little grey man and gave you the name of that thing. People are gonna go "woah, I'm into aliens and shit" and google it to find out what it's all about.
The commercial didn't do anything for you because you already know what XCOM is.
If they started the marketing wtih EU, everyone would've been NEW XCOM BY FIRAXIS WHAT YOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
oh and you guys are also making some kind of shooter spinoff or something okay that's cool i guess NEW XCOM STRATEGY GAME YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Maybe Firaxis didn't have enough to show at the time. Or maybe it was more cynical and they thought propping up an exciting new shootmans game to reintroduce a classic franchise was The Right Marketing Thing. Whatever. If people know that EU was in the pipe, XCOM 2010 wouldn't have nearly got the horrendous backlash it did. (Yes, that was me too, I remember. I thought it looked cool, but using the Xcom name for it was straight booty.)
Honestly? I think the bass-ackwards way they handled things actually helped, on the net.
If they opened with the strategy game, five gets you ten there'd be a lot more grog noise about losing time units, the loadout system changes, the four man fireteams, the "consolfied" skill system, and on and on. Sure, grogs gotta grog, but it doesn't exactly help word of mouth when you're appealing to a (supposedly, at the time) niche audience. Follow up with announcing a shooter, and it gets even worse.
Go the way they went, though, and most people will be too busy being happy about the TBS existing to get into rage mode about the changes.
Even on the official forums, most people were just happy to see a new Turn Based update to the original game that added modern sensibilities, but there were (and still are) several people who complain about it doing anything different. The lack of interception in XCOM 2 has been a frequent quibbling point for example. The thing with XCOM: EU is that it made a lot of sensible changes, such as dumping time units, decreasing the squad size (which has its own disadvantages, but is a net benefit to the game), making the games logic "clear" and so forth. It also did a lot of things that weren't very good, like how they handled abduction missions, which felt far too gamey. Of course XCOM 2 has a similar mechanic that makes MUCH more sense because of the situation they set up in the game.
XCOM: EU also had a poor "Rushing satellites" strategy that dominated the geoscape and the fact you could delay alien tech (psionics) by delaying story missions was a very bad design decision. So was the idea of having tightly scripted "story" missions and maps, which really reduced and hampered replayability. I've mentioned this before, but you look at XCOM 2 and it systematically addresses all of these issues - quite deliberately. Hell, apparently there isn't even a specific kind of soldier tech you need to win the game. According to designers, you can win XCOM 2 without even making a psionic soldier as an example.
Of course, I feel XCOM: EUs approach is best appreciated when you compare it to other updates of the original game that are more "faithful". Xenonauts as an example is a more faithful update, but shows you all of the traps that you rapidly find developers falling into. You can build multiple bases, but anywhere outside of 3 locations is a deadly trap that rapidly dooms your playthrough to failure. Aircraft matter the most and the tactical layer will not win you the game, so if you lose the air war at any point you're basically going to lose the game instantly. They have "Time Units" and most of the other things that give X-COM "Depth" according to grognards, but none of it is ever useful - I can't think of a mission where I needed to pick up ammo, alien bodies or similar (Hardest difficulty at that). TUs are a frustrating mechanic to use, because you end up only wanting to move as far as you can to leave a shot anyway. Cover mechanics work nebulously, if they work at all. Ground missions become so blatantly boring and tedious after a while, there is just no point in actually engaging in them that often (unless you have to).
XCOM: EU did a tremendous amount of things right in updating an old strategy game, which I feel that other games that tried to be too "close" didn't do very well. Yeah there is something to be argued for the depth that Xenonauts has over XCOM: EU - but depth is an illusion when it literally doesn't matter. Being able to place your base anywhere isn't depth when there are only 3 truly valid locations. It doesn't matter if you have the granularity of time units, when the system doesn't present the options to make it worth while other than "Move forward, crouch, save enough TU for shot". A lot of depth comes from simple options that interact in a way to provide multiple valid choices each turn. This is something that XCOM: EU and certainly XCOM 2 from the look of things achieves.
I'm not convinced though that the controversy about XCOM (the FPS) made people more sympathetic or accepting of the changes in XCOM: EU. I see that maybe there was some relief about "This isn't another FPS right?" in there, but I think XCOM: EUs inherent design was good enough that it would have won people over either way. What would have happened is that whatever they were trying to do with the FPS would have been viewed infinitely more kindly than it was, which would have afforded them a lot more freedom. Ironically despite being one of the more vocal critics of the XCOM FPS, I probably ended up being one of the only people who seemingly played and enjoyed the actual final game (even if it was extremely flawed).
1) Procedurally generated maps are a toooon of work. Procedurally generated maps that are balanced, fun and interesting are really, really, really hard. The original XCOM didn't actually randomly generate the maps, but instead had super huge pregenerated maps of each type (forest, jungle, farm, etc) and it just pulled random chunks from them to create the battlescape, which is why some maps could feel really weird.
2) I had completely forgotten that they both blew up a barn and the barn still managed to hide an overwhelming alien force in the proof of concept video. That is the most XCOM thing ever.
Yeah I gotta say, I gave Xenonauts a couple of shots and it just... man did I not give a flying fuck.
There was an overwhelming feeling that it was a solved problem waiting for me to fuck up. Like I wound up looking up "best starting location" and "best stat growth" and "best air combat strategy" etc and so on until I realized I didn't really feel like walking up this particular hill. There weren't any stories I could imagine retelling.
Yeah I gotta say, I gave Xenonauts a couple of shots and it just... man did I not give a flying fuck.
There was an overwhelming feeling that it was a solved problem waiting for me to fuck up. Like I wound up looking up "best starting location" and "best stat growth" and "best air combat strategy" etc and so on until I realized I didn't really feel like walking up this particular hill. There weren't any stories I could imagine retelling.
Xenonauts did an amazing job of replicating the original XCOM, and then ripping the soul and character out of it. It is the exact sort of game I would expect to play if NMA got together and made a Fallout game.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Yeah the bland alien designs were one of the biggest problems that I had with Xenonauts, as well as the fact the game made ground combat tedious and that everything important happens in the air (Geoscape) level of the game.
Also that it has exceptionally ugly and ill-detailed models for aliens/soldiers. I also discovered that it doesn't even use procedurally generated maps, which also comes with a complete lack of variety as many of them felt similar enough I thought for sure they were generated on the fly (using chunks ala X-COM).
228h til I get home from work and put on xcom... The whole weekend is cleared.
I took the Friday, the following week, AND Thursday 4th - midnight release so I need to use the Thursday to adjust my sleep schedule so I'm wide awake and ready at midnight, not too snoozy to enjoy.
I have a medical appointment on the 4th by happy coincidence. Of course I need the whole day Thursday and the next day friday off work. To recover. Yes.
I saw a kid get handed a JB poster by who I presume was his parents outside my store today....he tore it in half infront of his horrified parents.....There's hope for our youth yet!
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I just have to front load the writing for my various contracts to a couple of days before. Then I can play XCOM.
I tried to kick tea and coffee, need to do it when the kids aren't home... I become el groucho
I saw a kid get handed a JB poster by who I presume was his parents outside my store today....he tore it in half infront of his horrified parents.....There's hope for our youth yet!
I'll be bold and predict the review embargo ends tomorrow. Perhaps with the same provisions as the previous one about spoilers, but I'm expecting another blitz of info until release.
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wiltingI had fun once and it was awfulRegistered Userregular
Well reviews probably wont help you really determine that.
Considering most people in this thread probably have ten times the XCOM experience of most reviewers. So there estimate of what 'hard' is probably not going to match up to yours.
My main concern is that they're not going to release a character creator early, and thus I'll lose Friday to making all of my friends into X-COM soldiers.
My main concern is that they're not going to release a character creator early, and thus I'll lose Friday to making all of my friends into X-COM soldiers.
My main concern is that they're not going to release a character creator early, and thus I'll lose Friday to making all of my friends into X-COM soldiers.
Do you really hate your friends that much that you'd like to see them die to aliens?
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The one two punch of OpenXcom and Modern XCOM rendered Xenonauts one hundred percent meaningless
Except... not remotely at all? Because believe it or not, some people appreciate having an actually modernized sequel to the original, rather than something that still looks like total butts and just has a bunch of stuff modded into it.
And Modern XCOM (though good and fun) is almost completely unrelated to what Xenonauts (and the original X-com) play like, so I have no idea why that would do anything to make Xenonauts "meaningless". I wouldn't even consider it in the same genre of game, much less something that obsoletes it.
I mean, unless you inexplicably just want to shit on a pretty worthwhile, albeit niche (which the original Xcom pretty much was, until EU), product made by some obviously dedicated fans?
Honestly, I don't think I'm going to make my friends to put in my character pool. It was fun to have them be in a campaign, but I'm not sure I want them to show up again and again, only to die again and again.
...Okay, well, there's one friend I'll make, but that's because he would appreciate dying again and again, as long as he got to kill aliens while doing it.
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WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
Honestly, I don't think I'm going to make my friends to put in my character pool. It was fun to have them be in a campaign, but I'm not sure I want them to show up again and again, only to die again and again.
...Okay, well, there's one friend I'll make, but that's because he would appreciate dying again and again, as long as he got to kill aliens while doing it.
That's why you make a 1000-character pool. Put John Cena in there. Put Ned Stark in there. Put Bernie Sanders in there.
Your friends will barely ever show up, and when they do it will be 1) extra special and 2) one hell of a story. "So there you were, staring down this Sectopod, when out of nowhere, JOHN CENA! With supporting suppression fire from Freddie Mercury."
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Friends and Family soldiers is the only way to play, those deaths need to mean something
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
I wouldn't even consider it in the same genre of game, much less something that obsoletes it.
I mean, unless you inexplicably just want to shit on a pretty worthwhile, albeit niche (which the original Xcom pretty much was, until EU), product made by some obviously dedicated fans?
I dont understand how a base-building and management sim on top of a turn based shooter is NOT in the same genre as a base-building and management sim on top of a turn based shooter.
jungleroomx on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I wouldn't even consider it in the same genre of game, much less something that obsoletes it.
I mean, unless you inexplicably just want to shit on a pretty worthwhile, albeit niche (which the original Xcom pretty much was, until EU), product made by some obviously dedicated fans?
I dont understand how a base-building and management sim on top of a turn based shooter is NOT in the same genre as a base-building and management sim on top of a turn based shooter.
There's a bazillion games with base-building and management, it's hardly indicative of a whole genre these days. ARK has those two things, and it's definitely not in the same genre. Or MGSV, which is also in another genre.
I could agree to "very distantly related while still a bit in the same genre", but that's probably about it and the definition of "turn-based shooter" would need to be watered down a lot to get there. The two games (EU and Xenonauts) have pretty enormously different ways they handle almost everything, from air combat to ground combat to recovered items. Take somebody who has played a lot of EU and never Xenonauts (or the original X-com stuff) and switch them over to Xenonauts, and they'll be basically entirely lost because the games are not at all similar.
And I don't say this stuff as any sort of criticism, just that they are two very different games to the point that there's no way one "obsoletes" the other. They're two different beasts, each good in their own way.
Posts
I distilled it a bit.
The best for me was when a Sectopod took their turn, overwatched... then promptly teleported away.
I was miffed and proceeded to try and test it's ability overwatch from it's new unknown position with someone who did not have Lightning Reflexes. A fatal error.
OldCOM is one of those titles that just oozes Microprose; it's incredibly deep, putting together a surprisingly precise ballistics simulation (they used a raycasting technique, if memory serves, alongside a pioneering method of stacking bitmaps together to create 3D objects & terrain) alongside an intricate UFO ecosystem & base economy simulation.
It was also very fiddly, the UI was convoluted and the pacing wasn't very tight (most noticeable during the tactical phase when you're looking around for the last Goddamn alien on a map and quickly burning-up your patience for the game. Or when you've done your 20th mission in a month and are just exhausted with the rote disembarking procedure with your 12 man squad.
NuCOM is much tighter in terms of pacing (and I find the tactical maps much more engaging with the smaller squad & modern movement system. Fuck action points, they can go burn in 90s Hell), but I do still feel they cut a little too much in EU/EW. Munitions & weapons loadout choices were more interesting in OldCOM, I personally enjoyed the immersion & measured downtime provided by studying the UFO Activity charts and hunting for saucers / bases, they were lots of different approaches to individual base layouts & overall strategy layer approaches (many specialized bases; one super base and many fighter bases; heavy manufacturing vs xeno containment zoos; etc), and I can't help but think this was a concession to the console market.
We're getting interesting loadouts back in NuCOM 2, which is awesome, but alas the deep strategy layer seems to have been permanently binned. Oh well. At least they got rid of the pointless NuCOM interception 'game', and the FFG-esque strategic board game looks interesting enough on first impressions anyway.
did someone say xcom pitch cinematic?
and
xcom proof of concept development video?
lol
Well the robot looked cool, and I preferred the plasma weapon designs featured in the concept footage.
Did you coin the term 'grognoise'? If so, you're my hero.
Notice how the muton rushes the guy at the end to whack him in melee?
That's something you'll see a fair amount of in XCOM 2.
As proof:
I think the commercial accomplished its goal
My Steam
Even on the official forums, most people were just happy to see a new Turn Based update to the original game that added modern sensibilities, but there were (and still are) several people who complain about it doing anything different. The lack of interception in XCOM 2 has been a frequent quibbling point for example. The thing with XCOM: EU is that it made a lot of sensible changes, such as dumping time units, decreasing the squad size (which has its own disadvantages, but is a net benefit to the game), making the games logic "clear" and so forth. It also did a lot of things that weren't very good, like how they handled abduction missions, which felt far too gamey. Of course XCOM 2 has a similar mechanic that makes MUCH more sense because of the situation they set up in the game.
XCOM: EU also had a poor "Rushing satellites" strategy that dominated the geoscape and the fact you could delay alien tech (psionics) by delaying story missions was a very bad design decision. So was the idea of having tightly scripted "story" missions and maps, which really reduced and hampered replayability. I've mentioned this before, but you look at XCOM 2 and it systematically addresses all of these issues - quite deliberately. Hell, apparently there isn't even a specific kind of soldier tech you need to win the game. According to designers, you can win XCOM 2 without even making a psionic soldier as an example.
Of course, I feel XCOM: EUs approach is best appreciated when you compare it to other updates of the original game that are more "faithful". Xenonauts as an example is a more faithful update, but shows you all of the traps that you rapidly find developers falling into. You can build multiple bases, but anywhere outside of 3 locations is a deadly trap that rapidly dooms your playthrough to failure. Aircraft matter the most and the tactical layer will not win you the game, so if you lose the air war at any point you're basically going to lose the game instantly. They have "Time Units" and most of the other things that give X-COM "Depth" according to grognards, but none of it is ever useful - I can't think of a mission where I needed to pick up ammo, alien bodies or similar (Hardest difficulty at that). TUs are a frustrating mechanic to use, because you end up only wanting to move as far as you can to leave a shot anyway. Cover mechanics work nebulously, if they work at all. Ground missions become so blatantly boring and tedious after a while, there is just no point in actually engaging in them that often (unless you have to).
XCOM: EU did a tremendous amount of things right in updating an old strategy game, which I feel that other games that tried to be too "close" didn't do very well. Yeah there is something to be argued for the depth that Xenonauts has over XCOM: EU - but depth is an illusion when it literally doesn't matter. Being able to place your base anywhere isn't depth when there are only 3 truly valid locations. It doesn't matter if you have the granularity of time units, when the system doesn't present the options to make it worth while other than "Move forward, crouch, save enough TU for shot". A lot of depth comes from simple options that interact in a way to provide multiple valid choices each turn. This is something that XCOM: EU and certainly XCOM 2 from the look of things achieves.
I'm not convinced though that the controversy about XCOM (the FPS) made people more sympathetic or accepting of the changes in XCOM: EU. I see that maybe there was some relief about "This isn't another FPS right?" in there, but I think XCOM: EUs inherent design was good enough that it would have won people over either way. What would have happened is that whatever they were trying to do with the FPS would have been viewed infinitely more kindly than it was, which would have afforded them a lot more freedom. Ironically despite being one of the more vocal critics of the XCOM FPS, I probably ended up being one of the only people who seemingly played and enjoyed the actual final game (even if it was extremely flawed).
1) Procedurally generated maps are a toooon of work. Procedurally generated maps that are balanced, fun and interesting are really, really, really hard. The original XCOM didn't actually randomly generate the maps, but instead had super huge pregenerated maps of each type (forest, jungle, farm, etc) and it just pulled random chunks from them to create the battlescape, which is why some maps could feel really weird.
2) I had completely forgotten that they both blew up a barn and the barn still managed to hide an overwhelming alien force in the proof of concept video. That is the most XCOM thing ever.
There was an overwhelming feeling that it was a solved problem waiting for me to fuck up. Like I wound up looking up "best starting location" and "best stat growth" and "best air combat strategy" etc and so on until I realized I didn't really feel like walking up this particular hill. There weren't any stories I could imagine retelling.
Xenonauts did an amazing job of replicating the original XCOM, and then ripping the soul and character out of it. It is the exact sort of game I would expect to play if NMA got together and made a Fallout game.
Also that it has exceptionally ugly and ill-detailed models for aliens/soldiers. I also discovered that it doesn't even use procedurally generated maps, which also comes with a complete lack of variety as many of them felt similar enough I thought for sure they were generated on the fly (using chunks ala X-COM).
228h til I get home from work and put on xcom... The whole weekend is cleared.
I took the Friday, the following week, AND Thursday 4th - midnight release so I need to use the Thursday to adjust my sleep schedule so I'm wide awake and ready at midnight, not too snoozy to enjoy.
I just won't be able to sleep beforehand is all
Incidentally also planning to restart the Legendary campaign because of poor, coffee-fueled decisions.
It's aaaaalllllll factored in.
Considering most people in this thread probably have ten times the XCOM experience of most reviewers. So there estimate of what 'hard' is probably not going to match up to yours.
Fool that I am, I hadn't even considered this
Do you really hate your friends that much that you'd like to see them die to aliens?
Except... not remotely at all? Because believe it or not, some people appreciate having an actually modernized sequel to the original, rather than something that still looks like total butts and just has a bunch of stuff modded into it.
And Modern XCOM (though good and fun) is almost completely unrelated to what Xenonauts (and the original X-com) play like, so I have no idea why that would do anything to make Xenonauts "meaningless". I wouldn't even consider it in the same genre of game, much less something that obsoletes it.
I mean, unless you inexplicably just want to shit on a pretty worthwhile, albeit niche (which the original Xcom pretty much was, until EU), product made by some obviously dedicated fans?
Nah, they're the ones that stay in cover. It's ones I don't like that turn into advance scouting parties.
...Okay, well, there's one friend I'll make, but that's because he would appreciate dying again and again, as long as he got to kill aliens while doing it.
That's why you make a 1000-character pool. Put John Cena in there. Put Ned Stark in there. Put Bernie Sanders in there.
Your friends will barely ever show up, and when they do it will be 1) extra special and 2) one hell of a story. "So there you were, staring down this Sectopod, when out of nowhere, JOHN CENA! With supporting suppression fire from Freddie Mercury."
I dont understand how a base-building and management sim on top of a turn based shooter is NOT in the same genre as a base-building and management sim on top of a turn based shooter.
There's a bazillion games with base-building and management, it's hardly indicative of a whole genre these days. ARK has those two things, and it's definitely not in the same genre. Or MGSV, which is also in another genre.
I could agree to "very distantly related while still a bit in the same genre", but that's probably about it and the definition of "turn-based shooter" would need to be watered down a lot to get there. The two games (EU and Xenonauts) have pretty enormously different ways they handle almost everything, from air combat to ground combat to recovered items. Take somebody who has played a lot of EU and never Xenonauts (or the original X-com stuff) and switch them over to Xenonauts, and they'll be basically entirely lost because the games are not at all similar.
And I don't say this stuff as any sort of criticism, just that they are two very different games to the point that there's no way one "obsoletes" the other. They're two different beasts, each good in their own way.