X-Com comes to consoles...make that XCOM

[hepcat]

I had completely forgotten about this title. 

[TiLT]

Those had better be some seriously huge changes. So far I haven't seen even a single element from the first X-COM game, neither in terms of story or gameplay.

[CeeKay]

Those had better be some seriously huge changes. So far I haven't seen even a single element from the first X-COM game, neither in terms of story or gameplay.

that's why they dropped the dash 

[Turtle]

I'm a huge fan of X-COM and strategy and tactical games in general, even I was okay with XCOM's new genre and theme.

The new stuff looked great, even my die hard old style XCOM friend at first was against it, then saw the new style and was willing to try it.

So, not sure what they could change to make things different.

[EddieA]

Those had better be some seriously huge changes. So far I haven't seen even a single element from the first X-COM game, neither in terms of story or gameplay.

I don't know if any of these have been changed, but originally, it was supposed to include bases, alien research, and a mission-based structure similar to the original games.

[TiLT]

Those had better be some seriously huge changes. So far I haven't seen even a single element from the first X-COM game, neither in terms of story or gameplay.

I don't know if any of these have been changed, but originally, it was supposed to include bases, alien research, and a mission-based structure similar to the original games.

I don't think that's entirely correct. The description I read about those systems showed them to be very limited, and particularly the choice of missions. I got the impression you might have up to three choices in what mission to proceed to, but that's about it.

[Bullwinkle]

Those had better be some seriously huge changes. So far I haven't seen even a single element from the first X-COM game, neither in terms of story or gameplay.

I don't know if any of these have been changed, but originally, it was supposed to include bases, alien research, and a mission-based structure similar to the original games.

I don't think that's entirely correct. The description I read about those systems showed them to be very limited, and particularly the choice of missions. I got the impression you might have up to three choices in what mission to proceed to, but that's about it.

That's still better than I expected and more in line with the original than any other FPS.  Also, fits along with the streamlining element.

[Pharaoh]

Anyone wonder what the hell happened to this?

I think this is the most vivid example of a major studio working on a re-launch of a classic franchise and it hitting the masses with such a massive backlash that they seemingly went back to the drawing board.

I mean, last word about it was Feb after the creative director quit? Wonder what it is these days...

[Razgon]

Perhaps the community backlash from the released info was too much for them, and it was scrapped?

[Bullwinkle]

It's listed on the IGN E3 Games List for 2011.

[CeeKay]

I imagine once the DNF media blitz is over we may here more.

[metallicorphan]

looks like the last few posts of this thread have been lost as well

oh well here is the release date

March 6th 2012


hmm,March 6th,what's out that day?..oh yeah Mass Effect 3,Xcom is screwed

[Bullwinkle]

And I just read an article saying that XCOM is surprisingly similar to ME2.

It was actually a very interesting Kotaku impressions article that gave me some hope.  They really are trying to bring some of the XCOM strategy into the FPS.

I've bolded the bits that seemed most interesting.

The news that 2K's XCOM reboot would handle combat as a first-person shooter sent longtime fans of the PC strategy series on a gamer's tour of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, rage, of course, lasting the longest. A year after it was first shown at E3, and about a year before its release, we might be seeing a game that can sway some of them into acceptance?
 
The X-COM series' gameplay legacy is in its tactics, in its understanding of the enemy and in the economical use of the time within your turn. XCOM presents two mechanics that address the in the choices . The result is a squad-based game that looks much like Mass Effect.
 
As agent William Carter, your time in the field is going to be wasted if you handle all the wet work yourself. We saw a shootout with the aliens (the "Outsiders") in which the feds were constantly outgunned. Tactics such as diversions and deployable cover, not raw firepower, were essential to breaking the invaders' emplacements. You'll call these in as the leader of the team.
 
The game's tactical view looks a lot like Mass Effect 2's. When you pop it up, Carter takes cover, whips out a walkie-talkie, and the game goes slower than bullet-time but not a full pause. A wheel popped up listing the skills and technologies usable by the two agents you'd brought with you, selected out of a lineup in your briefing room at HQ. In this case, our demonstrator brought along the commando and the "master-at-arms." The commands you give them also are mappable to the D-pad.
 
What's a smidge different is the concept of time and how it's applied. Certain actions will cost time units, and ones that are infeasible will have a unit cost that is above what your team has at present. In our case, it was overcoming one of the Outsiders' "Titans," basically a big badass cannon, and appropriating its technology for the team's use. Originally, taking it over required a time unit cost of 20; the team only had 10. That meant weakening it with conventional fire from cover. When the tactical view came up again, subduing the Titan now had a time unit cost of 10, and the team turned the cannon into its asset.
 
What happened next also honors XCOM's ancestors. The team had the option of saving the alien technology and bringing it back to HQ, where scientists could make use of it to create new weapons or exploit the aliens', or deploy it in the battlefield for a limited use that had a big offensive upside. We got the latter, and it was lovely. The Titan annihilated a platoon of Outsider reinforcements just as quickly as they had beamed in.
 
The sense I got from the demonstration was that the tactics would be mandatory in nearly every engagement; if there was a control to set an agent's behavior to an always-do-this default (letting you handle the combat more or less by yourself), I did not see it. But that's because, in addition to innate qualities like weapons and defenses, tactics like diversions and demolitions are resident in you, the group leader, and are specific acts involving at least two characters, if not the entire squad.
 
Visually, the game looks great. Set in 1962, Carter and his agents are Kennedy-era G-men fedoras and horn-rimmed glasses, button-down shirts and slacks. They also pack some throwback-scifi gear, prototypes made of chrome and wiring. Somehow, it all fits together, but then I'm a sucker for these displaced-era science-fiction games, such as BioShock, Resistance and Fallout.
 
But this will still be the 1962 America you are defending, albeit one in which the Outsiders have arrived to terraform Earth into something more fitting their bizarre dimension of origin. Our demonstrator said we'd be seeing the story of a nation at a time of conflict, in the era of the civil rights movement. Notably, a scientist the team had been sent to rescue was identified as someone persecuted for both his sexual orientation and his political sympathies.
 
Carter's inspiration, we were told, is as the embodiment of the omniscient protagonist of the original X-COM games, i.e. you, as the game's commander. They wanted to imagine what this man was like at the beginning of a colossal existential threat, where he acquired his sense of leadership and strategy.
 
In other ways the game gives nods to what made the XCOM series so compelling. I can foresee players spending a lot of time at their headquarters. It's where you'll acquire new agents and train them with new skills and equip them with new technologies acquired with XP. You'll have your choice of team members for each mission and sometimes the decision won't be so obvious. You may elect to take a sub-optimal team member because he needs to rank up. In other cases, you may have a greenhorn pressed into service because a downed agent who is not revived in the mission will still limp through, but be out of commission for sometime after.
 
At HQ the XCOM scientists are repurposing and reverse engineering the Outsiders' technologies, and a team of analysts are receiving emergency calls from all over the country and building out a profile of cases, which you may choose to play in any order. These choices, of course, have ramifications for what you can accomplish next, but not to the level of complexity your mission decisions presented in X-COM's strategy titles. Some missions in XCOM, will offer you technology or objectives that are useful in the near term, others more into the long term.
 
This is not an isometric-view turn-based strategy game, and I don't suggest that XCOM is any better or worse off imagined as something other than one. It is, simply, different. For many who poured hours upon hours of play into a series widely hailed as one of gaming's best, this departure does make it not a true brother of the originals. And the obvious similarities to Mass Effect may win it some new criticism on that front.
 
Yet though both games feature this element, I would no more call Mass Effect 2 a shooter than I would XCOM. And it does look fun, and certainly intriguing. And perhaps that can get some through the final stage of their XCOM grief, and even on to being happy to see its name on a disc again.

[metallicorphan]

looks like the last few posts of this thread have been lost as well

oh well here is the release date

March 6th 2012


hmm,March 6th,what's out that day?..oh yeah Mass Effect 3,Xcom is screwed

I guess they saw that Mass Effect 3 problem,as Xcom has been 'delayed'

Kotaku

The first-person shooter reinvention of PC classic X-COM has been delayed past its March date to some time in publisher Take Two's 2013 Fiscal Year. It will be out between April 1, 2012 and March 31, 2013, on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

[Sarkus]

Either that or the pushback is still so negative they are rethinking it yet again.

[CeeKay]

Either that or the pushback is still so negative they are rethinking it yet again.

XCom-ville!  get upgrades by recruiting your Facebook friends to join the game!

[Razgon]

Yeah, I have very little faith in this game, with both how the development cycle seems to have been pushed to due public feedback, and also to due to how they have treated the franchise.

[Clanwolfer]

Well, this always struck me as a 2nd or 3rd-tier title that they thought they could acquire a (cheap, neglected) license to bring in some existing fans. It may well be that the delays aren't at all due to backlash but just due to this being a title without a lot of push behind it, and the resources that could be going to polishing/fixing it are probably working on other projects right now.

I just can't believe that there are enough X-Com fans out there (and I'm one of them) that the reaction would seriously cause them to push the release on a non-AAA money grab out. This one's probably just meant to fill the pipeline in whatever fiscal year needs another title, and that doesn't exactly give me high hopes.

[Doopri]

this game actually piqued my interest a bit, after i was over the initial shock of what they were doing to X-COM.  this delay is probably the end of the road for the game though, right?  such an open-ended release sounds like "oh crap, we are WHERE with this game again?" hopefully im wrong as i was at least going to give it a shot.

[Turtle]

Reading way too much into this. The reality is, it's just likely that they needed to move out of Mass Effect's way, and finish the game overall. Also, public feedback doesn't affect things to that extent.

[Doopri]

strangely enough, i hope so turtle!  like i said, im oddly intrigued by this one.  and it is nice to hear that you think im reading waaaay too much into it because, again, for some reason this is one i actually want to play

[Turtle]

Er, not that I know what's actually going on.

But from seeing how every other company as them handle things, unless the game is crap during their internal reviews, all the public outcry in the world won't change the game to be more like the originals.

As for me, I'll be playing Xenonauts when it comes out. I'm fine with this new take, but if I want the classic, then that indie is what will do it for me and then some.

[TiLT]

But from seeing how every other company as them handle things, unless the game is crap during their internal reviews, all the public outcry in the world won't change the game to be more like the originals.

You do realize that the last time this particular game was delayed was because of the public outcry, right? They decided to rethink the game mechanics.

[Razgon]

Well, that and the fact that two of the leads on the game decided to quit and start their own studio probably doesnt help either. I REALLY hope they arent the ones that picthed this idea originally, leaving the rest of the team behind when they realized it wouldn't work.

[metallicorphan]

2013

There was a delay last year that said it was now to be due in the next viscal year instead of this upcoming March,it's now official that it will be the end of the viscal year making the game due out in 2013