Who's preordering X-COM?

[Howard]

Well, that almost works until you hit the '$10 to hire a random soldier'

Pays for hazard wages, benefits, compensation to family, insurance, training, food, utilities, etc.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

how often do you guys "abuse" saving/loading games? Last night i got destroyed on the misson where you have to make the key to some base, and then go in there and attempt to capture their leader. Afterwards, i didnt really want to continue that game after losing all my best solders, so i loaded a save from a few hours prior.

Would this be considered "cheating"? And how salvageable is your game after getting annihilated like that? In this save in the past, i have abandoned one or two missions before getting my best guys out before they were killed, but i still think i had a chance at saving the world....

 

[kevinsbane]

how often do you guys "abuse" saving/loading games? Last night i got destroyed on the misson where you have to make the key to some base, and then go in there and attempt to capture their leader. Afterwards, i didnt really want to continue that game after losing all my best solders, so i loaded a save from a few hours prior.

Would this be considered "cheating"? And how salvageable is your game after getting annihilated like that? In this save in the past, i have abandoned one or two missions before getting my best guys out before they were killed, but i still think i had a chance at saving the world....

Cheating? No, I would not consider that cheating. It's save scumming, which, although at times frowned upon, is completely ok given there's an Ironman mode. IMO though, you lose a bit of the feel of the game when you know that you can save your best soldiers from permanent death.

As for salvaging a situation like that; it happened to me on a classic Ironman game. Rocket fired: goes off course. smacks down 4 of my own soldiers. 2 die. 2 panic. Thin men closing in.

Got out with 2 soldiers. 1 mission later. Lose one of my remaining vets, only one vet left (the rest of my team wipes). Everyone else is rookies. Essentially 2 team wipes in a row. I eventually recovered, but that was tough.

 

[Martimus]

I lost all but one of my normal bad ass six man squad over two missions. You are able to recover, but it takes a while to train new troops, and they often die or get injured during that training process since the aliens are tougher that late in the game.

 

[Clinkster]

how often do you guys "abuse" saving/loading games? Last night i got destroyed on the misson where you have to make the key to some base, and then go in there and attempt to capture their leader. Afterwards, i didnt really want to continue that game after losing all my best solders, so i loaded a save from a few hours prior.

Would this be considered "cheating"? And how salvageable is your game after getting annihilated like that? In this save in the past, i have abandoned one or two missions before getting my best guys out before they were killed, but i still think i had a chance at saving the world....

Never, ironman or BUST.

The game isn't even remotely challenging or fun if you are "save abusing." Part of the decision making is thinking about how hard the mission is going to be, how badly you need rooks leveled up, the people you want in a mission in the event some or none of them return, etc. You have to think beyond just sending your best team out to fight over and over. Otherwise, you're looking at being halfway through the game with nothing but rookie squads with pea shooters against toughened mutons and chrystallids.

Losing missions is always salvageable. On my classic ironman run through, I lost 4 missions in total, 3 of them within quick succession to each other. Most of those I lost my top dudes.

The game does have random elements that will work with or against you, sometimes in seemingly overwhelming ways. You're meant to lose dudes, and sometimes even lose missions, nothing is supposed to go perfectly. But in the grand scheme of things, it is the player's gameplay that will ultimately win or lose the game, not the "randomness" or "sectoid pistol snipers" that a lot of posters here are whining over.

 

[Daverino]

I agree on Ironman or bust. But that's just me. If you're in it for a casual experience, just play non-Ironman and save an load as much as you want. It's not cheating at all. . . that's why there are two modes.

One piece of advice on Ironman though: you want to build up a stable of soldiers instead of just six awesome dudes. Once you get a Colonel or two, pull them off missions and replace them with rookies. They aren't going to get more experience, so using them to rake in all the kills is shortchanging everyone else. And if something horrible happens on a mission, you have reserves to help train up a new squad. If you have that flying squad-sight double-tap colonel sniper that can kill two aliens a turn, use him last to kill real threats. Let the rest of your folks try and get the kills first. I ended my first successful Ironman Classic with nine Colonels.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Nothing wrong with reloading but don't do it so much that you start to rely on it. Then you'll get eyerolls if you tell a story which features reloading to get a result you want (or not getting it despite reloading because of the saved seed lol).

 

[Dijeangenie]

I agree on Ironman or bust. But that's just me. If you're in it for a casual experience, just play non-Ironman and save an load as much as you want. It's not cheating at all. . . that's why there are two modes.

I also only play Ironman but I can totally understand why you would play normally - especially with the bugs in the game...

 

[Clinkster]

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/...ollop-praises-firaxis-for-xcom-enemy-unknown/

X-COM creator praising new Enemy Unknown. I definitely agree with his criticisms too. This game is great, but even in that, it leaves so much more to be desired (hopefully in some sequel?).

 

[you2]

I might be confused but it seems that a fundamental flaw is that you can simply keep scanning month after month to raise funds buy stuff do research et all. There doesn't seem to be any time limit that forces you to actually make choices as to what you can research and what you can build before time runs out.

The other thing I'm finding a bit annoying is they constantly reuse the same maps; they need a bigger selection.
-
Other than that it seems pretty easy on easy. Not too sure how far I am; I just researched the uplink thingy which progressed the story to the next point.

 

[Martimus]

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/...ollop-praises-firaxis-for-xcom-enemy-unknown/

X-COM creator praising new Enemy Unknown. I definitely agree with his criticisms too. This game is great, but even in that, it leaves so much more to be desired (hopefully in some sequel?).

The contrived 3 abductions where you can only respond to one was the reason I avoided the game for the first couple weeks. I hate gameplay elements that are illogical like that, but overall the game is fun. Fallen Enchantress is the better replayable turn based strategy, but I have no regrets getting XCOM at full price.

 

[thespyder]

Agreed there were a number of contrivances in the game design. I personally blame the limitations in making the game 'console friendly'.

As far as the article, I agree that Enemy Unknown is much closer than just about anything else that has come out (or been considered) in the Xcom Franchise since Apocalypse. And even better than several of the clones. We will see how it stacks up against Xenonauts.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Other than that it seems pretty easy on easy. Not too sure how far I am; I just researched the uplink thingy which progressed the story to the next point.

This isn't exactly insightful

Classic will be a kick in the teeth though if you're used to the bad habits Easy encourages (although Classic isn't that challenging once you've learned to play at Impossible level).

 

[you2]

Well actually I'm on normal not easy; and I do reload now and then when I'm unhappy with a death. Hum. I'm really not that happy with the maps but maybe they will improve over time.

This isn't exactly insightful

Classic will be a kick in the teeth though if you're used to the bad habits Easy encourages (although Classic isn't that challenging once you've learned to play at Impossible level).

 

[ChronoReverse]

Well, even Normal is a breeze compared to Classic. But it's actually quite interesting since Classic and Normal plays very differently while Impossible is like another game in terms of how carefully you need to plan.

 

[Dijeangenie]

Agreed there were a number of contrivances in the game design. I personally blame the limitations in making the game 'console friendly'.

I agree with the contrivances - don't think its down to the console friendly UI though, the old games had plenty of contrivances too.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I agree with the contrivances - don't think its down to the console friendly UI though, the old games had plenty of contrivances too.

And exploits.

Going back all the way to Laser Squad, where accuracy was a function of distance - if you shot at the square immediately in front of you, the shot would fly straight and true as far as you wanted. Made the base defense mission (with straight hallways) against the cyborgs crazy easy.

 

[thespyder]

I agree with the contrivances - don't think its down to the console friendly UI though, the old games had plenty of contrivances too.

Agreed. There are definitely contrivances that make their way into the game because the developers thought it was a good idea at the time.

But there are also contrivances due to hardware limitations in consoles.

And there are contrivances which are as a result of attempting to make the game accessible to the 'Console Crowd'. Things that the hardware could deal with, but it was perceived that more casual gamers might not find fun or interesting.

The latter two are the ones that I feel were the lions share of the ones I have issue with.

 

[Clinkster]

Well actually I'm on normal not easy; and I do reload now and then when I'm unhappy with a death. Hum. I'm really not that happy with the maps but maybe they will improve over time.

Yes, games in where you reload out of mistakes tend to be easy.

The maps are alright, but it goes along with the whole "leaves a lot to be desired" category. I'm really hoping they're planning a sequel.

Has anybody tries out the multiplayer?

 

[Dijeangenie]

The maps are alright, but it goes along with the whole "leaves a lot to be desired" category. I'm really hoping they're planning a sequel.

Has anybody tries out the multiplayer?

I have heard the multiplayer is very buggy. Only 8% of players have the steam achievement for winning one multiplayer game - so very few people have tried it.

I think it is selling pretty well so I think a sequel seems likely

 

[Madia]

Has anyone put time into multiplayer? I ended up playing a little and found it to be sort of broken. Aside from it being buggy, (one match I ended up being able to see everywhere the enemy went) the best strategy if often to go on the defense and set up a kill zone with all of your soldiers on overwatch and a powerful sniper in back with squad site. The problem is that both players can do this and the game will never end. If one of the players does go on the offensive he's at a great disadvantage going against an enemy who's dug in. With the limited number of maps, it's easy to figure out the best place to set up a defense and just wait for your opponent. The biggest plus of multiplayer is being able to play as the aliens, although it is a bit odd to be able to pair them with humans.

Even though I have a negative view of multiplayer it got me hoping that they'll make a DLC campaign where you play as the aliens. It seems like an obvious DLC and with the aliens tactical abilities already programmed it doesn't seem like a difficult one to make.

 

[Dijeangenie]

Has anyone put time into multiplayer? I ended up playing a little and found it to be sort of broken. Aside from it being buggy, (one match I ended up being able to see everywhere the enemy went) the best strategy if often to go on the defense and set up a kill zone with all of your soldiers on overwatch and a powerful sniper in back with squad site. The problem is that both players can do this and the game will never end. If one of the players does go on the offensive he's at a great disadvantage going against an enemy who's dug in. With the limited number of maps, it's easy to figure out the best place to set up a defense and just wait for your opponent. The biggest plus of multiplayer is being able to play as the aliens, although it is a bit odd to be able to pair them with humans.

This unfortunately is one major problem with the concept, it is much better to play a match versus a friend where you have a gentlemen's agreement not to dig in and overwatch, because you will come up agaisnt people who will do anything to win

 

[Howard]

This unfortunately is one major problem with the concept, it is much better to play a match versus a friend where you have a gentlemen's agreement not to dig in and overwatch, because you will come up agaisnt people who will do anything to win

Use battle scanners to hurry things up.

 

[Dijeangenie]

Use battle scanners to hurry things up.

That can help to some extent but not if you are playing aliens/don't have a sniper specced for scanners.

 

[Howard]

That can help to some extent but not if you are playing aliens/don't have a sniper specced for scanners.

Start blowing things up once you see them and/or use Squad Sight. Think outside the box.