XCOM: One Does Not Simply "Shoot" a Cryssalid...

[Tengu_temp]

I've yet to see a female sniper among the dozens the game throws at me. Weird.

[Krade]

In my first playthrough I never once found a female psionic. My second game I just got to the endgame and I can't fully remember but I might have found one so far. I'd have to check.

[KillianHawkeye]

Well I just met my first Sectopods. Holy Jesus, they're big! I dunno what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. Their ability to shoot twice in one turn, coupled with the fact that each shot is a small area blast, makes them pretty dangerous. It was a pretty desperate fight against the pair of them, but I managed to get out without any losses (besides my SHIV, who bravely died after discovering the two Sectopods and their four Drones). Luckily I had the high ground, and the Sniper managed to save his own life by going into ghost cloak for one turn while he got into position for a kill shot. Next time I find Sectopods, I'll bring more than one Heavy, though, that's for sure!

[Zevox]

Me, I've noticed that all my assaults tend to be women.

I'm jealous. In that first file one of the last troops I was looking to hire was a female assault (this being after I had the upgrade that auto-promoted rookies to squaddies), to represent Mitsuru Kirijo, and that was the most difficult one for me to get by far. I already had another female assault, but she was one of the first four I promoted, so she just happened to fall into the slot that auto-promotes to assault.

My second play-through had one female assault, but again, it was one of my first four promotions. My third one, none so far.

I seem to get mostly supports and heavies from my females, plus the occasional sniper (two in both of my previous files, but none so far in my third).

Zevox

[Cikomyr]

I'd like to be able to edit a soldier's country of origin..

Or maybe have soldiers coming more from countries who likes you best.. would that make sense?

[RagingKrikkit]

In my first playthrough I never once found a female psionic. My second game I just got to the endgame and I can't fully remember but I might have found one so far. I'd have to check.

Across 3 games, I've had 4 psionics, 3 female, and all of them became the volunteer.

[Krade]

I think, as far as actual design decisions go (ie. not bugs), my biggest complaint is that the game is rated M. With just a little less blood it could have been T, and with a little realistic swearing from soldiers it could have actually deserved the M rating.

[Surrealistik]

I think, as far as actual design decisions go (ie. not bugs), my biggest complaint is that the game is rated M. With just a little less blood it could have been T, and with a little realistic swearing from soldiers it could have actually deserved the M rating.

Honestly, given the game's obvious transition from sci-fi horror to... action, cartoonish/plastic soldier design, and the relatively tame nature of the violence involved, I find it difficult to believe it could be hit with an M rating in the first place.

Speaking of which, I absolutely _hate_ the action theme of this new X-Com. Nothing serves as a better case in point contrast than the battlescape music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j7Xgnk9RDc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiVUXCp8_jo

vs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b20vMza9_vg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Yty...feature=relmfu

They should have just gotten Broomhall to do all of the music; screw Michael McCann. He's a respectable composer, just not the one this game needs.

That said, I agree; if you're going to land a mature rating anyways, you may as well do something meaningful with it.

[Cikomyr]

They should simply go all-in. If a laser gun or plasma rifle can real blast an entire wall, what do you think they would do to a living being?!

[Luzahn]

Wait, it's M? Really?

That is...strange. I didn't notice anything remotely objectionable beyond using guns. Warcraft 2 was more violent...

[Krade]

Wait, it's M? Really?

That is...strange. I didn't notice anything remotely objectionable beyond using guns. Warcraft 2 was more violent...

"Realistic death of humans" is more than enough to constitute the M rating. That said, the ESRB needs to work on thier definition of "realistic".

[Luzahn]

"Realistic death of humans" is more than enough to constitute the M rating. That said, the ESRB needs to work on thier definition of "realistic".

I don't think we've had too many humans slain by alien plasma.

Though I suppose the Chryssalids are a bit gristly.

[Tengu_temp]

Speaking of which, I absolutely _hate_ the action theme of this new X-Com. Nothing serves as a better case in point contrast than the battlescape music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j7Xgnk9RDc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiVUXCp8_jo

vs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b20vMza9_vg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Yty...feature=relmfu

They should have just gotten Broomhall to do all of the music; screw Michael McCann. He's a respectable composer, just not the one this game needs.

I don't mind this. The new battle themes are pretty good too for me, just in a different way - instead of evoking the fear of the unknown, where an alien could be hiding in any spot, they feel like you're fighting an inhuman enemy who has the advantage over you in both quality and quantity of troops.

What I don't like is the new interception theme. It was so much better in the old Ufo and TFTD.

[Surrealistik]

I don't mind this. The new battle themes are pretty good too for me, just in a different way - instead of evoking the fear of the unknown, where an alien could be hiding in any spot, they feel like you're fighting an inhuman enemy who has the advantage over you in both quality and quantity of troops.

I've never felt this way. To be entirely honest, the music came off as generic, action shoot out fare more often than not.

[Impnemo]

The game itself has an entirely different tempo. In X-COM the problem, tactically, was getting eyes on the enemy (with TUs remaining). Firefights themselves were not drawn out affairs. In XCOM the problem is what to do once you have eyes on the enemy. If you are not engaged the music changes to a tempo which matches the first well enough, though I always think more would be better. More 'search' tracks for different environments and missions.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I suddenly wonder whether or not XCOM could benefit from extra depth to the "Interception" minigame. The old way was straightforward and a little random - pick a range and hope you deal out more damage than the bogey inflicts, or that it doesn't boost away from you. The new game is even more straightforward, with a defined time limit on attacking and only one weapon per craft, but it's much more arcadey, and the player feels much less in control, even with the boosts. (The interceptors are also ridiculously resilient.)

Would it be better if, a-la Apocalypse, we could actually outfit interceptors? Add armor to increase survivability at the cost of mobility. Develop and install new engines to keep up with faster UFOs without doing the leap to a whole new craft. Balance single shot power versus ammo supply of different weapons.

And what if the interceptions themselves became more complex? What if bigger ships had escorts, or if smaller ships flew in groups? It'd require maintaining not single craft, but whole flights of them, with loadouts as balanced as your ground-side squads, for engaging different kinds of targets.

Do you think it'd improve, or detract from the experience?

[Anarion]

And what if the interceptions themselves became more complex? What if bigger ships had escorts, or if smaller ships flew in groups? It'd require maintaining not single craft, but whole flights of them, with loadouts as balanced as your ground-side squads, for engaging different kinds of targets.

Do you think it'd improve, or detract from the experience?

I felt the loss of two extra craft from the original, I'll definitely say that. I really liked building ships and getting the Avenger (and less so the lightning) felt really cool because you ended up with a kill anything ship that could immediately drop your ground forces on a kill site.

I think in this game, the way missions were structured made the other ships pointless, but I would have liked to see 2-3 more types of ships with bigger differences between UFOs and more depth to the UFO engagements.

I think something expanded from the original idea would have been interesting. For example, what if you kept the original categories: aggressive, standard, defensive? But instead of just setting ranges, they actually indicated in the new game how much damage the interceptor would take but also altered its hit chance. Perhaps the UFOs could have also had attack patterns and altering your choice mid-combat to counteract a UFO change in tactics would have been optimal.

[RagingKrikkit]

I don't think we've had too many humans slain by alien plasma.

Though I suppose the Chryssalids are a bit gristly.

*Watches Cryssalid hatch* That's our M rating right there.

That pretty much says it all. I mean, they freaking explode.

[JMobius]

So, two consistent bugs that are annoying the crap out of me:

1) If you're moving, spot a new alien group, and something in it then gets killed by a teammate's overwatch, the "alien visibile" marker for it remains onscreen for that character for the rest of the mission. SUPER annoying, and it inevitable leads to me going into targeting mode when no targets are actually visible.

2) When your sniper's Double Tap ability triggers, you must take the second shot. Many times I've wanted to use disabling shot to prep the target for capture, but the bloodthirsty little sharpshooter must fire at (and almost always kill) the victim before I can move on.

[RagingKrikkit]

You can end turn (back button on 360), and your sniper won't use the extra action.

[Zevox]

So, I tried out the multiplayer. Not many people playing, are there? At least on the 360 version.

One thing I can tell you that I won't be doing again is ranked games. Simple reason: 90 second time limit on turns. I cannot tell you how much I hate time limits on turn-based games. And in the one ranked match I did, I ran into that one more than once - and not because I was acting slowly, but simply because of the time it takes for animations to play out when using six units. Oh, and I ran into a bug where my opponent's time for his turn ran out, but his turn never ended. I waited several minutes and it was still stuck that way, so I eventually just left.

I did play a couple of unranked games, though in only one case did we play it out to the end, rather than the other player leaving. I lost that one, mostly because his sniper was rather lucky on a number of occasions, avoiding reaction shots and landing a shot on a Muton Elite in full cover for a critical hit one-shot-kill.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think I really like it. The point totals seem quite restrictive in terms of what you can use - Ethereals can't even be used unless you're playing with the highest point total possible (or no point limit at all, though that sounds rather nuts - six Ethereals for everyone!), and most units that are any better than bottom-rank troops and aliens will take up a fourth to a third of your points minimum on the next highest rating, which is what ranked was using, and so what I went with for my games. And I quickly discovered that after initial engagements, when each side ends up down to just a few troops, the game basically becomes one of cat-and-mouse, where everyone tries to manuever out of their remaining enemies' sight, guess where their opponent will move to, and uses overwatch. Not really how I'd like to play.

Zevox

[Surrealistik]

I can't believe there are people who use Muton Elites; that's like asking to lose via Mind Control.

[Zevox]

I can't believe there are people who use Muton Elites; that's like asking to lose via Mind Control.

I hadn't played it before and wanted to use the aliens. I wasn't going for an optimized team, just something to try it out with.

Nobody that I played against used psionics anyway though, so that didn't matter. Lots of snipers with skeleton/ghost armor, though.

Zevox

[Surrealistik]

Oh, my bad; I didn't meant to insult you, or act all elitist; casually glancing over the post, it had seemed the opposite, that he was using the MEs.

That said, I'd advise against using em. They're great units excepting their glaring weakness which makes them a crippling liability; Mind Control in my experience is pretty common, and if I'm not running the usual cheese Ghoster combos, I'm rocking a Sec Com in some combination. I suspect this is true of most people who have got the better teams down.

If you really want to go all aliens, I strongly recommend Sec Coms; they also have nice synergy with Scoutoids, though you'll want to watch out for giving away his position via mass mind merge.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Having been watching Iskandar's LP of XCOM, I would just like to state for the record that XCOM must use Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy as a recruitment center.

Keep in mind that the combat mechanics are simulating real-time stuff. Nobody is actually crouching behind cover waiting for everyone else to act, unless simulated as such by using Hunker Down.

However, I do wonder if they just grab recruits who demonstrated good willpower and enough sense to follow your orders straight out of basic training, since these guys definitely aren't experienced with a range of weapons, or even one particular weapon.

[Zevox]

Well, thank you for the advice, but as I said, I don't really think that I like the multiplayer anyway, so I doubt I'll be playing it in the future.

For the heck of it, my team was a Muton Elite, a Chryssalid, a Medic-type Support (with light plasma rifle and med-kit), and three Sectoids. Basically I decided I wanted to use a Muton Elite and Chryssalid, and the rest was filler to get as close to the 10k point limit as possible. Actually was working out okay for the most part, but nonetheless the ranked match ended up bugged, most of my other matches had the other player either leave or disconnect after a short time, and my opponent got lucky in the only one that finished.

Zevox

[Avilan the Grey]

So... I am thinking of buying this today. Is the extra bonus soldier pack worth it?

[Luzahn]

It gives enough interesting customization stuff that I don't regret it, but that's the only worth of the thing.

[Avilan the Grey]

DOwnloading the game, but Steam is very VERY slow today. Never seen it this slow. (approx. download time: 8 hours).

I noticed almost everyone here seem to play on Classic?

[Zevox]

So... I am thinking of buying this today. Is the extra bonus soldier pack worth it?

I don't think so personally. For free as a pre-order bonus it's fine, but all it gives you is some options to customize the appearance of troops, and honestly not all that many. I wouldn't have paid money for it myself.

I noticed almost everyone here seem to play on Classic?

Most people here seem to be veterans of the original game, which seems to be why they go to that difficulty first. But a number of us played Normal first, or even still are. I did two normal games - one without and one with the Iron Man option - and am only now playing with the difficulty increased to Classic.

Zevox