Wraith: The Faceless Commander, Makes the Best Code-Names
Col. "Scrapper" Ravel: These Eyes Have Seen, Assault
Col. Walker "Desperado" Eastwood: Psychic Quarterback, Assault
Col. "Tungsten" Framm: Callous Coward, Sniper
Col. "Piranha" Vezokpiraka - Photobombing Tank, Support Conscript
Col. Inigo "Geronimo" DtTrikyp - Cowardly Lion, Assault
Col. Dan "Prophet" Morph - The Older Brother, Support
Col. Sara "One-Hand" Gaints - Not Even Trying, Sniper
Col. Gina "Godzilla" Odryfus - Involuntary Sex Change, Heavy
Maj. "Dirty Dan" ActionDan - Everyman Action Hero, Heavy
Maj. "Shotgun" CHESSKID - Soul Brotha, Assault
Sq. AGar - Terran Marine, Heavy Conscript
Lt. Egon Spengler - Professor of Paranormal Sciences, Assault
Lt. Roger Overnout - You Know, That Guy, Sniper
Lt. Feirei - Fresh Meat, Rookie
So, this is something new to me here, and probably new to this forum - I'm going to be doing a Let's Play! So if you've ever been into video games, and when I say that I mean as a "hardcore" gamer, you've probably heard of X-Com: UFO Defense.
The original XCOM was a turn-based strategy game released in 1994. In XCOM, you fight aliens who are invading Earth, on both the strategic and tactical level. On the strategic level, or the "GeoScape," you build and develop bases, research and produce new technology, and intercept various UFOs. On the tactical level, you fight various alien races on randomly-generated maps in UFO, Terror, Base Assault, and Base Defense missions. You control a large number of individual, highly expendable soldiers, who start off as extremely inaccurate shots and equally squishy against alien weapons - if any survive, their stats grow and develop until they actually become effective, especially as you research more powerful weapons and armor; XCOM is a fantastic example of both the Video Game Cruelty and Caring Potential. X-COM is one of the most beloved games of all time as a result, but has been a deadpool series for over a decade - the original game only received two true sequels: the notoriously frustrating X-COM: Terror From the Deep and the later, more modernized X-COM: Apocalypse; however, several spin-offs were made of middlin-to-low quality. One of the greatest appeals of the original X-COM was its lack of a real story - every game had great potential to be vastly different from another, as incidents, maps, battles, and enemy behavior were almost completely random in nature.
X-COM: Enemy Unknown was released in October 2012 by Firaxis, and is the reboot of the long-dead franchise (A so-called "reboot" in the form of an FPS is also in development, already widely disowned by fans new and old). Enemy Unknown is a greatly simplified reboot of the original, for better or for worse. The original X-COM was quite micro-heavy, with the player being forced to manage the inventories of individual soldiers along with the inventory and construction of bases and aircraft. Enemy Unknown dispenses with much of this more complicated micro-management while maintaining much of the core mechanics of the original game - while some things are sorely missed, such as randomly-generated maps, base defense, and a non-linear story, it is by and large a worthy reboot, especially in the day and age of the ADHD-oriented "Bro-Shooter." Possibly the biggest difference between Enemy Unknown and the original, however, is the smaller scale and more forgiving nature of combat - the player controls a smaller size (4-6) squad of less fragile soldiers; the original game was notoriously unforgiving in combat, with even the most powerful veterans able to die with a single hit - veterans in Enemy Unknown reach levels of sometimes absurd power. However, the flip side of this is that your soldiers are much, much more customizable than in the original: while in the original all you could do was change the name, in Enemy Unknown you can change all numbers of factors - and that's where my prospective audience, you, comes in. After all, this is a
So let's boot up the game. Here's the menu.
I'll be playing this campaign on Classic difficulty, along with a mod that unlocks of originally-cut "Second Wave" Options. In addition, this playthrough will be total Ironman - no save scumming whatsoever. If I screw up and get someone killed, that someone stays dead.
The Second Wave options induce additional, more random factors into the game. The ones checked are the ones I will be using during this playthrough (I would use others such as Red Fog, The Blitz, and Marathon, but those are currently bugged).
So how do you, my prospective audience, come in? Why, you're the cannon fodder, of course! And my democracy. Below is an example of the customization options available to different soldiers. I have the Elite Soldier DLC so I have broader options in customization:
This is an example guy, and he is wearing the default, starting body armor. None of the customization options beyond appearance really matter to you guys, so this is what you should do if you want to apply for a slot:
Any factors not mentioned above will be randomly assigned, more or less (including gender, unless specified in application or your forum profile). Everyone starts as Rookies, but once you hit Squaddie you are (more or less randomly) assigned one of four classes: Assault (Up Close and Personal Workhorse), Sniper (Deadly Dead-Eyed Motherfuckers), Heavy (Inaccurate Bricks), and Support (MEDIC). I will try to avoid frontloading certain soldiers and give everyone a fair try at participating in missions - note this also means a fair chance of getting killed. If you get killed, I will not make duplicates.
The other part of audience participation is in regards to which missions I play. At random intervals, the aliens will attack three major cities around the world - I can only respond to one of these. The ones I do not respond to will cause panic to increase on that continent. Therefore, I will constantly give SitReps on the state of the world to help you with your choices. In addition, you will determine what I research, which I will not comment on for the sake of those who might participate blind . My equipping of soldiers, manufacturing of equipment, and tactical combat decisions will all be handled by myself, however.
So, hopefully this little experiment of mine will get off the ground - considering I haven't actually started the campaign yet, whether or not this gets sufficient interest will determine whether or not it continues from here.
And if you get a chance, I strongly recommend reading this Let's Play of the original X-COM: UFO Defense from SomethingAwful, by GuavaMoment. It will strongly influence my style of writing here.