X-COM: Enemy Unknown

[GreyICE]

Enemy Unknown is a bad version of the early X-Com games. Some good ideas, not gonna lie, but too little. Cutting the team down to six people just removed too much that the classes and levels never returned. The research, the combat, everything was weaker. With little reason to take risks, and aliens being super passive, there was little reason to do anything but slowly grind things down (except zombie civilians).

Enemy Within changed the game. Meld gave you reason to take risks. And it gave you an investment into your soldiers. It made death a little closer with the removal of the cheap "never die" project, and it gave real depth to your choices and soldiers. It's its own game now.

Xenonauts, by the way, is a glorious celebration of the old X-Com games. Not a ripoff, a tribute, that takes the design and concepts, and turns them up to 11. It's in beta, but it's playable, and when it comes out... glory.

[ChannelDelibird]

Spoiler:

AAAAH FUCKING CHRYSSALIDS FUCK DIE DIE SUCK SCUM DIE SUCK SUCK DIE SCUM AAAAAAAAAAH FUCK YOU TO HELL JESUS CHRIST

[RedCoyote]

Spoiler:

AAAAH FUCKING CHRYSSALIDS FUCK DIE DIE SUCK SCUM DIE SUCK SUCK DIE SCUM AAAAAAAAAAH FUCK YOU TO HELL JESUS CHRIST

This. Gamma keeps whining about Thin Men, but they don't bother me near as much as these things.

I've also graduating to playing on Classic now with much more ease. As has been said, you just have to slow your roll and be more thoughtful of each movement.

I really want to play Enemy Within but I want to beat Unknown first (I was actually at the final stage when my fat PS3 finally died on me and rather than get it "fixed" again for 1 month before it would inevitably break, I just bought a new one and am only now starting over).

[Claus]

Played Enemy within recently, after beating Enemy Unknown a while ago. The human enemies add some nice variety to the game, but it is still essentially the same thing - I wouldn't advise you to wait to beat the first -- just restart already.

Also, for those of you that prefer the original series, you should try Xenonauts -- finished it last month, and it was really good.

[Venmar]

This is definitely a game I would love to pickup. I am actually pretty bummed out that I missed it in the humble bundle.

[Oman]

Anyone want to weigh in on Long War mod?

[Anatole Kuragin]

O, I'm guessing you've already tried it out in the last two months but - Long War is a really well done mod that is great if you really like the X-Com combat and want more of a challenge. I enjoy leveling up and advancing the story parts of the game, which, when I played Long War, happened a lot slower and with a lot more battles in between advancements because there were abductions like all the time. It's harder and longer but you have more tactical options because there are more squad slots and a much more realized tech tree. Overall, I'd recommend it if you really like X-Com but I don't see it fixing any things a typical player WOULDN'T like about it, unless they just really want a deeper, harder, longer game in the same X-Com package.

If you aren't in love with X-Com already or if you aren't very good at it, you're not really the target demo, but it's probably still worth checking out just because of the big overhauls to a few aspects and I think they've added the capability to tone down difficulty but it's been a while since I've fucked with it.

[Sudo_Nym]

Basically, what Anatole said. It makes X-Com even more X-Comy. If you really like X-Com, you'll love Long War. if you don't really like X-Com, you'll hate Long War.

One of the things that you should know if you give it a try: expect to have 3 squads. My first try, I figured I could get along with 1 squad with backups like in the base game. You can't. Injuries are more severe, downtime required is more severe, and time between missions is greatly shortened. If you want to take all the missions (itself possibly a mistake), you're going to need several squads set up.

Also, EXALT gets upgraded to be an actual threat in Long War. In the base game, they quickly become a joke, but in Long War, they're possibly more dangerous than the actual aliens.

[Oman]

So I've started playing Long War and I legit cannot play it for more than a few minutes before I want to snap a controller.

This game feels UNFAIR, I'm pretty sick of missing 76% shots just to have my VIP killed by a rogue 21% shot.

[Sudo_Nym]

To be fair, that happened in the base game, too. It was just less exasperating to restart a mission.

[Oman]

I'm not much for restarting missions (because I think it kind of violates the whole point) but yeah it's because it sucks a lot more in Long War. Basically, getting hit in Vanilla is a hit, getting hit in Long War is a death, 3 panics, and a shitload of xp down the drain.

Just, overall, a much punishing game. Not just punishing of mistakes, but punishing of just bad luck.

[xRECKONERx]

perrrrrfect

Bought the expansion, installed, now every time I launch the game it says X-COM: Enemy Within has stopped working. I close the program. Try again.

Nothing.

Google search brought me tons of similar problems people had but no fix.

I'm validating the files now.

[Junpei]

The best part of this game is that even if you are really good at the tactical on the ground missions; you can't win on hard mode just off that. You gotta be smart outside of the missions as well.

But the last ironman game I did I died and lost all my best officers and then stopped playing since.

btw yo if you really can't get the legit copy to work theres less than legit copies that work fine

[Gammagooey]

XCOM 2 is coming out in November

The (mostly) game footage looks amazing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzAKyj-KK-E

Starting in stealth and being able to setup ambushes is great

Saving wounded soldiers by bringing them to the evac point is fantastic

New soldier customizations and accents look awesome

Ranger class having melee is super cool

edit: and the maps being a lot more modular, AAAND the new mission objectives looking awesome and being pretty as all hell and having little cutscenes for when you complete them with your own soldiers in them (this would be the part I'm most skeptical of actually making it in and looking nearly as good as the trailer but godamn does it look good)

I

neeeed

this game

[quadz08]

just the release trailer looked good, I am super excited to check out this gameplay trailer later