@Tennmuerti: How ironic that we posted back to back. Fallout 2 oldguard fan reporting for duty.

Guys you can buy Xcom for 10 bucks on Gog. why would you want them to sell it to you again for 60?

@Mooqi said:

I saw ingame footage and the game is not what I want in an XCOM game. It's almost impossible that the things that I didn't see yet can make up for the stuff I saw.

There is no reason for them to show only tiny maps with crap like respawning aliens, civilians that just disappear into thin air if you walk next to them or stupid bomb diffusions if they had huge ones with more "realism" to show...

There is. Ever thought of the possibility that they wanted to show off a short mission that they could predictably finish in the quick look while showing off how the combat works, etc?

If I were demoing the game, I wouldn't show you a terribly complex mission. Just wait for reviews and relax, goddamnit.

@Dagbiker: WHAT? I have check gog.com many times, and I have never seen x-com listed. I would have bought it by now if it was.

@Mooqi said:

I saw ingame footage and the game is not what I want in an XCOM game. It's almost impossible that the things that I didn't see yet can make up for the stuff I saw.

There is no reason for them to show only tiny maps with crap like respawning aliens, civilians that just disappear into thin air if you walk next to them or stupid bomb diffusions if they had huge ones with more "realism" to show...

There is. Ever thought of the possibility that they wanted to show off a short mission that they could predictably finish in the quick look while showing off how the combat works, etc?

If I were demoing the game, I wouldn't show you a terribly complex mission. Just wait for reviews and relax, goddamnit.

I'm just gonna play the old X-Com. I get what they're trying to do, with smaller squad sizes and things like that, making it more accessible and less tedious to manage your larger teams and inventories in a mission, and I can respect that, but it kinda destroys what I like about X-Com; I want to be able to recruit en masse, to send a ship full of dudes into a mission, 14 soldiers of whom only four or five will return. The washouts will most likely be steaming puddles at best, horrifically devoured from the inside at worst. Those few survivors, though, get to lead the next squad, and the survivors there do the same, and so on.

They may want to make the soldiers more effective from the get go, and again, I understand that, but I think it ruins the feeling that you were building this expert anti-alien agency. You were taking soldiers from around the world and sending them to the front lines against enemies the world had never imagined, to see who ended up shining and who was going to be more useful pulling a grenade pin and charging through an open door. I liked that your soldiers were, at the same time, incredibly valuable and very expendable. With a starting squad size of four and a max of six, I kind of lost a lot of my interest.

Edit: I guess I had hoped they'd streamline and update things without changing the actual rules and framework too dramatically, and if they had a mode with the same boundaries as the original- more soldiers, you can keep going if you lose all your backers provided you find some other way to make a profit, etc., then I would be ecstatic. The game still will probably be good, though, and will probably do better commercially than a straight re-release would have.

in the future i think devs should spend at least 9 month to a year canvasing and seeking opinion of the posters on internet forums before they even start designing their games.

they can then send out email to everyone that once bought a copy of an older XCOM (or other franchise) and put their idea's to each and everyone of them to ensure that the designs they have do not upset anyone on the internet.

cos the last thing we want is anyone upset or dissapointed.

for christ sake how on earth do people cope with the dissapointment of a franchise they used to play changing a little bit.

devs might think THEY own the frachises they spend years developing and creating. but in actual fact its the gamers that once spent about £20 on one of their games that own the franchise and its them that know the best dirrection to take the game.

@Mooqi said:

Why can't people just recreate an old game by updating the graphics and keeping the core intact?

Obvious troll. Please try harder.

This is more of a notice on old games becoming new games in general. I can understand the concern. I played a lot of Syndicate back in the days too. Remember that game? Such an awesome concept with mindblowing potential with today's tech and budgets, and when that game finally was going to become relevant again they made a linear shooter. Was I disappointed, perhaps weirdly so? Hell yes I was disappointed. That new game is what Syndicate is to this new generation of gamers.

Making a "re-imagining" of a game could have been done through the "spiritual successor" path, and by that leave the old names (XCOM/X-com) alone and in a way rid of the pressure to deliver a near-identical experience compared to the original.

Wanting this to not suck is not like wanting X-com of 94 re-skinned in modern graphics and shipped out to stores. To some people old games are like childhood memories.

Firaxis, as one of these studios to pick an old favorite, could have done these things to shield both memories of old and cover themselves against some flack through the X-com vein, but they chose to go with the XCOM name and 'universe'. That, in my book opens them to criticism by yes, fans of the old games, and in return they've gained the attention of those same fans of the original games for this new game. That was the trade-off they agreed to when going about this. I'd rather have players voice their concerns than just carelessly accept everything. I'm glad there's some care still, for some titles and IPs among some gamers.

@QuantumPilot said:

@Dagbiker: WHAT? I have check gog.com many times, and I have never seen x-com listed. I would have bought it by now if it was.

Im sorry, I was pretty sure I saw Xcom on gog a couple of times.

Who knows, maybe if this does well enough they might recreate the classic in it's full glory using the new engine, can't blame them for trying to reach for a new audience though, making games is fucking expensive you know, and nostalgia alone doesn't pay bills.

Because let's be frank, the first XCOM was great, but it was fucking hard as all hell, so much complexity, I mean I love it, but you put that many options in front of 80% of gamers nowadays and they wouldn't know where to begin

the original XCOM was of a time when you would play a game 20 different times for 5 hours just to figure out how to figure out how to move on to the next level. And even then it was still possible 20 hours in, to screw your self so badly that you needed to start from the beginning.

Now a days whole games last 5 hours. And people complain when you make them do the same thing twice. let alone 20 times. There is no way they could have made Xcom today. At least there is no way it would have succeeded at 60$.

We all know a studio of Firaxis' quality could have reached out for a new audience building a new IP entirely, and it would have been just as good, because to be frank, we're kind of starved out on games like this. I mean just naming it differently would have made everyone back off. Luckily though, early previews suggest this game is going to do alright even though it is purposely designed to simply and widen the appeal.

In other news: The XCOM FPS game is resurfacing, this time possibly as a TPS (Third-person perspective) free, downloadable shooter.

@Dagbiker: You can't get my hopes up like that. It is heartbreaking.

@Dagbiker said:

the original XCOM was of a time when you would play a game 20 different times for 5 hours just to figure out how to figure out how to move on to the next level. And even then it was still possible 20 hours in, to screw your self so badly that you needed to start from the beginning.

Now a days whole games last 5 hours. And people complain when you make them do the same thing twice. let alone 20 times. There is no way they could have made Xcom today. At least there is no way it would have succeeded at 60$.

You could say that about a lot of games, and you'd be wrong. First it's "Oh, a game with X-Com's graphics wouldn't sell today!" and you're like "Yeah, of course it wouldn't, except all those pixel art indie games, but we could just modernize the graphics," then it's "Oh, a game with X-Com's complexity wouldn't sell today!" and it's like "On consoles, maybe, but then again console gamers are playing all these 'Roguelikes' with the complexity and the randomized levels," and then it's "But it's too difficult for today's gamers!" and it's like "What about Dark Souls and all those other super-hard games that are having a renaissance right now?" and I'm not sure what else. Like, did anyone think for a second that Minecraft would sell on consoles? And yeah, it's not a $60 game, but who's saying an X-Com remake absolutely has to be $60? Answer: No one.

@Mooqi: OMG, you are so hardcore! its must be hard to live in such a dumbed down world.. you like Einstein or something.

@gladspooky said:

@Dagbiker said:

the original XCOM was of a time when you would play a game 20 different times for 5 hours just to figure out how to figure out how to move on to the next level. And even then it was still possible 20 hours in, to screw your self so badly that you needed to start from the beginning.

Now a days whole games last 5 hours. And people complain when you make them do the same thing twice. let alone 20 times. There is no way they could have made Xcom today. At least there is no way it would have succeeded at 60$.

You could say that about a lot of games, and you'd be wrong. First it's "Oh, a game with X-Com's graphics wouldn't sell today!" and you're like "Yeah, of course it wouldn't, except all those pixel art indie games, but we could just modernize the graphics," then it's "Oh, a game with X-Com's complexity wouldn't sell today!" and it's like "On consoles, maybe, but then again console gamers are playing all these 'Roguelikes' with the complexity and the randomized levels," and then it's "But it's too difficult for today's gamers!" and it's like "What about Dark Souls and all those other super-hard games that are having a renaissance right now?" and I'm not sure what else. Like, did anyone think for a second that Minecraft would sell on consoles? And yeah, it's not a $60 game, but who's saying an X-Com remake absolutely has to be $60? Answer: No one.

You're talking about roguelikes and indie games, and minecraft. Those become profitable but ONLY because of their incredibly low costs (just one dude working on it, and begging around to MAYBE get lucky and have his game played). And also like 1 in a thousand games make any money at all. Love how everyone throws minecraft around, as if all indie game developers who follow their heart become millionaires. The incredibly vast majority of indie games make no money at all. And its fine because there aren't dozens of people's livelihoods in the line for it.

If a game from firaxis sells as much as one of those roguelikes and indies do, it would be considered a huge failure because it wont even begin to cover their marketing or development costs. So they have to polish, and make accessible for a broad audience and easy to get into. And they'll make a great enjoyable game, not everything needs to be indie and crazy complex to be fun.

Go play http://www.xenonauts.com/ if you like the indie alternatives that look crappy, aren't as user-friendly and can't run on consoles. There's your cheap, deep, intricate remake of XCOM

The other 190 million console owners would like something to play as well. You should really try to not be so narrow minded about your opinions.

@Terramagi said:

@haggis said:

I played the original a few weeks back. It sucked. Comparatively, of course, since at the time of release I loved it. I poured countless hours into it. Sorry, guys, but it's time to hang up the nostalgia and move on. Very few games hold up after two decades, and I wasn't surprised to see the original game suffered horribly from what were, at the time, standard design choices. We expect better. No one is going to buy a copy of the original game with updated graphics. You could sell it for $5 on Live, I suppose, but a full game? No way.

This is a constant argument, though. It happened with Fallout 3, and with every other modern interpretation of older games. People are free to judge games based on narrow, short demos. But it's difficult to take them very seriously. The original game is still out there if you want to play it. Refresh your memory, or, better yet, leave the memory alone and just enjoy the new game for what it is. I wish I'd never gone back and played the game again. It's virtually unplayable by modern standards.

"It's old, so it's bad."

This is the kind of logic that resulted in 7 years of strawberry jam. Should we throw regenerating health in here too? Perhaps after a turn without being shot, a unit's health returns to normal!

Of course, I didn't say "It's old, so it's bad." It's just out of date (obviously), and I think people underestimate the amount of progress that's been made in gameplay over the last two decades. It's painful to play now, because we're used to new mechanics. It's not a difficult distinction to understand.

@CrossTheAtlantic said:

I would like to formally make a proposal that we abolish the phrase "dumbing down" when talking about video games especially ones yet to be released.

Please?

What do you propose takes its place? You can not deny that as gaming is getting more and more popular, they're becoming products that want to appeal to wider markets, and that to appeal to wider markets your game can't be too frustrating or complex. It can not be denied that games are generally easier now, and that many formerly complex series have been "dumbed down". What should the phenomenon be called?

@gladspooky said:

@haggis said:

I played the original a few weeks back. It sucked. Comparatively, of course, since at the time of release I loved it. I poured countless hours into it. Sorry, guys, but it's time to hang up the nostalgia and move on. Very few games hold up after two decades, and I wasn't surprised to see the original game suffered horribly from what were, at the time, standard design choices. We expect better. No one is going to buy a copy of the original game with updated graphics. You could sell it for $5 on Live, I suppose, but a full game? No way.

This is a constant argument, though. It happened with Fallout 3, and with every other modern interpretation of older games. People are free to judge games based on narrow, short demos. But it's difficult to take them very seriously. The original game is still out there if you want to play it. Refresh your memory, or, better yet, leave the memory alone and just enjoy the new game for what it is. I wish I'd never gone back and played the game again. It's virtually unplayable by modern standards.

What's wrong with modernizing something by streamlining the UI and controls, but keeping the complexity and the freedom? Fallout 3 did that. It showed that these things are not mutually exclusive. That's why it was so successful. Because they modernized a classic, and did it right. It just doesn't look like this remake is doing that (judging from the trailers, and the text previews, and the developer interviews, and the hands-on previews, and the screenshots, and the gameplay features, and the website blurbs, and the insight from people who have played it, and the unedited YouTube Let's Plays, and whatever else apparently isn't sufficient for judging a game before it's released).

I didn't say there was anything wrong with it: I actually think it's a good idea to modernize by streamlining the UI and controls. All I was saying is this same argument over modernization was had with games like Fallout 3, and many others. I'm actually tired of the argument: either you like the new version or not, just like any other game. The idea that a new version somehow retroactively harms the old game in some way is something I don't understand.

If you want to say this new XCOM isn't living up to the old one, that's fine. But I can't take your opinion all that seriously yet, since you haven't actually played it. Your opinion doesn't mean nothing, but all pre-release opinions are, in my mind, have inherently less worth than opinions by those who have actually played the game.

@believer258 said:

"one true input"? That sounds so sad.

That sounds a little too close to gamer genocide to me! "WE MUST ELIMINATE THE INFERIOR CONTROLS. ALL HAIL MOUSE AND KEYBOARD!"

@haggis: Yeah, same for me. I can still appreciate it for what it meant in its time, and how it basically created a new genre for videogames. But holy shit, that game is really shitty to play right now. It's practically unplayable without an external guide or endless amount of trial and error.

@Pinworm45 said:

@CrossTheAtlantic said:

I would like to formally make a proposal that we abolish the phrase "dumbing down" when talking about video games especially ones yet to be released.

Please?

What do you propose takes its place? You can not deny that as gaming is getting more and more popular, they're becoming products that want to appeal to wider markets, and that to appeal to wider markets your game can't be too frustrating or complex. It can not be denied that games are generally easier now, and that many formerly complex series have been "dumbed down". What should the phenomenon be called?

Well, if the purpose of that design filosophy is to not make games that are too frustrating or complex, lets call it by the antonyms of those words: "Encouraging and Simple"

@Tennmuerti said:

Fallout 3 is a good example of modernising a classic now? It was successfull because it was Oblivion with guns, and Oblivion blew up as a one of a kind huge game experience at the time of a new console cycle. The number of fans of the originals Fallout 1,2 is insignificant compared to how many poeple bought Fallout 3. The majority of the sales were Bethesda open world lovers, not Fallout fans. This is pure math of copies sold of both the old and the new games, if every original Fallout fan out there bought Fallout 3 they would still be a tiny minority.

In fact the most of the old guard Fallout fans hated Fallout 3. Just like you are now hating on the new Xcom. (except Fallout reaction was much much more negative, more vocal, and more widespread)

And again to correct a completely wrong statement. Fallout 3 did loose a lot of the complexity of the originals. As well as quite a few other things that made the originals great, such as the deep dialogue, meaningfull intertwined choices and questlines, tone of narative and humor, consistency of the universe.

I loved Fallout 3. And I loved the original Fallout games (I put hundreds of hours into them). But you're right that Fallout 3 was not (at least in its gameplay mechanics) anything like the original. I reconcile my love for both by simply recognizing that they were never really intended to overlap in terms of gaming market. So I think of them as completely different games. I won't judge XCOM on what I think I remember from my experience playing the original, I'll simply judge it against what I expect and what's been promised. In the end, I think games stand or fall on their own.

We were never going to get a new Fallout like 1 or 2, just like we're never going to get a new XCOM like UFO: Enemy Unknown. So--either like the new game or don't, just like any other game. I'll probably like the new XCOM less than I otherwise would because I've played the original, but I'm not going to let the discrepancy between the two ruin my enjoyment of what looks to be (to me, at least) a decent game.

@Dredlockz said:

@haggis: Yeah, same for me. I can still appreciate it for what it meant in its time, and how it basically created a new genre for videogames. But holy shit, that game is really shitty to play right now. It's practically unplayable without an external guide or endless amount of trial and error.

It's the same with most of the great games of that era. Just go and try to play Doom. You can't fucking look up (you don't even have to, but after playing modern games, it's natural to want to). There's no mouselook. Pointing out that it's damned near impossible to enjoy now given the rash of gameplay developments over the years is not the same as saying it's a shitty game. Obviously it wasn't. And yet if we listened to some people on this board, we'd be given an XCOM that looked and played exactly like that dated original. No thanks. Will the new game be just as good? Of course not--the original was ground breaking. The new XCOM isn't. By definition it can't be. It can't recreate that original feeling we all had playing it, because that time is past.

But now I'm just lecturing. We get more XCOM. That's really enough for me at this point. I won't know until I play it if it captures part of that original experience I had. And that's all I'm expecting: part.

@haggis: You are saying so many smart and level headed things that it's almost scary. ^^

@Dogma said:

@haggis: You are saying so many smart and level headed things that it's almost scary. ^^

Holy shit, he is! Reasonable person on the internet!

Grrrrr.... I'm mad they didn't show the entire game in a video that was less than an hour long! Imma bitch on the interwebs.

@haggis said:

@Dredlockz said:

@haggis: Yeah, same for me. I can still appreciate it for what it meant in its time, and how it basically created a new genre for videogames. But holy shit, that game is really shitty to play right now. It's practically unplayable without an external guide or endless amount of trial and error.

It's the same with most of the great games of that era. Just go and try to play Doom. You can't fucking look up (you don't even have to, but after playing modern games, it's natural to want to). There's no mouselook. Pointing out that it's damned near impossible to enjoy now given the rash of gameplay developments over the years is not the same as saying it's a shitty game. Obviously it wasn't. And yet if we listened to some people on this board, we'd be given an XCOM that looked and played exactly like that dated original. No thanks. Will the new game be just as good? Of course not--the original was ground breaking. The new XCOM isn't. By definition it can't be. It can't recreate that original feeling we all had playing it, because that time is past.

But now I'm just lecturing. We get more XCOM. That's really enough for me at this point. I won't know until I play it if it captures part of that original experience I had. And that's all I'm expecting: part.

Heh. I particularly love the OP´s claim that the original was somehow this huge big thing depicting massive battles. I guess it's a bit like returning to a childhood playground, then. Everything seems tiny when you grow up, because there's a difference between being sloooow as hell and being large.

Honestly, I think X-COM holds up pretty well, all things considered, but then, I know what all the buttons do. It's hard to argue that the new one is "dumber" or "smaller", though. Games have gotten so much better since then just on the basis of sheer mechanics and how they interact with the player that it's a bit like comparing a zoetrope to Looper.

Arrgh... In I love Mondays Jeff said he played XCOM for 8 hours today... man..

Really curious about how this plays without the restrictions of the demo.

@NoelVeiga said:

@haggis said:

@Dredlockz said:

@haggis: Yeah, same for me. I can still appreciate it for what it meant in its time, and how it basically created a new genre for videogames. But holy shit, that game is really shitty to play right now. It's practically unplayable without an external guide or endless amount of trial and error.

It's the same with most of the great games of that era. Just go and try to play Doom. You can't fucking look up (you don't even have to, but after playing modern games, it's natural to want to). There's no mouselook. Pointing out that it's damned near impossible to enjoy now given the rash of gameplay developments over the years is not the same as saying it's a shitty game. Obviously it wasn't. And yet if we listened to some people on this board, we'd be given an XCOM that looked and played exactly like that dated original. No thanks. Will the new game be just as good? Of course not--the original was ground breaking. The new XCOM isn't. By definition it can't be. It can't recreate that original feeling we all had playing it, because that time is past.

But now I'm just lecturing. We get more XCOM. That's really enough for me at this point. I won't know until I play it if it captures part of that original experience I had. And that's all I'm expecting: part.

Heh. I particularly love the OP´s claim that the original was somehow this huge big thing depicting massive battles. I guess it's a bit like returning to a childhood playground, then. Everything seems tiny when you grow up, because there's a difference between being sloooow as hell and being large....

Having played games for thirty years, I'm keenly aware of what we used to have to go through. Games on a dozen 5 1/4" floppies, load times measured in minutes, not seconds. No voice acting at all. EGA and Tandy graphics modes, and having to trade higher resolution for color. (Do I play in 320x240 so I can get the 256 colors? Or do I play in 640x480 and get only 16 colors, with bad dithering?) I make a point of admiring the advances. I have glowing memories of quite a few of those early PC adventure games, for instance--King's Quest, Hero's Quest, Day of the Tentacle, Maniac Mansion, etc--but I don't let my wonderful memories of those games override the obvious: that they are technical dinosaurs. Their contribution wasn't the game itself but the ideas and concepts behind them. There's nothing sacrosanct about UFO: Enemy Unknown's user interface. If you think that is what was great about the game, then ... well, I just don't know what to say.

@haggis said:

@NoelVeiga said:

@haggis said:

@Dredlockz said:

@haggis: Yeah, same for me. I can still appreciate it for what it meant in its time, and how it basically created a new genre for videogames. But holy shit, that game is really shitty to play right now. It's practically unplayable without an external guide or endless amount of trial and error.

It's the same with most of the great games of that era. Just go and try to play Doom. You can't fucking look up (you don't even have to, but after playing modern games, it's natural to want to). There's no mouselook. Pointing out that it's damned near impossible to enjoy now given the rash of gameplay developments over the years is not the same as saying it's a shitty game. Obviously it wasn't. And yet if we listened to some people on this board, we'd be given an XCOM that looked and played exactly like that dated original. No thanks. Will the new game be just as good? Of course not--the original was ground breaking. The new XCOM isn't. By definition it can't be. It can't recreate that original feeling we all had playing it, because that time is past.

But now I'm just lecturing. We get more XCOM. That's really enough for me at this point. I won't know until I play it if it captures part of that original experience I had. And that's all I'm expecting: part.

Heh. I particularly love the OP´s claim that the original was somehow this huge big thing depicting massive battles. I guess it's a bit like returning to a childhood playground, then. Everything seems tiny when you grow up, because there's a difference between being sloooow as hell and being large....

Having played games for thirty years, I'm keenly aware of what we used to have to go through. Games on a dozen 5 1/4" floppies, load times measured in minutes, not seconds. No voice acting at all. EGA and Tandy graphics modes, and having to trade higher resolution for color. (Do I play in 320x240 so I can get the 256 colors? Or do I play in 640x480 and get only 16 colors, with bad dithering?) I make a point of admiring the advances. I have glowing memories of quite a few of those early PC adventure games, for instance--King's Quest, Hero's Quest, Day of the Tentacle, Maniac Mansion, etc--but I don't let my wonderful memories of those games override the obvious: that they are technical dinosaurs. Their contribution wasn't the game itself but the ideas and concepts behind them. There's nothing sacrosanct about UFO: Enemy Unknown's user interface. If you think that is what was great about the game, then ... well, I just don't know what to say.

I started playing on a tape loading Spectrum and I was actually agreeing with you there... not sure if I was being confusing or you misread. I said X-COM holds up *only if you already know the obtuse interface*, not because of it.

But since you mention it, Day of the Tentacle still plays great, Maniac Mansion is really obtuse, but I appreciate the multiple characters thing, which even now nobody has the sheer balls to try and replicate but King's Quest and the nonsensical puzzles and long term failure states can go take a pie to the face. Ugh.

@NoelVeiga said:

@haggis said:

Having played games for thirty years, I'm keenly aware of what we used to have to go through. Games on a dozen 5 1/4" floppies, load times measured in minutes, not seconds. No voice acting at all. EGA and Tandy graphics modes, and having to trade higher resolution for color. (Do I play in 320x240 so I can get the 256 colors? Or do I play in 640x480 and get only 16 colors, with bad dithering?) I make a point of admiring the advances. I have glowing memories of quite a few of those early PC adventure games, for instance--King's Quest, Hero's Quest, Day of the Tentacle, Maniac Mansion, etc--but I don't let my wonderful memories of those games override the obvious: that they are technical dinosaurs. Their contribution wasn't the game itself but the ideas and concepts behind them. There's nothing sacrosanct about UFO: Enemy Unknown's user interface. If you think that is what was great about the game, then ... well, I just don't know what to say.

I started playing on a tape loading Spectrum and I was actually agreeing with you there... not sure if I was being confusing or you misread. I said X-COM holds up *only if you already know the obtuse interface*, not because of it.

But since you mention it, Day of the Tentacle still plays great, Maniac Mansion is really obtuse, but I appreciate the multiple characters thing, which even now nobody has the sheer balls to try and replicate but King's Quest and the nonsensical puzzles and long term failure states can go take a pie to the face. Ugh.

I didn't think you disagreed, or said that you thought that about the interface, only that it's an argument that I've seen often enough. It was me being unclear, not you.

I think most of those old adventure games are relatively playable even now, but they've lost the fun bits. As far as nonsensical puzzles, King's Quest had it's share--but not as bad as some other games in the genre. As much as I'd love to see someone revive that series, you won't see me complaining if they try to foist the text interpreter on us again, or some of the more ludicrous inventory puzzles.

@haggis said:

And yet if we listened to some people on this board, we'd be given an XCOM that looked and played exactly like that dated original. No thanks.

Show me one person who's been saying the remake should look exactly like the original, or that there should be huge buttons in the middle of the screen that don't tell you what they do, and I will eat my hat. I don't have a hat, I admit, but I will buy one and eat it if you can find anyone complaining about that. Like, just because you guys keep saying it, doesn't make it true.

And my post about "Well, pixel art games are having a renaissance" doesn't count. I was just throwing that out there.

@gladspooky said:

@haggis said:

And yet if we listened to some people on this board, we'd be given an XCOM that looked and played exactly like that dated original. No thanks.

Show me one person who's been saying the remake should look exactly like the original, or that there should be huge buttons in the middle of the screen that don't tell you what they do, and I will eat my hat. I don't have a hat, I admit, but I will buy one and eat it if you can find anyone complaining about that. Like, just because you guys keep saying it, doesn't make it true.

And my post about "Well, pixel art games are having a renaissance" doesn't count. I was just throwing that out there.

Mooqui said: "Firaxis reduced the scope and therefore kind of dumbed it down for me. Why can't people just recreate an old game by updating the graphics and keeping the core intact?"

Hat served.

Edit: It's worth noting that you completely mischaracterize what I've been arguing, but this is the Internet after all. It's always asking too much to have people read carefully before responding.

@haggis said:

@Terramagi said:

@haggis said:

I played the original a few weeks back. It sucked. Comparatively, of course, since at the time of release I loved it. I poured countless hours into it. Sorry, guys, but it's time to hang up the nostalgia and move on. Very few games hold up after two decades, and I wasn't surprised to see the original game suffered horribly from what were, at the time, standard design choices. We expect better. No one is going to buy a copy of the original game with updated graphics. You could sell it for $5 on Live, I suppose, but a full game? No way.

This is a constant argument, though. It happened with Fallout 3, and with every other modern interpretation of older games. People are free to judge games based on narrow, short demos. But it's difficult to take them very seriously. The original game is still out there if you want to play it. Refresh your memory, or, better yet, leave the memory alone and just enjoy the new game for what it is. I wish I'd never gone back and played the game again. It's virtually unplayable by modern standards.

"It's old, so it's bad."

This is the kind of logic that resulted in 7 years of strawberry jam. Should we throw regenerating health in here too? Perhaps after a turn without being shot, a unit's health returns to normal!

Of course, I didn't say "It's old, so it's bad." It's just out of date (obviously), and I think people underestimate the amount of progress that's been made in gameplay over the last two decades. It's painful to play now, because we're used to new mechanics. It's not a difficult distinction to understand.

I recently went through and played most of the Infinity Engine games. Believe it or not, they hold up surprisingly well, barring Baldur's Gate 1... 2E D&D just wasn't meant to be played at a low level. 4 HP main character MY ASS.

Point is, if we followed your logic in just waving your hand at something and saying "it's out of date" and never making games like them again, we'd be in very dire strai-oh wait, that's right, that's EXACTLY what's happening.

@Terramagi said:

@haggis said:

@Terramagi said:

Of course, I didn't say "It's old, so it's bad." It's just out of date (obviously), and I think people underestimate the amount of progress that's been made in gameplay over the last two decades. It's painful to play now, because we're used to new mechanics. It's not a difficult distinction to understand.

I recently went through and played most of the Infinity Engine games. Believe it or not, they hold up surprisingly well, barring Baldur's Gate 1... 2E D&D just wasn't meant to be played at a low level. 4 HP main character MY ASS.

Point is, if we followed your logic in just waving your hand at something and saying "it's out of date" and never making games like them again, we'd be in very dire strai-oh wait, that's right, that's EXACTLY what's happening.

My logic? I never said I didn't want them to "never make games like them again." That's the exact opposite of what I'm saying. I do want them to make games like them again. The key word is "like" them. I don't want developers to feel obligated to recreate out-of-date gameplay mechanics from those old games in some futile and misguided attempt to wood fans of the originals. Those fans are basically unable to be appeased.

My entire point is that we shouldn't blind ourselves to the limitations in those old games, and shouldn't complain when developers try to fix them in remakes (so long as they still provide a decent, playable, fun game). Even if those remakes become rather significant departures. My "out-of-date" comment means that they should modernize when they can. Not that they should abandon the entire possibility of a remake. That's what this entire conversation has been about.

@haggis said:

@Terramagi said:

@haggis said:

@Terramagi said:

Of course, I didn't say "It's old, so it's bad." It's just out of date (obviously), and I think people underestimate the amount of progress that's been made in gameplay over the last two decades. It's painful to play now, because we're used to new mechanics. It's not a difficult distinction to understand.

I recently went through and played most of the Infinity Engine games. Believe it or not, they hold up surprisingly well, barring Baldur's Gate 1... 2E D&D just wasn't meant to be played at a low level. 4 HP main character MY ASS.

Point is, if we followed your logic in just waving your hand at something and saying "it's out of date" and never making games like them again, we'd be in very dire strai-oh wait, that's right, that's EXACTLY what's happening.

My logic? I never said I didn't want them to "never make games like them again." That's the exact opposite of what I'm saying. I do want them to make games like them again. The key word is "like" them. I don't want developers to feel obligated to recreate out-of-date gameplay mechanics from those old games in some futile and misguided attempt to wood fans of the originals. Those fans are basically unable to be appeased.

My entire point is that we shouldn't blind ourselves to the limitations in those old games, and shouldn't complain when developers try to fix them in remakes (so long as they still provide a decent, playable, fun game). Even if those remakes become rather significant departures. My "out-of-date" comment means that they should modernize when they can. Not that they should abandon the entire possibility of a remake. That's what this entire conversation has been about.

"Modernization" caused Dragon Age 2, a game so bad it may have very well crippled RPGs for a decade and a half. Now, I'm willing to say Firaxis isn't as incompetent as fucking Bioware, but the damage done in the name of "modernization" and, dare I say it, "consolization" is evident. The maps are small and linear. The squad sizes miniscule. The UI barely functions on the input device native to the platform, unless they decided to publish a 7 month out of date version as their demo for whatever reason. If they were going to do these things, they should've called the game something else.

@Terramagi said:

@haggis said:

@Terramagi said:

@haggis said:

@Terramagi said:

Of course, I didn't say "It's old, so it's bad." It's just out of date (obviously), and I think people underestimate the amount of progress that's been made in gameplay over the last two decades. It's painful to play now, because we're used to new mechanics. It's not a difficult distinction to understand.

I recently went through and played most of the Infinity Engine games. Believe it or not, they hold up surprisingly well, barring Baldur's Gate 1... 2E D&D just wasn't meant to be played at a low level. 4 HP main character MY ASS.

Point is, if we followed your logic in just waving your hand at something and saying "it's out of date" and never making games like them again, we'd be in very dire strai-oh wait, that's right, that's EXACTLY what's happening.

My logic? I never said I didn't want them to "never make games like them again." That's the exact opposite of what I'm saying. I do want them to make games like them again. The key word is "like" them. I don't want developers to feel obligated to recreate out-of-date gameplay mechanics from those old games in some futile and misguided attempt to wood fans of the originals. Those fans are basically unable to be appeased.

My entire point is that we shouldn't blind ourselves to the limitations in those old games, and shouldn't complain when developers try to fix them in remakes (so long as they still provide a decent, playable, fun game). Even if those remakes become rather significant departures. My "out-of-date" comment means that they should modernize when they can. Not that they should abandon the entire possibility of a remake. That's what this entire conversation has been about.

"Modernization" caused Dragon Age 2, a game so bad it may have very well crippled RPGs for a decade and a half. Now, I'm willing to say Firaxis isn't as incompetent as fucking Bioware, but the damage done in the name of "modernization" and, dare I say it, "consolization" is evident. The maps are small and linear. The squad sizes miniscule. The UI barely functions on the input device native to the platform, unless they decided to publish a 7 month out of date version as their demo for whatever reason. If they were going to do these things, they should've called the game something else.

Wow, that is quite some exaggeration there champ. Dragon Age 2 can cripple all subsequent rpg's for 15 years? Is there any basis for this ludicrous statement or are you just picking numbers out of a hat?

You are making it sound like modernization is the bane of video games, when in truth it's what keeps its alive. Modernization presents developers with a serious challenge, and through that challenge we get better and more creative games. Obviously not all modernization are good, in fact some are so poor that they give the process itself a bad name (DA2 is a great example here), but to say modernization itself is a bad thing makes you seem like an bitter old man.

I understand modernization can be a double edged sword for pc gamers, as it is sometimes used to mask consolization (which I think is a poor practice that leads to worse games overall) but again those misuses doesn't make the actual process of modernization a bad thing, it just means we need to be more alert when developers try to sell us a shit port in the name of modernization.

@Terramagi said:

@haggis said:

@Terramagi said:

@haggis said:

I played the original a few weeks back. It sucked. Comparatively, of course, since at the time of release I loved it. I poured countless hours into it. Sorry, guys, but it's time to hang up the nostalgia and move on. Very few games hold up after two decades, and I wasn't surprised to see the original game suffered horribly from what were, at the time, standard design choices. We expect better. No one is going to buy a copy of the original game with updated graphics. You could sell it for $5 on Live, I suppose, but a full game? No way.

This is a constant argument, though. It happened with Fallout 3, and with every other modern interpretation of older games. People are free to judge games based on narrow, short demos. But it's difficult to take them very seriously. The original game is still out there if you want to play it. Refresh your memory, or, better yet, leave the memory alone and just enjoy the new game for what it is. I wish I'd never gone back and played the game again. It's virtually unplayable by modern standards.

"It's old, so it's bad."

This is the kind of logic that resulted in 7 years of strawberry jam. Should we throw regenerating health in here too? Perhaps after a turn without being shot, a unit's health returns to normal!

Of course, I didn't say "It's old, so it's bad." It's just out of date (obviously), and I think people underestimate the amount of progress that's been made in gameplay over the last two decades. It's painful to play now, because we're used to new mechanics. It's not a difficult distinction to understand.

I recently went through and played most of the Infinity Engine games. Believe it or not, they hold up surprisingly well, barring Baldur's Gate 1... 2E D&D just wasn't meant to be played at a low level. 4 HP main character MY ASS.

Point is, if we followed your logic in just waving your hand at something and saying "it's out of date" and never making games like them again, we'd be in very dire strai-oh wait, that's right, that's EXACTLY what's happening.

Why do you have such a problem with new ideas? You want to fix the game industry (which is stuck making the same games over and over again) by...making the same old games again? There are some legitimate gripes about UI and and controls but let Firaxis try to spin an old formula into something new and sexy and if you don't like it, there is always Xenonauts .

@Terramagi: I don't think it was "modernization" that crippled Dragon Age 2 so much as it was the incredibly short development cycle and a round of bad decision-making. They weren't "modernizing" the game, they were trying to broaden the market for the game by simplifying it. It backfired, no surprise there. Those are two very different things. The original Dragon Age wasn't twenty years old, for instance. It didn't need to be "modernized"--it was already a modern game. The number of modern gaming developments that happened between Dragon Age and Dragon Age 2 is virtually zero. That can't be said about the distance between UFO: Enemy Unknown and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. The wider the distance in time, the wider the distance in the final result.

Otherwise, this is the same argument that was made about Fallout 3 when it came out. That it's so different that it should have been called something else. I'm not sure the distance between the original XCOM game and the new one is quite as severe as the distance between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3. Nevertheless, like I said earlier, I judge games based on what they promise and what they deliver. I assume that any remake with such a massive time distance between the new version and the original version is going to be a fundamentally different game. What I want--like what I wanted with Fallout 3--is a good game. It's not going to be the original XCOM. It's about expectations. I choose to keep my expectation limited to hoping for a game that's fun and entertaining. I'm not expecting it to be as mind-blowing as the original, because it's been nearly two decades and that just won't happen.

I understand your concerns with the game. They're perfectly legitimate, and I can easily understand why people might not like the game. Hell, I might not like the game. I haven't played it yet. I thought I was going to hate Fallout 3. I loved it. I loved it in a very different way than I loved the original Fallout games, but in the end I still played the hell out of it. And I was content with that. I'm not saying that everyone should suck it up and expect less than what they want out of XCOM: Enemy Unknown. I'm only saying that I don't think it's necessarily helpful to be comparing it to the original game given the distance in time, given the clunky, out-of-date interface, etc. Because it is something different. But we already knew that.

In some ways, this is like those sequels to Pride and Prejudice that come out every few decades. I know it's incongruous, but let me explain. The original is a product of its time. We can't have another--it's impossible. Novels have come a long way since then, and not necessarily in ways we all think are better. But I can still pick up a new attempt at a sequel to that classic, and enjoy it. It's not perfect. It might be mediocre. It might remind me of how much I loved the original. But I'll still enjoy it for what it is. Some might choose not to bother with such sequels, and that's fine. But for many of us, we like the idea of someone carrying on in that tradition, even if the craftsmanship isn't up to the original.

So, now, my book-length post is over.

@haggis said:

@gladspooky said:

@haggis said:

And yet if we listened to some people on this board, we'd be given an XCOM that looked and played exactly like that dated original. No thanks.

Show me one person who's been saying the remake should look exactly like the original, or that there should be huge buttons in the middle of the screen that don't tell you what they do, and I will eat my hat. I don't have a hat, I admit, but I will buy one and eat it if you can find anyone complaining about that. Like, just because you guys keep saying it, doesn't make it true.

And my post about "Well, pixel art games are having a renaissance" doesn't count. I was just throwing that out there.

Mooqui said: "Firaxis reduced the scope and therefore kind of dumbed it down for me. Why can't people just recreate an old game by updating the graphics and keeping the core intact?"

Hat served.

Edit: It's worth noting that you completely mischaracterize what I've been arguing, but this is the Internet after all. It's always asking too much to have people read carefully before responding.

I quoted you directly. I couldn't have mischaracterized what you said if I wanted to.

Also, how in the blue hell does "updating the graphics and keeping the core intact" equal "look and play exactly the same"? Answer: it doesn't. Not at all. Try again.

@gladspooky said:

@haggis said:

@gladspooky said:

@haggis said:

And yet if we listened to some people on this board, we'd be given an XCOM that looked and played exactly like that dated original. No thanks.

Show me one person who's been saying the remake should look exactly like the original, or that there should be huge buttons in the middle of the screen that don't tell you what they do, and I will eat my hat. I don't have a hat, I admit, but I will buy one and eat it if you can find anyone complaining about that. Like, just because you guys keep saying it, doesn't make it true.

And my post about "Well, pixel art games are having a renaissance" doesn't count. I was just throwing that out there.

Mooqui said: "Firaxis reduced the scope and therefore kind of dumbed it down for me. Why can't people just recreate an old game by updating the graphics and keeping the core intact?"

Hat served.

Edit: It's worth noting that you completely mischaracterize what I've been arguing, but this is the Internet after all. It's always asking too much to have people read carefully before responding.

I quoted you directly. I couldn't have mischaracterized what you said if I wanted to.

Also, how in the blue hell does "updating the graphics and keeping the core intact" equal "look and play exactly the same"? Answer: it doesn't. Not at all. Try again.

When I say "look and play the same" I'm talking about the interface and mechanics--which you'd know, if you'd actually read what I'd been saying the whole time. So yes, Mooqi's comment about "updating the graphics and keeping the core intact" is exactly the same. He wants the game to look the same (with updated graphics) and play the same as the old game. Why don't you try again? But please, read first.

Edit: Mooqi very clearly wants all the old gameplay mechanics wrapped around new graphics. That's what this entire debate has been about--whether the mechanics also needed to be updated. And saying that I was arguing that people said "the remake should look exactly like the original, or that there should be huge buttons in the middle of the screen..." is not a direct quote. The entire second half of that is mischaracterizing what I said. Very obviously so.

I tried to replay Ufo Defense just yesterday and I decided to stop playing it to not destroy the fond memories. Disembarking from the transporter with 3 aliens camping directly outside the doors getting 6 reaction shots that were simply unavoidable disillusioned me. It boiled down to luck, simple sheer luck. There was no way to being creative, to circumvent the enemy, to try different approaches. Just a packed transporter, one door, only one way to go to even start the mission at all and after that, dice rolls. That is game design I did indeed endure back then, but I am happy game design as a whole has evolved and stuff like that died out. Together with Sierra adventures that could be made un-winnable 30 minutes in the game with no way to tell until 10 hours later.

@Sarx: Those Sierra games could be pretty damned brutal if you missed things--and it was easy to do. Game development back then relied on a lot of what would now be called cheap tricks--randomness that sometimes resulted in impossible situations, arcane solutions to puzzles to drag out play time and force exploration and/or brute force. Thing is, it's not always easy to fix those things without changing the entire game. I think that's exactly what happened here with XCOM. We can only hope they get the balance right.

Players seem to love randomness and unforgiving situations in the recent rogue-like FTL. Before that Dark Souls. It might just become a trend again.

@haggis said:

@gladspooky said:

@haggis said:

@gladspooky said:

@haggis said:

And yet if we listened to some people on this board, we'd be given an XCOM that looked and played exactly like that dated original. No thanks.

Show me one person who's been saying the remake should look exactly like the original, or that there should be huge buttons in the middle of the screen that don't tell you what they do, and I will eat my hat. I don't have a hat, I admit, but I will buy one and eat it if you can find anyone complaining about that. Like, just because you guys keep saying it, doesn't make it true.

And my post about "Well, pixel art games are having a renaissance" doesn't count. I was just throwing that out there.

Mooqui said: "Firaxis reduced the scope and therefore kind of dumbed it down for me. Why can't people just recreate an old game by updating the graphics and keeping the core intact?"

Hat served.

Edit: It's worth noting that you completely mischaracterize what I've been arguing, but this is the Internet after all. It's always asking too much to have people read carefully before responding.

I quoted you directly. I couldn't have mischaracterized what you said if I wanted to.

Also, how in the blue hell does "updating the graphics and keeping the core intact" equal "look and play exactly the same"? Answer: it doesn't. Not at all. Try again.

When I say "look and play the same" I'm talking about the interface and mechanics--which you'd know, if you'd actually read what I'd been saying the whole time. So yes, Mooqi's comment about "updating the graphics and keeping the core intact" is exactly the same. He wants the game to look the same (with updated graphics)

Oh, okay. You have no idea what the words "exactly" and "same" mean. No wonder we've been having communication problems. Okay. Have a nice day. This discussion is over.

@gladspooky said:

@haggis said:

@gladspooky said:

Oh, okay. You have no idea what the words "exactly" and "same" mean. No wonder we've been having communication problems. Okay. Have a nice day. This discussion is over.

And you have no idea what "quoted you directly" means. If you'd read my comments, you'd have known exactly what I meant. Instead, you jumped into a long conversation at the end and made a fool of yourself. The whole conversation was about whether the game should have stayed the same aside from an update of graphics. But you didn't read the conversation. The communication problem is completely yours.

@haggis: @haggis said:

@gladspooky said:

@haggis said:

@gladspooky said:

Oh, okay. You have no idea what the words "exactly" and "same" mean. No wonder we've been having communication problems. Okay. Have a nice day. This discussion is over.

And you have no idea what "quoted you directly" means. If you'd read my comments, you'd have known exactly what I meant. Instead, you jumped into a long conversation at the end and made a fool of yourself. The whole conversation was about whether the game should have stayed the same aside from an update of graphics. But you didn't read the conversation. The communication problem is completely yours.

It's pretty refreshing to see a rational, level-headed conversation (or at least a half of one) in video game forum culture.

My hat is off.