Go play the fucking original and enjoy the new game when it comes out and ignore the shooter. Also shut the fuck up in the meantime. Because you have NO reason to bitch so fucking much. Your getting the ficking game you want you entitled little brat. Jesus. I never said the shooter was gunna be bad but you haven't played it and can't say it's shitty when your against the core idea of a shooter or mass effect clone.

You have some major anger issues and your entire post reads like you have no maturity level whatsoever. If you can't have a reasonable discussion on video games on the internet where your opponent isn't even remotely insulting you in any manner, you need to stop posting.

Forget X-COM. Bases and action figure soldiers?! This is the GI JOE game I've wanted for all these years!

Add in destructible terrain, RPG levelling, strategic layer, story... Q3 is how many months away again? My excitement needs to be curbed lest this doesn't pan out as much as my heart wants it to...

I liked everything I've read here and seen in the sizzle video. Very excited to see the progress on this game.

I wish I could find it, but there is a screenshot showing the soldier customization menu. You can change lots about them compared to the original - which was just the name. I think you can change gender, but you can definitely alter their hair, color, many facets of their appearance and their nationality (soldiers have a flag on their uniform indicating their country of origin).

I am going to spend so long doing that only to get them all melted by plasma. Firaxis are truly evil.

@kwyee Edit: Presumably if you had what the various GI Joes looked like, you could copy them (roughly) and name your soldiers after them.

I swear this community has mere days until it implodes. It was once the best, and now it's pretty much just GameFAQs Lite.

An ignore list would be amazing.

Alright so I love XCOM but I have a few questions. First I'm worried about the levels.Why make 3D levels and then put them in random order rather than making 3D objects, setting them to be in random positions in relation to each other in the world and adding light random tilt?

Also I'm one of the big supporters of the shooter XCOM. It might be that my strategy sucks in general but I'd really like to see new shooter footage as I'm worried about it. I know it'll be random and have upgrades but I want to know if it'll have the base like structure that Enemy Unknown does.

Really I just want to know more about them. Despite my dislike of certain choices I really can't wait, and it looks great. I'm just hoping it'll stand up not to expectation but to quality in itself.

I was a fan of the 90s X-COM games and I thought the 2K Marin game looked really cool. Enemy Unknown looks good too. I am happy.

@dvorak said:

I swear this community has mere days until it implodes. It was once the best, and now it's pretty much just GameFAQs Lite.

An ignore list would be amazing.

Remember the "Civil War" and how we thought the community was going to hell and then everyone calmed the fuck down and moved on with their petty conflicts? That's what I'd like to pretend will happen here.

The trailer looked incredible, never was a big fan of the Xcom series in its day but i was way into RPGs back then and strategy games didn't pique my interest, times have changed and having played through Ghost Recon on the 3DS i could go for more of that style of game.

I freakin loved the old xcom games...I hope these are good

Wow this looks awesome more excited for then I am for the FPS

As someone who doesn't have any experience with the original XCOM, this game looks awesome.

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@Foggen

I don't really think the ruminations on fan fickleness at the beginning were germane or warranted. Fans of X-Com (which I am not) are fans because they're into tactical strategy games, not because the notion of fighting off an alien invasion is particularly novel. So when the FPS was presented as the X-Com game everyone's wanted all these years it's very understandable that they'd be pissed. For people to stop being pissed when they learned that this game exists isn't fickleness, it's changing opinion based on the new information that the X-Com tactical strategy franchise is not being abandoned. They feel like they were the victims of a bait-and-switch, only to have the bait returned in exactly the way it was offered.

It is but it isn't. I understand their position, but it's only fair to be sad not to get a real XCOM classic experience, not to shit talk what might be a great game for what it is. I feel the way they do about Mass Effect 2. I get it, really. But I think people need to stop being so negative because they don't get what they want. I think ME2 is awesome in a vacuum but I was super disappointed by it because I wanted a sequel that kept to the original formula with additive philosophy not simplification.

It's a big deal in gaming when a franchise moves away from what you like about it. In many regards, it means you will never see those qualities that you loved about the game ever again.

When FZero first debuted on the SNES, who thought the awesome techno-jazz tracks would be replaced wtih death metal guitar riffs of all things. Who thought Zelda would turn from an open world adventure into a series of fetch quests and dungeon puzzles?

I don't think that's being fickle at all.

Imagine someone informs you they're going to make you your favorite meal. Something exquisite that you for some reason haven't had in years. Then they come running up to you with a plate full of shit with the name of the meal you wanted printed on a small sign inserted into the shit and suggest you "Chow down!" And you're like "What's this? This isn't what I wanted! This is a plate of shit!"

Then they're like "Oh, nah, I was just kidding, here's the actual meal." At that point you stop caring about the plate of shit. It no longer replaces your favorite meal, it's in addition to it.

For the record though, describing the FPS remake lovingly as "dared to do something new" is like describing a murder victim as "being given a chance to rest." The FPS guts the franchise utterly, it has virtually no similarities to it's namesake, and it stinks of the same "Politics first, game... who cares about the game?" attitude I'd expect from Bioware. If the first trailer showcasing how it was an FPS with virtually none of the original game's elements, and the fact that they were touting the only thing kept from XCom being the name of the fuel didn't seal my opinion of it, then the first gameplay video they released showcasing as a selling point the fact that the invasion forces the US government to work with a "gay Communist scientist" whom you're on a rescue mission to save certainly did.

How utterly horrible that game sounds doesn't make Enemy Unknown terrible by association though. Even in spite of your attempt to make a tenuous connection between the two by proclaiming "They even had conversations with each other sometimes!"

I'm on the same page as others, where now that a true successor to X-Com: UFO Defense is coming (and looks great), my interest is piqued to see how XCOM is going to pan out. I kind of want it to succeed and see the two games complement each other well.

@ArbitraryWater said:

@dvorak said:

I swear this community has mere days until it implodes. It was once the best, and now it's pretty much just GameFAQs Lite.

An ignore list would be amazing.

Remember the "Civil War" and how we thought the community was going to hell and then everyone calmed the fuck down and moved on with their petty conflicts? That's what I'd like to pretend will happen here.

Exactly. Pretend being the imperative word there though.

@Alex: It wasn't so much bait-and-switch as "Look we're making a shooter because it's popular. Strategy games don't sell and PC gaming is dead." That was the messaging from people working on the shooter. It wasn't the fact that they were making the shooter, it was that they were deliberately putting down anyone who wanted something more.

That bit about the cheesy one-liners got me thinking about the UFO Defense's use of sound during the battles.

It was quite sparse. You had the background "music", which resembled discordant alien noises more than anything, some gunfire and explosions, and the screams of casualties, human and alien alike. A rather grim soundtrack, and it definitely plays a role in making the turn-based battles such suspenseful affairs. I guess this is one area where the limitation of the technology UFO Defense was built for may have benefited it, certainly couldn't go crazy with the sound effects.

Not to say that Firaxis is wrong giving the soldiers more voice samples than just their death screams, that would probably be weird in a modern game. I just hope the one-liners don't detract from the atmosphere.

Also, I do hope that there's still a possibility of your squad being slain to the last man just walking off the dropship ramp, that early lesson on the tactical use of smoke grenades is kind of an iconic X-Com scenario.

Honestly, what die hard XCom fans have wanted is not something slavishly similar to the original game, as so much of the gaming press seems to think. What they want is for the industry to build more than one turn based strategy game every two years, because maybe some good games will come of it.

It was sad to see Jagged Alliance go real time, but they did, presumably because there's such a huge fear among developers that they can't build an audience for anything Turn Based. It's nearly as dead as Flight Sims are.

Luckily, there's Firaxis. They can't make an Alpha Centauri sequel because assholes are sitting on the rights to that game, but at least they've kept Civ evolving, and now Xcom.

XCom fans love the original, and some love TFTD. They don't need more of that - they already have that. Apart from minor interface gripes, it's like original Lumines - the formula was already executed perfectly. But this game is the game they need - something with innovations, but still the same KIND of gameplay. We want a variety of different genres from the industry, including shooters. A healthy industry.

This looks fantastic.

That antfarm looks great, but I really hope that they can keep base invasions in the game even with the antfarm layout. It's a very different atmosphere when you're the one under attack, your guys are spread out and under/unequipped, and all collateral damage comes out of your pocket. Really raises the stakes. My favorite battle was when a battleship raided my base while my strike team was away, and all I had were the naked green rooks that I staffed my bases with so that my strike team could keep getting their promotions. Lots of unarmored rooks scrambling around trying to fight off the aliens with whatever conventional firearms were left on site.

I really like what they did with that glamcam. I'm sure they'll have options to adjust how heavily it gets used for players who get tired of it. Kind of looks like how I imagined X-Com battles in my head.

I'm ok with the addition of cover. I think a lot of people used cover in X-Com anyway since they could block sightlines even if it didn't reduce chance-to-hit.

Oh god the low res textures :(

Having never played the original game I have no idea what to expect from this. However, the concept of perma-death has never appealed to me. How is having your level 14 soldier die half-way through the game and having to replace him with a level 1 sniper in any way fun? I can only imagine the game getting progressively harder too so getting set back to a level 1 soldier in later levels would really suck. I don't even understand how that would work unless the whole leveling system is just a superficial and arbitrary thing that has no meaningful impact on the gameplay.

@Kosayn: +GODDAMN1!!

I hate being dismissed as a Luddite because I like *many* types of games. I didn't really want an FPS Fallout -- the game was fine (great, even), but I miss good-old isometric Fallout, too! It seems like Alex's "something different with a beloved franchise" isn't different at all. An FPS reboot of a turn-based game? My, how original.

I don't mind that these FPS re-imaginings exist, what I mind is that they exist in lieu of what used to be a whole spectrum of games(although that may be rose-colored glasses). That's what makes this X-COM situation such a dream: one of the few AAA turn-based strategy game maker gets to handle one version, which means we can feel free to take a more positive view of the other version.

The FPS hasn't evicted tradition, it's just a funky new neighbor on the X-COM block!

This looks fantastic. X-COM remains my favorite PC game of all time and I still play it from time to time.

I love the idea of the "ant hill" view into your X-COM bases. What would be fascinating and perhaps comical would be to see your scientists and soldiers rummaging about, dissecting dead aliens and taunting captured ones. Watching engineers building tanks and weapons and hauling them off to storage would just be enjoyable to watch, even if it did not add significantly to the game.

@restonwebdev said:

This looks fantastic. X-COM remains my favorite PC game of all time and I still play it from time to time.

I love the idea of the "ant hill" view into your X-COM bases. What would be fascinating and perhaps comical would be to see your scientists and soldiers rummaging about, dissecting dead aliens and taunting captured ones. Watching engineers building tanks and weapons and hauling them off to storage would just be enjoyable to watch, even if it did not add significantly to the game.

I've actually never played or even heard of X-com until these games got announced :/ but they looks amazing, I was shocked that just a (low quality) screen shot got me interested at first glance.

I also agree, the "ant hill" thing is cool as shit. Consider me -very- interested.

@Xeirus: If you're interested in trying out the original, you can find X-COM: UFO Defense (U.S. name, "Enemy Unknown" was the U.K. title) on Steam for just a couple of bucks. Yes, the graphics will be a bit horrid, but it's still a blast to play (and hard!).

Game looks great, looking forward to this one!

Fireaxis should have done the reboot of Jagged Alliance :(

Interesting...

Cant wait to play both. I think people were a bit taken back by the announcement of the 50's xcom (lets call it biocom, because both games are technically retro) because they have had to become wary of video game remakes and re-imaginings. IN a franchise where remakes are almost guaranteed to fail, sequels are the only option. The problems is there's been plenty of sequels that are basically just remakes (serious sam BFE, wolfenstein, MW and TW). Nostalgia is good, and I'm glad the developers know that those games mattered and we thank them for making classics, but gamers are not a naive market.

@restonwebdev said:

This looks fantastic. X-COM remains my favorite PC game of all time and I still play it from time to time.

I love the idea of the "ant hill" view into your X-COM bases. What would be fascinating and perhaps comical would be to see your scientists and soldiers rummaging about, dissecting dead aliens and taunting captured ones. Watching engineers building tanks and weapons and hauling them off to storage would just be enjoyable to watch, even if it did not add significantly to the game.

This right here. I was meh on the 50's one (I was withholding judgement) but THIS game is a day one buy for me. Now to make my gaming dreams complete they can re-do Master of Orion. :) (MOO3 sucked so bad. :( )

I hope this game sells better than the other one.

The reason why geeks were up in arms about the shooter XCOM was because they have been asking for another traditional XCOM for over a decade. You can't resurrect a name like that and make a spin-off instead of a true sequel without insulting the fans.

I think Steam already has some X-COM clones out there that 
can be played now.  No need to wait on a remake, I think, unless 
the Steam-variations are buggy.

@GozerTC: I know this comment is ridiculously late to the party, but have you played Galactic Civilizations II? It's like MoO2 and Civ4 had a baby and it is awesome.