Love it or hate it - whether you’re a die-hard, old-school fan of the original game(s), or someone who just likes to play challenging strategy games - the Firaxis remake of X-COM is coming out in less than two weeks (http://www.xcom.com). The whole idea has been controversial from the start (although not nearly so much as the FPS, 1950’s FBI game that was announced prior to this one) and people are either psyched about it or adamantly against it. Either way, I’m interested in hearing about other peoples’ take on it. Any other UFO Defense, Terror from the Deep, or Apocalypse vets excited about getting their hands on this new version of XCOM?
Playing the demo I had the impression its a high quality, fun game but will wait for a 50% off sale minimum, if that be spring or whenever. For one thing the size of the demo is inflated by about 40% with the inclusion of full-game cut scenes that go out to mission 13. Watching some of those, spoiling myself, spoke a lot to me about overall replayability. All of interstitial scenes are per-rendered video. I mistakenly thought some of them were game engine and so perhaps dynamic in some way. No. I figure I could do about three play-throughs exploring different tech paths until I got weary of replaying the same canned missions over and over albeit with different squads and weapons. The game suffers from more than a bit of what-the-hell is a console interface doing in a PC game? I watched most the dev video where they play for an hour. They were promoting the fact they were playing the PC version with a game pad. I’m sorry, that is not a selling point with a significant portion of your potential Steam customers. The lack of map variety is another non-trivial turn off.
Strong game but it is $49.99 and that buys significantly more game play elsewhere. There are just far too many 75% off GOTY sales this month to ignore. Know what I mean? Bully for anyone who pre-ordered at discount. Have fun. If you’ve never played X-COM or a recent turn based tactical shooter, you should really love XCOM. Obviously that is the target audience, as with so many things, XCOM is but a shinier X-COM reintroduced to a new generation with predictably less RPG depth.
Thorough review: Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Wot I Think – XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Singleplayer)
Not coincidentally Xenonauts Beta starts tomorrow. Props to the author who admits he’ll playing XCOM along with everyone else so he might as well put his last build up for beta. 
Xenonauts is a faithful X-COM clone with horribly amateurish graphics however it retains all of the RPG elements of the original with many inspired additions.
For the tl;dr challenged, no, Biscuit’s video for the full release is not up yet.
I’ve been playing the game for a few days now; it’s definitely very well-made. I think I might actually be able to beat this one - something that’s never happened with an X-COM game for me before 
While I agree that it might not be the most replayable game ever made, I do know that the tutorial can be skipped and the pre-rendered scenes only pop up after reaching specific milestones in research and interrogation. I personally play the game with my keyboard and mouse, and let’s be honest - in spite of the ‘random’ generation of the original game’s maps, they were never terribly varied, and this game at least benefits from the possibility of mods and/or DLC to improve/expand upon the core gameplay.
I do intend to pick up and play Xenonauts when it comes out - given all the changes that’ve been made by Firaxis to the classic X-COM formula, it might be the better choice for those who are old-school fans. The whole design of the game is much closer to that of UFO Defense than is Enemy Unknown’s, and will probably provide a much more familiar experience even without the official link to the original series. I think they might’ve had an easier time and better results by sticking to 3D graphics rather than the 2D sprites, but as ‘amateur’ as they might be (done by a professional sprite renderer, if I’m not mistaken), they’re still an improvement over the original X-COM’s.
Biscuit goes sleepless addicted to XCOM! Dayumn, I’m buying sooner than later. :groucho:
“Heavily flawed but also astonishingly brilliant. Flawed gems are my favorite kind of games I think honestly. I think it shows a great degree of skill and precision as well as, of course, creative flair to turn the X-COM franchise into what I am playing right now.”
This is a game I have enjoyed. I have been playing it off and on since I got it for cheap during Black Friday. I have to be in a certain mind set to play it, but I love it for probably most of the same reasons I love Brutal Legends. Then again I haven’t beaten the game on easy yet either.
Steam Weekend Sale XCOM: Enemy Unknown $9.99, Slingshot and Elite DLC packs 75% off but sold separately
XCOM Complete Pack (all previous classic Microprose X-COM games from 1994 to 2001, re-released by THQ for Windows in 2008) 75% off for $3.74
Amazon has all of the above for $9.99: The XCOM Collection
Really starting to see naked aggression from Amazon this year, undercutting Steam prices whenever possible.
The only downside is the upcoming XCOM: Enemy Within DLC carries the infamous retail price of $29.99. If you get hooked, and you will, you’ll want that too.