THE BORE
General => Video Game Bored => Topic started by: ToxicAdam on April 14, 2010, 01:25:58 AM
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(oh, and a dumbed down version for the PC)
NEW YORK, Apr 14, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- 2K Games announced today that XCOM(R), the re-imagining of one of gaming's most storied and beloved franchises, is currently in development at 2K Marin, the studio behind the multi-million unit selling BioShock(R) 2. Currently in development exclusively for the Xbox 360(R) video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC, XCOM combines the strategic core of the groundbreaking franchise with a suspense-filled narrative and distills it into a tense and unique first-person shooter experience.
"With BioShock 2, the team at 2K Marin proved themselves as masters of first-person, suspenseful storytelling, and with XCOM they will re-imagine and expand the rich lore of this revered franchise," said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. "Players will explore the world of XCOM from an immersive new perspective and experience firsthand the fear and tension of this gripping narrative ride."
XCOM is the re-imagining of the classic tale of humanity's struggle against an unknown enemy that puts players directly into the shoes of an FBI agent tasked with identifying and eliminating the growing threat. True to the roots of the franchise, players will be placed in charge of overcoming high-stake odds through risky strategic gambits coupled with heart-stopping combat experiences that pit human ingenuity -- and frailty -- against a foe beyond comprehension. By setting the game in a first-person perspective, players will be able to feel the tension and fear that comes with combating a faceless enemy that is violently probing and plotting its way into our world.
I know a lot of old timers will balk at this, but I think it can work. You take the same framework of the old game, but instead of 2d tactical battles, you do 3d ones. Instead of an open-ended choices by the user on what to attack .. you do tight, narrative-heavy, forced combat scenarios that can also have large set pieces within them. You can still have the "base building" aspect of the game and leave that up to the user.
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lol, FPS game
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How can you cram more disappointment in one press release? I don't think you can.
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Can't say I'm disappointed. It's not even the same game.
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FPS from creators of Bioshock 2
this is the link: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100413006968
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Rebelstar Tactical Command > X-Com
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Personally, I think the old style of X-com games has been done to death. Not much else you can do to improve on the formula besides graphics and cutscenes.
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Personally, I think the old style of X-com games has been done to death. Not much else you can do to improve on the formula besides graphics and cutscenes.
Sounds like a PS3 exclusive.
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So what is Ken Levine working on then?
Most assumed it would be this.
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With BioShock 2, the team at 2K Marin proved themselves as masters of first-person, suspenseful storytelling
(http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/20/17-I-lol.jpg)
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lol, FPS game
.
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lol, FPS game
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The first X-Com FPS didn't work. Why try again?
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Laser Squad Nemesis was tons of fun.
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ah, what the hell, why not?
The series really doesn't have anywhere to go but up at this point, so what harm can come from this? It'd be like Double Dragon coming back as a RPG-Dating Sim, at first you'd blanch at it, but then you'd remember its immediate predecessors and think, "Well, at least its a new approach."
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Good.
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Rebelstar Tactical Command > X-Com
Never played X-Com but Rebelstar was a pretty interesting, and rather obscure game. It's a bit slow moving and the music sucked though, but I had fun with it.
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Personally, I think the old style of X-com games has been done to death. Not much else you can do to improve on the formula besides graphics and cutscenes.
What? The genre needs a revival, the closest modern game to X-Com that I can think of was Jagged Alliance, which is also long gone. Modern strategy games are bloody casual games compared to what X-Com offered. The game had such an awesome setting and amazing missions and tension with the persistent world. They could do so much more with modern technology...fully destructible environments, more shit going on, larger variety in missions, etc. Hell, just making the interface more user-friendly would do a lot.
What's the point in reviving the franchise for this? It's not like the brand name is that strong, the only people who are going to care about it are the same people that want it to be a strategy game again, not another shitty FPS. The X-Com storyline isn't even that interesting, nothing special about the universe that requires bringing it back.
I guess they could make it like Hired Guns, which would be a pretty interesting idea, although I'm sure it'll be just another generic FPS game.
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:'(
Fallout worked out ok moving to a 3-D shooter style, so I shall be hopeful this turns out decently. But really, I`m expecting a bargain-bin-in-two-months turd.
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"2K Marin - masters of suspenseful storytelling"
::)
see, this is the shit I'm talking about.
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At first I was skeptical, but then I saw...
violently probing
... :uguu
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(http://pcmedia.ign.com/media/reviews/image/xcenf012_640w.jpg)
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:rofl @ "re-imagining" being thrown around like it's a good thing
:rofl @ FPS
BTW there was an X-Com FPS before.
IT FUCKING SUCKED.
It was third-person and yes it sucked.
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Will these go the Fallout route and turn out good or the Shadowrun route and turn out to suck? I'm leaning towards Shadowrun territory.
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If it's anything like Bioshock 2 except with more rpg elements and a sci-fi setting I think it'll turn out well. I'd would have rather have had the Bioshock guys do Fallout 3 than the Elder Scroll guys, I think they have more talent in the art/writing/gameplay department to make a solid rpg narrative w/good gameplay.
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If it's anything like Bioshock 2 except with more rpg elements and a sci-fi setting I think it'll turn out well. I'd would have rather have had the Bioshock guys do Fallout 3 than the Elder Scroll guys, I think they have more talent in the art/writing/gameplay department to make a solid rpg narrative w/good gameplay.
2K Marin already had a strong foundation in place for Bioshock 2. It's one of those situations where it's really hard to mess up. This is a different situation entirely, they're taking an old license and taking it in a completely new direction. I'm not saying they can't pull it off, but it's going to be a bit harder.
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what does this remind you of?
(http://i39.tinypic.com/jijc6q.jpg)
other pictures:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=21166419&postcount=872
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:derp
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Well, so much for that. :'(
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Man, I thought that was a pic from Postal 2.
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Man, I thought that was a pic from Postal 2.
Yeah, actually I thought the same thing. Something about the improvised-looking tech weapon and the somewhat sardonic suburban setting.
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i like the concept, if the take here is that these guys form the precursor to the x-com unit we know from the other games (making this a prequel of sorts)
but yeah, that looks awful, you probably shouldn't release screenshots until you have some graphics
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what does this remind you of?
The Darkness?
But these guys are better developers than Starbreeze, so...
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The art style is fairly unique, but I hate that they are slapping the XCom name to a FPS. Apparently there was a rumor floating around that Firaxis is working on a turn based XCom. Maybe hope isn't totally lost.
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New info
No world map : There's a USA map (with a 50s' style) for selecting the missions.
- Research & production : yes.
- Base management : yes.
- Team management : yes.
- Choice of the next missions : yes.
- No control of your teammate during the mission (in the demo, this may change)
It seems like you can goof around in your base between the mission (in first person view).
- The demo was running on an XBox360.
- You play as the chief of operation of the base between the mission.
- The choice of the played mission will impact the game.
- In the demo, lots of area of the base were off limits.
- During the missions you can take photos (research ?).
- The game is due for release in a little more than a year.
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Will these go the Fallout route and turn out good or the Shadowrun route and turn out to suck?
Shadowrun was, surprisingly, pretty good. With extra modes and some of the stupid bugs sorted out and a bit more polish and it would have -really- done well.
As it is, it's a great team based FPS - and yes i assumed it was a complete sack of sh1t until i picked it up on the cheap. My reaction was "WTF?! this is GOOD!!!"
Yeah for all the shit that Shadowrun recieved, the game itself was pretty damn fun. It may not have been what people wanted or were expecting but if you could get past the license, the game underneath it all was incredibly solid.
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[youtube=560,345]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdVb4UnqO7A[/youtube]
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My goodness. I had heard you guys hating on this from before, but didn't really look at screens or anything for it and I just saw a preview in GI, plus that trailer. This looks fucking awesome. I've never played X-Com but it makes me want to go back and play it. The art style for this game is awesome, and some of the effects and alien designs are really badass.
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Uh, that trailer was awesome. This is BioShock 2
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yeah, that looks a lot better in motion than the earlier screenshots indicated
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yeah, see, I don't get why they would take the x-com name when anyone familiar with said name is going to balk at this "re-imagining".
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Wouldn't a old school interface driven x-com be cheaper to make though? significantly so, that they could make a profit on catering to the hardcorez?
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I would love a new X-Com but outside of Civ turn based games simply don't sell.
I'm sort of mixed on that trailer. It seems more like they are branding it simply as XCom because that sort of sounds like X-Files.
I wish they would do both if they are going to do this Xcom game though.
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Don't care to look and see who said it, but somebody mentioned this might be a prequel to the game that properly reboots the XCom franchise. That'd be good.
Either way, the close-mindedness in this thread is some serious bullshit. 2K Marin isn't the shittiest dev out there, and a lot of the details I checked out make this game sound really deep as opposed to the "chintzy" FPS you guys are branding it after a screenshot and trailer. Lemme snap some pics of the GI preview for backup.
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BioShock 2 was poo gas, Raban. That's why we are hesitant.
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Yeah, Bioshock 2 sucked big time.
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(http://lh5.ggpht.com/_GhDLYp-X_Zo/TBRCw_KxvMI/AAAAAAAAABM/7AA8pqgmPL8/s400/2010-06-12%2019.22.53.jpg)
(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_GhDLYp-X_Zo/TBRCJxMbSCI/AAAAAAAAABA/aE3S74ZaF_E/s400/2010-06-12%2019.23.33.jpg)
(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_GhDLYp-X_Zo/TBRCU3XrunI/AAAAAAAAABE/FK-qaCJBfLo/s400/2010-06-12%2019.23.50.jpg)
(http://lh4.ggpht.com/_GhDLYp-X_Zo/TBRCfWL-IkI/AAAAAAAAABI/4BRQFnApJyM/s400/2010-06-12%2019.24.13.jpg)
Can't rotate them on my Droid, but there you are.
And I'm not heated or anything. It's understandable if you think it'll fail based on the dev's track record or something, but this is a solid dev making a game with a really fresh theme and at least trying to be faithful to the source material while making something completely new. Give them a chance, y'know?
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> android cant rotate photos
lawl
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I can't judge quality/size on my phone, I'll reup them on tinypic when I get home. What wonderful waste of time, haha
Unless you're talking about the content
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> android cant rotate photos
lawl
I can rotate them to look at them, just can't edit the image. Nt tho ::)
And I don't have to rescan them, slime. Just gotta re-up them
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Oh man, those ARE small. Here:
(http://i47.tinypic.com/2ntl4wj.jpg)
(http://i47.tinypic.com/qx30wj.jpg)
(http://i45.tinypic.com/2jh2dy.jpg)
droid 5MP camera :rock
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Trilogy of stellar games? The original was great, TFTD sucked, Apocalypse could have been really cool but was rushed to release too early and suffered from it.
Anyway, anyone who thinks that an X-Com game wouldn't sell in this era doesn't realize that games don't have to cost $10mil and sell a million units, someone could make a pretty good strategy game with an appropriate budget and have it sell pretty well. Hell, look at the UFO series, they're essentially a re-imagining of X-Com and apparently sold well enough to warrant two sequels.
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Anyway, anyone who thinks that an X-Com game wouldn't sell in this era doesn't realize that games don't have to cost $10mil and sell a million units
Unfortunately, this is the current face of videogaming.
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[youtube=560,345]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXe9g3Q9_ds[/youtube]
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I completely forgot that this game even existed. And it's still almost a whole YEAR away!
And, yeah...I don't know. It just doesn't really look that good. Or interesting.
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I completely forgot that this game even existed. And it's still almost a whole YEAR away!
And, yeah...I don't know. It just doesn't really look that good. Or interesting.
In a perfect world I could see this as being an interesting premise for a shooter and a way to diversify the genre. But they don't seem to know what they are doing based on the trailers they keep showing.
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This is a horrible thing, why not just make a real Xcom downloadable game? :/
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I completely forgot that this game even existed. And it's still almost a whole YEAR away!
And, yeah...I don't know. It just doesn't really look that good. Or interesting.
In a perfect world I could see this as being an interesting premise for a shooter and a way to diversify the genre. But they don't seem to know what they are doing based on the trailers they keep showing.
It's starting to look like their botching of Bioshock 2 wasn't a fluke and it being as good as it was had more to do with having a really great foundation to build on. 2K Marin just doesn't seem to have the talent that 2K Boston/Irrational Games has, and that's really disappointing.
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Maybe if it was called something other than X-Com you dudes would be more receptive.
No, I wouldn't. It looks incredibly bland, aside from a few nice aspects of the art style.
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The new trailer looks cool to me. Maybe if it was called something other than X-Com you dudes would be more receptive. Frankly, they could call it 'babyfucker'. As long as it's a good game I'll play it.
It just doesn't look interesting to me from the trailers which seem badly put together. And unlike most forum types I don't have a problem with it being an FPS.
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First Xcom, next Syndicate. Good thing the FPS is so versatile
:'(
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I'd like for it to be a modern take on the RTS that the series used to be, but it isn't. I can deal with it. What I can't deal with is the game looking so horribly bland and stiff. It's still got a year to go, so maybe they can pull it together in the last months of development, but right now I'm far from impressed.
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This looks terrible.
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I think it looks kinda cool ???
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I think it looks kinda cool ???
I agree. I'm really digging the 1950s Sci Fi feel.
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[youtube=560,345]5YhomiNOEmw[/youtube]
Looks alright. Reminds me of Brother in Arms.
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I like that there's some strategic elements to the combat, but I'm still not really sold on it.
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This has lots of potential
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[youtube=560,345]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nAmvP4w2ts0&has_verified=1[/youtube]
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Any word on co-op?
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First seen by the public as a uniquely retro first-person shooter, these screenshots sent in by a Kotaku reader - part of what we're told was a recent marketing survey - suggest the game has gone back to the drawing board, coming back as a third-person shooter.
While the 1960s setting and general XCOM prequel vibe remains, it's now apparently being pitched as a squad-based game similar to SOCOM or Republic Commando, with the player in command of a team of agents, which you can order around the map to perform various actions.
If that's not interesting enough, the survey takers are also being told the game would be for PS3 and Xbox 360 (with no mention of PC), and are being asked how they'd feel if it was made available as a $30 downloadable title, as opposed to a $60 retail game.
http://kotaku.com/5947737/the-other-xcom-game-might-now-be-a-third+person-shooter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A
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man the story of both these XCOM games is so weird to me.
I can almost believe 2K did this on purpose.
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I think you're assigning too much organization credit to 2K.
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It's really hard to understand what's going on with 2K over this. Presumably, the long development time is because they changed things after the initial unveil was met with some criticism by people who were fans of the series. Except that they then released a title [XCOM Enemy Unknown] that fans of the series loved, obviating the need to change XCOM to fit what fans of the series wanted. Add in a dash of organizational dysfunction on top of that and you end up with a situation where the "premier" XCOM title languishes in development hell for years and then is eventually shoved out the door at a discounted price.
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Sounds like another Syndicate :(
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I loved the style it had originally. A real shame it got fucked because it wasn't a "real" XCOM game.
People would be a lot less hard on it if 2K had just announced both XCOM games at the same time.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdHFjVW-dIg
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So, it's basically a completely different game.
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So, it's basically a completely different game.
Sounds like it although this sounds like its at least in the same universe as the strategy games.
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Seems like they've made a lot of good changes. It's a lot closer to being just a real-time version of X-COM.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLPf9869C9s
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I was more interested in the original version. Fans are so fucking whiny whenever any kind of change is made to a franchise.
Syndicate owned, but the story boned. Damn shame.
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Kinda reminds me of Batallion Wars.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEh6NnLPUUs
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Don Draper is kicking some alien ass.
I think it looks cool, I'm glad they are still making it.
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http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/the-bureau-xcom-declassified/critic-reviews
Reviews are mixed.
I'm still kinda curious to try it though.
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The game has clear issues but is a lot closer to an 8 than a 6 provided that you are playing at a difficultly level that is appropriate for your skill. I would imagine just playing this game for content tourism would be awful as the story really is as jumbled and uneven as the reviews say that it is. The actual tactical combat is very good.
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I haven't read any reviews since I already pre-ordered the game and it will unlock for us dirty Europeans on Friday. What's the appropriate difficulty for you Frag? Is the game unusually easy or something?
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Frag likes a challenge, and is a masochistic son of a gun. So, he tends to play things on the highest difficulty he can handle without getting nosebleeds.
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I know that's the case for turn-based strategy games, but I would be surprised if he played real-time action games on easy mode. With XCOM being a hybrid I figured I'd ask.
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I play almost everything on a higher difficulty than normal except any kind of fighting games and racing games, which usually don't offer the choice. This game is really more of a strategy than action game so ramping it up to hardest seemed reasonable. Strategy games that are too easy = boring.
I would not recommend playing XCOM at anything less than "Veteran". You need the game to punish your mistakes or the entire battle management layer is wasted.
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Cool, thanks! I've played all X-Com games, except Interceptor, on higher difficulties so Veteran should be fine for me.
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Did you play that GBA one from Namco? Or are we talking just canon X-COM?
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Sure, I've played Rebelstar Tactical Command, Silent Storm, UFO: Aftermath/Aftershock/Afterlight, and UFO Extraterrestrials. I think those are the most common similar games that people associate with the X-Com series. I'm not that big on smartphone gaming so I haven't tried any of the clones on the App Store yet.
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I am impressed! I couldn't even remember the name of it!
How about Laser Squad Nemesis?
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Played it for like 5 minutes. It was a pirated version and there was something about it I really didn't like. I can't remember what though.
In other news, I just beat The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and that's also an entry you can safely skip without missing out on anything special.