X-Com 1. TFTD's difficulty level is like "Hard" took a genetic engineering course, used its newfound knowledge to engineer a superior lifeform from its own DNA, then gave it supernatural powers via a deal with the Devil. I wouldn't reccommend it as your introduction to the series.

That is probably sound advice

Better to have a comprehensive explanation of why people are complaining rather than just let someone get away with making a snarky edit about "die-hard fanboys" while making a vague and highly debatable claim that the latest trailer somehow makes anything better.

Incidentally, the "Wait until the game is out before you complain!" line comes up a lot, often from the same people who immediately switch to saying "Well, you should have said something while it was in devlopment!" when folks continue to complain AFTER the release date.

Completely agreed with Metasyntactic D 2 - detailed explanations are better

I, frankly, disagree with Metasyntactic - mainly because 90% of the complaints I've seen boil down to little more than "Enforcer sucked, so this will suck by default. [Insert various claims about missing gameplay elements here.] What's that? New information that suggests I'm wrong? LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOOOOOOOOOOOOU!"

Yeah, I know, I probably sound snarky and/or cynical about the arguments I've heard - but not only have I gotten flamed up one side and down the other for saying that XCOM looks like it might actually be good, I was actually accused of being one of the developers just because I had the balls to stand by what I said instead of joining the "No True Scotsman" Brigade, X-Com Division.

(I'm not one of the developers, by the by. I'm just a guy who's played the originals, heard the horror stories of *ahem* That OTHER X-Com FPS, and honestly thinks that this deserves to be called an X-Com game, unlike That Other X-Com FPS.)

Then I suggest you come to the 2K forums, where the game is being dissected and then roasted over an open fire.

Accused of being one of the developers... you're that one guy from the official Youtube vid, aren't you? Jack Walters, right? The one that everyone kept shooting down? Didn't you get a Youtube account just so you could defend the game?

No, I'm not, you absolute DOUCHENOZZLE.

I'm a guy who's sick and tired of the vitriol, the immature playground bullshit, and the high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou, self-proclaimed True Fans whose word absolutely, positively HAS TO BE LAW.

And God help you if you disagree with the True Fans, because it means you're a heretic who's not worthy to even think of LOOKING at the original games.

I swear to God, the people who proclaim themselves True Fans Of X-Com are the poster children for Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.

Yeah, I know, I probably sound pretty bitter about the whole thing, but can you really blame me? I honestly believe that XCOM has a chance to wash away the stink of Enforcer, and all I get for it is a pile of "No True Scotsman" cards. It's getting to the point where I'm starting to wish I'd never heard of the series to begin with.

( By the by, if you're wondering where I was accused of being one of the developers, it was in this Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/hs1wx/2ks_upcoming_xcom_game_is_looking_pretty_badass/c1xvsy9 )

"Douchenozzle"? Awesome.

Well, that brings the total number of people who are absolutely rapt about this game to... well, about three that I know of. And one of them only seems to like it because the project's not helmed by Dave Ellis, but at least it's giving him his kicks, I suppose. So at least it has some fans, which is nice, but I really do wish they'd brought it out under its own IP.

Anyway, like I said before, if you're so certain the majority of fans are in the wrong, why don't you come to the 2K forums and lay your points down there?

http://forums.2kgames.com/forumdisplay.php?76-XCOM-General-Discussion

Incidentally, the Lego comparison rings fairly true, but I also sense a touch of Transformers with the whole "living technology" thing and the morphing metallic cuboid. I'm not sure that'd really work for me even if I didn't prefer the aliens of old X-Com games.

Well, part of it is the whole "I'm sick and tired of the vitriol, the immature playground bullshit, and the high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou, self-proclaimed True Fans" thing that I mentioned earlier, and the last time I checked, the 2K forums were choked with those kind of so-called "fans".

But the bigger part is that I'd be sorely tempted to lay down a Cluster F Bomb on them, because - thanks both to them and Spoony, who apparently has declared himself the Pope of the Church of X-Com with his little BETRAYAL!!!!!! rant and all (which the aforementioned "True Fans" claim should be the viewpoint of all X-Com fans - just check the XCOM page on Facebook) - the series is actually pretty close to being ruined forever for me. Not because of XCOM, but because of their vitriolic hatred.

And last, but not least, I'm not "rapt" about the game. I used to be cautiously optimistic (because, y'know, ENFORCER and all the suckitude it embodied), but these days I'm more pissed off than anything - and the main reason I want XCOM to succeed now is out of sheer spite. (Not saying that I don't think it could wash away the stink of Enforcer anymore, but that's kind of taken a back seat to the whole spite thing.)

Oh. Back to two peeps, then. Kind of makes me feel bad for the Aussie devs of this game, no matter how much of a mistake I think they're making. The industry in Oz sucks at the moment, so if this goes badly for them... well, let's just say I know how it ends.

On the subject of the forums, I've really only heard someone edge towards a "no true scotsman"/"true fan" sort of response once that I can recall, and that, IIRC, was to this one guy who didn't actually seem to know much about the games at all despite claiming to be a massive fan. Mostly we just reminisce about the old games, debate how the new one could be further X-Comified (with some of the conversation almost sounding like a design document, at times), speculate as to why they've done what they've done, attempt to communicate with the one narrow link to the 2K Marin devs that we have, chat about Xenonauts and have a giggle at the latest poll by crazy ol' Podtech.

Anyway, I hope you find some solace in the fact that 2K probably won't change things any more at this point, no matter how much most think they should or how badly some feel their Mass-Effect-esque tactical combat system will compare to Mass Effect 3 (which is, I believe, coming out on the same day). I doubt the game will succeed, but it's lose-lose for me and mine anyway, since if it succeeds the series will likely be locked into FPS gameplay and the new canon, whereas failure means it'll probably be shelved indefinitely. Neither prospect pleases, really.

Also, I hope the future gives you a respite from the vast amounts of vitriol, both the Anti-XCOM-ites and your own, that you seem to find yourself immersed in. That stuff can't be good for your skin.

Would it get me nailed if I thought the new game looked interesting enough to pre-order, but that 2K has no right to call it X-Com?

Not by me. It just goes to show that they really, really didn't need to use the X-Com franchise as a marketing tool, and shouldn't have done so. Hell, the game would probably be doing better PR wise if they hadn't.

It does seem vaguely interesting. When I first heard about it and the Internet Backlash, my first thoughts were "So? They're changing the mechanics a bit to an FPS, it still could be a good game."

And then I learned about X-Com, with the in-depth strategy and the multinational teams and the aliens, and it just makes no sense. Why would 2K go out of their way to cause internet backlash? Have they ever played the originals, or even read the TV Tropes page for the originals?

And then the interviews. Not only do they have to ignore all the things that made the originals popular, they then commited public suicide by comparing their game to Kanye West.

My question is this: Are 2K attempting Hudsucker Proxy style corporate suicide?

I take it you'd recommend UFO:ET, then? I must admit to not having played it - for one thing, I heard the battlefield was single-level, which didn't quite appeal.

There are elevators, the enemies most certainly use higher levels, and IIRC the mods add jetpacks and things. Of course, I only ever play the game with mods (which work with both the CD and Steam versions of the game)

^^ Oh yeah, a named character would be much appreciated!

Thanks for the data.

A name? Hmmm... how about... Ebenezer Prattlethorpe?

I like Russell Sharp of XSGCOM.

An alternate timeline version of Russell Sharp is now in

Things are getting interesting

Next week: we'll see if a base assault is doable with only 4 soldiers and an HWP.

The Hellish Battle

tl;dr version: yes, a base assault is doable with only 4 soldiers and an HWP. And a ton of grenades, stimpacks, and magazines.

They're doing what? If true, then the answer is decidedly "Yes."

Mass Effect 3. 3/6/2012. XCOM. 3/6/2012.

Too Dumb To Live.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/interview-christophhartmann-2kgames/082216

“The ‘90s generation of gamers all love Xcom and we own the IP, so we thought OK, what do we do with it? Every studio we had wanted to do it and each one had its own spin on it. But the problem was that turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth. But this is not just a commercial thing – strategy games are just not contemporary.

“I use the example of music artists. Look at someone old school like Ray Charles, if he would make music today it would still be Ray Charles but he would probably do it more in the style of Kanye West. Bringing Ray Charles back is all fine and good, but it just needs to move on, although the core essence will still be the same.

“That’s what we are trying to do. To renew Xcom but in line with what this generation of gamers want. The team behind it is asking themselves every day: ‘Is it true to the values of the franchise?’ It’s not a case of cashing in on the name. We just need to renew it because times are changing.”

I'll see your "chomping down stupid pills" and raise you a "huffing paint". Is there an appropriate trope for this? It just kicked the Internet Backlash Up To Eleven

^ Yeeeaaaaaaaaaah, the numerous Fan Remake s, not to mention the existence of things like the JA 1.13 mod and the ARMA 2 ACE mod, suggest that 2k Games is... not looking at the big picture.

The best part is that in the very article he says this about why Bioshock 2 didn't sell well

“It was the publishing window. It was the spring of death. We shipped two weeks after Mass Effect 2. Every two weeks there was a major release so you had two weeks to sell. And if you look at the statistics of all of those titles, sales fell off a cliff for all of them after two weeks.

“The window was really bad and it was a tough one. We were all shooting for autumn and all of us missed. So I think it was the window more than anything else because the critical ratings were good.”

Why do I have a feeling that Xcom failing will result in a massive PR disaster of some form?

Also, didn't Civ 5 sell like 800k copies and is slated to get a GOTY version soon?

It's already a massive PR disaster, you only have to look at their forums and the talk all over the 'net to see that. But I can see 2K Marin possibly being disbanded - Bioshock 2 wasn't a big seller, as mentioned above, and if this game doesn't do well, it'll be the cherry on top of an extremely ugly PR cake.

Then again, they might not disband the studio, instead blaming the entirety of the poor sales on the game releasing opposite Mass Effect 3, much like Bioshock 2 was blamed on ME 2, as above, whatever the truth of the matter may be. In fact, I wonder if that's the point of the March 6th release? Give the shareholders a sob story about bravely going up against an established franchise and losing, instead of poor sales simply due to it being a bad game?

The team's been shedding leads like crazy, and the two most recent losses ran off to work at an iPad game startup rather than work on something that's being hyped as the reboot of a famous franchise, so it doesn't exactly feel as though there's a lot of internal confidence in the project - it almost feels more like it might be seen within 2K Games as a bit of a career-killer.

I don't know about sales stats for Civ 5, but I have heard it's pretty consistently in the "top 10" of games that people are playing via Steam at any given time. Speaking of Civilization, this quote's been pretty popular:

"With over 10 million units sold worldwide, Sid Meier's Civlization is world renowned as one of the greatest strategy game franchises. We're excited to bring this fun and social game to people on Facebook, enabling fans of the series to play Civilization World from almost anywhere in the world; while offering newcomers a chance to enjoy this addictive strategy gameplay that has fascinated gamers for two decades.""

That's the moron above, Christoph Hartmann, talking about (and hyping) the Civ franchise just a week before his bout of verbal diarrhea about strategy games not being contemporary.

[EDIT]: Just checked the stats on steam for Civ V. It was the game with the second highest number of players at the time of checking, and after waiting a while and refreshing a couple times, it generally seems to hover solidly within the top ten. So does Total War: Shogun 2.

Now there's rumours that 2K Marin's Canberra studio, the one responsible for XCOM, has been downsized by fifteen people, during what is probably crunch time:

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/10/rumour-new-staff-cuts-at-2ks-canberra-studio/

If true (and it's from Kotaku, so take it with a grain of salt until further notice), I wonder if this means XCOM's heading for cancellation?

And now it's being delayed into "fiscal year 2013", which apparently means anywhere from April 2012 to the end of March 2013. Let's hope they do something useful with the extra time, like actually making a proper X-Com game.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/71005/xcom-delayed-into-fiscal-2013

Well, it doesn't really fit the criteria of a reboot to me, so I can't get behind either title. If you really must put it on its own page, I'd suggest you just call it plain "XCOM" and add disambiguatory crosslinks to both pages. But then, I'm not so sure it does need its own page - after all, it's inside a neat little collapsible list now, and having all the games on the same page feels like it'd better facilitate direct comparisons, especially for anyone new to the series who might want to find out why so many of us are kinda narked.