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[GiglameshDespair]

I'm going to be honest, with the abilities and classes I used a lot more strategy in nuCom than oldCom.

Yeah, I remember that. Like the laser weapons, all of which had infinite ammo. Or the heavy plasma, which was fundamentally better than the plasma rifle, and had 35 shots to a clip. I've never had to reload a heavy plasma in all the time I've played oldCom, and that's plenty. The only thing a heavy plasma can't kill with ease is a sectopod, and you'll doubtless have blaster bombs by then. You perhaps buy 30 clips for the conventional rifle at the beginning of the game and never buy ammo again.

Or the air game, which was use avalanche missiles to outrange the smaller UFOs then switch to plasma beams to outrange everything but battleships.

Sure, oldCom had more options in there, but why you'd ever use those options is another. You could arm your soldiers with heavy cannons and autocannons, but when you could get laser weapons quickly and deal with every alien effectively enough with them... going Imperial Guard was just as effective as playing carefully, and a lot quicker. That suggests the deep strategy is missing something.

I love the old X-Com to bits, but don't pretend it actually needed a great deal of strategy over nuCom. Especially with the Long War mod. And once you got psi in oldCom you might as well pack up and go home, because you'd won. NuCom isn't a UFO Defence clone, no. That's more Xenonauts.
But I'd disagree it's been "dumbed down".

You haven't lost anything by not having to buy Avalanche missiles every couple of months. The range of equipment, with things like SCOPEs and extra armour, is increased, even if the choice of weapons for each individual was lowered. Long War also allows you to take additional rockets, by the way.

[EnigmaticHat]

Also worth pointing out: snipers were massively overpowered on release, because of squadsight.  Every single soldier in oldcom has squadsight.

Once you understand sniper/spotter tactics, the only thing in the game that can stop you is psi.  Which is bullshit and should not be counted.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

ADVENT is most definitely an EXALT equivalent or successor.
What I'm getting is this: After the end of the war, X-Com is disbanded as it no longer has a purpose and the alien technology is adopted wholesale by humanity. Shen and Vahlen discover how to mass produce meld, alloy, and elerium as they hinted they would be able to. EXALT is gone but the core backers of the transhuman conspiracy remain active. People who were experimented on by the Ethereals produce strange children, whom are eventually found to have been genetically modified by the aliens. The original abducted don't display traits, but their offspring do, and through natural meld production they are viable organisms. Pure humans hate and fear the hybrids, mostly due to the idea that they are intended as alien sleeper agents in the event that the Ethereals were destroyed. Dr. Raymond Shen goes on to improve upon the Ant Hill AI and SHIV AIs to produce truly self-aware machines, thinking it better that humanity create anew rather than turn the knife of progress upon itself. People don't hate and fear the machines because they don't see them as anything beyond workers, and don't care for this talk of objects having human rights.

Eventually, let's say 2080, EXALT's backers reform as a public group called ADVENT which is making a case for humanity to embrace self-modification wholesale. They are developing a proof of concept by colonizing Toronto, which was destroyed by the first terror mission of the Ethereal War and never truly rebuilt. Between that and the continued degradation of Earth, it is badly needed. A shining city on the hill that shall be the advent of the new age, Mega-Primus. Human, Hybrid, and Machine all shall be welcomed into this glorious new society.

However, ADVENT has made contact. Not with the Ethereals, but with their once-masters. A trans-dimensional entity or entities who have intentions upon humanity and the Gift. Empowering ADVENT as Their Earthly hand, Mega-Primus is in fact a trap for human experimentation in order to bring Them into our reality. They seek worthy form, and once nearly found it in the Ethereals, but ultimately even they failed Their test. With ADVENT's claws in almost every world government, there is no possibility of stopping Their ascension.

That is, except for X-Com. Oh, they tried to disband X-Com. For the most part they even succeeded, the vultures. But X-Com lived on as a conspiracy in the hearts and minds of those who fought under its banner and those who knew Earth would need to be protected. With the way human lifespans have been extended, a lot of the old hands are even still around. I mean, really, did you think that a crazy mad science loving bitch like Dr. Vahlen was going to fade into old age? She was a xenologist before we even knew there were going to be xenos! She tortured Ethereals to death for fun (and science, and the survival of humanity, but fun)! 110 is the new 40 when you're the type of person who drinks meld for breakfast and doesn't afraid of anything. Besides, she can't die. We haven't finished science yet. And Bradford? Come on, he lives to fight aliens. Dude has nothing else going for him besides the vintage sweater shop. There was always going to be a conspiracy as long as he was around. Now, Shen was certainly pushing the bounds of even what medical enhancement could accomplish, but you can't keep a good engineer down. Especially when that engineer is the world's foremost expert on how meld can bridge human neurons to computer circuits. Goodbye failing organic body, hello machine immortality!

And in the pristine but obscurely sinister streets of Mega-Primus, the screens all light up at once as the former head of the Council of Nations speaks: "Do not believe the ADVENT lies. They are the enemy. We are still here, and remember, we will be watching."

X-COM: ENEMY BEYOND

Or so I want it to be, anyway. Mostly I really want old augmented Vahlen. Best character, best scientist, best vaguely-Swiss accent.

[Teneb]

This has to be XCOM. There's no way it isn't.
"We are still watching" -> XCom still exists, etc.

Remember that in EU/EW, the council always ends the transmissions with "We will be watching".

It is extremely likely we will see the mysterious councilman. It is extremely unlikely we'll actually see his face.

[Rolan7]

Damn MSH, that's a lot of speculation.  AND I LOVE IT
It also all sounds completely plausible, nice touch.  Damn I'm excited for this game and it isn't even announced yet.

[Teneb]

If MSH got anything wrong, it would probably be the name of the city. I doubt they'd call it Mega-Primus.

[Chiefwaffles]

Speaking of "the city" in what's hopefully an XCOM Apocalypse remake, it appears that there will be multiple cities.
"THE CITY ARE TRAPS" appears in the 'hacked' heading under "Let's Prosper Together."

Could either mean a more traditional NewCom style geosphere, or something cool like managing forces in separate cities.
Or the game is going "screw it" and you only play in one city.

Speculation is fun!

[Kruniac]

Because having to go back and forth between endless screens for every single person on the mission before launching was never tedious, was it?

And isn't it interesting how I (And no one else) has complained a single time about the camera operation in the remake? Why? Because it's a GOOD FEATURE.

See there's a difference between an old grump who shakes his cane at folks because it's "not exactly the same" and an old grump who shakes his cane at folks because it's "not X-Com".

My way of describing the remake is:

"It's a good game. It's not a good X-Com game."

You shouldn't question him. He's clearly too old and wise for you.

This.

But... the old ways are wrong! All the interfaces are so accessible now!

The UI is great, except for the shitty console-esque controls. I got used to that fairly quickly, however. I think the UI/Graphical/Camera upgrades are wonderful.

You haven't lost anything by not having to buy Avalanche missiles every couple of months.

I've lost a screen's worth of items. I've lost more in-depth base management.

Anything less than the original X-Com is by definition STREAMLINED.

As I said. It's dumbed down, like many "spiritual successors".

Also worth pointing out: snipers were massively overpowered on release, because of squadsight.  Every single soldier in oldcom has squadsight.

Once you understand sniper/spotter tactics, the only thing in the game that can stop you is psi.  Which is bullshit and should not be counted.

Yerp. It was pretty cheesy. I disliked squadsight immensely.

See, no one is saying X-Com was a perfect game. Far from it. However, you don't remake a game and make it less than. You remake the fucking game exactly how it was, THEN improve on it.

I swear, everyone I know agrees that all a dev has to do is just give a graphical/ui/control upgrade to a classic game and they'll make stupid cash. Why douchebags in marketing have to reinvent the wheel is beyond me.


Take Dungeon Keeper, for instance. Why doesn't someone just REMAKE THE GAME? It would make STUPID money. No, I'm not talking about some horrifyingly shitty "spiritual successor" (Impire). The original game on a shiny new engine. Clean up the UI. Modernize the camera work. Cutscenes. Great level design. Cash money. Done.

People keep bringing up the "ammunition" issue. We can debate that for days. Here's something you simply cannot argue against - the original X-Com has that "feel" to it of senseless and hilarious loss. You KNOW that half of the squad will die off of the dropship. That's the game.

The shitty remake is not like that. You're encouraged to take care of your troops, and are crippled (Due to the horrific level system) if you wipe. In the original game, I would lose a Sgt. and be sad. I'd lose rookies nonstop and not care. It's Starship Troopers in that bitch.

The remake is simply not an "old game". It's meant for the new generation of casual gamers who can't handle games like Darkfall or X-Com. It's the same reason (THE EXACT SAME REASON) that the Jagged Alliance "Spiritual Successor" was garbage. The game was prettied up, cleaned up, and then ruined with shitty streamlining (Read: Dumbing down).

Being snarky isn't going to change the fact that the game is less than the original. Me being an old man isn't going to change the fact that the "spiritual successor" attitude is ruining the entire industry and exposing a new generation of gamers to diluted content when they should be getting a hefty dose of a hardcore game.

Anyway. My pump is gone now, so I'll end this rant. Great way to kill time after the gym.

[Chiefwaffles]

..Didn't this argument already happen numerous times in the first 10 pages of this thread?

[Kruniac]

..Didn't this argument already happen numerous times in the first 10 pages of this thread?

Classic. Wall of text followed by "Oh boy, not this again".

I'm sure it did. There's a reason it did. Because this is a bad X-Com game. Again - Good game, bad X-Com game.

This thread reminds me a LOT of the carnage which happened on the whatistherenameidontcarebecausetheyfuckeduptheXseries forums when X3: Reunion was released (If you can call that a release). I would have literally, literally, LITERALLY set fire to the house of whoever was responsible for those design decisions. That's a different can of worms, but a very similar firestorm thread-wise.

[Chiefwaffles]

I think around page 90 (probably not) there was basically the exact same argument. Someone was arguing that the game was good, but not a good XCOM game. Then there were the countless "BUT IT'S NOT AS CONVOLUTED AS THE FIRST OOOONE" arguments scattered throughout the thread.

This is actually pretty funny. Just about all your points are found in the mentioned argument. And they were all argued against in many text walls.
Look, we get it. You don't like NewCom because it's not an HD remake of the original XCom. They both have aliens with superior technology invading. They both have you reverse engineering technology and fighting back. They both have you shooting down UFOs, they both have you die due to horrible unlucky RNG. They're both XCom games. Two titles don't have to be copy+pastes of each other to share the same IP.

[Kruniac]

I think around page 90 (probably not) there was basically the exact same argument. Someone was arguing that the game was good, but not a good XCOM game. Then there were the countless "BUT IT'S NOT AS CONVOLUTED AS THE FIRST OOOONE" arguments scattered throughout the thread.

This is actually pretty funny. Just about all your points are found in the mentioned argument. And they were all argued against in many text walls.
Look, we get it. You don't like NewCom because it's not an HD remake of the original XCom. They both have aliens with superior technology invading. They both have you reverse engineering technology and fighting back. They both have you shooting down UFOs, they both have you die due to horrible unlucky RNG. They're both XCom games. Two titles don't have to be copy+pastes of each other to share the same IP.

I don't like NewCom because it's a bad X-Com game. Also, the RNG killing you in NewCom is more of a "Oh, the bullets went right THROUGH THE WALL and hit me anyway, because the percent said so." Christ. The only thing the remake has going for it is the graphical aspect of things, yet still fails to have projectile tracking. GG.

I agree with every other thing you've just said. They are indeed both X-Com games. One is a bad X-Com game. The other is the standard by which all X-Com games are judged.

We're just going to have to accept that we disagree on this. The only reason this thread caught my attention was because a remake of Apoc was being discussed. I'm sure they'll fuck that up as well, which is -tragic- as I absolutely love that game. I like Apoc more than the original, actually.

[Furtuka]

Ignore this post sorry

[Rolan7]

I wrote a thing, but I think Giglamesh summed up my position.  I've had sleepless nights to 1 and 2, and I'm still sorta playing 3.  But clunky interface aside, a lot of the apparent freedom was false choice.

I can see where Kruniac is coming from, it is somewhat simplified and "dumbed down".  And it certainly is different.  I don't mind calling it XCOM though, though, even despite the significant *thematic* changes (which are the changes that should matter for this question).  And I certainly enjoy it more easily, possibly just more period.

Fakedit:  Heh, at least in NewCOM if an alien can shoot you, you can shoot it.  I know you're kinda admitting this, but the interface in OldCOM was *terrible* in many respects.

I haven't played Xenonauts but it sounds like what you're looking for, basically a straight upgrade to OldCOM.

Or UFO Alien Invasion, which I did play quite a bit of.  Much better UI than OldCOM, and keeps most of the mechanics.  Though it adds several weapon tiers, and you can configure it so soldiers have a decent chance of being revived.  Plus MUCH more interesting aircraft combat on the geoscape.

Or XCOMUtil, which makes certain aspects of XCOM 1 and 2 (like heavy lasers) actually matter.  And removes a lot of the inventory tedium.

Or hell, the UFO: Aftermath series is damn good if you like Apocalypse.  Doesn't have the awesome city politics, but it does real-time combat well.  And watching Mars slowly terraform in Aftermath, allowing your soldiers to abandon their bulky space suits for actual armor, was pretty great.

Shit I wrote a thing anyway.

[Parsely]

I don't think I will never be able to adequately explain to myself why I like OldCOM better than NewCOM. It's not nostalgia at least, because I didn't want to play OldCOM until after I had played a few hours of NewCOM.