A look at the new XCOM

Not arguing that it’s good, just that it’s successful (at making money).

Erg0 said :

Could have said the same about Fallout 3 when it came out, really.

There’s a reason they stripped out the original ending of Fallout 3 on releasing a patch.
It sucked balls, and was in no way in line with previous Fallouts.
the upcoming New Vegas has brought back a few members of the old Fallout teams in an attempt to undo the carnage of letting InvadersiPhone People From MarsMarketing dictate product features.

Could have said the same about Fallout 3 when it came out, really. Seems like pseudo-RPG FPS versions of old turn-based games sell!

Freedom Force is still my favourite Canberra-produced game, though.

For those of you who are unaware, X-Com first came out in 1993, and was something of an anti-GI Joe game in turn-based strategy\tactical form.
A elite team of soldiers wear cool-looking armor and had a fancy ship that they use to travel the world in order to save the world from goofy-looking aliens, realise they are being routinely outclassed, and then suffer a relentlessly high fatality rate, crippling technological inferiority, and severe funding troubles.

Your task was to fix the alien problem by micromanaging squads in battle while also addressing your funding and technology logistics, mostly by protecting only the western world high value regions, and reverse engineering and improving on alien technology through research.
High fatality rates were almost impossible to avoid, due to a terrible system of accuracy calculations meaning your own soldiers would accidentally wipe out your entire squad with headshots, while missing the aliens standing directly in front.
Successful missions had maybe a 50% fatality rate, failure resulted in 100% casualties.
The original is still well regarded to this day.

It has gone through eleven other versions since original release, all of which have been pale imitaions of the original.
One of them was also a first person shooter that failed miserably, and when compared to its source had “all the depth of a frying pan”.

Good luck 2K Marin, history and the fanbase is not on your side.

What rubbish!!!! Looks like a late 90’s game.

The trailer looks like shit.

If it’s trying to be stylised, it’s, well, failing, if it’s trying to be realistic, it looks like a last gen game. Or even pre last gen.

But hey, that’s what happens when your game studio is taken over, all your best game developers are poached to the US, and all of your new blood is sourced entirely and exclusively from AIE (which is otherwise known as “Hurr durr, I’m makin’ 3D models of space marines and girls in chainmail bikinis on wicked motorbikes attacking an elven fortress, cause that’s what’s COOL, man” factory).

Lcoal crew makes good again. What a nice story.

We really like the proposed release date. “Fallout New Vegas” hits the shelves in October, so we won’t be looking for anything for a quarter or two after.

Question for the more environmentally-active or parochial of our number… should intending to buy locally-produced software give me a “doing my bit for the planet” inner glow? Cause it does!

Does that make me a card-carrying Canberra-ite Greenie?