|
Hey,
a question to all you veterans out there: I'm doing my first play through of the game, so far it's going rather well. I kinda cheat by saving the game at the beginning of each level and reloading when I lose soldiers (that's my kind of fun), so I have quite the overpowered team, but there are a couple of things I just couldn't figure out (the game is bad at explaining thing) :
1) There's an option of being one shot, single use boosts for my interceptors and firestorms in engineering, which I hope could maybe help me finally take down that HUGE alien spaceship that appears every now and then and trashes my best ships. I just can't figure out how to apply those bonuses - I but them, and then I can't see where they are. Anyone figured this out?
2) I have reached a point in the game where the next step is to use a psionic soldier to activate that alien artifact recovered from the ship the base was hiding. However, the thing requires that I have a
"strong enough psychic" to pull this off. Does "strong enough" mean leveling the psychic up enough times? because when I gave my psionic soldier a psi-armor, the scientists chick appeared in the uppermost right corner of the screen to notify me that NOW I have a soldier strong enough. So is it about will, or about levels of psi training?
3) is the "archangel" armor a viable choice for assualt? the increased mobility flight seems to imply seems nice, but I really like the protection that a titan armor provides for when you get close enough to your opponents... does the flight ability works like that of the floaters? that is you "teleport" to a location? if so maybe the suit actually works best with snipers, to better position them...
|
1. When your interceptors are fighting, they are at the bottom of the screen (Aim, Dodge, Boost buttons IIRC).
2. Its dependent on his will, whether boosted by psi-armour and the helmet or whatever...
3. Its viable but not optimal. Assault colonels get bonus health for heavier armour and if you use Titan with Chitin Plating you get 25ish health for your soldiers. What archangel armour IS amazing for is snipers with Squadsight. Get a couple high in the air with jetpacks in good locations and watch them wreak havoc.
ENEMY WITHIN appears to be either a major expansions for XCOM, or the name of XCOM 2. Either way, we find out on 21 August. Rather cheesily, just after XCOM: THE BUREAU comes out. I get the distinct impression that 2K are trying to get THE BUREAU out and done with so they can focus on the turn-based franchise, which appears to be both cheaper and more lucrative.
Thanks guys, now i have the original x-com music going through my head..
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Am I the only one that sees this game as an absolutely perfect base for modding into a game one might call "Pathfinder Miniatures: Battles"? The movement, the emphasis on cover/concealment, the mild RPG elements... sure, it wouldn't be Pathfinder, but as a tactical skirmish game with fantasy archetypes rather than scifi ones? I'd play that game into the ground.
|
|
So I finished the game today, with the tragic death of my favorite soldier (and to think how proud I was when he developed psychic abilities...)
Given the main theme of the story, "XCOM: Enemy Within" sounds just right. The entire plot of the game revolves around the risk humanity is taking by adopting the alien technology, and the big reveal at the end,
it all works towards the same philosophy - while the physical fight with the aliens monstrosities went well, it might have cost humanity it's soul. The next enemies may very well be us ourselves.
This is actually much deeper and more thought out that I thought a video game would be. I'm pleasantly surprised by this theme.
So I finished the game today, with the tragic death of my favorite soldier (and to think how proud I was when he developed psychic abilities...)
Given the main theme of the story, "XCOM: Enemy Within" sounds just right. The entire plot of the game revolves around the risk humanity is taking by adopting the alien technology, and the big reveal at the end,
** spoiler omitted **
it all works towards the same philosophy - while the physical fight with the aliens monstrosities went well, it might have cost humanity it's soul. The next enemies may very well be us ourselves.
This is actually much deeper and more thought out that I thought a video game would be. I'm pleasantly surprised by this theme.
One thing I would really like to see in Enemy Within is humans vs humans, maybe with some rogue aliens scattered across the globe, wreacking havoc, leaderless and purposeless since the destruction of their mother ship. That would be awesome. :)
So I finished the game today, with the tragic death of my favorite soldier (and to think how proud I was when he developed psychic abilities...)
Given the main theme of the story, "XCOM: Enemy Within" sounds just right. The entire plot of the game revolves around the risk humanity is taking by adopting the alien technology, and the big reveal at the end,
** spoiler omitted **
it all works towards the same philosophy - while the physical fight with the aliens monstrosities went well, it might have cost humanity it's soul. The next enemies may very well be us ourselves.
This is actually much deeper and more thought out that I thought a video game would be. I'm pleasantly surprised by this theme.
Polygon XCOM Enemy Within Release Article
I'm somewhat creeped out by the idea.
Seriously.
On some level, the thought of reducing the men and women under my command to quad-amputees to "better" fight the aliens is absolutely morally horrific to me.
The articles I've seen suggest that the mec-suits are things people get in and out of. They don't have their arms and legs hacked off.
I'd be more concerned about injecting your soldiers with alien biological material to enhance their capabilities, which sounds like it could backfire later on.
The articles I've seen suggest that the mec-suits are things people get in and out of. They don't have their arms and legs hacked off.
I don't think she can take those off.
EDIT: Here's a better shot.
Not that enamored with the prospect of only replaying the main campaign, even if it'll be longer and more diverse. A new story or a sequel would have been nice.
Oh, that's not the mec-suits. That's the G-mods. Good point about the morality issue, but there is a solution: don't use the arm and leg G-mods then. XCOM has always partially about fashioning your own narrative and making your own choices.
Oh, that's not the mec-suits. That's the G-mods. Good point about the morality issue, but there is a solution: don't use the arm and leg G-mods then. XCOM has always partially about fashioning your own narrative and making your own choices.
"Mechs sound impressive, but there's a reason to keep your best and brightest out of a set of metal pants: upgrading a soldier to Mech status disqualifies him or her from receiving genetic enhancements."
I don't know. The more I read, the more queasy I get.
Just curious, do you have the same aversion if you play the Shadowrun PnP game?
Is it the removal of limbs for tactical advantage? Or is it ordering other people to remove other people's limbs for tactical advantage?
Does it make you quesy that the game allows you to order a soldier into the middle of an open field without cover to be ripped to shreds and used as an incubation chamber for an alien?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to batter you down or say "you're wrong", I'm just trying to get some perspective on what it is you don't like about this. I think if you interpret the game as allowing the commander to force soldiers to have their limbs cut off, yeah, that is unsettling. That said, I think if such a situation where actually real, they'd be asking for volunteers, people would have to request to have their limbs replaced so they could use the mech suits.
Partially I know this from experience. In the military there are a lot of ways to be exposed to danger, not just combat, but via training or your environment. A lot of the most inherently dangerous jobs are almost all volunteer, no one gets assigned to them. You might volunteer for the most dangerous unit and then be assigned the really bad job there, but you volunteered for it implicitly by joining that unit. They don't just pick random soldiers and say "Go disarm that bomb." People volunteer for EOD training, knowing they're going to be asked to disarm bombs.
This is a video game and it's about resource management, not interpersonal interactions within the unit. When you pick a soldier for modification they get modified. Would you be more comfortable if they changed it to "ask for volunteers for modification" and then a bunch of soldiers got flagged as yes/no?
I don't know. I don't get the same response elsewhere that I get here. It's kinda odd, 'cos I do play Shadowrun - and I have no problem with stripping "myself" down to minimal essence. And I did spend multiple years in the military - so I do have a handle on the idea of 'volunteering'.
Getting soldiers ripped to pieces by Chryssalids (and Tentaculats... and Poppers...) has always hammered home my own failure as a Commander. It's always about how I made a bad tactical choice, and it seems to avoid triggering the same thought process this does.
But XCOM spent the entire game with Shen and Valen bluntly hammering the whole "We're Going To Fight Them, Not Become Like Them" angle. Feels kind of like a bait-and-switch.
I think it's a variety of personal factors which have left me psychologically primed to see this as horrific. It feels unethical - makes me a hypocrite for reasons above, but we can't always be rational individuals.
Like I said, I'm not trying to criticize you for feeling that way. Just trying to understand and probe where that line is.
I can see better where you're coming from now.
With the chryssalids, I wasn't talking about just losing a soldier, but rather the concept of how the game allows you to purposely put the soldier into harms way. It's a bit different, since the game doesn't actually encourage you to do that (will penalties for having a team mate die and all that), but you can do horrific things in the game if you so choose.
Like I said, I'm not trying to criticize you for feeling that way. Just trying to understand and probe where that line is.
None taken.
Just... an odd choice for the game as a whole I think.
I hope that Enemy Within will let you have female soldiers with shaved hair. Not bald, shaved!
Rebalancing some of the skills would also be nice.
I dunno, it seems to fit the theme they've been building up with the first game. I mean, story doesn't necessarily get the heaviest focus overall, but the theme of sacrifice - both of your soldiers, and of your humanity as you use more and more alien tech and abilities - is there pretty much from the start.
IMO, it was even over-emphasized a bit in the original game. Getting those psychic abilities didn't exactly make the soldiers who got them much different from what or whom they were before... at least not from what the game told us. Putting on cyberlimbs is a more obvious choice for voicing doubts about the concept of transhumans.
Like I said, I'm not trying to criticize you for feeling that way. Just trying to understand and probe where that line is.
None taken.
Just... an odd choice for the game as a whole I think.
Games are littered with tyranny and violence, as the player blithely issues commands that torture, maim, kill, and oppress the fictional characters within. It's becoming easier to see the humanity in the game characters as they become more realistic and not just sprites on the screen. I think this is one that is just much more obvious and personal in appearance. It can particularly hit home if you've any experience with real world wounded vets who now rely on prosthetic limbs.
Which might have been an interesting route for the game. Having injured/dying soldiers be the candidates for limb replacement, but not going so wholesale robocop on them and only replacing some parts.
That could actually have been an interesting scene, you see the chryssalid pop out and stabs a soldier through the leg pinning them to the ground. If you kill the chryssalid before it finishes them off, the soldier can be rescued and recover, entering the mec-suit program.
The game has a third faction, EXALT. EXALT are transhuman terrorists who use the alien technology to empower themselves and don't want XCOM defeating them, so set about sabotaging XCOM's efforts. To stop EXALT, XCOM need to adapt different tactics such as hacking their systems and doing solo infiltration missions (resulting in complex extraction missions, with you having several troopers making their way across the map to save one guy holding station on the other side). EXALT troops have access to the same classes, weapons and tactics as XCOM, making them formidable opponents.
This is in addition to the new classes, new weapons, the Meld mechanic and the new maps. Overall, it sounds like it's shaping up to be a more considerable expansion than first suggested.
That looks very interesting. I already was going to buy this, but this reinforces that. I own the Xbox version so I can't download it but it will be included (along with all other DLC) in the "commanders edition" for $40. I have no qualms paying that.
The game has a third faction, EXALT. EXALT are transhuman terrorists who use the alien technology to empower themselves and don't want XCOM defeating them, so set about sabotaging XCOM's efforts. To stop EXALT, XCOM need to adapt different tactics such as hacking their systems and doing solo infiltration missions (resulting in complex extraction missions, with you having several troopers making their way across the map to save one guy holding station on the other side). EXALT troops have access to the same classes, weapons and tactics as XCOM, making them formidable opponents.
This is in addition to the new classes, new weapons, the Meld mechanic and the new maps. Overall, it sounds like it's shaping up to be a more considerable expansion than first suggested.
Well, that finally makes the add-on sound interesting. I wasn't psyched at all so far about "just more maps and stuff for the same game", but this makes it sound like it would change the campaign dynamic significantly, which the changes which were announced earlier did not.
Oh nice. 3rd Faction sounds fun. Can we steal THEIR gear?
No, because EXALT have basically been hacking XCOM's systems from the get-go and nicked all of their gear. So you'd be nicking your own stuff back :)
ETA: I don't know if you can loot their gear anyway. They might set their weapons to self-destruct like the aliens, or you might be able to grab their stuff aynway, which would be very handy.
Also, there's apparently a link between EXALT and the stuff that went down in THE BUREAU, confirming the two games are set in the same timeline. Which might be annoying if people didn't play THE BUREAU (I just got it today, so I should have time to finish it before ENEMY WITHIN hits in a month).
|
That looks very interesting. I already was going to buy this, but this reinforces that. I own the Xbox version so I can't download it but it will be included (along with all other DLC) in the "commanders edition" for $40. I have no qualms paying that.
Yeah, I have no problems paying for this as well. With the new faction, I am really starting to look forward to more Xcom ftw!
Tom Jones advertises ENEMY WITHIN. Sort of.
Oh damn! Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea is available around the same time! So many things I want to do at once! D:
With BG2 coming out at the same time as Enemy Within, that's tough luck for XCOM!
The addition of Meld, MEC soldiers, gene-mods, further customisation, more game options, 40 new maps, two new narrative sub-campaigns (though one of them is the already-released SLINGSHOT DLC), tons of new voices and dialogue and a complete change to the combat paradigm (MECs don't need cover and can charge straight into the enemy midst and mix it up hand-to-hand; gene-mod troops can access otherwise unreachable parts of the map), not to mention the introduction of base invasions (both on the enemy base and your own) all do add up. The only things left over are the old 'landmark' missions and maps which, thanks to all the new stuff, are now very spread out indeed (and the game now tracks when maps are used, so it recycles old the old stuff and replaces it with the new maps until they balance out).
I agree a whole new campaign would be nice, but since we're not likely to see that for a while, this is the next best thing. It's a ton of new content.
|
It does seem to be new. There are old things in it but new ones as well. I have not gotten too far but with the base assaults and the new enemy teams (neither of which I have seen yet) I will tell you more tomorrow after I play some more tonight.
So far I am very happy with it. But I did buy the Sling Shot DLC.
I think I may have been playing for over 24 hours straight. I played with the devil's toys and now I can't put his sword down. It's too good!
Important: It seems it's now essential to make sure your best six soldiers on base are always equipped, even while a team is away. There are emergency circumstances where you don't get to gear up and if you've stripped all their gear, you are screwed.
I found that out the hard way. I'm glad I didn't choose Ironman for my first playthrough of EW.
|
|
The addition of Meld, MEC soldiers, gene-mods, further customisation, more game options, 40 new maps, two new narrative sub-campaigns (though one of them is the already-released SLINGSHOT DLC), tons of new voices and dialogue and a complete change to the combat paradigm (MECs don't need cover and can charge straight into the enemy midst and mix it up hand-to-hand; gene-mod troops can access otherwise unreachable parts of the map), not to mention the introduction of base invasions (both on the enemy base and your own) all do add up. The only things left over are the old 'landmark' missions and maps which, thanks to all the new stuff, are now very spread out indeed (and the game now tracks when maps are used, so it recycles old the old stuff and replaces it with the new maps until they balance out).
I agree a whole new campaign would be nice, but since we're not likely to see that for a while, this is the next best thing. It's a ton of new content.
Sure, but that doesn't change my most basic paradigm - if it ain't a new campaign, I'm not buying it. Not only am I uninterested, but me not buying this kind of product is my way of exerting whatever pressure I can to make them stop making such products.
I just can't get excited about "do the same thing only with many shiny additions!" - what I want is "you have completed the first part of the game. Here's the next part. It's got many shiny additions".
That's not how Firaxis works, though. This is the same expansion pack paradigm as they use with their CIVILIZATION games: release expansions which adds bits which enhance and expand the existing content, not completely replacing it. I agree that XCOM is a little more limited in scope than CIV, so they can't get away with it as much as there, but it certainly works.
You could also argue that, apart from those four 'landmark' missions, XBOX is a very openy and sandbox game anyway where you have a lot of control over what happens. By adding a third faction, numerous new characters, new weapons, new maps, entirely new game systems and two sub-campaigns, they HAVE created what is essentially a new campaign.
Enemy Within really does play differently than Enemy Unknown. Even if you ignore Meld, the addition of Exalt changes things drastically.
I think that the $43 that I spent on XCOM - Enemy Within was well worth the cost. I am enjoying the expanded game more that I was the vanilla game. It has been several months since I last played a XCOM game, so the expansion broght me back to the game.
I think I may have been playing for over 24 hours straight. I played with the devil's toys and now I can't put his sword down. It's too good!
Important: It seems it's now essential to make sure your best six soldiers on base are always equipped, even while a team is away. There are emergency circumstances where you don't get to gear up and if you've stripped all their gear, you are screwed.
I found that out the hard way. I'm glad I didn't choose Ironman for my first playthrough of EW.
I would also suggest giving your other soldiers the older equipment that is just laying around gathering dust. I also plan on building a few extra Skeleton suits and Laser Rifles and handing them out. Skeleton suits and Laser Rifles are rather cheap and are useful for keeping the recruits alive that much longer.
MECs are rather fun. I have yet to do any Gene mods. Too busy building the infrastructure.
I loved the original X-Com, and really enjoyed Enemy Unknown, but eventually the bugs just got too frustrating and I never finished the game.
Has the game been patched to be more stable? If so, I might have to pick-up the expansion.
I only play it on the X-box 360, so I have no idea if they fixed any of the PC bugs. My guess is that the answer is sort of. And more were probably added with this expansion.
What bugs? I've never encountered any in 80 hours (on PC). The closest thing is what the camera very occasionally gets a bit confused and sits on the other side of a wall whilst you're firing on the other side, but that's hardly serious.