Video Game Thread

[Gameface]

XCOM Enemy Unknown was released a day early without any announcement. Haven't seen that before.

Anyway, it's living up to my expectations but not exceeding them. I had high expectations. XCOM Apocalypse is one of my top couple games ever. Only had to wait a little more than 15 years for a suitable sequel.

I'm playing on ironman (no reloading from saves. you only get one save slot and it is automatically updated anytime anything happens). Even on normal difficulty it's hard as hell. I've been naming all my soldiers and like with previous XCOM games it is very hard to see them die and know that they are really gone for good.

Turn based strategy probably isn't for everybody, but I love it.

 

[AtheistPreacher]

XCOM Enemy Unknown was released a day early without any announcement. Haven't seen that before.

Anyway, it's living up to my expectations but not exceeding them. I had high expectations. XCOM Apocalypse is one of my top couple games ever. Only had to wait a little more than 15 years for a suitable sequel.

I'm playing on ironman (no reloading from saves. you only get one save slot and it is automatically updated anytime anything happens). Even on normal difficulty it's hard as hell. I've been naming all my soldiers and like with previous XCOM games it is very hard to see them die and know that they are really gone for good.

Turn based strategy probably isn't for everybody, but I love it.

I'm a huge huge fan of the original game. It was so ahead of its time it wasn't even funny. And while the remake has been reviewed well, I found the following list of complaints from a dedicated fan, and I have to say I agree with all of them. I'll have to try the game before I pick it up.

----------------------------------------

The biggest problems, by a mile, lie in the combat aspect. Here's a list of issues I've run into just from the first few missions:

1. You cannot fire, then move with a unit.
Prevously, Time Units allowed you to perform literally any series of moves or actions, in any order, provided you had enough time units. Even crouching had a Time Unit cost.
This game simplified things. You basically have three options: a) special action (like firing a rocket launcher), b) move, then action, or c) move twice. Inexplicably, there is no option to fire from your current position, then retreat.
This is obviously very limiting tactically, and there is no reason I can fathom for its exclusion.

2. If you sight an alien, you cannot change where you are moving to.
In the original game, if you were in the middle of moving to a spot and you sighted an alien, your movement would cease and the game would warn you that you sighted an alien. You could then continue to where you were going, or alter your path.
In this game, there's no such thing. Your move is your move, and sighting an enemy cannot change it. This seems to be a limitation of the 2-move system, but it seems like they could've found a way around it (Valkyria Chronicles' system was actually a much better way of doing basically the same thing this game is trying to do).

3. The amount of protection cover appears to offer has nothing to do with what it actually offers.
In the original game, if you had a wall between you and an alien, you could count on that wall to take one shot before it was destroyed, unless the alien used an explosive weapon.
In this game, that wall may provide you no protection at all for no discernible reason. In this game, a low wall will say it provides you "half-cover," while a high wall provides "full-cover." But that's not always logical. So a bit earlier, I had a guy crouching behind a low stone wall which was on top of an elevated platform. There was an enemy on the opposite side of the wall and *below* the platform. Logically, he has no line of sight and couldn't possibly hit me (or even see me). But, by this game's logic, I was in "half-cover," so he magically hit me and killed me THROUGH the stone wall (without doing any damage to the wall).
How am I supposed to plan my movements when basic laws of physics don't apply?

4. Aliens can arbitrarily move on your turn, and even prematurely end your turn. Seriously.
Needless to say, in the original game, the aliens played by the same rules you did. If they had enough time units to fire on your turn, they could fire on you. But that was it.
In this game, as soon as you sight them, they get to move into cover. Secondly, an alien will sometimes just take a move, out of the blue, on your turn. So you may use two of your four units to move, then an alien arbitrarily cuts you off, then it's back to your "turn," and you can use any of your four units again.
How am I supposed to plan my tactics properly when I don't know when my turn will actually end?

5. You can't fire anywhere you want anymore.
In the original game, you could fire anywhere, often creating a hole though a wall that you could move through, or blowing up a building you thought aliens might be in.
In this game... nope. You can only fire if you see an alien.

6. There are a finite number of maps. Plus, they tend to be small.
No more randomly generated awesomeness to keep you on your toes like the original.
Instead, they are all pre-constructed. So if you play the whole game, you already know the entirety of the terrain on any given mission, which just feels like cheating.


So then, once we get past all the combat problems, there's another problem in the "other half" of the game:

7. The ship-to-ship combat minigame has been eliminated entirely, in favor of the computer randomly generating an outcome.
Yes, that's right. In the original game, you had some rudimentary "aggresive," "standard," "cautious," and "disengage" options to finesse that alien craft to the ground.
In this game... there's zero control. You send an interceptor after an alien craft, and then the game tells you whether it worked or not. The end.

 

[AtheistPreacher]

BTW, anyone pick up Dishonored? That game was mostly off my radar, but it's come out to almost universal acclaim. I may wait to see if I can get it for cheap on Black Friday, but it's definitely one I'm considering picking up eventually.

 

[Gameface]

I'm a huge huge fan of the original game. It was so ahead of its time it wasn't even funny. And while the remake has been reviewed well, I found the following list of complaints from a dedicated fan, and I have to say I agree with all of them. I'll have to try the game before I pick it up.

----------------------------------------

The biggest problems, by a mile, lie in the combat aspect. Here's a list of issues I've run into just from the first few missions:

1. You cannot fire, then move with a unit.
Prevously, Time Units allowed you to perform literally any series of moves or actions, in any order, provided you had enough time units. Even crouching had a Time Unit cost.
This game simplified things. You basically have three options: a) special action (like firing a rocket launcher), b) move, then action, or c) move twice. Inexplicably, there is no option to fire from your current position, then retreat.
This is obviously very limiting tactically, and there is no reason I can fathom for its exclusion.

2. If you sight an alien, you cannot change where you are moving to.
In the original game, if you were in the middle of moving to a spot and you sighted an alien, your movement would cease and the game would warn you that you sighted an alien. You could then continue to where you were going, or alter your path.
In this game, there's no such thing. Your move is your move, and sighting an enemy cannot change it. This seems to be a limitation of the 2-move system, but it seems like they could've found a way around it (Valkyria Chronicles' system was actually a much better way of doing basically the same thing this game is trying to do).

3. The amount of protection cover appears to offer has nothing to do with what it actually offers.
In the original game, if you had a wall between you and an alien, you could count on that wall to take one shot before it was destroyed, unless the alien used an explosive weapon.
In this game, that wall may provide you no protection at all for no discernible reason. In this game, a low wall will say it provides you "half-cover," while a high wall provides "full-cover." But that's not always logical. So a bit earlier, I had a guy crouching behind a low stone wall which was on top of an elevated platform. There was an enemy on the opposite side of the wall and *below* the platform. Logically, he has no line of sight and couldn't possibly hit me (or even see me). But, by this game's logic, I was in "half-cover," so he magically hit me and killed me THROUGH the stone wall (without doing any damage to the wall).
How am I supposed to plan my movements when basic laws of physics don't apply?

4. Aliens can arbitrarily move on your turn, and even prematurely end your turn. Seriously.
Needless to say, in the original game, the aliens played by the same rules you did. If they had enough time units to fire on your turn, they could fire on you. But that was it.
In this game, as soon as you sight them, they get to move into cover. Secondly, an alien will sometimes just take a move, out of the blue, on your turn. So you may use two of your four units to move, then an alien arbitrarily cuts you off, then it's back to your "turn," and you can use any of your four units again.
How am I supposed to plan my tactics properly when I don't know when my turn will actually end?

5. You can't fire anywhere you want anymore.
In the original game, you could fire anywhere, often creating a hole though a wall that you could move through, or blowing up a building you thought aliens might be in.
In this game... nope. You can only fire if you see an alien.

6. There are a finite number of maps. Plus, they tend to be small.
No more randomly generated awesomeness to keep you on your toes like the original.
Instead, they are all pre-constructed. So if you play the whole game, you already know the entirety of the terrain on any given mission, which just feels like cheating.


So then, once we get past all the combat problems, there's another problem in the "other half" of the game:

7. The ship-to-ship combat minigame has been eliminated entirely, in favor of the computer randomly generating an outcome.
Yes, that's right. In the original game, you had some rudimentary "aggresive," "standard," "cautious," and "disengage" options to finesse that alien craft to the ground.
In this game... there's zero control. You send an interceptor after an alien craft, and then the game tells you whether it worked or not. The end.

All of that is true. The time unit thing bugs me the most. The developers made a gaffe and said it was to save the player's "head space" for other aspects of the game. I say let it be an option if you believe some of the consumers have limited "head space" for that sort of thing. So before if you had a unit built up you could charge into a room and kill several aliens before beating a retreat or possibly killing all the aliens and ending the mission. Now, each unit has two actions. Both actions can be used to move extra far. Most units will end their turn if they fire at an enemy. There is an upgraded ability to fire then either move or fire again. But what it means is that basically one unit might be able to kill one alien. Stronger aliens can't be killed with one shot generally, so you might need several units to kill one alien, even if you've got pretty built up units.

Where I think the time unit thing really really falls short is when you're on a "terror" mission. That's where the aliens are just in a city killing all the civilians in sight. You can save civilians by moving a unit adjacent to them. First problem is that with no time units and no way to designate waypoints you can be in a room full of civilians but can't move next to each one even if they are well within your units movement area. So if you move one step to get right next to one guy that'll take an entire action for that turn and you can burn your second action moving another step to save another civilian.

I guess the inability to change course if aliens are spotted during your unit's movement is also related to the elimination of time units. It sucks pretty bad, especially if you've inadvertently moved your unit into a nest of aliens that you couldn't see before.

I couldn't help but think during missions that even in Apocalypse (I never played the original, but got hooked on Apocalypse) the firing actions were more realistic. Part of that, again, is related to time units. In that game some weapons required very few (sometimes only 1) time units per shot. You could continue to take shots until you ran out of ammo or ran out of time units. Or, if you wanted, you could stop firing from that position and move in for a better shot or move back behind cover. Shooting seemed pretty realistic. In this game it couldn't be more obvious that it's a dice roll. I know it essentially always was, but in this game you're not going to accidentally kill other aliens in the vicinity. In fact, if there is an alien standing directly in front of the alien you target your shot will go through that alien and either kill or miss the alien you shot at. In the old game with the machine gun or with the bio-gun I'd often pick an alien in the middle of a group and start popping off rounds. I might not hit the alien I was shooting at but the bullets would often strike the other aliens. Then when I was down to only a few time units I'd move back behind cover.

The thing with cover is bad. When your unit is about to take the "fire" action you hit the fire button and a target pops up with a percentage representing your chance at hitting that target. Often something that is close and easily visible has a low percentage but something that is far and completely obstructed from view has a high percentage. There's very little way to know without pulling up the targets one-by-one to determine if you have a good shot at anything. This goes both ways. You can't be sure where you're moving your unit is safe. I had a sniper back behind the front line, in an elevated position and behind half-cover. My assault and support guys were in front and performing the "overwatch" action (you can end a unit's turn who still has an action remaining with overwatch and that unit will fire during the aliens turn at the very first thing he/she sees). The aliens didn't technically move but began shooting at my sniper. A few lucky shots later and one of my most valuable soldiers was killed.

That brings me to another gripe, which is again related to the time unit thing. When your unit shoots he/she moves out of cover as part of the "fire action." So when these aliens started shooting at my sniper they "moved" from behind a wall and shot, only because they didn't technically move my units in overwatch didn't return fire.

Map size. Yeah, the maps seem big in a way, but units are about 4x as big compared to the other objects as they seemed to be in apocalypse, so the maps are really pretty small. It eliminates the frustration of losing a brain sucker and splitting all your soldiers up to go hunt it down, only to have it brain-suck your highest ranking soldier, but it doesn't feel like to wide open world the other game did.

Also, every mission is at night. They are trying to recreate the shock and terror of the old games by making things dark. It doesn't work. In the old game you could walk past an alien sitting behind a potted plant if you didn't turn a unit to face in that direction. The fun was when you did turn around after spending all your time units only to realize he was right behind you and he's going to kill you now. In this game you don't have to worry about facing your soldiers. They see aliens in 360 degrees.

So, these designers made a compromise game. It isn't believed that a true TBS game will sell. Maybe it wouldn't sell well, or play well, on consoles. I'm getting pretty tired of no games being made to the strengths of the PC. Amazing things are possible, but if it can't be directly ported to Xbox and PS3 then it isn't going to happen.

Despite the gripes, the game is still pretty fun.

 

[Nate505]

BTW, anyone pick up Dishonored? That game was mostly off my radar, but it's come out to almost universal acclaim. I may wait to see if I can get it for cheap on Black Friday, but it's definitely one I'm considering picking up eventually.

Considering it's made by Bethesda (I take it back, published by them but the developer is owned by the same company) I'll totally try it.

 

[AtheistPreacher]

All of that is true. The time unit thing bugs me the most. The developers made a gaffe and said it was to save the player's "head space" for other aspects of the game. I say let it be an option if you believe some of the consumers have limited "head space" for that sort of thing. So before if you had a unit built up you could charge into a room and kill several aliens before beating a retreat or possibly killing all the aliens and ending the mission. Now, each unit has two actions. Both actions can be used to move extra far. Most units will end their turn if they fire at an enemy. There is an upgraded ability to fire then either move or fire again. But what it means is that basically one unit might be able to kill one alien. Stronger aliens can't be killed with one shot generally, so you might need several units to kill one alien, even if you've got pretty built up units.

Where I think the time unit thing really really falls short is when you're on a "terror" mission. That's where the aliens are just in a city killing all the civilians in sight. You can save civilians by moving a unit adjacent to them. First problem is that with no time units and no way to designate waypoints you can be in a room full of civilians but can't move next to each one even if they are well within your units movement area. So if you move one step to get right next to one guy that'll take an entire action for that turn and you can burn your second action moving another step to save another civilian.

I guess the inability to change course if aliens are spotted during your unit's movement is also related to the elimination of time units. It sucks pretty bad, especially if you've inadvertently moved your unit into a nest of aliens that you couldn't see before.

I couldn't help but think during missions that even in Apocalypse (I never played the original, but got hooked on Apocalypse) the firing actions were more realistic. Part of that, again, is related to time units. In that game some weapons required very few (sometimes only 1) time units per shot. You could continue to take shots until you ran out of ammo or ran out of time units. Or, if you wanted, you could stop firing from that position and move in for a better shot or move back behind cover. Shooting seemed pretty realistic. In this game it couldn't be more obvious that it's a dice roll. I know it essentially always was, but in this game you're not going to accidentally kill other aliens in the vicinity. In fact, if there is an alien standing directly in front of the alien you target your shot will go through that alien and either kill or miss the alien you shot at. In the old game with the machine gun or with the bio-gun I'd often pick an alien in the middle of a group and start popping off rounds. I might not hit the alien I was shooting at but the bullets would often strike the other aliens. Then when I was down to only a few time units I'd move back behind cover.

The thing with cover is bad. When your unit is about to take the "fire" action you hit the fire button and a target pops up with a percentage representing your chance at hitting that target. Often something that is close and easily visible has a low percentage but something that is far and completely obstructed from view has a high percentage. There's very little way to know without pulling up the targets one-by-one to determine if you have a good shot at anything. This goes both ways. You can't be sure where you're moving your unit is safe. I had a sniper back behind the front line, in an elevated position and behind half-cover. My assault and support guys were in front and performing the "overwatch" action (you can end a unit's turn who still has an action remaining with overwatch and that unit will fire during the aliens turn at the very first thing he/she sees). The aliens didn't technically move but began shooting at my sniper. A few lucky shots later and one of my most valuable soldiers was killed.

That brings me to another gripe, which is again related to the time unit thing. When your unit shoots he/she moves out of cover as part of the "fire action." So when these aliens started shooting at my sniper they "moved" from behind a wall and shot, only because they didn't technically move my units in overwatch didn't return fire.

Map size. Yeah, the maps seem big in a way, but units are about 4x as big compared to the other objects as they seemed to be in apocalypse, so the maps are really pretty small. It eliminates the frustration of losing a brain sucker and splitting all your soldiers up to go hunt it down, only to have it brain-suck your highest ranking soldier, but it doesn't feel like to wide open world the other game did.

Also, every mission is at night. They are trying to recreate the shock and terror of the old games by making things dark. It doesn't work. In the old game you could walk past an alien sitting behind a potted plant if you didn't turn a unit to face in that direction. The fun was when you did turn around after spending all your time units only to realize he was right behind you and he's going to kill you now. In this game you don't have to worry about facing your soldiers. They see aliens in 360 degrees.

So, these designers made a compromise game. It isn't believed that a true TBS game will sell. Maybe it wouldn't sell well, or play well, on consoles. I'm getting pretty tired of no games being made to the strengths of the PC. Amazing things are possible, but if it can't be directly ported to Xbox and PS3 then it isn't going to happen.

Despite the gripes, the game is still pretty fun.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I think the last bit is probably what's most important. My brother picked it up and commented that it's a good game as long as you don't try to compare it to the unsurpassable original. If you instead resolve to look at it as a stand-alone game and not catalogue all the features you wished it had retained, it's pretty enjoyable.

I'm visiting with my brother next week, so I should get a chance to playtest it myself before I decide if I want to buy it.

And BTW, I really would encourage you to go back and play the original one. I've played Apocalypse as well, but nothing beats the first game. Even today it holds up ridiculously well in every area but graphics, and for a strategy game that good I really don't care what the graphics are like anyway.

 

[Duck Rodgers]

Here's how my yearly foray into trying to like video games again is going down. I'm buying a 360 this time with:

Sleeping Dogs
Dragon's Dogma
Max Payne 3
Kingdoms of Amalur
Skyrim

If those can't pull me back in I might just have to pretend I quit gaming forever again, sell everything again, until I get the itch next year again. The Circle of my gaming life.

I bought a 360 finally, but didn't end up buying any of those games I mentioned. I got distracted by the Gamestop bargain bin in the process and realized there were about 40 games in there that I wanted to play that were dirt cheap so I just loaded up on probably 15 of those.

Now playing and loving:

 

[AtheistPreacher]

I bought a 360 finally, but didn't end up buying any of those games I mentioned. I got distracted by the Gamestop bargain bin in the process and realized there were about 40 games in there that I wanted to play that were dirt cheap so I just loaded up on probably 15 of those.

Now playing and loving:

Probably not a bad way to do it at all, especially if you're starting from scratch. I actually haven't been in a Gamestop at all for something like three years, I've been getting things off Amazon almost exclusively. But in any case, I still have an embarrassing number of games that I've rescued from such bargain bins that I never actually got around to playing (the Metroid Prime games for Gamecube come to mind, as do both Bioshock games for the 360, among many others), so I don't see myself bargain-hunting again anytime soon.

 

[Shaggy]

WTF is Minecraft so popular? That game looks like me on a good day.

 

[Gameface]

WTF is Minecraft so popular? That game looks like me on a good day.

I don't know but my kid loves the crap outta that game.

 

[Zombie]

BTW, anyone pick up Dishonored? That game was mostly off my radar, but it's come out to almost universal acclaim. I may wait to see if I can get it for cheap on Black Friday, but it's definitely one I'm considering picking up eventually.

I picked it up a few days ago, and I am really liking it so far. The atmosphere is fantastic.

 

[Brown Notes]

https://worldoftanks.com/

I don't hit this thread too often so sorry if this is old hat but this is probably the best game I've ever played. So, so fun, easy to play, hard to get good at, slow progression but it's fun no matter how low tier your tank is. This game is money. Except it's free so it's not money.