68 replies to this topic

[NKF]

Firaxis, known for Sid Meier's Civilization series and other titles, have announced that they are going to remake X-Com: Enemy Unknown as XCom: Enemy Unknown, without the hyphen. Apparently it will be a much more faithful remake of the series.

You can read more about how to read more about it on:

http://www.strategyc...t=5#entry108407

I guess now we can stop arguing about the merits (or lack) of 2k Marin's XCom.

- NKF

[Gustarx]

Turn-based-concept gameplaying is based upon how fast the player wants to play through what is offered by the game. Its how the player 'thinks' and bring in practice with moves/turns at own speed, not what the reflexes of the player are. Training reflexes in game, mainly eye-hand-coördination, is complete different then the probability of focusing on each step in a game. Thinking and re-thinking, "Is this the best step/move, Iv todo now?"; "What are the alternatives?"

Iv read article, seems indeed interesting, ;-) .


Gustarx

[koriand'r]

This is brilliant the fact it's by the same company behind the likes of civilization (I have CIVII still!!!) and alpha centuari is more then i could had hoped for, I mean for a RPG turn based strategy, add branching science and economy who better is there to turn to whilst paying attention to detail?

One thing that has me asking is 2K marin's Xcom. Is there Xcom an unofficial one? I understand it was based on the Xcom series but surely they and Firaxis both don't have the same rights to Xcom?

[Ari Rahikkala]

One thing that has me asking is 2K marin's Xcom. Is there Xcom an unofficial one? I understand it was based on the Xcom series but surely they and Firaxis both don't have the same rights to Xcom?

They're both official. Both Firaxis and 2K Marin are subsidiaries of 2K Games.

[dipstick]

God DAMN you NKF.

I race half way across the ENTIRE internet after learning of this, high tailing it back here, and you STILL beat me.

The link I have: http://www.gameinfor...my-unknown.aspx

Not heard of this magazine before, so not sure if I can get it here, but I will try to, at all costs.


After nearly two decades.... someone poke me... am I dreaming?!

[Gustarx]

hahaha, the concept is brilliant of Gollop. A new game, ofc, ....


If the Threat could be real. We need to train the brain of (young) dedicated humans to engage "The Unknown", ...


but how?

...


Humanresource and thinking how we learn are changing. Slow, very slow, but steadily, ... Turn by turn, thinking and re-thinking how we do our moves now and what would be best for future generations, ... Optimalizing our brains for the future, ...

[yarrow]

simply put:
we shall wait, we shall see

just ask yourself 2 simple questions:
1.) how many times did you hear rumors about someone remade XCom?
2.) and how much you were dissapointed, when you faced the reality?
( or rather I should say: cheated by this 'someone' )

now, you can calm down

and ... read the head of this article again
quoting from it:
"Firaxis is working on an all-new, all-different and all-strategy X-Com remake"
( words I put in bold should be read as the keywords )

do ... YOU ... want it to be "all-new" and "all-different"?

well, maybe I sound too 'prudish' or sceptic
but ... basically all I want is ( read again -> I want )

- better graphics ( 640x480 or 800x600 should be enough )
with added rotation arround object maybe ( like syndicate 2 )
but no fancies here, XCom is strategy game
( yes, I know I can use D3DWindower, but it is not better graphics, basically a zoomer )

- sound effects and music ( partially fixed with playstation battlescape background music )
with ability to turn the fx/music on/off and set its volume
again too fancy can ruin game ( sound can ruin any game in fact, even more than graphics )

- bugfixes ( XComUtils fixes most of them, but not all )

- only few new weapons
stun grenades, fire grenades, portable guided light sources ( flashlights )

- ( in Geoscape ) changing placement of soldiers ( swap soldiers ) at will
renaming soldiers at will ( like changing bases names )
sorting soldiers, configurable statstrings
massive soldier sacking ( ie. sack every soldier that has low psi strength at once )
I even wrote myself 2 handy soldier editors just for that ( sacker + statstrings and swapper )
lots of other editors/mods exist ( again XComUtils is a good start )


and the MOST of important of all
-------------------------------------
it still MUST be XCom 1 or 2!!
( you can call me puritan )
not FPS, RTS, (...), etc

Gustarx said it very well in post #2
"Training (...) eye-hand-coordination, is complete different then the (...) "
... playing XCom


some other quotations from article: ( again bolds are the keywords )
a.) "It's been a dream of ours to recreate X-Com with our unique creative vision"
unique + creative + vision sounds to me like ... another ... hmm
MS announcements about new versions of windooze
b.) "it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to re-envision a game that is as beloved as X-Com"
re-envison?, NOoooo please !!!

As I said before, calm down and read article again
but this time carefully ( you should be person like that, since it is the key in XCom )

will it truly be XCom?
hmm maybe it will, who knows ( they know )
quoting article again: "Details will be thin until the February"

I don't know about others, but I will wait patiently ( and calmly ) until ... February
and then we shall see, what they will really do with 'our' beloved ... title


sorry if I disillusioned/discouraged any of you
I still can be totally wrong!!


pure XCom maniac
yarrow

[NKF]

No I suspect it's not going to be simply an update of the old game, but after seeing the video here:

http://www.strategyc...loves-xcom.aspx

(thanks 7h3on)

I think the developers have got the right mindset and will most probably take this game down a good path. We obviously don't know how it will turn out at this stage, but it does feel good that they're trying to capture the essence from the original.

- NKF

Edited by NKF, 06 January 2012 - 05:09 PM.

[Ari Rahikkala]

pure XCom maniac
yarrow

I can see you are!

Seriously though. There's a lot of balony to clear away from UFOEU to actually make it palatable for 2012, especially in geoscape. You'll notice that they never said in the video "it sure was awesome to manufacture lots of laser cannons" or "I really loved the late game where you spend most of your time shooting down and assaulting dozens of scout ships that pose no threat to you, while waiting for long manufacturing/construction/psi-training projects to finish" or "I'd never played the game before but I easily got into it and figured out what all the interface buttons are for without needing a seasoned X-Com veteran to tell me what's relevant". Really, as far as I'm concerned the only things that geoscape play in UFOEU were really successful at were providing context for your missions in battlescape, and maybe the feeling of reward when you finished a research project. Interception could be fun sometimes as well, trying to catch UFOs leaving your bases' radar range in an interceptor's radar instead was cool. Otherwise... I don't mind if they redo the entire strategic part. The pointless complexity of the original is just not worth it in a modern game. And anyway I hear Firaxis has some good strategy game designers working for them.

The important thing is that the Firaxis devs realise the trick that X-Com plays on you: Making you feel that your agents are important and that you want to keep them alive, while at the same time actually having them be a completely replaceable resource (and one that needs replacement quite often!) - thus maintaining constant tension and suspense without actually being that difficult. It seems that the more time passes, the less people making X-Com sequels and spiritual sequels understand how important that is to the X-Com experience. It feels weird to see that finally someone gets it.

[Sorrow]

They talk suspiciously intelligently about the game. I think it can't be real. It's probably a fake. Yeah a fake.

[Gustarx]

...
The pointless complexity of the original is just not worth it in a modern game.
...

For modern warfare is good logistics essential. Iv setup a rotation system for my bases, so all bases will get at least 1 important item at any given moment/hour for the day. I suspect, Aliens are triggered by any movement in the game + maybe there is an internal softwarecomponent running that will trigger Ufo-activity by how many Elerium u have total and spread out over ur bases. Those Elerium would then best protected not only by offence activities, like playing on the tactical Battlefield, with good equipped stock in general stores for the crew, (Alien-items could also have the same triggering-code, but with a lower priority) but also by defending own bases with construct of seemingly obligate defence Building measures, like constructing Missile Defence or LaserDefence, from start or from moment when by research available.


With other words, I like the complexity of the current game. It reminds me constantly to the fact that (modern) warfare cost humanity a lot of resources. I agree with u, I dont like waiting too, but I can arrange the time in geoscape to what fits most what works for me the best. Ofc this change from person to person.

Lot of things could be finetuned, I guess. Modern games require updated insights form present, they have their own restrictions and limitations, from p.o.v. (point of view) of developpers; wishes and list of demands from users/customers. I wish that I could (re-)name my researchers and engineers. Instead of doing all the logistics myself, I would love to see a department working on it (with maybe some communicating u probably also have noticed in James Bond movies, with that secretary, ; -) ) . A module as option where u can order the game how much time, effords that department needs. With more or less time/resources allocated would it have a balancing effect/ impact on ur actions on the tactical battlefield but also in the geoscape sphere. An Icpt without armour is almost useless. It takes time to heal wounded soldiers, but with special medical modules (convalescent home) u can re-animate/recover them sooner.

...
The important thing is that the Firaxis devs realise the trick that X-Com plays on you: Making you feel that your agents are important and that you want to keep them alive, while at the same time actually having them be a completely replaceable resource (and one that needs replacement quite often!) - thus maintaining constant tension and suspense without actually being that difficult.
...

It looks like they want to make a game they want to play LOT by themselfes, ;-), but not only themselfes. With the way you play, ur playstyle, u determine/stipulate the own level of difficulty, seems to me.

Edited by Gustarx, 08 January 2012 - 09:53 AM.

[Sorrow]

...
The pointless complexity of the original is just not worth it in a modern game.
...

For modern warfare is good logistics essential. Iv setup a rotation system for my bases, so all bases will get at least 1 important item at any given moment/hour for the day. I suspect, Aliens are triggered by any movement in the game + maybe there is an internal softwarecomponent running that will trigger Ufo-activity by how many Elerium u have total and spread out over ur bases. Those Elerium would then best protected not only by offence activities, like playing on the tactical Battlefield, with good equipped stock in general stores for the crew, (Alien-items could also have the same triggering-code, but with a lower priority) but also by defending own bases with construct of seemingly obligate defence Building measures, like constructing Missile Defence or LaserDefence, from start or from moment when by research available.


With other words, I like the complexity of the current game. It reminds me constantly to the fact that (modern) warfare cost humanity a lot of resources. I agree with u, I dont like waiting too, but I can arrange the time in geoscape to what fits most what works for me the best. Ofc this change from person to person.

True. I would add planning, queueing, etc. tools, maybe even contingencies, though.

[dipstick]

The very fact that places like this exist are testament to the changes people believe are necessary, and not just a clone of the original.

Quirks and bugs aside, like for example the inability to order soldiers on a transport ship, there is so much that the game could grow into. A more complex tech tree (that actually works! ), more ship types, more weapon types, more alien types, a longer storyline.... endless ideas they could roll with. None of these would materially change the game, but make it more immersive.

[Gustarx]

Essential of a turn based game is the preparation of the moves of the soldiers/crew have to do on the battlefield. Not only on the battlefield itself, but also with giving them the right, best, fitting equipment for that kind of mission. Just before the tactical mission starts. A step before is the equipment of the Skyranger. A step before that is the management of the stock in the general stores. The 80-limit, what is a hard-coded limit, makes the game a challenge. In a new game, this and other limits could be finetuned.

The strength of men (opponent too), more accurate increasing to how weight works on a real b-field. Upgrading in small steps/modules what a transporter could take with, stepwise upgrading radars Icpt's. Medical constructions, with possibility to hire special personel, like personal nurses for the best of the men. Training-modules for Rookies to train their skills/stats on the veterans of ur soldiers (turnbased too), with the possibility to setup a rookie could kill/wound such veteran. Briefing room, where u can give men special instructions.

When A-brain-activity is detected by humans, before their ships are visible, an alarm should warn u, with creeping sound. Selfdestruct-ability on ships. Aliens and humans could decide to start up a selfdestruct-sequence, which also could be disabled ofc. Turnbased too, so using energy would become more visible essential. Not only tu, for what men could do in 1 turn, but also for how many turns they can use up Tu.

It would be nice if those developpers of the probably new game would introduce themselfes on forums like these, ask and listen! what fans of a turnbased game have to say. Offering perhaps for those who are real dedicated and interested to (pre-)play the game, giving the devs feedback about their progress. Cuz if X-Com-serie is the basic, the core, the new game should be extended on that base. A bit maybe like Jagex-company is doing. Their game, RuneScape, is continuously under improvement. Big difference would be, RuneScape is realtime, new X-com should not be realtime, turnbased is the key. The player must have the ability to SAVE and Load at anytime the situation the player thinks a save is needed/required, the ticking clock should only be in Geoscape, where the player decides, "k, I want to see what my thinking, moves, have for influence on the AI.

Another thought, wish, I have is an AI that would adapt and react on players input and intelligence. I mean, the game shouldn't start with a choose 'Beginner-Superhuman'. It should always start at beginnerslvl. However with each move, that can be saved, the lvl would steadily increase too. So decisions a veteran/rookie player would make from fresh start, like dismantling modules, using cash, and so on would have their influences how the game for the player how the AI uses that input. Example, dismantling modules would be 'punished' with more attacks on the first base, cuz Aliens 'have' detected weakness in humans defence. Reminds me to "Imperium Galactica", also a '90 game past century. I started in a chair as a lietnant, without the abilities, possibilities of a commander. Slowly I was first acused as spy, later I promoted, ...

Maybe someone of that new team, for that new game is allready on this forum, so why not allready starting and showing our wishes?

I'm 50, an other older generation, so I think it is not up to me, to direct those (possible) new subscribers where the wish- and demands-list is for current players. However starting a new topic would works perhaps better. I mean, if u really want a new, improved, updated/upgraded game that has the feel and a bit the lookalike of the old one, it could be now the time, seems to me to start the communication with those new Devs. There is so much knowledge gathered around this forum and the Wiki, even with softwareknowledge of what can be done and not (or even shouldn't like some starting limitations).


-----

"K-a", 'my' crew is waiting, they want to start the mission 'Terrorship'. The terrorship has been grounded with no losses of Icpt's. For me ofc, cuz I dont want a ship in repair WAY to long to wait (Ingame Time) for such ship is operationel again. The time to save and load the situation just before the aircmbt-engaging is happening feels for me more convenienant then making and using lot of cash to wait for a ship in repair. Something that could be fine-tuned too. If atuned I would accept more damaged and even perhaps wounded soldiers, ( I can't save those who are that desperate to be a hero, getting wounded, killed, or let an Icpt get be damaged anyway> trainingsprogram for aircrft-personell, also turnbased) but not for the current game. An interception ship that needs to be repaired or even is lost, it just reminds me to the men and their relatives flying that aircrft, ...

No, not an option for me, then I choose to SAVE & LOAD.



'K-b', and personally I need a toiletstop, ...

Edited by Gustarx, 09 January 2012 - 08:32 AM.

[Hobbes]

Gameinformer just disclosed the first images of the game:

Attached Thumbnails

• 
• 
• 

[Hobbes]

Here's are analysis/speculation about the first 2 images:

Mission Control Image
* We seem to have the original funding countries. On Geoscape you can see Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa clearly marked in bright. The neck flags on the soldiers also indicate Australia, Russia and Italy/France.
* South Sudan doesn't exist yet (it's still a part of Sudan), so the Geoscape seems to be dated before 2011.
* There are 3 types of firearms being carried by the soldiers. 1 is the same it was already revealed on the magazine's cover, with a laser sight. The 2nd is some sort of autocannon/machinegun (even comes with a bipod for support and handle to carry - it is the weapon carried by the featured soldier on the tactical image) and the other one a semi-automatic rifle/shotgun with a flashlight attached below the barrel.
* There's also banners hung from the ceiling with a yellow pentacle and a red X... maybe it's the new XCOM insignia.

Base HQ image
Base has 4 levels, with a central circular structure that appears to be a central lift. Some modules are further divided into sublevels.
Left Side:
* Hangar on the top left, with what appears on be a Skyranger being readied and 3 Interceptors on their above alcoves.
* The 3 modules on the bottom left seem to be almost the same module, possibly General Stores. There are 2 clearly 2 different types of it, one is circular like a tunnel.
* Also below the hangar, some sort of repair/workshop area (with the 2 yellow lights= ?
Right Side
* Mission Control (with Geoscape). From the image of the control room it seems that it is linked both to the hangars and soldiers quarters.
* Assuming it is correct, then the areas to the far right should be the Crew Quarters.
* Below Mission Control, it looks like some sort of Laboratory.
* To the right of the Laboratory and before the Crew Quarters there's some sort of meeting room... unclear.
* Below the Laboratory there's a base module of 3 rooms... Workshop? Laboratory?
* To its right, the violet room with the red columns maybe that we're looking at Alien Containment... unless someone has a better idea.
* On 4th level, first there's another of those Stores.
* And on the bottom left, the enigma - I simply have no idea of what it is, Base Power Plant, Radar System, whatever. And there's

[hereticus]

I saw those screen shots and I have a sinking feeling that the game will be made for consoles first and then "ported" to PC. The tactical screen shot looks like it's missing things such as TU's and some other soldier stats. I think that shows us the "streamlining" of the game that the article to which those screen shots were posted talked about. I don't want to pass any judgment on the game yet until I see the demo. However, I think that this game won't become what we dream of until the community makes it so. OH... and BTW what about the SDK for the game and mod support?

[hereticus]

Art of Xcom:

Please check this link out the Gameinformer has posted new Xcom content and we get a glimpse at some of the weapons and design of the soldiers(they some how look Gears of Warish if you ask me).

http://www.gameinfor...my-unknown.aspx

[Corps]

They just came out with a video which features the developers talking about the game as well as some gameplay footage.

Looks pretty sweet and is almost exactly what I would picture a modern day X-Com remake to look like.

[Sorrow]

Amount of soldiers on battlefield limited to 6. Starting amount of soldiers 4. Also, unlimited ammo for all weapons. So much for keeping what made the original good.

[yarrow]

So much for keeping what made the original good.

and I thought that my posts was too pessimistic

long live XCom!!!

yarrow

[Yuri Torban]

ONLY 6 XCOM soldiers??????



Why?

Unlimited ammo????

Why?


Another failed attempt.

Sad, very sad.

I'm old too...I'm 45. I'll die without see a single decent ufo remake o similar.

Sad, very sad.

Edited by Yuri Torban, 15 April 2012 - 02:55 PM.

[QuixotesGhost]

The more videos I see of this, the less it reminds me of X-Com and much more of Final Fantasy Tactics (I recall one of the developers mentioning his love for FF:T in an interview). If you notice the gameplay videos, it never seems as if you're patrolling through the unknown looking for hidden aliens, but much more that your squad stumbles upon encounters. Which explains the small squad sizes. It's not a squad - it's a party. This is a RPG: Tactics game.

[NKF]

If not improving the tactical squad side of things, it should add new elements to tactical RPG genre. I'm somewhat hoping it'll end up mimicking and improving on the Valkyria Chronicles system myself.

@Yuri Torban: Though I'd have liked to at least see something like 12, have a look at games like Jagged Alliance 2 and even X-Com Apocalypse where 6-man teams do work very well. Unlike the upcoming X-Com game, you got to fight several dozen enemies in some maps with just the six soldiers and still get through them just fine with various combinations of planning, equipment or luck.

Come to think of it, many other genres have six man teams for some odd reason. Especially in D&D cRPGs.

- NKF

[Sorrow]

A really good X-Com sequel would have 14 soldiers going in and 4 returning in most of missions. Why? Because it would keep the lethality and offer a drastically improved AI.

[hereticus]

hello all,

just recently Firaxis has released an hour long video of actual XCOM game play showing 2 separate missions and closer live look at the "ant farm". I hope you enjoy it.

[Conrad Gray]

I really want to see what the naysayers think about the demo.

[Istrebitel]

A have a lot to say, but 2K games will not let me! Their forum has a convinient premoderation of posts, and no doubt, my post will not get through. If you are interested, here it is (warning, wall of text and excessive negativism towards developers)

---------------------------- Remake is inferior to the original in every single way ----------------------------------

Let me start with a few words. I was a huge fan of original. I played and completed X-Com 1, 2, 3, 4 countless number of times. I finished X-Com 1 ironman on superhuman at least thrice. I loved every single game of the series (up to 4). I was so happy about this remake, true to original, made by guys who loved the original etc etc. I watched every video, read every article. I heard they're going to go with 1 base, with absence of time units, but i hoped it will be for greater good. I heard they're going to make it for consoles too, but they promised separate interface for PC's so i hoped it wont affect PC interface. I was going to buy this game, even though i rarely do buy games, especially without trying them first.

But then i installed Steam just to play one game - FTL - and saw a demo available for free.

I played it.

Unfortunately, every single hope was in vain...

I will now make a detailed comparison of original to the remake, in order to give solid proof to my position.

1. It begins at the start of the game. In the original, I could skip the intro. In the remake, I cannot. W T F? Too much ego, guys? "How can the player not watch our company logo every time, its so beatiful!"

Well, here you go, original gets a head start in list of features!

2. You wanted to remake an original, stay true to it.... Tell me... Where did tha awesome x-com logo went, and why do we have this ugly insignia?... Okay, even if that's subjective, you're making an x-com game, true to the original.... Why not give it five difficulty levels and call them appropriately (novice...superhuman)?

Way to kick every fan of the series in the nuts before he even started playin...

3. Okay, what's this game called again? Is it "enemy unknown"? Then why the heck do we see our damn enemy right at the title screen, in the main menu? Yes, you could argue, that original had mutons in the intro, but i'm talking ingame models.

In the original, you downed your first ufo and went in and had first contact and went like... What is that thing? And no way to zoom in, no way to see what is it holding... You cant even see its face if it's looking away from camera. And then it shoots you and kills your dude.... And another dude.... And after you finally kill it, you are curious and look at its corpse and go like "Eek!"... Or you may have learned that he's alive! "Oh my god we have a live one here, what do we do?"

But in this "remake" you are familiarised with the enemy from the go. There it runs around the streets in circles, look at it. There you see it in your tutorial, you see what it can do and how deadly it is (while losing nothing, because this is supposed to happen, you know those 3 casualties are scripted and they do not really feel like losses)

So by the time you're sent on your real mission, not really "unknown" anymore, is it?

4. But even before we begin with the actual game.... What is this mouse? Whats with the delay? W T F? I guess the game was made for consoles, and no matter what they said about separate interfaces, it shows that game was made for consoles, but man, such a delayed mouse pointer? W T F? You cannot even change it anywhere! You're stuck with this slowpoke pointer for the whole game! What can i say?
Original game increases its lead.

5. Tutorial... Why this even starts in battlescape? Why are you forced to make stupid tactical desicions? (which x-com vet would send one guy rushing inside a building while other guys are more than a turn away and cannot shoot if an alien is inside?) Why dont you see whole interface at once and are locked in features (like, cannot zoom out)?

Having a tutorial which you have to play through is so wrong for many reasons! Want to teach players who do not read manuals? Simple - make a well designed interface, good tooltips and a help button that shows an overlay like Diablo 2. Thats it! But let's break this down to exact points.

6. Interface... Its horrible! Who designed this? You said you all played original game to the end... Well, in original game, i could understand every possible action i had without a tutorial, and i could control everything with my mouse! In this game, i cannot rotate camera without a keyboard! I try to zoom out and instead, i get a change of levels! I dont even know if i can zoom out because there is no "controls" in options, and no buttons on screen to do it. This is ridiculous.

Oh and that camera movement - its so sluggish, so slow even on highest speed, so unnatural and just pain in the donkey to use.

Just.

Horrible.

Learn from a dude who made UfoExtender in his free time - he added customizeable hotkeys to original and even new interface elements to battlescape inventory. Without having access to the source code. Your "new remake" doesnt even have cusomizeable controls... in damn 2012 i will still have to hack your game to have customizeable controls?

You hard coded controls using QWEASD.... You guys ever heard that a big portion of people does not use WASD but ESDF? No? Never crossed your mind that customiseable controls for a game that uses a lot of hotkeys is a good idea? Ehh... Nevermind.

Original wins once again. Remake has worser interface, sluggish mouse and camera movement, no way to play using only mouse, stupid default controls without a way to reassign.

7. Deprivation of game experience.
In a game about unknown enemy, first contact is one of the epic moments to be remembered. You fear him. You are curious. You want to punch his face. Anything. But there is this first contact. And you deprieved player of experiencing first contact be making it happen TWICE in the tutorial under tutorial's command! What have you done? In the original, it could be landed ufo, it could be crashlanded ufo, it could be terror or even base assault! Every time it was different and first time you played it was true first contact! You went there without any understanding what you will face! How many, what are they capable of...

In the remake, they do it for you. They kill you guys in stupidest ways possible for you to show you that "enemy is dangerous" and do it again to show you "enemy knows how to shoot up roofs" maybe? Anyways, twice your experience of first contact is ruined and deprieved.

Way to ruin the huge, epic moment, take away major part of the fun.

If you needed to make player learn to play via tutorial, at least you could do it like Amnesia did it. Do not show the enemy in the tutorial, just spook the player. First let him learn to move and act, and then let him have his first contact... alone, the way he wants it...

Let him play and enjoy the game, do not deny him this!

Another win for original, another fail for remake.

8. Okay we started actual fight... This is soooooo screwed! This i sooo many steps back from the original its ridiculous! Tactical combat in this game just... SUCKS! Lets compare it to the original and see...

9. Size of the map... Where did my map go? Where are those big landscapes? What is this tiny corridor shooter shuckeroonies? I thought i was playing a strategy, tactics game, no?

Ever heard of Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 Big map project? Even if you didnt, read the name again. Its called big map project, not small map project for a reason! Shrinking the map in a tactical game dumbs the game down and takes away a lot of what original game was about! If anything, expanding the map may add new tactics and broaden your array of choices, making the game more interesting.

So why is X-Com different? The original had huge maps, where you could flank or be flanked, could have alien hiding in some general building to the side of the map, you had a huge battle for a huge city in terror... Here we get a corridor shooter. Linear map with several hand-placed obstacles.

Yeah, original is better once again, but we are already accustomed to it, arent we?

10. But lets get back to deprivation of game experience.
Any, ANY veteran of the original game knows how important first several turns are. You can land far away from the enemy, or you can land right on top of several aliens. Turn one was player turn, and aliens had huge advantage because they had full time units and their reaction, already higher than yours, was through the roof. Basically peeking outside at turn one was a death wish, and if you landed with aliens right outside the skyrider, looking at you, you'd really consider extracting right away. You could wipe your entire squad if the alient would reaction fire at you with a small bomb launcher. Boom. All unconsious. Mission failed, skyrider lost, with all soldiers and equipment.

And it was GREAT.

There were tactics. You could throw smoke grenade inside and wait, then start going out slowly. You could have your tank peek and if anything happens, it's more likely to survive due to higher armor. You really considered risk vs reward when you saw aliens are all around skyrider exit. It was huge.

Now we are deprieved of this. Exiting skyrider is done for us. Aliens will never be right outside the skyrider, yeah, of course they wouldnt, its no fair, players would whine and dislike the game for being too cruel!

Original wins once again. Huge part of tactics of battlescape are ripped out of the game, for sake of adding a nice cinematic... yay! What's not to love?

11. Size of the squad... We're talking unknown threat here. It might be a legion! It might be something that can take control of us and use our men against ourselves. So thats why we're only taking FOUR dudes on a mission? WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA? Even in the year 1999 we already had aircraft capable of carrying more than ten people. Original game had skyrider fit 14 troops, or 10 and 1 tank, or 6 and 2 tanks. And what do we get in original? Four measy units, with a chance of later upgrade. Yeah... What about Avenger? Twenty Six operatives? And you needed those in base siege missions, even having twenty six guys you could still lose because it was ruthless, it was unfair and it was frightening. People with blaster bomb launchers all around, aliens coming from everywhere... thank god they didnt knew how to use elevators, or you'd have a nightmare. And if you were assaulting an ethereal base - good luck trying, no matter how many people you'd bring, you could lose.

Here we get.. four. Yeah. Huge hit.... "Right in the jewels", as Duke Nukem'd say.

It is just a crime against the original. I can see how dumbing game down to several units and smaller map makes it easier to actually make and balance the game, but at this point, please tell me, why on earth should i like to play your game instead of the original? Its worser in every single way! But lets keep on topic.

Limiting size of the squad more than four times to that of the original is more than four steps back. It adds nothing to the gameplay, but takes away a huge part of tactical approach.

12. New turn system!
Devs said TU based system was not very good because it didnt allow you to think of your squad as a whole, but had you calculate all those little points, where you can go, how many steps you can make so you can still fire and get away... i get it. Maybe there should be a simplier yet better system that will free up the player time for something ese. Maybe you can change TU based system to some other system... But tell me, what is this abomination?

After experiencing my first combat, i have to ask, why do you ever call this XCOM Enemy Unknown anymore? It has nothing true to the original! Nothing. Battlescape tactics are completey changed and screwed, more than that, they are FUBAR.

Lets begin with comparison. What was the original system?
You had a set amount of points, which depended on your soldier stats. Better soldier had more. You could use these points to move around, movement costed the same amount (so better soldier could move further). You could use them to operate your inventory (later on that) and to fire. Firing costed fixed percent, so everybody could fire same amount of shots. When you spotted an enemy, it could react to your actions, if his reaction x his time units remaining were greater than same formula for your soldier. There were also complex mechanics of mutal suprise rule, and reaction to being fired from behind, and some cases when you could react to turning of the enemy, not only movement and action, etc. This all created a real tactical experience, where you had to think about your every step, you had to act together as a team (or you'd have "lemmings syndrome"), you usually chose to fire from beyond enemy sight range because that wouldnt put your units in danger of reaction fire. You would have different tactics on scouting the land, but generally, the game was about spotting the enemy and living to tell the tale. The danger came from the fact that on enemy turn, they could come out of the fog of war, kill your dude and hide, and you had to either suck that up, or advance in hopes of spotting them and then having a shot. But you could get your spotter shot too, without revealing enemy location, then you'd either have to aim at where he fired from, or send in another guy... etc. Well, this was dangerous, fatal battle, where you could both get an upper hand (spotter spots, other soldiers kill, spotter gets back, skip turn, repeat) or get decimated by the enemy. And then there was he act of getting inside the UFO - that was a huge tactical aspect in itself. You often had tactics that involved stunning your operative in order to save his life, or sending in a suicide unit that would die in 99% cases. But it was interesting, tactical and had a huge depth to it. You also had a lot of ways of dealing with the enemy - using a lot of grenades, or even explosives, using explosive ammunition or incendary ammunition, or trying to get in melee and stun in order to get higher score and more test subjects in your alien containtment.

What do we get in the remake?
* First of all, you are dumbed down to TWO actions per turn.
* If that's not enough, your soldier will, like an idiot, continue his action even if he spotted an enemy in process.
* If that's not enough, you are not allowed to move after shooting, or shooting twice.

Now tell me, who thought that was a good idea?
You guys ever heard of Battle for Wesnoth? Jagged Alliance 1 or 2? You said you all played X-Com, then how could you make such an awful system!?

I cannot advance step by step until i notice an enemy. WHY!? In every game i listed, your movement is interrupted if you notice an enemy, and you are allowed to reconsider. In X-Com, you can just move step-by-step, to stop when you have visual contatct. Why cannot i do it anymore? (well technically i can but then one step costs me half my turn)

I cannot shoot and then get back with remaining time. WHY? Who thought that was a good idea? I understand in games like Wesnoth and Heroes of Might and Magic it does make sense that your attack ends your turn, because we're talking armies here. But this game is about single soldiers. So what prevents me from rushing back behind cover after i took a shot? Why do i HAVE to stay near that edge of a building so that the enemy can blow it up? Why do i have to stay behind a crate where i'm vulnerable, when i could have rushed inside the building where i'd be 100% safe. Why cant i shoot from the roof and then get to the center of it and duck, so that i dont get hit on their turn unless they climb up the roof? I cannot shoot twice if i dont move. WHY? What makes it so? 1 movement = 1 shooting in terms of time, since i can either move and shoot or move and move, so what the heck, why cannot i shoot twice?

Who thought that preventing firing for those who dont have sight of the enemy is a good idea (yeah, only snipers can do that now). You ever played Airsoft, Paintball, idk, any real firearms conflict simulation? Do you know the difference between spotting the enemy and seeing him? If i advance through a forest, and enemy is laying down behind a tree, i will spot him from much smaller distance than i'd be able to see him from! Because i dont know where to look, i'm looking everywhere for the signs of him, and my brain's visual recognition isnt good enough to instantly notice a tiny part of him hiding right there. But after i did notice him, now my buddy can focus his eyes on that tree and also see him there, because he will know thats not a stone and a twig, but a mask and a gun. So whats the problem with him firing there?

This creates a stupid "glued-down" system where you are glued in place this makes you vulnerable. You are made vulnerable not by the nature of the conflict (you are against an alien threat, and they already had time to spread out so you're surrounded when you land), not by the nature of the firearms (you have crappy anti-bullet armor and they have plasma weapons) but by the system that forking glues my dudes in place after they fired, so that enemy can fire back on them on their turn!

This... Is... FUBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!!!

You screw the tactical part of the original beyond all recognition! It's dead!

If we'd have no skins, meaning, we'd have gray dolls fighting gray dolls with standart "guns", and we'd ask people what game is this a remake of, judging by the tactical system, noone would recognise this as an X-Com game, i'd bet my money on that!

I accept the fact that maybe, maybe there is tactics to this system as well. Maybe it also has its quirks, you can learn and progress, become better. But this system is so limited compared to the original, its just an offense to call this a remake. This is a destruction of all what original standed for, not a remake.

And if it would only end up here... But no! We go on to...

13. Lack of inventory!
WHAT THE !? Who thought that was a good idea? Dressing your characters like dolls is a huge part of any tactica game. Thats where you get familliar with your guys, where you get to know him, and then they die horribly, and you feel it because you geared that guy by hand... Not only that, but the original had a very complex and well thought system (putting something into shoulder slot costed many TU, but taking it from there costed very little TU, putting something into right hand from the other side slot, like, left leg, costed more than from corresponding right leg, etc). System was perfect, all that was missing is saving presets, so you dont have to equip them manually every time.

But no. No no no. This is a console game, and so equipment screen is a no-no. We will tell them that PC gets its own interface, but truth it, its just the same console interface buth with sluggish mouse on top of it.

We lost inventory - a huge part of the original - and what do we get instead? Nonsense! Only speficic "class" can equip specific weapon. But it gets worse... I CAN ONLY CARRY ONE ROCKET!?!?!?!?!?! What the heck? In original, even a pussy could carry more than that. Dump that heavy gun and stock more rockets, your heavy gun wont help you when you need to take out that cyberdisk bunch from the distance! Where's my incendary ammo? High explosive ammo?

Where is my ammo at all? GONE? Who thought this was a good idea? A huge part of the original was ammunition. You could easilly go out of ammo if some dude does too many autofires. You would scavenge and use enemy guns, or have to toss ammo around. It was part of the game, and important one.

Instead, we get "reload" button that magically materialises ammunition for us?

But... a big part of the original was having to chose. Plasma weapons - accurate, fast, and powerful, but cost ammo. Ammo costs elerium, and elerium is priceless. Laser weapons - less accurate, less powerful, but unlimited ammo. Chose - have an advantage but pay for it, or have unlimited ammo but less firepower.

And what about guys carrying spare clips, or ammo for small launchers, blaster bombs, rocket launchers? All gone. One rocket, period.

This is beyond ridiculous. I was deprieved of any freedom to control my dudes by the changes to the TU system, and now i'm deprieved of simply replacing that pistol with an extra grenade! What kind of "True to original" game is this?

X-Com 1 had custom inventory. X-Com 2, 3 had custom inventory, and latter even had mix-and-mach armor! But no, remake has no inventory.

Several steps back for the remake once again.

14. Enemy guns disintegrate...
Yeah... this is so true to the original, right? No, it isnt! Who though this was a good idea i dont even... What's best than taking heavy plasma off an alien corpse, and blasting the ufo wall with it to make a second door. What's best than scavenging ammunition off alien corpses? No, we dont need that, say the developers of the remake, lets dumb that down even more. No picking up items. You get scrap and be happy with it.

Another step back, thank you. Next!

15. Only one base.
Now, i agree, that most of the time, you'd use one base to launch ground missions because it was easier that way. But you could also have research bases, production bases, you could have secondary bases just in case your main base goes down in an unlucky base assault.

Forcing us to one base is stupid, limiting and just makes zero sense. X-Com 1 was about multiple bases. X-Com 2 was about multiple bases. X-Com 3 was about multiple bases. X-Com 4 was about multiple bases. But no, in a true-to-original remake, we will not allow you to have multiple bases.

What about placing my base exactly where i want it? You ever heard of "single base in arctic on superhuman" walkthough of the original? No, you never did, and you never will in your dumbed down "chose one of five pre-set country points and thats all you got".

Original wins once again, and by huge margin (more than one base vs one base, better base layout interface because top down view IS better than side view, and ability to place bases wherever you want instead of being locked to five preset points).

16. UFO Interception...
I cannot intercept by multiple aircraft...
WHAT!? You say you played the original. Well maybe you played on novice? And they gave you an avenger right at the start too? Have you ever heard about downing a Very Large with interceptors? Or firstorms? Yeah go do it with 1 aircraft at a time! This just doesnt need any more words...

What about dumbed down interception window? Where did all those options go!?!?!??! What is this? Who designed it? Its nonsence!
WHERE IS THE EPIC INTECEPTION MUSIC!?!?!?! . What have you done? If you remake X-Com, either keep the epic interception music, or do it like this guy did it in the video below, not like you did it, with boring background music... heck even visuals in the original were better for the interception screen.


Sorry, but this is another huge step back from the original.

17. You cannot respond to both missions at once!?
Who thought that was a good idea? "We can only respond to one"? NO YOU ill mannered person WE CAN RESPOND TO BOTH! Buy a second skyranger and do it! This is stupid. This is so artificial limitation that it just sticks out. Really sticks. In X-Com 1, you could react to everything you managed to. In X-Com 2, same. In X-Com 3, same. In X-Com 4, same. But in remake, yeah, you cant do that. Way to remake!

Step back once again!

18. Generally, dumb down and artificial limits all around.
Original game had you decide your class. Want a heavy weapons guy - train him in certain stats. Want a marksman - train him by having him make more shots per mission. Want a guy with good reaction - geat him up with best armor, and let him take reaction shots... he will be pro in no time, or die trying. You wanted to specialise on research? Build new labs. On production? New workshops.
Everything was freeform - you could spend your money on one of the items in a huge list that you could buy (scientists, soldiers, engineers, new craft, craft armament, crew armament...), rebuild your base from scratch to fit your needs (like, to make it more defendable), etc...
However, here we have those classes everywhere. You chose a class of your base when you start, you choose what to gain when you chose what country to help, you chose the class when you level up your soldier... Everything is limited by creating artificial walls and barriers (cannot do both missions at once, cannot carry rocket launcher if you aint this class, etc).
heck, i cannot even hire scientists anymore! I have to get them through missions! What is that?
Once again, this is like taking The Elder Scrolls series game (Morowind or Oblivion, for example), and making it into a game with a character development system of Diablo 3, and calling that "remake". Nonsense!
You took away all the freedom we had.
* We cannot buy or sell stuff like we could before (we would get huge amount of different artifacts from each mission, now we get 2 corpses and 5 item debris and thats it)
* We cannot build our base where we want to
* We cannot have multiple bases
* We cannot freely plan our base
* We cannot buy personell
* We cannot complete all missions that show up
* We cannot equip our soldiers like we want to

How can you ever call this a step forward?

19. And just now, I found out this video:


Yes, you played Battle for Wesnoth, you played X-Com 1. You had a fenomenal exprerience. Just lets follow this video

* You died right after you come out of skyranger, you understood "That is X-Com for you", so that's why you removed this from your remake?
* The original game is unforgiving, that's why you automatically exit my guys out of Skyranger for me so that they dont die?
* It freaks you out when you see a sectoid in the dark, thats why your game completely deprieves you of this, by allowing you to see the enemy right from the main menu, and then you can see him with your camera easilly, see him fumble in cover, moving his limbs, so becaue you liked it, you removed it from your remake.
* The original game had soul, thats why you tried so hard to rip it off and remove it?
* They're not gonna hold your hand, that's why you hold the hand in the remake? I dont get it!
* They say, they LIE that "they're going to keep that stuff" but in truth, they remove everything, everything that was great about the original...
* Original source material still resonates.... Yeah, it does, because you see how bad the remake it is, how far the remake is from the original, how many original features were removed, crippled! Lots of features from the original are stripped and that indeed resonates when you play the remake.

After watching this video, I cant take it anymore. It hurts. I'm almost crying here at my desk. They just lie for the whole video. A true PR move, in order to sell their game. It hurts. It really hurts. Why are they doing this? They say original is sacred, holy to them, yet they mutilated, decimated it and made a horrible mess that they call a "remake true to original".

I had high hopes for this game... Oh well, I had to know better.

I'd like to thank anybody who read this far. If you have something to object, I'm all ears. I'm not a hater, I actually wanted to love this game, I hoped to play it and enjoy it as much as i did the original. But after trying the demo yesterday, it just seems impossible. Maybe I am wrong?

PS: I havent even touched a lot of stuff that is wrong about this game.
* aliens seeing you with their shoulders or backs (you can never get a "jump" on them since when you notice aliens, they interrupt you and get in cover),
* miniscule amount of stuff you can buy or sell or use as equipment,
* whole game being basically a series of scripted operations that are generated around the world (unlike in original where it was actually a player vs alien strategy game, where both gathered points, both could build bases, both had missions etc.),
* music which is truly inferior to the original (and whole game is way less spooky),
* questionable graphics (original had a sort of "cool" to it, even though it is said to be made after american comics, and i am not at all a fan of comics, but it was cool, it felt and looked good),
* bugs (you get a penallty for "enemy being above you" even though its a small sectoid outside of a building crouched behind a crate, and you're standing up behind a door inside the building),
* game being way too forgiving and easy at start (in a head-to-head fight you get hit for like 3-5 dmg and have 8 health while enemy has like 3 health and gets hit for 3 dmg or more, in order to oneshot you enemy has to flank you, which only happens in tutorial to showcase how "deadly" game is but later in game you get hit for 3 damage out of 8),
* game essentially being on time limit (you get constant panic increase in countries with every mission because with every mission you abandon some country, and when a country gets enough panic it leaves XCOM project, and when 8 countries get out its game over, so i guess its on a time limit)
* no "true" strategy - missions like abduction and stuff are generated by computer and just pop up, there is no real ufo landing there and you cant intercept it
* cannot shoot a building with plasma, laser, whatever... only grenade and rocket... you can shoot a building if there's alien behind it though.... logic? zero!
* really, it goes a long way, but i'm too tired to speak of it... i'm to disappointed... i'd better stop here

Edited by Istrebitel, 28 September 2012 - 09:24 AM.

[Micah]

That's not a wall of text, it's a skyscraper

[NKF]

I'd be more inclined to wait for the retail release before getting critical about it. Besides, this thing still sounds truer to form than that other game - whatever it was called. I forget.

- NKF

Edited by NKF, 06 October 2012 - 03:45 PM.

[Conrad Gray]

lmfao @ that post

[NKF]

Well folks, it's out in America. As a fellow denizen of "Rest of the World", I'll have to wait a bit, plus find a shop with a copy (if any choose to stock it).

- NKF

[Morphs]

I ordered it here (living in EU): http://www.getgamesg...y-unknown-eu-po

Which at €38,99 is a lot cheaper than on Steam itself (€50,-). I don't really mind the digital download-part of it.

I'll give this game a fair chance to prove itself. That means I'm not going to be disappointed by all the stuff that didn't make it in and perhaps a lack of atmosphere. Like NKF said, this is probably the best remake so far, and I plan to simply enjoy it It even features a built-in Iron Man Mode as well as multiplayer (as Humans or Aliens).

Edited by Morphs, 10 October 2012 - 03:11 AM.

[Sorrow]

I'd be more inclined to wait for the retail release before getting critical about it. Besides, this thing still sounds truer to form than that other game - whatever it was called. I forget.

- NKF

What's the point, though? After you buy the retail, they already have your money and you can't do anything about it.And remakes that downgrade the gameplay are pointless.

Edited by Sorrow, 10 October 2012 - 03:38 AM.

[FenderStrat]

A have a lot to say, but 2K games will not let me! Their forum has a convinient premoderation of posts, and no doubt, my post will not get through. If you are interested, here it is (warning, wall of text and excessive negativism towards developers)

---------------------------- Remake is inferior to the original in every single way ----------------------------------

Let me start with a few words. I was a huge fan of original. I played and completed X-Com 1, 2, 3, 4 countless number of times. I finished X-Com 1 ironman on superhuman at least thrice. I loved every single game of the series (up to 4). I was so happy about this remake, true to original, made by guys who loved the original etc etc. I watched every video, read every article. I heard they're going to go with 1 base, with absence of time units, but i hoped it will be for greater good. I heard they're going to make it for consoles too, but they promised separate interface for PC's so i hoped it wont affect PC interface. I was going to buy this game, even though i rarely do buy games, especially without trying them first.

But then i installed Steam just to play one game - FTL - and saw a demo available for free.

I played it.

Unfortunately, every single hope was in vain...

I will now make a detailed comparison of original to the remake, in order to give solid proof to my position.

1. It begins at the start of the game. In the original, I could skip the intro. In the remake, I cannot. W T F? Too much ego, guys? "How can the player not watch our company logo every time, its so beatiful!"

Well, here you go, original gets a head start in list of features!

2. You wanted to remake an original, stay true to it.... Tell me... Where did tha awesome x-com logo went, and why do we have this ugly insignia?... Okay, even if that's subjective, you're making an x-com game, true to the original.... Why not give it five difficulty levels and call them appropriately (novice...superhuman)?

Way to kick every fan of the series in the nuts before he even started playin...

3. Okay, what's this game called again? Is it "enemy unknown"? Then why the heck do we see our damn enemy right at the title screen, in the main menu? Yes, you could argue, that original had mutons in the intro, but i'm talking ingame models.

In the original, you downed your first ufo and went in and had first contact and went like... What is that thing? And no way to zoom in, no way to see what is it holding... You cant even see its face if it's looking away from camera. And then it shoots you and kills your dude.... And another dude.... And after you finally kill it, you are curious and look at its corpse and go like "Eek!"... Or you may have learned that he's alive! "Oh my god we have a live one here, what do we do?"

But in this "remake" you are familiarised with the enemy from the go. There it runs around the streets in circles, look at it. There you see it in your tutorial, you see what it can do and how deadly it is (while losing nothing, because this is supposed to happen, you know those 3 casualties are scripted and they do not really feel like losses)

So by the time you're sent on your real mission, not really "unknown" anymore, is it?

4. But even before we begin with the actual game.... What is this mouse? Whats with the delay? W T F? I guess the game was made for consoles, and no matter what they said about separate interfaces, it shows that game was made for consoles, but man, such a delayed mouse pointer? W T F? You cannot even change it anywhere! You're stuck with this slowpoke pointer for the whole game! What can i say?
Original game increases its lead.

5. Tutorial... Why this even starts in battlescape? Why are you forced to make stupid tactical desicions? (which x-com vet would send one guy rushing inside a building while other guys are more than a turn away and cannot shoot if an alien is inside?) Why dont you see whole interface at once and are locked in features (like, cannot zoom out)?

Having a tutorial which you have to play through is so wrong for many reasons! Want to teach players who do not read manuals? Simple - make a well designed interface, good tooltips and a help button that shows an overlay like Diablo 2. Thats it! But let's break this down to exact points.

6. Interface... Its horrible! Who designed this? You said you all played original game to the end... Well, in original game, i could understand every possible action i had without a tutorial, and i could control everything with my mouse! In this game, i cannot rotate camera without a keyboard! I try to zoom out and instead, i get a change of levels! I dont even know if i can zoom out because there is no "controls" in options, and no buttons on screen to do it. This is ridiculous.

Oh and that camera movement - its so sluggish, so slow even on highest speed, so unnatural and just pain in the donkey to use.

Just.

Horrible.

Learn from a dude who made UfoExtender in his free time - he added customizeable hotkeys to original and even new interface elements to battlescape inventory. Without having access to the source code. Your "new remake" doesnt even have cusomizeable controls... in damn 2012 i will still have to hack your game to have customizeable controls?

You hard coded controls using QWEASD.... You guys ever heard that a big portion of people does not use WASD but ESDF? No? Never crossed your mind that customiseable controls for a game that uses a lot of hotkeys is a good idea? Ehh... Nevermind.

Original wins once again. Remake has worser interface, sluggish mouse and camera movement, no way to play using only mouse, stupid default controls without a way to reassign.

7. Deprivation of game experience.
In a game about unknown enemy, first contact is one of the epic moments to be remembered. You fear him. You are curious. You want to punch his face. Anything. But there is this first contact. And you deprieved player of experiencing first contact be making it happen TWICE in the tutorial under tutorial's command! What have you done? In the original, it could be landed ufo, it could be crashlanded ufo, it could be terror or even base assault! Every time it was different and first time you played it was true first contact! You went there without any understanding what you will face! How many, what are they capable of...

In the remake, they do it for you. They kill you guys in stupidest ways possible for you to show you that "enemy is dangerous" and do it again to show you "enemy knows how to shoot up roofs" maybe? Anyways, twice your experience of first contact is ruined and deprieved.

Way to ruin the huge, epic moment, take away major part of the fun.

If you needed to make player learn to play via tutorial, at least you could do it like Amnesia did it. Do not show the enemy in the tutorial, just spook the player. First let him learn to move and act, and then let him have his first contact... alone, the way he wants it...

Let him play and enjoy the game, do not deny him this!

Another win for original, another fail for remake.

8. Okay we started actual fight... This is soooooo screwed! This i sooo many steps back from the original its ridiculous! Tactical combat in this game just... SUCKS! Lets compare it to the original and see...

9. Size of the map... Where did my map go? Where are those big landscapes? What is this tiny corridor shooter shuckeroonies? I thought i was playing a strategy, tactics game, no?

Ever heard of Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 Big map project? Even if you didnt, read the name again. Its called big map project, not small map project for a reason! Shrinking the map in a tactical game dumbs the game down and takes away a lot of what original game was about! If anything, expanding the map may add new tactics and broaden your array of choices, making the game more interesting.

So why is X-Com different? The original had huge maps, where you could flank or be flanked, could have alien hiding in some general building to the side of the map, you had a huge battle for a huge city in terror... Here we get a corridor shooter. Linear map with several hand-placed obstacles.

Yeah, original is better once again, but we are already accustomed to it, arent we?

10. But lets get back to deprivation of game experience.
Any, ANY veteran of the original game knows how important first several turns are. You can land far away from the enemy, or you can land right on top of several aliens. Turn one was player turn, and aliens had huge advantage because they had full time units and their reaction, already higher than yours, was through the roof. Basically peeking outside at turn one was a death wish, and if you landed with aliens right outside the skyrider, looking at you, you'd really consider extracting right away. You could wipe your entire squad if the alient would reaction fire at you with a small bomb launcher. Boom. All unconsious. Mission failed, skyrider lost, with all soldiers and equipment.

And it was GREAT.

There were tactics. You could throw smoke grenade inside and wait, then start going out slowly. You could have your tank peek and if anything happens, it's more likely to survive due to higher armor. You really considered risk vs reward when you saw aliens are all around skyrider exit. It was huge.

Now we are deprieved of this. Exiting skyrider is done for us. Aliens will never be right outside the skyrider, yeah, of course they wouldnt, its no fair, players would whine and dislike the game for being too cruel!

Original wins once again. Huge part of tactics of battlescape are ripped out of the game, for sake of adding a nice cinematic... yay! What's not to love?

11. Size of the squad... We're talking unknown threat here. It might be a legion! It might be something that can take control of us and use our men against ourselves. So thats why we're only taking FOUR dudes on a mission? WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA? Even in the year 1999 we already had aircraft capable of carrying more than ten people. Original game had skyrider fit 14 troops, or 10 and 1 tank, or 6 and 2 tanks. And what do we get in original? Four measy units, with a chance of later upgrade. Yeah... What about Avenger? Twenty Six operatives? And you needed those in base siege missions, even having twenty six guys you could still lose because it was ruthless, it was unfair and it was frightening. People with blaster bomb launchers all around, aliens coming from everywhere... thank god they didnt knew how to use elevators, or you'd have a nightmare. And if you were assaulting an ethereal base - good luck trying, no matter how many people you'd bring, you could lose.

Here we get.. four. Yeah. Huge hit.... "Right in the jewels", as Duke Nukem'd say.

It is just a crime against the original. I can see how dumbing game down to several units and smaller map makes it easier to actually make and balance the game, but at this point, please tell me, why on earth should i like to play your game instead of the original? Its worser in every single way! But lets keep on topic.

Limiting size of the squad more than four times to that of the original is more than four steps back. It adds nothing to the gameplay, but takes away a huge part of tactical approach.

12. New turn system!
Devs said TU based system was not very good because it didnt allow you to think of your squad as a whole, but had you calculate all those little points, where you can go, how many steps you can make so you can still fire and get away... i get it. Maybe there should be a simplier yet better system that will free up the player time for something ese. Maybe you can change TU based system to some other system... But tell me, what is this abomination?

After experiencing my first combat, i have to ask, why do you ever call this XCOM Enemy Unknown anymore? It has nothing true to the original! Nothing. Battlescape tactics are completey changed and screwed, more than that, they are FUBAR.

Lets begin with comparison. What was the original system?
You had a set amount of points, which depended on your soldier stats. Better soldier had more. You could use these points to move around, movement costed the same amount (so better soldier could move further). You could use them to operate your inventory (later on that) and to fire. Firing costed fixed percent, so everybody could fire same amount of shots. When you spotted an enemy, it could react to your actions, if his reaction x his time units remaining were greater than same formula for your soldier. There were also complex mechanics of mutal suprise rule, and reaction to being fired from behind, and some cases when you could react to turning of the enemy, not only movement and action, etc. This all created a real tactical experience, where you had to think about your every step, you had to act together as a team (or you'd have "lemmings syndrome"), you usually chose to fire from beyond enemy sight range because that wouldnt put your units in danger of reaction fire. You would have different tactics on scouting the land, but generally, the game was about spotting the enemy and living to tell the tale. The danger came from the fact that on enemy turn, they could come out of the fog of war, kill your dude and hide, and you had to either suck that up, or advance in hopes of spotting them and then having a shot. But you could get your spotter shot too, without revealing enemy location, then you'd either have to aim at where he fired from, or send in another guy... etc. Well, this was dangerous, fatal battle, where you could both get an upper hand (spotter spots, other soldiers kill, spotter gets back, skip turn, repeat) or get decimated by the enemy. And then there was he act of getting inside the UFO - that was a huge tactical aspect in itself. You often had tactics that involved stunning your operative in order to save his life, or sending in a suicide unit that would die in 99% cases. But it was interesting, tactical and had a huge depth to it. You also had a lot of ways of dealing with the enemy - using a lot of grenades, or even explosives, using explosive ammunition or incendary ammunition, or trying to get in melee and stun in order to get higher score and more test subjects in your alien containtment.

What do we get in the remake?
* First of all, you are dumbed down to TWO actions per turn.
* If that's not enough, your soldier will, like an idiot, continue his action even if he spotted an enemy in process.
* If that's not enough, you are not allowed to move after shooting, or shooting twice.

Now tell me, who thought that was a good idea?
You guys ever heard of Battle for Wesnoth? Jagged Alliance 1 or 2? You said you all played X-Com, then how could you make such an awful system!?

I cannot advance step by step until i notice an enemy. WHY!? In every game i listed, your movement is interrupted if you notice an enemy, and you are allowed to reconsider. In X-Com, you can just move step-by-step, to stop when you have visual contatct. Why cannot i do it anymore? (well technically i can but then one step costs me half my turn)

I cannot shoot and then get back with remaining time. WHY? Who thought that was a good idea? I understand in games like Wesnoth and Heroes of Might and Magic it does make sense that your attack ends your turn, because we're talking armies here. But this game is about single soldiers. So what prevents me from rushing back behind cover after i took a shot? Why do i HAVE to stay near that edge of a building so that the enemy can blow it up? Why do i have to stay behind a crate where i'm vulnerable, when i could have rushed inside the building where i'd be 100% safe. Why cant i shoot from the roof and then get to the center of it and duck, so that i dont get hit on their turn unless they climb up the roof? I cannot shoot twice if i dont move. WHY? What makes it so? 1 movement = 1 shooting in terms of time, since i can either move and shoot or move and move, so what the heck, why cannot i shoot twice?

Who thought that preventing firing for those who dont have sight of the enemy is a good idea (yeah, only snipers can do that now). You ever played Airsoft, Paintball, idk, any real firearms conflict simulation? Do you know the difference between spotting the enemy and seeing him? If i advance through a forest, and enemy is laying down behind a tree, i will spot him from much smaller distance than i'd be able to see him from! Because i dont know where to look, i'm looking everywhere for the signs of him, and my brain's visual recognition isnt good enough to instantly notice a tiny part of him hiding right there. But after i did notice him, now my buddy can focus his eyes on that tree and also see him there, because he will know thats not a stone and a twig, but a mask and a gun. So whats the problem with him firing there?

This creates a stupid "glued-down" system where you are glued in place this makes you vulnerable. You are made vulnerable not by the nature of the conflict (you are against an alien threat, and they already had time to spread out so you're surrounded when you land), not by the nature of the firearms (you have crappy anti-bullet armor and they have plasma weapons) but by the system that forking glues my dudes in place after they fired, so that enemy can fire back on them on their turn!

This... Is... FUBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!!!

You screw the tactical part of the original beyond all recognition! It's dead!

If we'd have no skins, meaning, we'd have gray dolls fighting gray dolls with standart "guns", and we'd ask people what game is this a remake of, judging by the tactical system, noone would recognise this as an X-Com game, i'd bet my money on that!

I accept the fact that maybe, maybe there is tactics to this system as well. Maybe it also has its quirks, you can learn and progress, become better. But this system is so limited compared to the original, its just an offense to call this a remake. This is a destruction of all what original standed for, not a remake.

And if it would only end up here... But no! We go on to...

13. Lack of inventory!
WHAT THE !? Who thought that was a good idea? Dressing your characters like dolls is a huge part of any tactica game. Thats where you get familliar with your guys, where you get to know him, and then they die horribly, and you feel it because you geared that guy by hand... Not only that, but the original had a very complex and well thought system (putting something into shoulder slot costed many TU, but taking it from there costed very little TU, putting something into right hand from the other side slot, like, left leg, costed more than from corresponding right leg, etc). System was perfect, all that was missing is saving presets, so you dont have to equip them manually every time.

But no. No no no. This is a console game, and so equipment screen is a no-no. We will tell them that PC gets its own interface, but truth it, its just the same console interface buth with sluggish mouse on top of it.

We lost inventory - a huge part of the original - and what do we get instead? Nonsense! Only speficic "class" can equip specific weapon. But it gets worse... I CAN ONLY CARRY ONE ROCKET!?!?!?!?!?! What the heck? In original, even a pussy could carry more than that. Dump that heavy gun and stock more rockets, your heavy gun wont help you when you need to take out that cyberdisk bunch from the distance! Where's my incendary ammo? High explosive ammo?

Where is my ammo at all? GONE? Who thought this was a good idea? A huge part of the original was ammunition. You could easilly go out of ammo if some dude does too many autofires. You would scavenge and use enemy guns, or have to toss ammo around. It was part of the game, and important one.

Instead, we get "reload" button that magically materialises ammunition for us?

But... a big part of the original was having to chose. Plasma weapons - accurate, fast, and powerful, but cost ammo. Ammo costs elerium, and elerium is priceless. Laser weapons - less accurate, less powerful, but unlimited ammo. Chose - have an advantage but pay for it, or have unlimited ammo but less firepower.

And what about guys carrying spare clips, or ammo for small launchers, blaster bombs, rocket launchers? All gone. One rocket, period.

This is beyond ridiculous. I was deprieved of any freedom to control my dudes by the changes to the TU system, and now i'm deprieved of simply replacing that pistol with an extra grenade! What kind of "True to original" game is this?

X-Com 1 had custom inventory. X-Com 2, 3 had custom inventory, and latter even had mix-and-mach armor! But no, remake has no inventory.

Several steps back for the remake once again.

14. Enemy guns disintegrate...
Yeah... this is so true to the original, right? No, it isnt! Who though this was a good idea i dont even... What's best than taking heavy plasma off an alien corpse, and blasting the ufo wall with it to make a second door. What's best than scavenging ammunition off alien corpses? No, we dont need that, say the developers of the remake, lets dumb that down even more. No picking up items. You get scrap and be happy with it.

Another step back, thank you. Next!

15. Only one base.
Now, i agree, that most of the time, you'd use one base to launch ground missions because it was easier that way. But you could also have research bases, production bases, you could have secondary bases just in case your main base goes down in an unlucky base assault.

Forcing us to one base is stupid, limiting and just makes zero sense. X-Com 1 was about multiple bases. X-Com 2 was about multiple bases. X-Com 3 was about multiple bases. X-Com 4 was about multiple bases. But no, in a true-to-original remake, we will not allow you to have multiple bases.

What about placing my base exactly where i want it? You ever heard of "single base in arctic on superhuman" walkthough of the original? No, you never did, and you never will in your dumbed down "chose one of five pre-set country points and thats all you got".

Original wins once again, and by huge margin (more than one base vs one base, better base layout interface because top down view IS better than side view, and ability to place bases wherever you want instead of being locked to five preset points).

16. UFO Interception...
I cannot intercept by multiple aircraft...
WHAT!? You say you played the original. Well maybe you played on novice? And they gave you an avenger right at the start too? Have you ever heard about downing a Very Large with interceptors? Or firstorms? Yeah go do it with 1 aircraft at a time! This just doesnt need any more words...

What about dumbed down interception window? Where did all those options go!?!?!??! What is this? Who designed it? Its nonsence!
WHERE IS THE EPIC INTECEPTION MUSIC!?!?!?! . What have you done? If you remake X-Com, either keep the epic interception music, or do it like this guy did it in the video below, not like you did it, with boring background music... heck even visuals in the original were better for the interception screen.


Sorry, but this is another huge step back from the original.

17. You cannot respond to both missions at once!?
Who thought that was a good idea? "We can only respond to one"? NO YOU ill mannered person WE CAN RESPOND TO BOTH! Buy a second skyranger and do it! This is stupid. This is so artificial limitation that it just sticks out. Really sticks. In X-Com 1, you could react to everything you managed to. In X-Com 2, same. In X-Com 3, same. In X-Com 4, same. But in remake, yeah, you cant do that. Way to remake!

Step back once again!

18. Generally, dumb down and artificial limits all around.
Original game had you decide your class. Want a heavy weapons guy - train him in certain stats. Want a marksman - train him by having him make more shots per mission. Want a guy with good reaction - geat him up with best armor, and let him take reaction shots... he will be pro in no time, or die trying. You wanted to specialise on research? Build new labs. On production? New workshops.
Everything was freeform - you could spend your money on one of the items in a huge list that you could buy (scientists, soldiers, engineers, new craft, craft armament, crew armament...), rebuild your base from scratch to fit your needs (like, to make it more defendable), etc...
However, here we have those classes everywhere. You chose a class of your base when you start, you choose what to gain when you chose what country to help, you chose the class when you level up your soldier... Everything is limited by creating artificial walls and barriers (cannot do both missions at once, cannot carry rocket launcher if you aint this class, etc).
heck, i cannot even hire scientists anymore! I have to get them through missions! What is that?
Once again, this is like taking The Elder Scrolls series game (Morowind or Oblivion, for example), and making it into a game with a character development system of Diablo 3, and calling that "remake". Nonsense!
You took away all the freedom we had.
* We cannot buy or sell stuff like we could before (we would get huge amount of different artifacts from each mission, now we get 2 corpses and 5 item debris and thats it)
* We cannot build our base where we want to
* We cannot have multiple bases
* We cannot freely plan our base
* We cannot buy personell
* We cannot complete all missions that show up
* We cannot equip our soldiers like we want to

How can you ever call this a step forward?

19. And just now, I found out this video:


Yes, you played Battle for Wesnoth, you played X-Com 1. You had a fenomenal exprerience. Just lets follow this video

* You died right after you come out of skyranger, you understood "That is X-Com for you", so that's why you removed this from your remake?
* The original game is unforgiving, that's why you automatically exit my guys out of Skyranger for me so that they dont die?
* It freaks you out when you see a sectoid in the dark, thats why your game completely deprieves you of this, by allowing you to see the enemy right from the main menu, and then you can see him with your camera easilly, see him fumble in cover, moving his limbs, so becaue you liked it, you removed it from your remake.
* The original game had soul, thats why you tried so hard to rip it off and remove it?
* They're not gonna hold your hand, that's why you hold the hand in the remake? I dont get it!
* They say, they LIE that "they're going to keep that stuff" but in truth, they remove everything, everything that was great about the original...
* Original source material still resonates.... Yeah, it does, because you see how bad the remake it is, how far the remake is from the original, how many original features were removed, crippled! Lots of features from the original are stripped and that indeed resonates when you play the remake.

After watching this video, I cant take it anymore. It hurts. I'm almost crying here at my desk. They just lie for the whole video. A true PR move, in order to sell their game. It hurts. It really hurts. Why are they doing this? They say original is sacred, holy to them, yet they mutilated, decimated it and made a horrible mess that they call a "remake true to original".

I had high hopes for this game... Oh well, I had to know better.

I'd like to thank anybody who read this far. If you have something to object, I'm all ears. I'm not a hater, I actually wanted to love this game, I hoped to play it and enjoy it as much as i did the original. But after trying the demo yesterday, it just seems impossible. Maybe I am wrong?

PS: I havent even touched a lot of stuff that is wrong about this game.
* aliens seeing you with their shoulders or backs (you can never get a "jump" on them since when you notice aliens, they interrupt you and get in cover),
* miniscule amount of stuff you can buy or sell or use as equipment,
* whole game being basically a series of scripted operations that are generated around the world (unlike in original where it was actually a player vs alien strategy game, where both gathered points, both could build bases, both had missions etc.),
* music which is truly inferior to the original (and whole game is way less spooky),
* questionable graphics (original had a sort of "cool" to it, even though it is said to be made after american comics, and i am not at all a fan of comics, but it was cool, it felt and looked good),
* bugs (you get a penallty for "enemy being above you" even though its a small sectoid outside of a building crouched behind a crate, and you're standing up behind a door inside the building),
* game being way too forgiving and easy at start (in a head-to-head fight you get hit for like 3-5 dmg and have 8 health while enemy has like 3 health and gets hit for 3 dmg or more, in order to oneshot you enemy has to flank you, which only happens in tutorial to showcase how "deadly" game is but later in game you get hit for 3 damage out of 8),
* game essentially being on time limit (you get constant panic increase in countries with every mission because with every mission you abandon some country, and when a country gets enough panic it leaves XCOM project, and when 8 countries get out its game over, so i guess its on a time limit)
* no "true" strategy - missions like abduction and stuff are generated by computer and just pop up, there is no real ufo landing there and you cant intercept it
* cannot shoot a building with plasma, laser, whatever... only grenade and rocket... you can shoot a building if there's alien behind it though.... logic? zero!
* really, it goes a long way, but i'm too tired to speak of it... i'm to disappointed... i'd better stop here

Thanks for the great review and info man. Sadly I knew this game would be garbage as soon as they said, "no time units" end of story for me.

[Conrad Gray]

That was the review for a demo.

[Micah]

I'd be more inclined to wait for the retail release before getting critical about it. Besides, this thing still sounds truer to form than that other game - whatever it was called. I forget.

- NKF

What's the point, though? After you buy the retail, they already have your money and you can't do anything about it.And remakes that downgrade the gameplay are pointless.

I think he means wait to hear more feedback about the full game once it's in consumers' hands. Mine just arrived in the mail 10 minutes ago

[Sorrow]

A have a lot to say, but 2K games will not let me! Their forum has a convinient premoderation of posts, and no doubt, my post will not get through. If you are interested, here it is (warning, wall of text and excessive negativism towards developers)

---------------------------- Remake is inferior to the original in every single way ----------------------------------

Let me start with a few words. I was a huge fan of original. I played and completed X-Com 1, 2, 3, 4 countless number of times. I finished X-Com 1 ironman on superhuman at least thrice. I loved every single game of the series (up to 4). I was so happy about this remake, true to original, made by guys who loved the original etc etc. I watched every video, read every article. I heard they're going to go with 1 base, with absence of time units, but i hoped it will be for greater good. I heard they're going to make it for consoles too, but they promised separate interface for PC's so i hoped it wont affect PC interface. I was going to buy this game, even though i rarely do buy games, especially without trying them first.

But then i installed Steam just to play one game - FTL - and saw a demo available for free.

I played it.

Unfortunately, every single hope was in vain...

I will now make a detailed comparison of original to the remake, in order to give solid proof to my position.

1. It begins at the start of the game. In the original, I could skip the intro. In the remake, I cannot. W T F? Too much ego, guys? "How can the player not watch our company logo every time, its so beatiful!"

Well, here you go, original gets a head start in list of features!

2. You wanted to remake an original, stay true to it.... Tell me... Where did tha awesome x-com logo went, and why do we have this ugly insignia?... Okay, even if that's subjective, you're making an x-com game, true to the original.... Why not give it five difficulty levels and call them appropriately (novice...superhuman)?

Way to kick every fan of the series in the nuts before he even started playin...

3. Okay, what's this game called again? Is it "enemy unknown"? Then why the heck do we see our damn enemy right at the title screen, in the main menu? Yes, you could argue, that original had mutons in the intro, but i'm talking ingame models.

In the original, you downed your first ufo and went in and had first contact and went like... What is that thing? And no way to zoom in, no way to see what is it holding... You cant even see its face if it's looking away from camera. And then it shoots you and kills your dude.... And another dude.... And after you finally kill it, you are curious and look at its corpse and go like "Eek!"... Or you may have learned that he's alive! "Oh my god we have a live one here, what do we do?"

But in this "remake" you are familiarised with the enemy from the go. There it runs around the streets in circles, look at it. There you see it in your tutorial, you see what it can do and how deadly it is (while losing nothing, because this is supposed to happen, you know those 3 casualties are scripted and they do not really feel like losses)

So by the time you're sent on your real mission, not really "unknown" anymore, is it?

4. But even before we begin with the actual game.... What is this mouse? Whats with the delay? W T F? I guess the game was made for consoles, and no matter what they said about separate interfaces, it shows that game was made for consoles, but man, such a delayed mouse pointer? W T F? You cannot even change it anywhere! You're stuck with this slowpoke pointer for the whole game! What can i say?
Original game increases its lead.

5. Tutorial... Why this even starts in battlescape? Why are you forced to make stupid tactical desicions? (which x-com vet would send one guy rushing inside a building while other guys are more than a turn away and cannot shoot if an alien is inside?) Why dont you see whole interface at once and are locked in features (like, cannot zoom out)?

Having a tutorial which you have to play through is so wrong for many reasons! Want to teach players who do not read manuals? Simple - make a well designed interface, good tooltips and a help button that shows an overlay like Diablo 2. Thats it! But let's break this down to exact points.

6. Interface... Its horrible! Who designed this? You said you all played original game to the end... Well, in original game, i could understand every possible action i had without a tutorial, and i could control everything with my mouse! In this game, i cannot rotate camera without a keyboard! I try to zoom out and instead, i get a change of levels! I dont even know if i can zoom out because there is no "controls" in options, and no buttons on screen to do it. This is ridiculous.

Oh and that camera movement - its so sluggish, so slow even on highest speed, so unnatural and just pain in the donkey to use.

Just.

Horrible.

Learn from a dude who made UfoExtender in his free time - he added customizeable hotkeys to original and even new interface elements to battlescape inventory. Without having access to the source code. Your "new remake" doesnt even have cusomizeable controls... in damn 2012 i will still have to hack your game to have customizeable controls?

You hard coded controls using QWEASD.... You guys ever heard that a big portion of people does not use WASD but ESDF? No? Never crossed your mind that customiseable controls for a game that uses a lot of hotkeys is a good idea? Ehh... Nevermind.

Original wins once again. Remake has worser interface, sluggish mouse and camera movement, no way to play using only mouse, stupid default controls without a way to reassign.

7. Deprivation of game experience.
In a game about unknown enemy, first contact is one of the epic moments to be remembered. You fear him. You are curious. You want to punch his face. Anything. But there is this first contact. And you deprieved player of experiencing first contact be making it happen TWICE in the tutorial under tutorial's command! What have you done? In the original, it could be landed ufo, it could be crashlanded ufo, it could be terror or even base assault! Every time it was different and first time you played it was true first contact! You went there without any understanding what you will face! How many, what are they capable of...

In the remake, they do it for you. They kill you guys in stupidest ways possible for you to show you that "enemy is dangerous" and do it again to show you "enemy knows how to shoot up roofs" maybe? Anyways, twice your experience of first contact is ruined and deprieved.

Way to ruin the huge, epic moment, take away major part of the fun.

If you needed to make player learn to play via tutorial, at least you could do it like Amnesia did it. Do not show the enemy in the tutorial, just spook the player. First let him learn to move and act, and then let him have his first contact... alone, the way he wants it...

Let him play and enjoy the game, do not deny him this!

Another win for original, another fail for remake.

8. Okay we started actual fight... This is soooooo screwed! This i sooo many steps back from the original its ridiculous! Tactical combat in this game just... SUCKS! Lets compare it to the original and see...

9. Size of the map... Where did my map go? Where are those big landscapes? What is this tiny corridor shooter shuckeroonies? I thought i was playing a strategy, tactics game, no?

Ever heard of Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 Big map project? Even if you didnt, read the name again. Its called big map project, not small map project for a reason! Shrinking the map in a tactical game dumbs the game down and takes away a lot of what original game was about! If anything, expanding the map may add new tactics and broaden your array of choices, making the game more interesting.

So why is X-Com different? The original had huge maps, where you could flank or be flanked, could have alien hiding in some general building to the side of the map, you had a huge battle for a huge city in terror... Here we get a corridor shooter. Linear map with several hand-placed obstacles.

Yeah, original is better once again, but we are already accustomed to it, arent we?

10. But lets get back to deprivation of game experience.
Any, ANY veteran of the original game knows how important first several turns are. You can land far away from the enemy, or you can land right on top of several aliens. Turn one was player turn, and aliens had huge advantage because they had full time units and their reaction, already higher than yours, was through the roof. Basically peeking outside at turn one was a death wish, and if you landed with aliens right outside the skyrider, looking at you, you'd really consider extracting right away. You could wipe your entire squad if the alient would reaction fire at you with a small bomb launcher. Boom. All unconsious. Mission failed, skyrider lost, with all soldiers and equipment.

And it was GREAT.

There were tactics. You could throw smoke grenade inside and wait, then start going out slowly. You could have your tank peek and if anything happens, it's more likely to survive due to higher armor. You really considered risk vs reward when you saw aliens are all around skyrider exit. It was huge.

Now we are deprieved of this. Exiting skyrider is done for us. Aliens will never be right outside the skyrider, yeah, of course they wouldnt, its no fair, players would whine and dislike the game for being too cruel!

Original wins once again. Huge part of tactics of battlescape are ripped out of the game, for sake of adding a nice cinematic... yay! What's not to love?

11. Size of the squad... We're talking unknown threat here. It might be a legion! It might be something that can take control of us and use our men against ourselves. So thats why we're only taking FOUR dudes on a mission? WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA? Even in the year 1999 we already had aircraft capable of carrying more than ten people. Original game had skyrider fit 14 troops, or 10 and 1 tank, or 6 and 2 tanks. And what do we get in original? Four measy units, with a chance of later upgrade. Yeah... What about Avenger? Twenty Six operatives? And you needed those in base siege missions, even having twenty six guys you could still lose because it was ruthless, it was unfair and it was frightening. People with blaster bomb launchers all around, aliens coming from everywhere... thank god they didnt knew how to use elevators, or you'd have a nightmare. And if you were assaulting an ethereal base - good luck trying, no matter how many people you'd bring, you could lose.

Here we get.. four. Yeah. Huge hit.... "Right in the jewels", as Duke Nukem'd say.

It is just a crime against the original. I can see how dumbing game down to several units and smaller map makes it easier to actually make and balance the game, but at this point, please tell me, why on earth should i like to play your game instead of the original? Its worser in every single way! But lets keep on topic.

Limiting size of the squad more than four times to that of the original is more than four steps back. It adds nothing to the gameplay, but takes away a huge part of tactical approach.

12. New turn system!
Devs said TU based system was not very good because it didnt allow you to think of your squad as a whole, but had you calculate all those little points, where you can go, how many steps you can make so you can still fire and get away... i get it. Maybe there should be a simplier yet better system that will free up the player time for something ese. Maybe you can change TU based system to some other system... But tell me, what is this abomination?

After experiencing my first combat, i have to ask, why do you ever call this XCOM Enemy Unknown anymore? It has nothing true to the original! Nothing. Battlescape tactics are completey changed and screwed, more than that, they are FUBAR.

Lets begin with comparison. What was the original system?
You had a set amount of points, which depended on your soldier stats. Better soldier had more. You could use these points to move around, movement costed the same amount (so better soldier could move further). You could use them to operate your inventory (later on that) and to fire. Firing costed fixed percent, so everybody could fire same amount of shots. When you spotted an enemy, it could react to your actions, if his reaction x his time units remaining were greater than same formula for your soldier. There were also complex mechanics of mutal suprise rule, and reaction to being fired from behind, and some cases when you could react to turning of the enemy, not only movement and action, etc. This all created a real tactical experience, where you had to think about your every step, you had to act together as a team (or you'd have "lemmings syndrome"), you usually chose to fire from beyond enemy sight range because that wouldnt put your units in danger of reaction fire. You would have different tactics on scouting the land, but generally, the game was about spotting the enemy and living to tell the tale. The danger came from the fact that on enemy turn, they could come out of the fog of war, kill your dude and hide, and you had to either suck that up, or advance in hopes of spotting them and then having a shot. But you could get your spotter shot too, without revealing enemy location, then you'd either have to aim at where he fired from, or send in another guy... etc. Well, this was dangerous, fatal battle, where you could both get an upper hand (spotter spots, other soldiers kill, spotter gets back, skip turn, repeat) or get decimated by the enemy. And then there was he act of getting inside the UFO - that was a huge tactical aspect in itself. You often had tactics that involved stunning your operative in order to save his life, or sending in a suicide unit that would die in 99% cases. But it was interesting, tactical and had a huge depth to it. You also had a lot of ways of dealing with the enemy - using a lot of grenades, or even explosives, using explosive ammunition or incendary ammunition, or trying to get in melee and stun in order to get higher score and more test subjects in your alien containtment.

What do we get in the remake?
* First of all, you are dumbed down to TWO actions per turn.
* If that's not enough, your soldier will, like an idiot, continue his action even if he spotted an enemy in process.
* If that's not enough, you are not allowed to move after shooting, or shooting twice.

Now tell me, who thought that was a good idea?
You guys ever heard of Battle for Wesnoth? Jagged Alliance 1 or 2? You said you all played X-Com, then how could you make such an awful system!?

I cannot advance step by step until i notice an enemy. WHY!? In every game i listed, your movement is interrupted if you notice an enemy, and you are allowed to reconsider. In X-Com, you can just move step-by-step, to stop when you have visual contatct. Why cannot i do it anymore? (well technically i can but then one step costs me half my turn)

I cannot shoot and then get back with remaining time. WHY? Who thought that was a good idea? I understand in games like Wesnoth and Heroes of Might and Magic it does make sense that your attack ends your turn, because we're talking armies here. But this game is about single soldiers. So what prevents me from rushing back behind cover after i took a shot? Why do i HAVE to stay near that edge of a building so that the enemy can blow it up? Why do i have to stay behind a crate where i'm vulnerable, when i could have rushed inside the building where i'd be 100% safe. Why cant i shoot from the roof and then get to the center of it and duck, so that i dont get hit on their turn unless they climb up the roof? I cannot shoot twice if i dont move. WHY? What makes it so? 1 movement = 1 shooting in terms of time, since i can either move and shoot or move and move, so what the heck, why cannot i shoot twice?

Who thought that preventing firing for those who dont have sight of the enemy is a good idea (yeah, only snipers can do that now). You ever played Airsoft, Paintball, idk, any real firearms conflict simulation? Do you know the difference between spotting the enemy and seeing him? If i advance through a forest, and enemy is laying down behind a tree, i will spot him from much smaller distance than i'd be able to see him from! Because i dont know where to look, i'm looking everywhere for the signs of him, and my brain's visual recognition isnt good enough to instantly notice a tiny part of him hiding right there. But after i did notice him, now my buddy can focus his eyes on that tree and also see him there, because he will know thats not a stone and a twig, but a mask and a gun. So whats the problem with him firing there?

This creates a stupid "glued-down" system where you are glued in place this makes you vulnerable. You are made vulnerable not by the nature of the conflict (you are against an alien threat, and they already had time to spread out so you're surrounded when you land), not by the nature of the firearms (you have crappy anti-bullet armor and they have plasma weapons) but by the system that forking glues my dudes in place after they fired, so that enemy can fire back on them on their turn!

This... Is... FUBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!!!

You screw the tactical part of the original beyond all recognition! It's dead!

If we'd have no skins, meaning, we'd have gray dolls fighting gray dolls with standart "guns", and we'd ask people what game is this a remake of, judging by the tactical system, noone would recognise this as an X-Com game, i'd bet my money on that!

I accept the fact that maybe, maybe there is tactics to this system as well. Maybe it also has its quirks, you can learn and progress, become better. But this system is so limited compared to the original, its just an offense to call this a remake. This is a destruction of all what original standed for, not a remake.

And if it would only end up here... But no! We go on to...

13. Lack of inventory!
WHAT THE !? Who thought that was a good idea? Dressing your characters like dolls is a huge part of any tactica game. Thats where you get familliar with your guys, where you get to know him, and then they die horribly, and you feel it because you geared that guy by hand... Not only that, but the original had a very complex and well thought system (putting something into shoulder slot costed many TU, but taking it from there costed very little TU, putting something into right hand from the other side slot, like, left leg, costed more than from corresponding right leg, etc). System was perfect, all that was missing is saving presets, so you dont have to equip them manually every time.

But no. No no no. This is a console game, and so equipment screen is a no-no. We will tell them that PC gets its own interface, but truth it, its just the same console interface buth with sluggish mouse on top of it.

We lost inventory - a huge part of the original - and what do we get instead? Nonsense! Only speficic "class" can equip specific weapon. But it gets worse... I CAN ONLY CARRY ONE ROCKET!?!?!?!?!?! What the heck? In original, even a pussy could carry more than that. Dump that heavy gun and stock more rockets, your heavy gun wont help you when you need to take out that cyberdisk bunch from the distance! Where's my incendary ammo? High explosive ammo?

Where is my ammo at all? GONE? Who thought this was a good idea? A huge part of the original was ammunition. You could easilly go out of ammo if some dude does too many autofires. You would scavenge and use enemy guns, or have to toss ammo around. It was part of the game, and important one.

Instead, we get "reload" button that magically materialises ammunition for us?

But... a big part of the original was having to chose. Plasma weapons - accurate, fast, and powerful, but cost ammo. Ammo costs elerium, and elerium is priceless. Laser weapons - less accurate, less powerful, but unlimited ammo. Chose - have an advantage but pay for it, or have unlimited ammo but less firepower.

And what about guys carrying spare clips, or ammo for small launchers, blaster bombs, rocket launchers? All gone. One rocket, period.

This is beyond ridiculous. I was deprieved of any freedom to control my dudes by the changes to the TU system, and now i'm deprieved of simply replacing that pistol with an extra grenade! What kind of "True to original" game is this?

X-Com 1 had custom inventory. X-Com 2, 3 had custom inventory, and latter even had mix-and-mach armor! But no, remake has no inventory.

Several steps back for the remake once again.

14. Enemy guns disintegrate...
Yeah... this is so true to the original, right? No, it isnt! Who though this was a good idea i dont even... What's best than taking heavy plasma off an alien corpse, and blasting the ufo wall with it to make a second door. What's best than scavenging ammunition off alien corpses? No, we dont need that, say the developers of the remake, lets dumb that down even more. No picking up items. You get scrap and be happy with it.

Another step back, thank you. Next!

15. Only one base.
Now, i agree, that most of the time, you'd use one base to launch ground missions because it was easier that way. But you could also have research bases, production bases, you could have secondary bases just in case your main base goes down in an unlucky base assault.

Forcing us to one base is stupid, limiting and just makes zero sense. X-Com 1 was about multiple bases. X-Com 2 was about multiple bases. X-Com 3 was about multiple bases. X-Com 4 was about multiple bases. But no, in a true-to-original remake, we will not allow you to have multiple bases.

What about placing my base exactly where i want it? You ever heard of "single base in arctic on superhuman" walkthough of the original? No, you never did, and you never will in your dumbed down "chose one of five pre-set country points and thats all you got".

Original wins once again, and by huge margin (more than one base vs one base, better base layout interface because top down view IS better than side view, and ability to place bases wherever you want instead of being locked to five preset points).

16. UFO Interception...
I cannot intercept by multiple aircraft...
WHAT!? You say you played the original. Well maybe you played on novice? And they gave you an avenger right at the start too? Have you ever heard about downing a Very Large with interceptors? Or firstorms? Yeah go do it with 1 aircraft at a time! This just doesnt need any more words...

What about dumbed down interception window? Where did all those options go!?!?!??! What is this? Who designed it? Its nonsence!
WHERE IS THE EPIC INTECEPTION MUSIC!?!?!?! . What have you done? If you remake X-Com, either keep the epic interception music, or do it like this guy did it in the video below, not like you did it, with boring background music... heck even visuals in the original were better for the interception screen.


Sorry, but this is another huge step back from the original.

17. You cannot respond to both missions at once!?
Who thought that was a good idea? "We can only respond to one"? NO YOU ill mannered person WE CAN RESPOND TO BOTH! Buy a second skyranger and do it! This is stupid. This is so artificial limitation that it just sticks out. Really sticks. In X-Com 1, you could react to everything you managed to. In X-Com 2, same. In X-Com 3, same. In X-Com 4, same. But in remake, yeah, you cant do that. Way to remake!

Step back once again!

18. Generally, dumb down and artificial limits all around.
Original game had you decide your class. Want a heavy weapons guy - train him in certain stats. Want a marksman - train him by having him make more shots per mission. Want a guy with good reaction - geat him up with best armor, and let him take reaction shots... he will be pro in no time, or die trying. You wanted to specialise on research? Build new labs. On production? New workshops.
Everything was freeform - you could spend your money on one of the items in a huge list that you could buy (scientists, soldiers, engineers, new craft, craft armament, crew armament...), rebuild your base from scratch to fit your needs (like, to make it more defendable), etc...
However, here we have those classes everywhere. You chose a class of your base when you start, you choose what to gain when you chose what country to help, you chose the class when you level up your soldier... Everything is limited by creating artificial walls and barriers (cannot do both missions at once, cannot carry rocket launcher if you aint this class, etc).
heck, i cannot even hire scientists anymore! I have to get them through missions! What is that?
Once again, this is like taking The Elder Scrolls series game (Morowind or Oblivion, for example), and making it into a game with a character development system of Diablo 3, and calling that "remake". Nonsense!
You took away all the freedom we had.
* We cannot buy or sell stuff like we could before (we would get huge amount of different artifacts from each mission, now we get 2 corpses and 5 item debris and thats it)
* We cannot build our base where we want to
* We cannot have multiple bases
* We cannot freely plan our base
* We cannot buy personell
* We cannot complete all missions that show up
* We cannot equip our soldiers like we want to

How can you ever call this a step forward?

19. And just now, I found out this video:


Yes, you played Battle for Wesnoth, you played X-Com 1. You had a fenomenal exprerience. Just lets follow this video

* You died right after you come out of skyranger, you understood "That is X-Com for you", so that's why you removed this from your remake?
* The original game is unforgiving, that's why you automatically exit my guys out of Skyranger for me so that they dont die?
* It freaks you out when you see a sectoid in the dark, thats why your game completely deprieves you of this, by allowing you to see the enemy right from the main menu, and then you can see him with your camera easilly, see him fumble in cover, moving his limbs, so becaue you liked it, you removed it from your remake.
* The original game had soul, thats why you tried so hard to rip it off and remove it?
* They're not gonna hold your hand, that's why you hold the hand in the remake? I dont get it!
* They say, they LIE that "they're going to keep that stuff" but in truth, they remove everything, everything that was great about the original...
* Original source material still resonates.... Yeah, it does, because you see how bad the remake it is, how far the remake is from the original, how many original features were removed, crippled! Lots of features from the original are stripped and that indeed resonates when you play the remake.

After watching this video, I cant take it anymore. It hurts. I'm almost crying here at my desk. They just lie for the whole video. A true PR move, in order to sell their game. It hurts. It really hurts. Why are they doing this? They say original is sacred, holy to them, yet they mutilated, decimated it and made a horrible mess that they call a "remake true to original".

I had high hopes for this game... Oh well, I had to know better.

I'd like to thank anybody who read this far. If you have something to object, I'm all ears. I'm not a hater, I actually wanted to love this game, I hoped to play it and enjoy it as much as i did the original. But after trying the demo yesterday, it just seems impossible. Maybe I am wrong?

PS: I havent even touched a lot of stuff that is wrong about this game.
* aliens seeing you with their shoulders or backs (you can never get a "jump" on them since when you notice aliens, they interrupt you and get in cover),
* miniscule amount of stuff you can buy or sell or use as equipment,
* whole game being basically a series of scripted operations that are generated around the world (unlike in original where it was actually a player vs alien strategy game, where both gathered points, both could build bases, both had missions etc.),
* music which is truly inferior to the original (and whole game is way less spooky),
* questionable graphics (original had a sort of "cool" to it, even though it is said to be made after american comics, and i am not at all a fan of comics, but it was cool, it felt and looked good),
* bugs (you get a penallty for "enemy being above you" even though its a small sectoid outside of a building crouched behind a crate, and you're standing up behind a door inside the building),
* game being way too forgiving and easy at start (in a head-to-head fight you get hit for like 3-5 dmg and have 8 health while enemy has like 3 health and gets hit for 3 dmg or more, in order to oneshot you enemy has to flank you, which only happens in tutorial to showcase how "deadly" game is but later in game you get hit for 3 damage out of 8),
* game essentially being on time limit (you get constant panic increase in countries with every mission because with every mission you abandon some country, and when a country gets enough panic it leaves XCOM project, and when 8 countries get out its game over, so i guess its on a time limit)
* no "true" strategy - missions like abduction and stuff are generated by computer and just pop up, there is no real ufo landing there and you cant intercept it
* cannot shoot a building with plasma, laser, whatever... only grenade and rocket... you can shoot a building if there's alien behind it though.... logic? zero!
* really, it goes a long way, but i'm too tired to speak of it... i'm to disappointed... i'd better stop here

A True Patriot :salute: .

[Morphs]

After playing the game a good portion of the night and day, I can say that this game is both fun and really hard (on Classic Iron Man difficulty).

The game has lost a degree of freedom (especially in the geoscape) but at the same time gains other new aspects, such as your soldiers leveling up and gaining new abilities based on their class. The game is tense in the way that you'll still be praying to hit those shots that you cannot afford to miss. The horror-aspect is less present, which I attribute to the action-music that they put in when you spot the aliens. Here and there subtle things have been omitted, such as a proper game-over screen and epilogue (now you only see "you lost" with some statistics). On the other hand, the short cutscenes in between moves are very nice.

Overall I'd say the new stuff compensates for losing some of the old stuff. The game asks from the player to see this as a new and different game rather than comparison material to the old installments. If you manage to do that, this game is a recommendation

Edited by Morphs, 12 October 2012 - 07:02 AM.

[Conrad Gray]

An excellent descriptor I've come across is that the original X-COM was more of a simulation, and the XCOM remake is more of a game that forces you to make difficult strategic choices. Not that you didn't have to make difficult choices in the former, but they weren't forced upon by design like the latter. The original focused on verisimilitude and the new one focuses on gameplay. Different design philosophies.

[Kirill]

After playing the game a good portion of the night and day, I can say that this game is both fun and really hard (on Classic Iron Man difficulty).

The game has lost a degree of freedom (especially in the geoscape) but at the same time gains other new aspects, such as your soldiers leveling up and gaining new abilities based on their class. The game is tense in the way that you'll still be praying to hit those shots that you cannot afford to miss. The horror-aspect is less present, which I attribute to the action-music that they put in when you spot the aliens. Here and there subtle things have been omitted, such as a proper game-over screen and epilogue (now you only see "you lost" with some statistics). On the other hand, the short cutscenes in between moves are very nice.

Overall I'd say the new stuff compensates for losing some of the old stuff. The game asks from the player to see this as a new and different game rather than comparison material to the old installments. If you manage to do that, this game is a recommendation

This. I played the original infinity times and I find this game really enjoyable! Who wants a reskinned game?

[Admiral Harkov]

Played a while and... I'm disappointed. Maybe not as much the Istrebitel but I would not have bought it. Add the cover is a joke. And killing aliens shooting through UFO walls with regular bullets, ?. (The alien in question was by a door, so I thought it was a little glitch and overestimation of alien error showing body around even though I expressed it this way- Edit)

There's too many different choices of design in which I still am with the original. No buying, infinite ammo that shouldn't be, unloading done in safe area, no inventory, no more than one interceptor, no managing of how many engineers/scientist for each task, no picking items from battlefield?... Set it much below the original for my taste.

Still, the one video I saw they didn't spoke of a remake, but a reimagining so it was to be expected a series of significant changes. So if one forgets about comparisons it's still a decent game, though I wouldn't rate it very high. But if comparing, there's so many things that have been taken away from what could be hoped to see in the game and what has been added is not good enough.

I guess the thing will be see if I start calling the game something different and forget about the original, which I will keep playing, and see if that way I enjoy it.

Judged independently as a game, from what I've seen, which is just a few missions in: 6.5/10. Compared to original: 2.0/10

Subject to change as I play more and discover new positives or negatives.


EDIT: Soldier shot through the other with no harm. There's no friendly fire!.

Ok. So the cover is more of a joke that I thought. It's not that it gives up to 25% when enemy is right behind a door and only might be showing a small fraction of his body. It's that you can shoot an alien with regular bullets all through a solid UFO wall.

Imagine one big square and in the lower right a smaller square, so the bigger could be made with four of the small. Now you have an square and inside a wall right-center and another center-down. Imagine now a door in the second third of the down-center wall. Well, now imagine my soldier more down than the door in the small room and the enemy behind the wall of the big door that is the right-center wall. My soldier shoots her LMG... and kills the alien. (Also, how's that she could see him? It was a solid wall, it's not like that was one of those screens of energy that aren't obstacles to anything).

Also, before that, I had my soldier walk right to the square beside the alien to shoot. What do you think was the chance? 25%.

So cover is worse than a joke, it's a fraud. Use the environment? Ha!. All there is a set of pieces with attributes to attack that are to be placed in the board that has squares with bonuses to defence without regard to space in which the piece is and that's it.

That would be enough by its own to ruin the game as a member of X-COM series, so imagine with the rest. This is something completelly different that have been given the X-COM name through using as enemy pieces the figures and names of X-COM's aliens. So many things taken down and the new things are just "special missions" (that's a good idea) and 90% is just graphics, cutscenes (oi, better tension of looking the same custcene of them unloading that the real tension of unloading on area of unknown degree of safety) and voice acting.

For a game that is just squares with defensive bonuses and no regard to spatial considerations, location of walls, direction or attack or anything else beyond "your char's on a +25 Defence square in a +25 Defence stance shot by a char with a +25 Aiming Mode action" I don't need so many graphics and so many actor models and whatever else.

And when the original made so many calculations to consider environment, there you couldn't kill an alien with a bullet through a wooden wall, not even a plasma shot, with just 15MB, I sure as heck don't want to spend 12GB of hard disk space on a game that takes less than the minimum calculation.

So, as X-COM iteration: 0.5/10. As standalone game: 3.0. The standalone score so low is basically because they make you expect, I don't mean the "faithful to original X-COM" bit, but a tactical turn based game in which one was expecting space would be taken into account, some serious LOS algorythms, some serious take of cover.

This is a game with futuristic weapons with the type of play of Fire Emblem games and weapon ranges infinite that limit possibility of attack to crude LOS and distance instead of X squares away from char. Your char is in a bush square and gets +10 Def +1HP +1something and the enemy a -15 to attack. If they had sold it honestly like that, then I might have a better opinion of it and even maybe play it a little bit more. As it is, I'm taking out of my hard disk.

The only good side is I preordered from Steam and got Civilization V which I didn't had and had some interest in getting sometime.

What these guys would have wanted to do was a film, not a new game.

Edited by Admiral Harkov, 12 October 2012 - 05:11 PM.

[itworks]

Istrebitel, great review man. I almost got goosebumps.

We live in dumbed down times, and the new X-COM follows suit. Just have a look at the upcoming Windows 8.

[NKF]

I've been playing the PS3 version for a bit, and my main reaction is: It's X-Com. But it's not an X-Com-like. An okay effort, and certainly a lot more satisfying if you look back and gaze at Enforcer.

I am certainly enjoying it, but you could say it's a soda pop compared to the fine wine (or Vodka, in the case of certain members here ) that is the original. What little I've played so far has impressed much more than the UFO After- series has in the same amount of time.

The console controls are bit awkward - and I've played enough fun tactical games on the PS2/3 and X-Box 180 degrees to know that they can do it well. I'm sure the PC version will provide superior controls.

- NKF

[Conrad Gray]

Pretty good article: http://pc.gamespy.co.../1226388p1.html

[LouisdeFuines]

I completed the game the day before yesterday.

For me it is the beste game of this year. I played Ufo Defence - to Xcom Apocalypse. So I know, what I am talking about.

But it has, like Xcom 1 + 2, sadly annoying bugs, that can be gamebreaking.
I hope, Firaxis does a little patch-work. ^^

[LouisdeFuines]

One more thing:

Why don`t we create here another area in the forum for the new XCOM.

I think, it deserves it.

Soon many people might want to discuss the game. An one part would help to keep the order in the discussions.

[Sorrow]

Istrebitel, great review man. I almost got goosebumps.

We live in dumbed down times, and the new X-COM follows suit. Just have a look at the upcoming Windows 8.

Microsoft has a well known tendency to release a horribly broken system between each good system, so there's still hope.Personally, when it comes to decreasing complexity, I'd prefer removing either the tactical or the strategic layer over dumbing down any of these. Oh, I've read some comments and apparently it happened between XP and 7 too .

Edited by Sorrow, 18 October 2012 - 08:03 AM.

[3llense'g]

This might be a silly suggestion, but couldn't we differentiate the original from the remake by calling the first UFO Defence and the new one Enemy Unknown?

[NKF]

I've been calling them EU 2012 and EU Classic lately.to differentiate them. Some have EU 1994 for the original too.

- NKF