Remake of Ufo Defense (X-COM)

[ssmith90]

Love them all. Especially the Mutons!

[Glitzer]

Will you do the tanks and starships as well?

[Hauptgefreiter]

Maybe the Incursion Drones could be converted to biodrones?

[cdm]

The new remake on PC is due in October, I am patiently hopeful for it, though I was for Diablo 3 as well and what a train wreck that was. There simply isn't enough Greys and UFOs around.

[cdm]

No, that was the other remake, this one is a remake of the original in the same style. Turn based, 3D, crunchy, alien smoking goodness. http://www.facebook.com/XCOM?ref=ts or http://www.xcom.com/enemyunknown/

[Daeothar]

Clatoo Verata Necktie (or something like that)

yes; I have resurrected this thread!!

last night, I downloaded the playable demo of the game and although it has changed a dramatic deal when it comes to graphics, interface, sound and esthetics, the general feel is still there! Those guys did a good job of translating the game into the 21st century.

http://www.xcom.com/enemyunknown/

I was an avid fan of the original and must have played it for thousands of hours back in the day. Reliving my highschool memories by running the original again in DOS-box on my Win7 machine was a bit of a disappointment though. The 640x480 resolution was quite a shock to behold when running a standard resolution of 1920x1280 nowadays and the gameplay, it saddens me to say, has aged as well. The micromanagement of each and every team member's equipment before each and every mission grows stale fast. maybe we've just been spoiled, but I could not see myself doing that for nights on end anymore.

Luckily, the remake has fixed all that, and I found the game to be a very immersive and enjoyable experience. Especially the Geoscape, with the living, breathing base is awesome. You can actually see all the team members you employ, as well as the scientists going about their business inside the base. They work out, relax, train, work etc on a realistic schedule. pretty awesome.

The turnbased action has also been upgraded. Mostly with small improvements and automatic tools which really help in speeding up gameplay. It does mean you don't advance each team member a square at a time, cautiously creeping forward, as you now get to move each of them twice (or once when you run) each turn (usually from cover to cover). Their movement range is shown, and whether you move 1 square or 10, it's still one movement. That takes some getting used to, but it does make playing the game very  smooth.

Maybe some of the restrictions will be lifted in the full version of the game though, giving you more freedom to spend your actions/actionpoints?

The enemies are what you expect of X-COM / UFO: Sectoids (greys) and Cyber Disks are a given of course. But so far, I also saw/vaporised a sort of Slender Men / Men in Black as well. And Mutons are in the trailer. Expect many and more re-inventions of the familiar aliens, with a few new ones thrown into the mix as well. The aforementioned Thin Men for instance, are supposed to be infiltrators and spies. And although I've never read it, there was a short novel about X-COM released back in the nineties to go with the original game, which apparently makes mention of these infiltrators. So the developers certainly did their research.

I have not had the pleasure to try out the interceptors, as they reputedly are player controlled! That would be a very cool addition indeed.

One aspect though, had an instant appeal to me; the gear and weapons are ridiculously oversized, which means the characters can be translated easily into miniatures without looking 'off'. In fact,t hey look like renders of 28mm miniatures to begin with. Yay!

This will be one of those games I will actually buy when it comes out, instead of waiting for it to hit the bargain bins. My only fear is that much hobby time will be lost to playing X-COm instead of painting and modeling my miniatures...