Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

After finishing the game on normal, I realised 2 things:

1. Interrogate everything ASAP, to get research credits.
2. Get Squad Sight for your snipers, and sit them if fire-lanes to cover your front-line troops. I didn't find the other skill was any good, but I only took pistol-snipers later on.

Oh, and if you come up against a Sectopod, suppress it before moving anywhere near it.

I've been contemplating getting this. But the recent waves of great PC games at 20-30 euros I'm kind of wondering if it's really worth the full price.

I wish it got a steam sale already.

Loving what I've seen of it but I keep hearing it's buggy as feth and not sure if it's too game breaking for a fullprice game...

I recommend it Soldarin, I just finished it, I got a good solid 30 hours out of it, so I reckon a euro an hour is about fair, plus, the multiplayer and replay value is there.

It has some flaws, I didn't like the 6 man cap, the inability to buy and sell more stuff (playing with my economy was always the most fun, selling cannons and las pistols to buy avalanches and gak like that) and the occasional in game buy, plus an inability to free target doors and walls or mind controlled units annoyed me, but really all in they are minor gripes really.

Its an excellent game, the missions are really fun and the combat is fast and furious, Levelling your troops and playing with the perks is awesome, and I even liked the sound and the art style. I played for 4 or 5 hours a day until I got it done, and I don't do that often.. It was super addictive and my missus was pissed at me due to lack of attention all week.

 mattyrm wrote:
I recommend it Soldarin, I just finished it, I got a good solid 30 hours out of it, so I reckon a euro an hour is about fair, plus, the multiplayer and replay value is there.

It has some flaws, I didn't like the 6 man cap, the inability to buy and sell more stuff (playing with my economy was always the most fun, selling cannons and las pistols to buy avalanches and gak like that) and the occasional in game buy, plus an inability to free target doors and walls or mind controlled units annoyed me, but really all in they are minor gripes really.

Its an excellent game, the missions are really fun and the combat is fast and furious, Levelling your troops and playing with the perks is awesome, and I even liked the sound and the art style. I played for 4 or 5 hours a day until I got it done, and I don't do that often.. It was super addictive and my missus was pissed at me due to lack of attention all week.

Women. The fate of the earth hangs in the balance, and all they care about is how much attention they get.

 Soladrin wrote:
I've been contemplating getting this. But the recent waves of great PC games at 20-30 euros I'm kind of wondering if it's really worth the full price.

I wish it got a steam sale already.

Loving what I've seen of it but I keep hearing it's buggy as feth and not sure if it's too game breaking for a fullprice game...

I've hit some camera issues, but have otherwise not hit many bugs.I think maybe the controls got stuck like twice, so far in 50 hours or so of game play. Hardly "Buggy as feth", it's got some issues but they've been minor and haven't really affected my enjoyment.

This is a really solid product, my only real gripe is that it could use some more variety & length.

Based on all the length comments, I'm probably waiting until it goes down in price a bit. I am rabid about the original, but I also can play it for a ridiculous amount of time.

Finally beat it as well on normal as well. Fantastic game and does the original great justice even leaving out so many pieces of the original. I'll also echo that the ending was pretty meh.



Overall, VERY worth it's price. When I get some free time I can't wait to try some multiplayer.

 mattyrm wrote:
I recommend it Soldarin, I just finished it, I got a good solid 30 hours out of it, so I reckon a euro an hour is about fair, plus, the multiplayer and replay value is there.

It has some flaws, I didn't like the 6 man cap, the inability to buy and sell more stuff (playing with my economy was always the most fun, selling cannons and las pistols to buy avalanches and gak like that) and the occasional in game buy, plus an inability to free target doors and walls or mind controlled units annoyed me, but really all in they are minor gripes really.

Its an excellent game, the missions are really fun and the combat is fast and furious, Levelling your troops and playing with the perks is awesome, and I even liked the sound and the art style. I played for 4 or 5 hours a day until I got it done, and I don't do that often.. It was super addictive and my missus was pissed at me due to lack of attention all week.

Erm.. It's 50 euros...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Feth it, bought.

This game loves to bite me in the rear at the worst possible times.

I have an escort mission so I'm slowly working my 6 man team through a building to get to the DZ and escape. A few thin men appear, I quickly kill the ones in LOS and set up for the one out of LOS with overwatch.

My heavy, one of my two non-rookie teammates, was overwatching that entry point when the thin man approached from the only possible angle to avoid overwatch. That was unfortunate. Even more so when he manages to critical hit and kill my veteran. Damn, so now I need to really kill him before I move on with the VIP.

NOT SO FAST! A rookie panics and in the heat of the moment, he turns and shoots another rookie. The ensuing confusion of being shot by friendlies causes her to panic as well and pull the trigger. Unfortunately, the VIP was on the other end of the shot.

This game produces scenarios where when missions are smooth, you get the opportunity to do everythign the right way and have little problems. But when they don't go smooth, oh man is it going to be bad.

How I know I'm a minis addict. Every mission I played something in the back of my head said "this would makes such an awesome Infinity board/mission"

 YotsubaSnake wrote:


This game produces scenarios where when missions are smooth, you get the opportunity to do everythign the right way and have little problems. But when they don't go smooth, oh man is it going to be bad.

for this reason, I usually have one rookie in armor and a nano vest who goes last, if I get into a situation where I know someone is going to be shot, I run him out front to make him the easiest target.

Kind of a dick move, but prevents my money makers from getting shot too often

Having put a lot of time into this at this point, overall a really good game. Faithful to the original with a modern feel. However, a handful of complaints:

1) Can't pick your squad member's class. Although it's not a huge deal, in my current playthrough, I have something like 20 members and a whopping 3 assaults. Not the end of the world, but it would be nice if when you lose a support, if your next rookie would be guaranteed to be a support.
2) Tech comes too quickly. Maybe it's just the engineer/scientist in me, but it's a little bit annoying, IMO, to go from ballistic weapons to being able to manufacture laser weaponry in a month.
3) Camera issues. Although you can deal with them, I've had a few times that some squad member decided it would be a great idea to jump out into the open instead of in cover because the camera decided to fight me.
4) Final fight. Kind of a letdown. UD had a great ending (going to Mars to fight the aliens), this one didn't have the same feel of epicness.
5) Squad size. 6 just doesn't feel right to me. Too small to feel like a powerful force, too large to feel like an elite team. Small gripe, and totally personal opinion.
6) Abilities. Lets be honest here, there are some things that you just never take. For example: I don't even know what the sniper has in the same tier as Squad Sight, because who cares? Same goes for a support's 3xMedpack ability.

I agree with 1-5, but 6 not so much. Squad Site is epic, but i did take a sniper with the other ability which lets you move then shoot/overwatch. Preflight suit that sniper got way more kills due to the ability to adjust you LoF and then still take shots. Also I commonly ran a support with 2 smoke grenades instead of the triple medpack. There has been a ton of times the extra smoke grenade has saved my life lol. For a long time I ran 1 smoker and 1 medic.

There are some that are fairly useless though like +1 grenade vs +radius/dmg for Heavies and snipers +bonus aiming against wounded vs no penalty to over watch.

EDIT: Also the most underrated thing I have seen from most players is the use of SHIVs. Once I started running a Hover SHIV I couldn't live without the little guy. No fear of getting it killed, it doesn't panic, can take a serious beating, has 24 flight fuel, and doesn't need cover to still not get crushed by enemy fire. My little hover SHIV should have been a 3 Star General by the time I beat the game.

 BlueDagger wrote:
I agree with 1-5, but 6 not so much. Squad Site is epic, but i did take a sniper with the other ability which lets you move then shoot/overwatch. Preflight suit that sniper got way more kills due to the ability to adjust you LoF and then still take shots. Also I commonly ran a support with 2 smoke grenades instead of the triple medpack. There has been a ton of times the extra smoke grenade has saved my life lol. For a long time I ran 1 smoker and 1 medic.

There are some that are fairly useless though like +1 grenade vs +radius/dmg for Heavies and snipers +bonus aiming against wounded vs no penalty to over watch.

EDIT: Also the most underrated thing I have seen from most players is the use of SHIVs. Once I started running a Hover SHIV I couldn't live without the little guy. No fear of getting it killed, it doesn't panic, can take a serious beating, has 24 flight fuel, and doesn't need cover to still not get crushed by enemy fire. My little hover SHIV should have been a 3 Star General by the time I beat the game.

SHIVs are great, but they don't get xp (or whatever the xcom equivalent is).

If they do, then call me wrong and let me at it!

Maybe they're useful as rookie escorts?

At the very least they should have divided support into Support and Rifleman.

 malfred wrote:

 BlueDagger wrote:
I agree with 1-5, but 6 not so much. Squad Site is epic, but i did take a sniper with the other ability which lets you move then shoot/overwatch. Preflight suit that sniper got way more kills due to the ability to adjust you LoF and then still take shots. Also I commonly ran a support with 2 smoke grenades instead of the triple medpack. There has been a ton of times the extra smoke grenade has saved my life lol. For a long time I ran 1 smoker and 1 medic.

There are some that are fairly useless though like +1 grenade vs +radius/dmg for Heavies and snipers +bonus aiming against wounded vs no penalty to over watch.

EDIT: Also the most underrated thing I have seen from most players is the use of SHIVs. Once I started running a Hover SHIV I couldn't live without the little guy. No fear of getting it killed, it doesn't panic, can take a serious beating, has 24 flight fuel, and doesn't need cover to still not get crushed by enemy fire. My little hover SHIV should have been a 3 Star General by the time I beat the game.

SHIVs are great, but they don't get xp (or whatever the xcom equivalent is).

If they do, then call me wrong and let me at it!

Maybe they're useful as rookie escorts?

Nope they don't get XP, but they don't need it. They do their job great at being the forward scout bullet sponge and shooting the piss outta things. If they die, no one freaks out.

I'm not saying they need it. I'm saying I have more fun
leveling up my guys. I use my Colonel's far less because they
are "maxed out."

Any muton I encounter has the special rule: "always hits, always crits".

FML.

 Soladrin wrote:
Any muton I encounter has the special rule: "always hits, always crits".

FML.

That's pretty standard. What's worse is when you open up with 4 troopers into a target that has a 50% chace to hit and the only one that hits doesn't kill (2 damage to a sectoid ;_; ) Then, dispite the fact that all your troopers are in heavy cover, they always hit and either kill or panic your guys. (especially next to car they just ignited).

This is what always happens to me. I can have the most balanced and stable approach feasable and the RNG will just take a dump on your day and completely ruin any chances you had at an acceptable mission result.

Hey, catched this on my feed and thought it may be relevant to peoples' interest if y'all have not heard already:

Firaxis announces upcoming DLC: 3 new singleplayer missions

YotsubaSnake wrote:NOT SO FAST! A rookie panics and in the heat of the moment, he turns and shoots another rookie. The ensuing confusion of being shot by friendlies causes her to panic as well and pull the trigger. Unfortunately, the VIP was on the other end of the shot.
This game produces scenarios where when missions are smooth, you get the opportunity to do everythign the right way and have little problems. But when they don't go smooth, oh man is it going to be bad.

Those are the best moments, imo.

 Lynata wrote:
Hey, catched this on my feed and thought it may be relevant to peoples' interest if y'all have not heard already:

Firaxis announces upcoming DLC: 3 new singleplayer missions

In general the fan base doesn't seem too happy about it. However I think it has potential. One of the things I think was an improvement for the new XCOM was the addition of the base support characters. While they're paper-thin as characters, that's enough to give a feeling of context to the events I'm driving throughout the game. In the original and this game you can and often do construct your own story through the way the missions play. However, that doesn't really do anything to give you a broader human perspective to what's going on. Having folks with voices, archetypes and basic skeleton of a personality give that perspective.

I think this is a good opportunity create more context. While I've seen complaints along the lines of "WTF, this isn't GTA I don't need some gangster!!!', I like they're that going with a pretty well known archetype here. We've seen lots of stories with "Badass Gangsters" and understand the kind of place they have in the world, so when we see what happens to this dude we can make broader conclusions on how things are affecting the world as a whole, even with little to know time wasted on character development (which is safely outside the scope of XCOM).

The only pitfall is if it's a super-character, mary-sue type situation. However I'm willing to give the creators the benefit of the doubt. If they take an approach kind of like what FFT did, the character joins as a pseudo-member with plot armor (just knocked out when "killed") for the duration of the special missions. When the special missions are over you can recruit the character if you want or dismiss them and they're as disposable and mortal as any other grunt.. just with a unique face.

Guess I'm the odd one out in that I value the option for customisation higher than pre-determined personalities for games such as these. I'd rather have an option to "design" base characters from scratch, kind of like with STO bridge officers. From what I have seen, people always enjoyed giving squaddies the names of friends or colleagues or movie idols ... imagine if you could extend that to the base personnel!

As far as the "gangsta theme" is concerned, it would not bother me at all. As you said, it is a known archetype, and in itself not a new idea even when connected to the alien invasion genre, as long as the focus remains on government black ops, just that they now extend into the underworld. Though I agree about the potential pitfall when that guy ends up as some sort of super soldier better than your own troops, with various unique special abilities. Though I'm sure that many people would enjoy that as well. Matter of preferences, as always.

I had to grin about their explanation regarding the reluctance to expand the tech tree, however.
"Naah, we can't do that. It's all so finely balanced and the slightest addition may tip the scales and totally destroy the gameplay experience ... let's just give them the Blaster Launcher right at the start!"

To be honest, this new character looks like he'll pretty much fall into the same area as Special Characters in 40k. Some people don't like taking named characters and prefer to play with generic grunts they can make their own stories for. There will also be people that will love having unique characters and will the thrilled to take them.

Bottom line, if you like it, take it. If not, you can unlock the new tech and leave the unique character back at base to train recruits or something.

Well, just had my first absolute clusterfeth mission.
>Classic Ironman mode.
>Bomb disposal mission.
>Triggered something like 4 thin men at once, who managed to slow me down long enough for the bomb to go off.
>Last 2 soldiers run to the skyranger
>One of them decided to lost his gak from the poison damage, and promptly shot my favorite heavy in the back of her head.
>I was not amused. fething thin men.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Well, just had my first absolute clusterfeth mission.
>Classic Ironman mode.
>Bomb disposal mission.
>Triggered something like 4 thin men at once, who managed to slow me down long enough for the bomb to go off.
>Last 2 soldiers run to the skyranger
>One of them decided to lost his gak from the poison damage, and promptly shot my favorite heavy in the back of her head.
>I was not amused. fething thin men.

Oh god, Thin Men. They're by far the deadliest enemies in the game, no exaggeration. Seriously, I'm at the end of the game decked out in plasma and titan/ghost/angel armor, going through Sectopods and Elite Mutons like a hot knife through butter. Get a council mission that still has Thin Men hanging around, TPK from like one group of the suckers, this happens *consistently*. Thank god I wasn't doing any iron man run.

Titan armor makes you immune to Thin Men poison, you know.

It's one of its main advantages.

 Melissia wrote:
Titan armor makes you immune to Thin Men poison, you know.

It's one of its main advantages.

Not an early game armor, and its bloody expensive. That was like, my second council mission.

I was talking to Chongers, who said his party had Titan armor in it.

What's the hate for Thin Men?

Never had a problem with thin men. Don't bunch up and they're less of a problem (and bring lots of Support, I always pack two).

Even in early game its not that hard to one shot them, provided the game shows mercy on your chances to hit the target.