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.

So after everything you guys mentioned on xenonauts I feel like I've gotta give this game a shot. It looks pretty close to the original xcom though the graphics are similar leave me wanting something closer to 'enemy unknown' at least. I actually never played the original xcom and 'enemy unknown' was my first foray into that series but it was fun. I think I'd like to try similar games now.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/223830/

It seem to be getting a lot of good reviews by players.

Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within, despite the X-Com label, are a lot different from the originals.

After playing the crap out of them (they're okay on their own merits), I went back to Terror From the Deep. You had much better control over things in the originals. You could spend your movement points more freely, and control the expenses of the organization to a much greater degree.

Non of this "pick one emergency to react to and screw the other two". That's one part of the new stuff I absolutely hate.

The body count is higher in the old games. In the new one, I went through an entire campaign losing only 6 troops. In the old ones, losing only 6 in a MISSION is a rousing success. I've learned to not get too attached to any particular soldier.

The new ones look nice, but are shallow. The originals were created in the golden age of computer games where thought was required. I'd like to give Xenonauts a try, though it looks like sprites are used.

Jagged Alliance was another old favorite.

ZF-

I'll update more later but so far except for the regenerating lizardmen and cold war 1979 theme this game is a total rip-off of xcom (probably the original).

They basically have chrysallids, drones or cyber-discs, either thin men or alien grays and just in general it's a pretty big rip off. It also feels dated.

All that said it's hard and it's fun. I'm having trouble with the game on the 2nd hardest difficulty and only got up to the chrysallid knock-offs.

This game even has autopsies and interrogations. Autopsies I can understand but interrogations? They also have a lot of the same load-outs, same weapon progression and it just feels the same. It seems so similar that I wonder if they're going to be sued for copyright infringement.

I didn't totally play the first xcom and yeah I only played enemy unknown but even looking at some pictures from the old games it seems the same. There are even terror missions, abductions and base defense missions supposedly.

Isn't there a limit to how much you can copy from a game? Ugh and calling them xenonauts. They may as well just called them xcom operatives.

---------

Off topic but it's also nice to see a fellow skaven player. Hopefully our army gets updated soon but I dunno if I can stand these new prices. Wood elves seemed manageable in price however.

I'm not sure the developers should be blamed when the entire idea behind Xenonauts was to remake X-Com in a way that was more faithful to the original.

"Xenonauts is a spiritual successor to the classic X-Com strategy games from the 1990s. We aim to improve the graphics, add new content and streamline the interface whilst still retaining all of the key mechanics of the original games. Devoted fans should love this game, but we’re also keen to introduce the joys of old-school grand strategy to a whole new generation of players who might not otherwise experience it!
- their website

Also, the original creator of the series kind of endorsed it, which I as a fan find more important than corporate lawyer crap:

Julian Gollop wrote:I think Firaxis did a terrific job with the new XCOM. They have made a very console friendly and accessible game, but it still has a lot of strategic and tactical depth. The character progression is done very well, and the tactical combat system is great. I would have done things differently for sure. I was a bit disappointed that the Geoscape is basically irrelevant, with no strategy involved about positioning of bases, detection ranges, base attacks and so on. It is also a shame that there is no random map generation. The development of the alien menace seems to be driven by specific events, such as the first alien base assault, rather than the aliens own development agenda as in the original X-Com. There is a promising and more faithful remake nearing completion called ‘Xenonauts’.

Anyways, I've recently tried this as well, and think that I will come back to it once I finish my current Long War campaign. Whilst I am jaded by Firaxis' graphics, this one just has a lot more tactical gameplay elements and comes across as an overall more complex game that allows you to do more stuff, for a less simplified and somewhat more "realistic" experience (starting with the ability to send more than one fighter to intercept UFOs I mean, what the hell, XCOM).
I think the ideal game would actually be a hybrid of all the previous products. Give me the graphics of the new XCOM, with the fluff of the original, and Xenonaut's gameplay.

Also, I found out the hard way that your guys can actually shoot each other by accident. I was about to storm a crashed UFO and had positioned the team in two lines right in front of the door, with a scout car armed with twin heavy machine guns in the back.
Opened the door. Saw three aliens. Scout car opens fire and half the salvo rips right through the human soldiers in front of it, wiping half the squad in a single attack. Damn.

Zad Fnark wrote:After playing the crap out of them (they're okay on their own merits), I went back to Terror From the Deep. You had much better control over things in the originals. You could spend your movement points more freely, and control the expenses of the organization to a much greater degree.

Word.

Example: Just last two days ago I had a mission in Long War where I wanted to have my troops advance on the enemy. Problem: there was a Thin Man acid cloud between us.
With Time Units, I'd have simply plotted a course around the cloud. Not possible in Firaxis' simplified remake, because you can't even set waypoints. The game forced me to decide between either having the soldier run straight through the cloud, or waste the attack action by placing two moves. It's stuff like this that makes me miss the original's depth.


PS: Both the old and the new X-Com have interrogations as well. It's a catch-all term for a wide range of measures ranging from actual communication all the way to invasive surgical procedures with the intent to forcibly extract information directly from the brain.

I'd probably enjoy this more if it wasn't hyped to heck and back while insulting the new x-com at every opportunity.

I know it sounds weird but when a fanbase really just craps over another game it kinda makes me bitter towards the game they want people to play.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I'll update more later but so far except for the regenerating lizardmen and cold war 1979 theme this game is a total rip-off of xcom (probably the original).

Thats the entire point. Its also not a straight copy, there are lots of things that have been modernised, not least the graphics. You can't copyright game mechanics so there won't be any legal issues.

This is a much harder game than the Firaxis remake. I think I lost 5-6 guys in a normal play through, in Xenonauts I lose 1 a mission (at least).

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I know it sounds weird but when a fanbase really just craps over another game it kinda makes me bitter towards the game they want people to play.

I don't think this is weird at all, I often feel the same way (in fact, this is what drove me away from Space Marines in 40k). We're just human, so we have a tendency to gravitate towards firmly entrenched, and often opposed camps. The XCOM remake was controversial because you had some people disappointed by the changes, whilst others totally embraced it and proceeded to lambast anyone who would dare to criticise it - we had such discussions here on dakka, too. Needless to say, that only served to deepen the rift between both "sides", or actually created those sides in the first place by nudging people to decide on where they stand.

So as every so often, both sides are to blame for an escalation. All I can say is that I'm having fun with both remakes. I consider Firaxis' reimagining less faithful, but it is a great game on its own terms and I'd still like to see yet another expansion.

Honestly I think I just played till I got sick (physically ill). While the game p*sses me off from difficulty I'm having fun. I'm even getting the hang of it. I'm playing on the 2nd hardest difficulty.

I had a feeling the original maker of the game would approve of this remake but I really like 'enemy unknown'. Both are good. Personally I don't mind some of the simplification in 'enemy unknown'. The dogfights are nice in xeno-nauts but if I can send multiple fighters why can't I send multiple dropships?

@palindrome: Play 'enemy unknown' or 'enemy within' on 'impossible' difficulty. Sometimes I wonder if the people in the apartment upstairs ever complained how much I cursed in anger at 'impossible' difficulty.

I'm starting to get a lot more ufos taken down. It really sucks when your ships get damaged. They're so expensive and take forever to re-build. I try my best to go in two different directions and force the enemy to follow one and then run that one away while I use the other to attack it in the flank or rear. It works to an extent.

There's also the importance of building your bases and sensors in certain areas so that they can scan multiple continents.

@Lynata: Have you gotten to laser equipment or any special gear yet? It's nice to have something beyond the crappy ballistic weapons.

Also if you think the armored vehicle with a normal mini-gun is bad use the laser. Just so you know it ends in a giant explosion and it's powerful too. I find it funny how everybody avoided shivs like the plague but these things are tanks. Sometimes I keep my guys behind it just for cover. I watch out for firing arcs though. They can be rather disgusting when they nuke your own guys.

Quite a nice review of the game here on PC Gamer

http://www.pcgamer.com/uk/review/xenonauts-review/

I liked the sound of this bit..

Another welcome addition: if you capture the UFO and hold it for five turns, you win the mission. The days of scouring the far corners of the map for the one alien hiding behind a rock have been thankfully left behind.

Can't wait to give this a try. Loved the new X-Com game, but the original and TFTD are still the best in my book.

Pacific wrote:I liked the sound of this bit..

Even better in my book is the option to just level a downed UFO with an airstrike by allied nations.

Too scared to send in your troops just to clear out some huge mothership you already know everything about? Not enough soldiers on standby? Can't be arsed with clearing every single scout with a squad of your soldiers?
Just nuke 'em.

flamingkillamajig wrote:Have you gotten to laser equipment or any special gear yet? It's nice to have something beyond the crappy ballistic weapons.

Still busy with the XCOM Long War mod! That one really stretches the campaign ...
I'll return to Xenonauts after I've beaten the Long War - considering I started the latter before trying out Xenonauts, it'd probably be best to proceed in order rather than having half a dozen unfinished games lying around.

As for SHIVs, whilst I had ditched them in the original XCOM EU as well, I find them great in Long War. You can equip them with modules there, and their high number of hitpoints is really necessary against the tougher opponents.
The scout car in Xenonauts is quite amazing, though. It really paid off researching and building one. That thing saves lifes!


[edit] That's indeed a nice review. Sweet.

 Lynata wrote:

Pacific wrote:I liked the sound of this bit..

Even better in my book is the option to just level a downed UFO with an airstrike by allied nations.

Too scared to send in your troops just to clear out some huge mothership you already know everything about? Not enough soldiers on standby? Can't be arsed with clearing every single scout with a squad of your soldiers?
Just nuke 'em.

flamingkillamajig wrote:Have you gotten to laser equipment or any special gear yet? It's nice to have something beyond the crappy ballistic weapons.

Still busy with the XCOM Long War mod! That one really stretches the campaign ...
I'll return to Xenonauts after I've beaten the Long War - considering I started the latter before trying out Xenonauts, it'd probably be best to proceed in order rather than having half a dozen unfinished games lying around.

As for SHIVs, whilst I had ditched them in the original XCOM EU as well, I find them great in Long War. You can equip them with modules there, and their high number of hitpoints is really necessary against the tougher opponents.
The scout car in Xenonauts is quite amazing, though. It really paid off researching and building one. That thing saves lifes!


[edit] That's indeed a nice review. Sweet.

Agreed on the airstrike of downed enemy aircraft though. That said you usually make more money, get more research and just better stuff by doing that. Speaking of which did you see that game I had some time earlier. Basically I was going around a downed UFO about to open it up with my armored vehicle with laser cannon on standby. I opened the door and ran away a bit with my guys and then just laser bombed the crap out of the whole bridge of the UFO and killed the 3 lizardmen baddies inside. It probably lost me a lot of money doing that but it was absolutely glorious. I have some pictures on my steam account.

I like to imagine the aliens baddies were like 'Ok get ready....' *door opens with humans backing away with a laser vehicle aimed at them* 'Oh....' *A couple explosions from the armor car incinerate them completely*


http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=274403193


http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=274403230

Been playing the game for a couple of days now, very good and a lot of fun. Love the 70's aesthetic of the design, and definitely agree with the 'like the original, but better' tagline at the start!

The game is hard.. I think possibly even harder than the original, on normal level. Just got the armoured car, which helps things a bit (certainly on the more open areas), although just lost mine to concentrated plasma rifle fire. Also, tried to fire a rocket launcher from behind a bush, managed to clip the bush and blow the guy to pieces

Quite like the different loadouts you can make with the characters - trying to get a sniper or scout to a high vantage point, setting up the HMG (man does that thing kick ass if you can get an open shot with it!) and going into buildings with the shield or shotgun.

Overally am really enjoying it, although not sure whether I'm putting myself in a position to complete the game. Just researching my 2nd armour (wolf something?) and got the 2nd level of interceptor, a rather cool looking Foxbat.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

I like to imagine the aliens baddies were like 'Ok get ready....' *door opens with humans backing away with a laser vehicle aimed at them* 'Oh....' *A couple explosions from the armor car incinerate them completely*

The armoured car with a laser turret in base defense missions is glorious, the aliens spawn in only a couple quite small areas and there are quite a lot of them. Little pink puddles all over the place.

 Palindrome wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

I like to imagine the aliens baddies were like 'Ok get ready....' *door opens with humans backing away with a laser vehicle aimed at them* 'Oh....' *A couple explosions from the armor car incinerate them completely*

The armoured car with a laser turret in base defense missions is glorious, the aliens spawn in only a couple quite small areas and there are quite a lot of them. Little pink puddles all over the place.

Though amazing and I used to use rockets all the time I'm actually starting to use heavies in their place more frequently. Every time you blow an enemy up you can't pick up their gear and sell it. That's generally a bad thing esp. when you go overboard blowing them up. That said it can be effective but the heavies are too.

@pacific: I've been playing on second hardest difficulty and seemingly every terror mission I just have to reload saves multiple times as I get wiped out. Dear god I hate night missions and the music makes you fear the dark. During day time you feel powerful or at least decently strong but at night vision is obscured. You know as if high tech soldiers with lasers can't afford night vision goggles or thermal vision. Would've added a cool look too but whatever. I'm pretty sure they existed then too since I think I heard of their use during the Vietnam war.

I used to have the laser armored car carry me during the night missions. All that said some missions restrict armored car movement like you wouldn't believe. They have to go along a narrow path in a winding trail up ambush alley (which usually doesn't matter as you wipe out enemies left and right). I've fought a bunch of the enemies and so far I can say you'll hate the medium drones and even to an extent the light drones though generally light drones only really hurt if you get hit up close. No one shot does much damage from the light drones but they do more later on. Then super late on you face baddies that shoot like plasma blasts that explode in small area of effect explosions. It sucks really hard all the types of enemies you face. Just trust me it gets more and more annoying. Also be careful buying planes as they really take a lot out of your money supply per month and extra bases as they can be hard to afford while supplying all your guys. Often if you can use only a couple bases to as troop bases and the rest with air to air fighters.

As far as the rocket launcher goes I've had my guys laser cannon'd to death, rocketed to death and other horrible friendly fire mishaps including berserking idiots kill their own buddies via shotgun induced brain hemorrhage.

Wolf armor is good when you first use it. It's unbelievably fantastic but later on all the various weapons used against it just go through it. There's some power armor I had access to later but couldn't afford since my profit per month actually went into the negatives. I hated always being behind so I just started another game. I had a couple corsairs too (some super fighter craft that looks sweet and has a decent amount of hp). I'd say the foxtrot is best against the bigger ships whereas the gun cannon guys are better as fighter killers.

I haven't used the shield loadout yet myself and the scout loadout seemed like a glorified version of the sniper. I agree heavies are awesome but esp. when you give them laser machine guns (scatter lasers). Those rock pretty heavy.

The 2nd interceptor is actually called the foxtrot btw and it's good with a cannon craft giving support to kill off fighters. Foxtrots can hold heavier missiles and you'll probably need them later on when the big ships start coming around.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

The armoured car with a laser turret in base defense missions is glorious, the aliens spawn in only a couple quite small areas and there are quite a lot of them. Little pink puddles all over the place.

Though amazing and I used to use rockets all the time I'm actually starting to use heavies in their place more frequently. /quote]

I have used to armoured car on a mission exactly once, I haven't even built the upgraded one. Its just too big, indiscriminate and its not really needed.

You need a shield guy, he is extremely useful for scouting due to his enhanced survivability and he is the best choice for capturing aliens with a shock baton (1-2 hits KO human sized enemies, except Androns).

I'm about three missions in, and I'm liking it so far.

The whole layout/interface is different enough to take me time to get used to. I only wish they had a "next soldier, done with current" button like the old games.

It think it's good that it's a bit difficult, as I won't outgrow the game anytime soon. Machine guns use most of your MPs, so you have to plan their use well.

Some people gripe about the graphics, but unless you're totally ADHD, they're perfectly functional. I wish Apocalypse had looked this good.

Body counts are on par with the old series. I've had two missions with a lone survivor. Friendly fire is still there in all its glory.

ZF-

I looked into this game, but the whole "more XCOM than XCOM"
types stuff does bug me as well. I'll probably load it up once
I'm done with Diablo 3.

There are a lot of really neat little touches in this game, where you can tell the developer really put some thought and effort into it.

Like, the background for the engineer and science screens changing as you go through the game. My dropship landing, and a couple of nearby civilians running straight into it to take cover.

My only real criticism is that the maps seem a bit samey, you seem to get the same combination of buildings and walls in industrial areas, and open desert or ice areas consist of your sniper or HMG armed units moving forward in crouched position through the open areas.

Great game though overall, am really enjoying playing it.

This game seriously p*sses me off. Seriously esp. later on you get to end game and then even then after going through countless baddies massacring them all you can lose your whole squad due to a couple shotgun plasma dudes that just won't die. Some of these lizardmen just regenerate health so fast and then the shotgun dudes just decide to camp a f*cking close quarters area where you have to fight on their terms regardless. It's beyond frustrating.

Edit:

Ok was just having a bit of a fit. Reloaded a few saves. Some of those missions were just stupid hard. Would lose like nearly a whole squad to the last few guys I fought which were holed up in the command deck of a ship. Landing ships that have landed (so haven't crashed) are much harder to fight off. A lot more intact goodies but still it's a total pain.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
This game seriously p*sses me off. Seriously esp. later on you get to end game and then even then after going through countless baddies massacring them all you can lose your whole squad due to a couple shotgun plasma dudes that just won't die. Some of these lizardmen just regenerate health so fast and then the shotgun dudes just decide to camp a f*cking close quarters area where you have to fight on their terms regardless. It's beyond frustrating.

Edit:

Ok was just having a bit of a fit. Reloaded a few saves. Some of those missions were just stupid hard. Would lose like nearly a whole squad to the last few guys I fought which were holed up in the command deck of a ship. Landing ships that have landed (so haven't crashed) are much harder to fight off. A lot more intact goodies but still it's a total pain.

Almost like the aliens want to win too.

There's a difference between giving your opponent a chance to react and just forcing them into a crap situation with no way to handle it except to kill most of their own squad on the last 3 guys bottled up with close combat weapons in the most close quarters area of the base after you massacre a base full of baddies. Oh and they cheat by know where you are often. Kind of in the same way in starcraft 2 or wh40k: dark crusade how they scan right on the map where your stealthed units are regardless of the fact that it's in the fog of war and should be out of their vision and knowledge that you have those guys on the field.

Sorry I just get frustrated from hard games. I suppose deciding to play dark souls, xcom, xenonauts and warhammer fantasy against good players for the longest time is generally a bad idea.