XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Strategy Game - Developed by Firaxis

I'm in the middle of the demo right now and so far it's great!

I love the fact that the weapons have a nice bass note to them; it's a nice change of pace to get actual beefy sounding guns in a game in this genre.

Tkyl: Is there any chance of a further-zoomed-in view as an option? It looks like a lot of time has been spent on animations/posters/clutter/etc. and I'd love to be able to zoom in further to examine things more closely.

I loved the Demo. TotalBiscuit says the combat is a bit simplified compared to the original, but since I've never played the original, I am (as usual) blissfully ignorant. Can't wait for this game, just sad it's coming out the same day as Dishonored. What a decision I'll face that evening!

complexmath wrote:

That's certainly the best approach in classic X-COM, particularly in early game where the soldiers have crap aim and weak weapons. Also consider tossing a grenade through a door and letting it detonate before entering a room, or simply making your own door by taking out a wall section. If you're determined to open a closed door, station a few soldiers with different firing angles on overwatch near the door so you can respond immediately if an alien is on the other side. Basically, just assume that the aliens know you're there and are lying in wait for you, and to hell with taking anything alive.

Oh man, now I want the Rainbow 6 Vegas style of "Breach and flash" and etc. Can you imagine a version of SWAT 4 or Rainbow Six with the XCOM universe?

I finally played the demo. I really enjoyed it. I do have one issue, though. Does the cursor feel heavy to anyone else? It seems slow and it doesn't seem to accelerate quickly.

Just finished the demo, and damn it's short and damn it why isn't the game out already, *mouse hovers over pre-order button*. I'm loving the style and look of the game, and it definitely feels xcom. When I finally had a little freedom in the demo I released how freaking scary it was. Where's the damn enemy!? Finished with my veteran wounded and sniper lady mopping up the place. I really want to play this now. Why do I own Civ V already that bonus would so push me over the edge...

Going to have to retry the last bit, see if I change my style if I'll get more loot (whatya mean explosive blow up their gear...)

Edit: Oh and I think the original swat or some other similar game was an isometric squad based game. Not sure how good it was though.

Double edit: Cursor felt fine to me, maybe lower your settings?

master0 wrote:

Just finished the demo, and damn it's short and damn it why isn't the game out already, *mouse hovers over pre-order button*. I'm loving the style and look of the game, and it definitely feels xcom. When I finally had a little freedom in the demo I released how freaking scary it was. Where's the damn enemy!? Finished with my veteran wounded and sniper lady mopping up the place. I really want to play this now. Why do I own Civ V already that bonus would so push me over the edge...

Going to have to retry the last bit, see if I change my style if I'll get more loot (whatya mean explosive blow up their gear...)

Edit: Oh and I think the original swat or some other similar game was an isometric squad based game. Not sure how good it was though.

Double edit: Cursor felt fine to me, maybe lower your settings?

What Civ 5 bonus?

Balthezor wrote:
master0 wrote:

Just finished the demo, and damn it's short and damn it why isn't the game out already, *mouse hovers over pre-order button*. I'm loving the style and look of the game, and it definitely feels xcom. When I finally had a little freedom in the demo I released how freaking scary it was. Where's the damn enemy!? Finished with my veteran wounded and sniper lady mopping up the place. I really want to play this now. Why do I own Civ V already that bonus would so push me over the edge...

Going to have to retry the last bit, see if I change my style if I'll get more loot (whatya mean explosive blow up their gear...)

Edit: Oh and I think the original swat or some other similar game was an isometric squad based game. Not sure how good it was though.

Double edit: Cursor felt fine to me, maybe lower your settings?

What Civ 5 bonus?

Steam was giving away Civ 5 for preordering.

Brizahd wrote:
Balthezor wrote:
master0 wrote:

Just finished the demo, and damn it's short and damn it why isn't the game out already, *mouse hovers over pre-order button*. I'm loving the style and look of the game, and it definitely feels xcom. When I finally had a little freedom in the demo I released how freaking scary it was. Where's the damn enemy!? Finished with my veteran wounded and sniper lady mopping up the place. I really want to play this now. Why do I own Civ V already that bonus would so push me over the edge...

Going to have to retry the last bit, see if I change my style if I'll get more loot (whatya mean explosive blow up their gear...)

Edit: Oh and I think the original swat or some other similar game was an isometric squad based game. Not sure how good it was though.

Double edit: Cursor felt fine to me, maybe lower your settings?

What Civ 5 bonus?

Steam was giving away Civ 5 for preordering.

Oh I see it now. At 63% unlock.

Balthezor wrote:
Brizahd wrote:
Balthezor wrote:
master0 wrote:

Just finished the demo, and damn it's short and damn it why isn't the game out already, *mouse hovers over pre-order button*. I'm loving the style and look of the game, and it definitely feels xcom. When I finally had a little freedom in the demo I released how freaking scary it was. Where's the damn enemy!? Finished with my veteran wounded and sniper lady mopping up the place. I really want to play this now. Why do I own Civ V already that bonus would so push me over the edge...

Going to have to retry the last bit, see if I change my style if I'll get more loot (whatya mean explosive blow up their gear...)

Edit: Oh and I think the original swat or some other similar game was an isometric squad based game. Not sure how good it was though.

Double edit: Cursor felt fine to me, maybe lower your settings?

What Civ 5 bonus?

Steam was giving away Civ 5 for preordering.

Oh I see it now. At 63% unlock.

And so do I... Dang I'm a bad skimmer. Thought it was a done deal as it was what pushed me over the tipping point to preorder. Ah well no biggie.

I didn't mind the 90º camera rotation that much. The game makes the underlying grid visible when you're using a mouse, and the camera rotation seemed to fit with that.

Vargen wrote:

I didn't mind the 90º camera rotation that much. The game makes the underlying grid visible when you're using a mouse, and the camera rotation seemed to fit with that.

I had some problems getting a good angle of the right side of the map beside the building on the second mission. At one time I had 3 soldiers taking cover and I had a difficult time getting an accurate look of all three, where they were positioned, what their line of sight was, and selecting for healing.

Preordered, now I just have to wait out the remaining days. Curse you, release date that is not today!

Oh, and OXM Squad #5 is up:

Spoiler:

Holy crap! He got destroyed! Although the fact that a couple of bad calls lead to such terrifying destruction certainly is in keeping with the original. Strangely it makes me feel even more excited for the game.

I've played through the demo 3 times now. Twice with mouse and keyboards and once with a 360 controller. I prefer the mouse and keyboard. Despite being a little awkward I found it more intuitive than using the controller. Looks like the game is perfectly playable on console or PC, I just prefer the PC controls. Really interested to see how different the demo was to the opening of the game. Would love to fiddle around with the base and the soldiers more.

I'm really excited for the game. I wish it was coming out this weekend. I have 4 days off and my schedule in two weeks will be hectic.

Edit: I hadn't been watching any of the videos and if I had I would have known not to bother Tykl about the key bindings. This video clearly states that there are fully customizable key bindings (@ 5:40).

Having missed the GMG deal last weekend, I'm only holding off on preordering because I'm hoping for something closer to a $35 price again. I'm not unwilling to pay the full $50, I'd just rather not.

ZaneRockfist wrote:

I finally played the demo. I really enjoyed it. I do have one issue, though. Does the cursor feel heavy to anyone else? It seems slow and it doesn't seem to accelerate quickly.

What are you running it on? I tried it on a couple years old Macbook pro and the cursor was dragging like crazy. I think it has to do with a weaker video card.

Played the demo a few times over the last couple of days. Last night was the first time I tried it with a controller. Like many others I prefer the classic mouse and keyboard, but the controller works surprisingly well. I can easily see myself moving my PC into the living room and still playing without any issues.

The demo has only heightened my anticipation for this game. The constraints placed on the player make me yearn for the freedom of the full game. As a grizzled old veteran of classic Xcom, I am outraged at being forced to lose three soldiers to sectoids in the intro mission.

Some of the systems simplification is welcome. I'm glad I don't have to remember to save 4+ action points to kneel my soldiers at the end of each move, but I miss being able to make my sniper go prone on a rooftop. I'll be interested to see some of the other changes first-hand. Videos just don't always cover every aspect of the game.

Overall, I am super stoked for release day to get here! If I hadn't already pre-ordered I would buy again SO HARD. Heck, maybe I'll double-dip to get a copy for the Xbox. That way I don't have to move the PC around.

EvilDead wrote:

What are you running it on? I tried it on a couple years old Macbook pro and the cursor was dragging like crazy. I think it has to do with a weaker video card.

GeForce 460 GTX, so I don't think that could be the issue. And the game itself isn't slow or problematic. It is just the cursor itself. It feels weighty.

I've had a horrible issue with the demo.

If left to its own devices, once I was in the mission and expected to navigate around the map, the game would start scrolling the screen to the right. As if through I was jamming my mouse against the right edge of the screen, or holding down D key. Moving the mouse all the way against the left edge of the screen would arrest the movement, but not actually move the screen to the left. The moment I move the mouse away from the left edge in order to click on something, it would begin its rightward movement again.

Using the keyboard was a mixed success. Holding down A key would also arrest the movement of the screen, and if I used both A key and put the mouse against the left edge of the screen, it would just barely, in a jerky motion, move to the left. Most of the time.

Once I was on the second mission, I noticed something else. If I leave the mouse jammed against the left edge of the screen during the alien turn, the screen would no longer scroll to the right when my turn came, but would instead sit in a spot, jerking between--what I presume are--two adjacent floor tiles in about quarter to half second intervals. Pretty annoying, I should say. But at least I could select actions on my soldiers (since holding down the A key makes that a bit hard).

I had that happen twice to me as well. I thought it was just something wonky with my keyboard or a stuck key. Each time it happened I was able to get it out of the permanent right scroll by hitting the right arrow repeatedly (along with the other movement keys). Okay, I may have been pounding on all the arrow keys and yelling "Stop scrolling! Stop it!". Either way, it seemed to fix it.

I'm not sure what the trigger was that started it, but if I make some more runs through the demo I'll pay more attention if it happens again.

Brizahd wrote:
Balthezor wrote:
Brizahd wrote:

Steam was giving away Civ 5 for preordering.

Oh I see it now. At 63% unlock.

And so do I... Dang I'm a bad skimmer. Thought it was a done deal as it was what pushed me over the tipping point to preorder. Ah well no biggie.

Wait, what?! I pre-ordered on Steam and didn't get this... Did I miss something?

Nope. It's not "done" yet. They're doing a thing where it's based on the number of pre-orders. See the pre-purchase rewards on the Steam store page.

Hypatian wrote:

Nope. It's not "done" yet. They're doing a thing where it's based on the number of pre-orders. See the pre-purchase rewards on the Steam store page.

Haha, oh, wow. I had forgotten about that. Still, I'm in for XCOM - don't mind if they don't make it to the Civ 5 bonus.

MoonDragon wrote:

If left to its own devices, once I was in the mission and expected to navigate around the map, the game would start scrolling the screen to the right. As if through I was jamming my mouse against the right edge of the screen, or holding down D key. Moving the mouse all the way against the left edge of the screen would arrest the movement, but not actually move the screen to the left. The moment I move the mouse away from the left edge in order to click on something, it would begin its rightward movement again.

Did you have a gamepad plugged into your PC? I've had this happen before, and either unplugging the gamepad or screwing with the directional inputs while the game is running tends to fix it.

complexmath wrote:
MoonDragon wrote:

If left to its own devices, once I was in the mission and expected to navigate around the map, the game would start scrolling the screen to the right. As if through I was jamming my mouse against the right edge of the screen, or holding down D key. Moving the mouse all the way against the left edge of the screen would arrest the movement, but not actually move the screen to the left. The moment I move the mouse away from the left edge in order to click on something, it would begin its rightward movement again.

Did you have a gamepad plugged into your PC? I've had this happen before, and either unplugging the gamepad or screwing with the directional inputs while the game is running tends to fix it.

Can't speak for MoonDragon, but I have no other input devices plugged in. Just a plain old USB keyboard and USB mouse.

Note to self - Finish with Torchlight 2 by October 9.

complexmath wrote:

Did you have a gamepad plugged into your PC? I've had this happen before, and either unplugging the gamepad or screwing with the directional inputs while the game is running tends to fix it.

No, no gamepad. But now that I think of it, I did have a joystick plugged in.

Naturally, I did mash the buttons. The "stuck turning" thing is not new. But no matter what I did I could not get it to reset. I even restarted the demo from scratch (and had to sit to EXTREMELY annoying intro videos, again). But no dice. Anyways, I played through it as is. Was annoying, but I survived. Don't need to do it again until the game comes out. And hopefully they'll have fixed such issues by then.

Playing this made me realize how much I miss turn-based tactical games.

Played the demo. Fell in love. Will be buying. Too bad I will be away on business most of October.

This is the first game in quite some time that has me seriously considering taking a day off of work after the release... Which is somewhat less appropriate than it used to be.