Forum: Public Forum

on Thu 25 of July, 2013 14:42 BST, by Laurent posts: 1029 United Kingdom

Adam,

The new XCom game is called: XCom The Bureau.

I have had a quick look on Gamespot and IGN the other day (I miss PC-Zone) and this sounds pretty good. The development history of the title does not bide well though. It was meant to be a first-person shooter and is now a "third-person tactical" game. Thus it is not turn-based... I may buy it in pre-release though as the third stage reward sounds nice, and with the added 10% off.

You will have to read the news items and preview to make up your mind about what they mean by "third-person tactical" but it does not look too awful.

Ironman XCOM
I wanted to be a real tough guy and play Classic Ironman too, but gave up because of the second Council Mission from the "slingshot" DLC. I only realised (recently from reading some forum) that one can ignore the second mission over and over (it comes back each month). To play the DLC scenario (three missions with unique maps) the first mission must be taken when proposed though. Anyway, I was mostly caught by lack of satellite coverage. I also always choose to activate every options in the "second wave" DLC, making XCOM member funding random.
So with regards to "Slingshot" I ended-up facing Mutons and Thin Men without enough guys, only the basic four, (one needs to build the Officer Training School in Classic and above) or decent equipment (all the money went towards Satellites and their Uplinks). Since the mission is timed (ten turns) I got screwed all the time and in the end got bored of restarting the game. I am going to have a go at this second mission tonight, but this time with my A-Team of six operatives all carrying laser weaponry and proper armour.

Death spiral
Yep, the game becomes devilishly hard (on Classic at least) as soon as one mission is lost. What kills a game for me is always the panic level. A "Terror mission" for instance just cannot be lost, this is way too costly.
Stil; there is always that feeling that you could, just could get back on the job and recover... but no matter how you get back on your feet in tactical, the money never flows again properly. Members leave, "the voice of Optimus Prime" gets pissed off and gives you bad grades (UFO begin to escape lowly Raven Interceptors after a while) and the death spiral continues indeed.

Once I chose to ignore all the fights just to lose the game "properly", i.e. without savagely quitting to Main Menu. I love the end cut-scene "The X-Com project has been a... misunderstanding from the beginning", all the lights going out and the three protagonists walking away defeated.

DLCs
They are a bit of a let down. "Second wave" is mainly about stuff that should have been in the game (armour colour and type customisation and game difficulty options). It should also unlock more difficulty settings for people who finish it in Classic and even more after Impossible. Though from the info found here, this is closer to masochism than computer gaming.

"Slingshot" is only a three maps affair, nice side story, well scripted overall, one unique soldier, but not exactly good value for money. Apparently it was hated by fans of the game and 2K decided to can this type of DLC. Look on GamesFAQ for more info.

Fun bits
Go to the XCOM database from the main menu, click on Dr Shen and listen to what the AI has to say! smile
I do not know why they put the XCOM database there instead of in-game, but this is a funny entry for sure.