the_spyder

You are talking a very high ranking soldier and/or a very specific condition. I think the original post was intended to be more of a general state of things.

I really enjoyed your assessment. And I find myself agreeing on almost every point as well. The new Xcom is a really good game, but in my mind it falls short of being a great game primarily because of most of the points you mentioned. what I also found fascinating was your assessment that Xenonauts will appeal to a narrower audience because of the more strategic nature of the game choices. In some ways that makes me feel a lot better about this game because it means (to me) that you aren't going to sell out simply to make more money. it also means that I can expect the strategic turn based combat from the classic Xcom that I grew to love. Thanks very much for your thoughts on the new game. I am now really excited about Xenonauts.

It's funny. You post like you know the game, and yet balk at the implementation of the same game. I am sure that if Chris "Promised" any kind of a release date it was with the caveat and understanding that any dates were tentative until it was actually released. The fact that Chris is so transparent about what is going on is significantly refreshing to me as compared to a lot of publishers who will post a release date, miss it and say nothing for weeks or months afterwards. Or worse yet, lie directly to the public. Or even worse still, release partially done crap merely to shut the public up. It is clear you are excited about the game coming out. Now just show the development team some restraint and respect in letting them get the job done. Understand that any dates posted are tentative until you actually see the product on the market. And don't whine about transparency.

Regarding the roof Auto hide, please don't make the same issue that the OTHER game currently out on the market made. In that, when their soldiers are on level 2 of a structure, the ceiling/floor of the next level will routinely auto appear, obscuring the soldiers and their valid movements. This is a PITA in that game and generally is a game breaker in a lot of instances. All in all, this looks to be a superior game to that one. Thanks Chris and everyone working on it. I am very excited about it's release.

Comercial ventures also come with a lot of overhead, stifled creativity and, well, commercialization. Quite a lot of what should otherwise have been good games have been totally killed by corporate masters who have their own ideas about what is "Good" and what is not, which is quite often at variance with the artistic license that you can more often see in indie productions. And while I agree that "Good Talent" often finds a way to get paid for it, so sometimes does bad talent. And quite often the "Best" talent isn't in it for the money anyway. In the end, it is best to judge a product not by the corporation/comercialization/talent behind it, but by the product itself.