Langy

Fallout was based on 1940s-1950s science fiction; the setting is specifically a 1950s vision of the future. The war occurred in the 2070s; there was plenty of time for atomic laser rifles and such to be developed.

You don't *have* to move between cover, Zeraan - you can leave your people exposed if you want, or if they can't run all the way to a cover object in one turn. It'd be a bad idea in most cases, but you can do it. I'm also pleased that you can fire around corners while staying in cover. That pretty much completely negates the criticism of 'but you can't move your person out, fire, and then hide back in cover!' people were making a while back. I'm not so pleased about the suppression ability not being able to damage the enemy. Kinda wish it worked more like suppression fire in the GURPS role-playing system - a low chance of hitting anyone who moves through that area, along with forcing them to make a fright check (or however they handle morale in this game).

I have to agree with Zhab. The idea that XCOM: EU isn't similar to X-COM is somewhere between patently ridiculously and extremely disrespectful to Firaxis. The only way you can make that leap is by purposeful distortion of the truth to fit a preconceived narrative, and the presence of that narrative is not flattering to the Xenonauts fanbase. In short: I do not think it is a good idea to completely trash-talk a game from a rival publisher on these forums, especially in this manner. It is disrespectful and makes you look like whining fanboys who are deliberately trying to sabotage another publisher's potential success by greatly bending the truth about their game.

No graphics, no matter how good, can immerse you in a game like XCOM. Immersion is for first-person shooters; if it's in third-person, immersion is pretty much impossible. In any case, 'good enough' for me was 'it looks like a modern take on X-COM'. Sure, the graphics could be better, but I'm not going to unrealistically demand it to look like Crysis. It needs to run on some pretty shitty systems. And applying dirt, wear and tear, etc to the XCOM soldier's gear? Very, very few games do that, even high-graphics FPSes, even when you shoot someone repeatedly in the face. So no, I'm not going to demand that XCOM include unrealistic graphics requirements. And I have to agree with Zhab - if you have a problem with XCOM's graphics, then what do you think of Xenonauts's? Xenonauts's graphics aren't as detailed as XCOMs by a long shot. I can only think of one game off the top of my head where things like this actually impacted how a model looked. Just about every single other game out there completely ignores all of these things, because it's a massive waste of processing power. I doubt most current-generation computers would be able to handle it, and I'm pretty sure current-generation consoles can't.

And has to support being able to zoom out further, possibly taking in more scenery and units at once. Not to mention the destructible terrain. That said, yeah, XCOM's graphics aren't top-notch Crysis-level or anything, but they're good enough.

Worked for me just moments ago.

And this makes me sad. It doesn't make sense that you can't sell the things you discover how to make for a profit, or at least enough to pay for your engineers so they aren't just sitting around uselessly wasting their paycheck when you don't have anything you really need to produce. In any case, I'm pretty sure you're completely wrong about it being unintentional, especially since it was kept in the sequels.

I like what I heard of the audio there - some pretty good stuff. I'm happy the Mutons aren't just purple guys in green spandex this time - to be honest, they were the least-threatening, most ridiculous-looking aliens of the original. Not too sure on their new look, though - they seem a bit more like a terror weapon than a normal infantry alien. Maybe just a bit too beefy. EDIT: The Muton in the screenshot isn't so bad, though. EDIT2: Did you notice the two yellow-shielded guys in the Cyberdisc screenshot? I think they might be ally/non-XCOM soldiers.

I don't think X-COM was the only organization defending the world even in the originals; there surely were minor other organizations here and there trying to defend the world at the same time. Sure, they didn't succeed much, but I can't imagine that they didn't exist. Hell, there was even that Japanese organization specifically mentioned in the backstory. Your argument about it being ridiculous is what's ridiculous. It makes perfect sense to send several prototype weapons along with the plans, and it makes sense for the Japanese to be willing to pay for them, but not be willing to just give up even more resources. I think that the game might just abstract away repairing armor, since a lot of the time it might be easier to just build a new suit of armor than to repair it. Remember, it's a video game - it isn't going to perfectly model the real world. Abstraction is okay. They didn't 'miss a few things' there - everything can be sold for more than it cost to make, and that only makes sense. This wasn't an exploit or anything - it was very clearly an intentional part of the game.

X-COM is very clearly not believed to be the only organization capable of protecting the world. If it was, then X-COM wouldn't have budget problems - they'd just get whatever they ask for. I think the idea is that you give the Japanese both the plans for the guns and several prototype weapons, and then they go on and mass-produce them. Guns probably shouldn't 'disintegrate' if the person holding them is shot, but I can certainly believe that the armor would be useless after the person wearing it gets shot. Wow. You must not have played the original very much, or ever read up on it or anything - this was one of the primary methods of gaining money. It was in no way a 'trick' or 'cheat'.

I wouldn't be surprised if you can locate the 'main base' where-ever you choose.

The only real problem I have with the flat map Geoscape is the completely unrealistic speeds/radar ranges that occur near the poles. If I have a base on the South Pole, it should cover everything below a certain latitude, not just something that appears as a circle on a flat map but would be a very odd oval on a globe. I brought this up on the old forums long ago, but Chris et. al. decided against implementing it, probably because it'd be hard to visualize.

You did ask him to do something - you asked him to post scans of GameInformer. This is illegal to do. Just because you can't get the physical magazine in your country doesn't entitle you to have someone else break the law for you, nor does it entitle you to break the law yourself and DL said illegal goods. Anyways, GameInformer has an online magazine - if you really want it, try looking into that instead. As for how you should come up with witty rebuttals - you probably shouldn't. You have no obligation to prove that Zhab is lying, or that the XCOM game will be horrible, or anything like that. So, perhaps you should try not doing so, calming down, and waiting to see how everything goes as more information is released.

Asking someone to do something that's illegal is generally frowned upon, AD.

Cyllan: Ground vehicles have already been confirmed as in.

Randomized battles have already been confirmed.

What do you mean? I haven't seen any evidence that it was watered down at all. The soldier progression mechanics are different, but I'm not sure they're 'watered down' any. What else are you referring to? EDIT: Alright, now that I've read the other thread I see that it was simplified - or at least altered significantly.

What annoying stair mechanics? Do you mean something like in TFTD where you had to finish one mission, get to an 'end' space, and then start another one immediately after (or what was talked about in Xenonauts with large UFO missions, where you'd have to fight an outside mission and then an inside mission)? That's super annoying, and should only be used when absolutely necessary - and I see no reason it'd be necessary in this new game. I'd certainly expect the game to handle 3D terrain and multiple floors of a building on the same 'level' decently. If it can't, it's going to be a major step backwards.

Personally, I think the side cutaway view looks cooler than the top-down view, and that's a good enough reason right there.

Looks like one of the major differences between this XCOM and the originals is going to be the character development system. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Also, they're apparently making two different interfaces for the PC/Consoles, so the PC combat interface will be more like what we were wanting/expecting (probably more isometric/etc).

Bletchley: Xenonauts is actually an alternate history game, not alternate present. It's set in the 1970s or so. I really think people are barking up the wrong tree with the 'one base' idea, though. Not only would that be silly, but the evidence is for it is so flimsy that it's ridiculous.

And Jagged Alliance: Back in Action. This year is full of squad-based tactical games, at least compared to any other year in recent memory.

They look like Men in Black, which is a little odd. I'm quite happy to see hexes. Hexes are cool. I really like the new look to the base overview. Very stylized, very cool. Surprised that it's a horizontal cut-away rather than a top-down view, but I like it. Wonder what it'll look like in the final game. The Mission Control screen looked nice, too. That blue globe's almost certainly going to be our new Geoscape. I could wish for a better look to the tactical battles - that PoV, at the very least, doesn't look all that great. It was probably chosen to be 'cool' looking, though, rather than the PoV you'll actually be using in the game.

The various people talking about how Firaxis is going to dumb the game down for consoles, make huge mistakes, etc are in the same exact position as Zhab - essentially making stuff up. We only have to wait another day or so before the full magazine article is released, so let's just wait for that before we make assumptions about how good/bad the game will be.

It's at least been in production since 2009, so 2+ years or so, though the reference to 2009 was about concept art being produced, so no idea how long it'd been in production before that or how far into production it was at that time. A large proportion of those in the other thread have indeed been saying stuff like how Firaxis is going to mess up, dumb it down for consoles, etc. Even here, Chris mentioned in his first post about it being watered-down for consoles. I wouldn't make that assumption - 'available on console' in no way means 'designed for a stereotypical console audience' - if it was, it wouldn't be a turn-based game similar to the original in any way, and it has already been confirmed that it is.