Little_Crow

I've had a play around with this again, and since time is frozen in all views except the geoscape I'm at a loss as to how this even happened. So the bug isn't the weird display in the ground mission, the mission prompt outside of the geoscape is. I'll keep trying to force it to happen and take some screenshots if it does. ########## Scratch all that, after 20 minutes trying and posting as above I ninja'd it and managed to make it happen intentionally this time. Just clicking repeatedly between the base and geoscape screen forcing time to advance a second at a time didn't do it, but letting it run and clicking the base icon at precisely the right time (or wrong time) did it. I couldn't get a screenshot as it was full screen, but took a shot on my phone instead. The ground mission weirdness is attached .

While in the base build screen I received a message to start a ground mission, which I dutifully accepted. Once in the ground mission, everything functioned correctly but in the black space around the mission area was the base building screen I'd just left. Once the mission finished and I'd returned to the Geoscape, the screen mostly returned to normal. However, in the top right hand corner it still listed 'North America' (The name of the base I was originally in) with the funding information etc overlaid, making it tricky to read. Reloading the game didn't fix it, but exiting the game and loading the save again fixed it. I haven't tested with other screens like manufacturing or research, but suspect the same thing would happen. Just a cosmetic bug, but one to add to the bottom of the list.

My initial impression is it's not a lot of demo for 6GB, but I already knew that after reading the RPS article on it. I'm a little surprised by the amount of anger aimed at FiraXCom, but then for a beloved game like XCom, maybe I shouldn't be. I think people need to step back and be a bit more objective about it (Yeah, yeah, It's the Internet, I know). People are not as tolerant of games now as they were back in '94. It was much more a hobby then, it is now a mainstream leisure activity. XCom had no tutorial to guide you in, and it would take you at least 10 abject failures and restarts on the easiest difficulty and many, many hours of time before you stood any kind of chance of success. A AAA title now just can't do that, if I'm being cruel then I'd say that games have to be dumbed down for a modern audience. It really is that people expect instant gratification - It's all very well for a user to fail and have to replay 10 minutes of game, it's another to have to replay 10 hours. FiraXcom and XCom are not comparable games, they are separated by 20 years of UI, game play, and accessibility developments and improvements. FiraXcom is what XCom would be if it was developed now as a AAA title - and that's exactly how I've approached it.

I like it, the only ships in XCom that were of any interest was the single occupant scout - as it wasn't just a big square of varying dimensions / height. If this means you can be more imaginative with the larger ships then I say go with it. In my mind the landscape to UFO interior transition would be something like: 1) Screen to respec your soldiers - replace sniper rifles etc with close in weapons and 'nades. 2) Drag soldiers to each breach point - Maybe a late game expensive single use breaching charge to create your own that adds an instant suppression to any aliens in the area. If there are flying suits like in the original perhaps a 'breach the ceiling' option? (This would also address an annoyance with base missions where your soldiers were all split up, at least they would be where you want them to be) 3) Select grenade types to breach with at each point, so you can go for a flash bang for surprise, or maybe just frag out. 4) Go Delta Team! This could also be used as a supplement to terror missions - rather than a city being attacked it could be a single government building, and reuse the breach mechanics.