Carpetsmoker

Do you have a link to these studies? I would be interested.

You can use binary diffs. Xdelta is probably one of the better known free tools. bsdiff is a similar tool but more modern/better.

I really enjoyed the X-Files when I was younger (about 10-14 years). Thursday evenings were X-File evenings I never rewatched the show. I'm afraid I wouldn't like it as much as I did back then ...

Isn't one of the problems that almost *everything* is copyrighted? Isn't the *REAL* problem that the copyright term is *way* to long and completely unbalanced? This `forces' people to spend more money on `old' media (books, movie, games, music, etc.). Making less money available for new media, leading to more piracy of new media. Does it make sense that, for example, 1930 Dracula is still copyrighted? Everyone why every did anything with that movie is dead... The problem won't vanish if the copyright law gets adjusted, but I feel it would substantially shrink. Something like date of creation plus 20 years seems more than fair, maybe even shorter. This is more than enough time to get a return of investment from your creation.

What? That almost sounds like a vacation! You can't work on the game while on vacation! How dare you suggest such a thing!

No, not really. In fact, some of these points can be applied to the original game as well. But that was 1993. This is 20 years later. By the way, I'm not a "hardcore X-COM fan" or anything of the like. Being born in 1985 I'm a bit too young for that. I did play the game quite a bit back in about 2002/2003, but never even finished it. I really don't like this game on its own merit :-) But to be fair it didn't outright suck like the Jagged Alliance 2 remake (holy trousers on fire that was a bad game).

I'm curious, what engine is Xenonauts using? Perhaps I've missed it, but I can't recall reading anything about it...

I avoid the term all-together these days because, as you point out, it has so many different meaning these days. Some projects are even in a perpetual `beta'. Some alternatives include `Testing release', `Unstable testing release', `Preview release', `Development snapshot', etc. Just semantics? Perhaps... But it does communicate a clearer message...

Loaded a farm map, ended the turn, and the game bought the farm (badum-tish). Played a few non-farm maps, and they all went fine.

I've only played the first few missions, but I can't say I like it. All in all, I find the game shallow and lacking in depth. - Why can't my troops take proper cover? You should be able to hide behind a car without parts sticking out. - Why can't I set my troops view direction? It's not clear to me if the troops have a 360 degree view cone, or only view the in the direction they happen to view in ... - Why can't I set the walk path? - Why can't I choose between an aimed shot, burts fire, etc? Now troopers fire half a magazine at every alien. Huge waste of ammo. - Why can't I ever move after a shot? This (almost) always leaves your troops in vulnerable positions. - It looks like aliens automatically see me once my troops see them ... - Why is there so little variation in equipment? I can choose a grenade and medkit, but not 2 grenades and 1 medkit OR 3 grenades. I also *have* to take a pistol as a sidearm. I don't need no stinkin' pistol, I want extra grenades! - Do my troops really have infinite ammo? - Why can't I just choose weapons freely? Why is there only one type of rifle? - Why do aliens spawn out of thin air when it's plot-conventient? - Why are the controls so inhumanly annoying? - Why does everyone speak to me as if I'm a 8 year old child? etc. etc... The reviews have been so overwhelmingly positive that I almost thought there are two games out there... Only upshot so far: I've ended up here :-)