UFO: Enemy Unknown (XCOM: UFO Defense)

[thaddeus6th]

I wish it were coming out for PS4. I know it still might, in months/years down the line, but it looks great.

 

[Temaran]

Hehe. I might also be guilty of that :3

 

[Bugg]

Having some major performance issues with XCOM 2, and looks like I'm not the only one going by the reaction on Steam. My pc makes the recommended spec easily. Think I might put it to one side and wait for them to patch it. Pretty poor considering it's a pc exclusive!

 

[Bugg]

^^ Okay, so having experimented with the settings I managed to get XCOM 2 running pretty smoothly.

How they've managed to make a turn-based strategy game this exciting is incredible. I know a lot of people have complained about the turn limit on some missions but, for me, it adds a level of urgency that was almost completely missing in all the previous games of this type that I've played. And in all those games I've never encountered anything quite like the thrill of setting up and executing an ambush, or getting knee-deep in enemies and fooling them into chasing after a decoy whilst my squad outflanks them, and the cinematic sweep of the camera as it plays out (this is all made possible by the stealth mechanic at the start of most missions).

I also love the premise, in that we lost the war and the aliens now rule Earth, so you're basically fighting guerilla warfare, trying to connect with resistance cells across the planet etc. The re-jigged classes are brilliant, too.

Still some silly holdovers from the previous game, mostly to do with the action cam showing characters shooting through walls and such, but that can be turned off - if I wanted to - anyway. Apart from that, I think it's fabulous (and terribly, terribly addictive). I think this is already verging on 'best game I've ever played' status, and that's with the performance issues.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Special tip: when flying back from a mission, press caps lock and, it seems, the loading time becomes much shorter. (According to Eurogamer, obviously do at your own risk).

Still miffed this isn't out on PS4.

 

[Bugg]

Special tip: when flying back from a mission, press caps lock and, it seems, the loading time becomes much shorter. (According to Eurogamer, obviously do at your own risk).

Yes, I've been doing this. Totally bonkers and it works.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Not a PC gamer, but that baffles me. Read one theory that it's to do with smooth pre-loading, whereas pressing caps lock makes it faster but a bit hang-y.

Still hopeful it'll come to consoles. Seems bizarre not to and I'm not a fan of platform exclusivity (think it'd be great if The Last of Us were available for Xbox/PC).

 

[Bugg]

Not a PC gamer, but that baffles me. Read one theory that it's to do with smooth pre-loading, whereas pressing caps lock makes it faster but a bit hang-y.

TBH, I wasn't having much of a wait during the flights back from missions anyway, 20 - 30 seconds (from SSD), and I quite like those scenes because they add to the atmosphere (no doubt I wouldn't be so easygoing about it if I was having 1 - 2 minute waits, though). I tried it anyway and - as you say - the screen freezes for a second and then the 'press any key' highlight comes up. You can see it in action here:

I suspect, in a week or two, there'll be a patch to deal with some of the performance issues. I've managed to get around them by turning down anti-aliasing and shadow detail but it will still be good to have it fixed.

 

[Bugg]

On my second play-through of XCOM 2 now, this time on 'Legend' difficulty. Still completely addicted.

The game received its first major patch last week, to sort out performance issues and tweak some aspects of gameplay. There's also a new 'zip' option, which speeds up certain animation and removes some of the annoying pauses. Graphically it's running very smoothly for me now on 'high' settings but, ironically, the game has crashed on me three times since the patch, when it hadn't crashed at all in the five or six weeks since I solved my initial problems mentioned up-thread. Bah! On the plus side, now when it crashes it immediately sends off a report to Firaxis, so maybe these things will get sorted eventually.

 

[Bugg]

Just in case anyone's interested, there's a demo of a skirmish mission from the upcoming Xenonauts sequel, cunningly titled Xenonauts 2, available on GOG: Xenonauts 2 Demo

It's a very early, pre-alpha version.

 

[Bugg]

There's a new XCOM game coming out next week:

 

[Foxbat]

I looked XCOM 2 and thought about buying it. Then I looked at the filesize. 32.5Gb. That’s just ridiculous. Even with super fast broadband it would take quite a bit of time to download (7 hours by my calculations) so it’s a ‘no sale’.

I wonder how much of that filesize is unnecessary bells and whistles?

 

[Bugg]

Download it overnight? For under a tenner, well worth it. Compare it to the file size of Red Dead Redemption 2 . . .

 

[Luiglin]

I worked with the Gollops on Laser Squad Nemesis, a two player online game email turn version, many years back. From creating a range of maps for the two player game to doing the Grey's campaign for the single player.

Laser Squad: Nemesis (2002) - MobyGames

The sequel to the original Laser Squad focuses entirely on 1vs1 tactical combat. Units from four different races can be selected: The Human Marines, the artificial Machina, the mysterious Grays and the aggressive Spawn. At the beginning of a game,...

www.mobygames.com

 

[Foxbat]

Download it overnight? For under a tenner, well worth it. Compare it to the file size of Red Dead Redemption 2 . . .

Sorry. No. I’d rather do without than buy something I think is padded with unnecessary fluff because, ultimately, it’s still just a 3D isometric game. Giving the developers money for big files only encourages them to create even bigger files. In case you haven’t guessed, I don’t own (and never will) Red Dead Redemption 2.

 

[Bugg]

I worked with the Gollops on Laser Squad Nemesis, a two player online game email turn version, many years back. From creating a range of maps for the two player game to doing the Grey's campaign for the single player.

Laser Squad: Nemesis (2002) - MobyGames

The sequel to the original Laser Squad focuses entirely on 1vs1 tactical combat. Units from four different races can be selected: The Human Marines, the artificial Machina, the mysterious Grays and the aggressive Spawn. At the beginning of a game,...

www.mobygames.com

I seem to remember playing that, or something very similar, at least. I remember the original Laser Squad very well. It's a shame Julian Gollop's latest, Phoenix Point, doesn't seem to have fared very well.

 

[Luiglin]

I seem to remember playing that, or something very similar, at least. I remember the original Laser Squad very well. It's a shame Julian Gollop's latest, Phoenix Point, doesn't seem to have fared very well.

If you played it, my Chrons forum name is the same as I used in game.

 

[thaddeus6th]

If the file size is too big, fair enough, but I'd say XCOM 2 is one of the stand out games of this generation (for me).

 

[Narkalui]

UFO was the absolute nuts! I never managed to finish it because I could never get to grips with the resource management side. Then my friend worked out how to hack the game's hex files and make all of my soldiers have infinite action, stamina and health. I lost interest a bit after that...

 

[Foxbat]

I finished the very first UFO but none of the others. I got to the very last bit of Xenonauts but then you’re just overwhelmed with aliens and it became nothing more than a boring, frustrating grind fest. A very poor conclusion to what was until that point, a very good game. The next closest I came to finishing one was XCOM Apocalypse but in the end I found even the easiest difficulty level too much for me. I’m tempted to play Xenonauts again and then just give up at the end level on the mothership.