UFO: Enemy Unknown (XCOM: UFO Defense)

[Bugg]

I finished the original UFO and Terror from the Deep a couple of times each. I can't remember how far I got with Apocalypse, just that I didn't like it very much. I've finished XCOM Enemy Unknown three times, the last time on Iron Man, and XCOM 2 three times, the last time again on Iron Man. I haven't finished War of the Chosen yet, though. Same for the Long War mod for Enemy Unknown. I really enjoyed Xenonauts - don't remember the end being particularly frustrating, though.

 

[Foxbat]

I quite liked the idea in Apocalypse of human groups sympathetic to the aliens, and that you could raid them but wasn’t keen on the graphics or the fact it was all located in one city.

As for Xenonauts in the end sequence, you are on a timer and end up with wave after wave of aliens appearing at the rear as you advanced in the mothership. If I recall correctly, there were side rooms where you could destroy equipment that would allow your squad to escape once the leader was killed. I could never get the job done and fight off all the newly appearing aliens at the same time.

 

[Toby Frost]

I've been playing the remake of XCOM recently and enjoying it very much. It's nice to be back in the call centre with Green Jumper Man and the Cherman lady. The missions are very good. Every time an alien makes a noise and one of the soldiers says "What was that?" I think "It's aliens, you idiot. Aliens made that noise."

 

[Bugg]

I've been playing the remake of XCOM recently and enjoying it very much. It's nice to be back in the call centre with Green Jumper Man and the Cherman lady. The missions are very good. Every time an alien makes a noise and one of the soldiers says "What was that?" I think "It's aliens, you idiot. Aliens made that noise."

These'll be the same soldiers who have a 99.9% chance to hit and still miss

 

[Narkalui]

I've been playing the remake of XCOM recently and enjoying it very much. It's nice to be back in the call centre with Green Jumper Man and the Cherman lady. The missions are very good. Every time an alien makes a noise and one of the soldiers says "What was that?" I think "It's aliens, you idiot. Aliens made that noise."

I'm not saying it's aliens...





















It's aliens.

 

[Toby Frost]

These'll be the same soldiers who have a 99.9% chance to hit and still miss

And then say "I can't believe that happened!"

I also like how excited they sound whenever they reload their weapons. It's as if they left that bit out of training and suddenly they've realised that they can shoot their gun again.

 

[.matthew.]

I hate the RNG so much in XCOM. I got XCOM 2 as part of the humble monthly choice but haven't even considered playing it. The Gears of War tactical game that was released recently seemed to go in the other direction though, where you'd hit more often than it said you would

 

[Toby Frost]

Is RNG reloading?

 

[.matthew.]

Random Number Generator, so the odds you get to hit etc, and how in XCOMs case you miss a disproportionate amount of really high chance to hit shots. You could say it's confirmational bias, but it definetely feels like the odds it gives you are a lie

 

[Toby Frost]

Certainly the sniper rifles and shotgun variants feel very inaccurate unless you're a long way off or pushing the barrel up a monster's nose, respectively.

 

[.matthew.]

Certainly the sniper rifles and shotgun variants feel very inaccurate unless you're a long way off or pushing the barrel up a monster's nose, respectively.

Yea, it's not just me who feels that the game lies to you. I still recall missing with a shotgun from like 2 metres away against a 7 foot alien... it's a shotgun man, and you're a trained soldier, you shouldn't be missing that 99%...

I might give the second one a go at some point now I've got it, but from what I've heard it's the same sort of thing. Probably put it in to ratchet up the anxiety to be fair.

 

[Bugg]

I finally picked up Julian Gollop's Phoenix Point. The Year One Edition was released on Steam and GOG this week and is 50% off until, I think, 22nd December. I'm only about 5 or 6 hours in but I have to say I am quite impressed. I'm glad I waited because it seems a lot of the early issues have been ironed out. It's running very smoothly on my pc - which is getting on a bit - and it feels very polished so far. The combat feels very good. I've heard people saying it gets quite repetitive so time will tell on that.

 

[thaddeus6th]

I remember hearing about that a year or two ago. Has evolutionary enemies, whilst player advances are from tech, right?

 

[Bugg]

Yeah, apparently so. Player gets access to tech through research, reverse engineering and diplomacy with three other human factions, I believe. You can also recruit soldiers from the other factions, which I did last night for the first time. The combat uses an action point system, like original X-COM (even though it looks more like new XCOM at first glance), so a soldier can move, shoot, move again etc within the same turn providing enough points are available. I like that your soldiers will pause during movement if they spot an enemy, so you can shoot there and then if you have the action points. It also has a free aiming system so you can target specific body parts of an enemy to disable them, and there's none of the '99% chance to hit (and still miss)' rubbish. The soldiers also level up, which looks interesting as they can multi-class.

This intro video explains it better than I can:

It comes with all the DLC to date included, so I'm not actually sure what - if any - of what I've seen so far was added by those packs, as I'm trying not to look up anything.