So, just played through the demo (via Steam) for the upcoming release of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a direct successor to the much loved original UFO: Enemy Unknown. Some thoughts:
The demo is very short. There's two missions, and the first one is barely more than a basic tutorial with no actual decisions made in it. The second one looked like it was starting that way but stopped abruptly to the point where I was left wondering if I'd missed the "go here" arrow (there wasn't one, I'd just silently been pushed over into playing the game myself). So, I'd say it's pretty difficult to get a good feel for what the game will be like. All they've really shown is that they can do cut scenes and a single map.
Still, what did that show?
The art style is all very cartoon: think Toy Story, just with guns. It's well presented but I feel ambivalent as I think I'd expected something a bit grittier.
There seem to be different types of soldiers with different innate strengths. For example, the Support can heal, the Assault can move far and still shoot (but if they do, they can't do it again for two turns), and the Heavy can fire a rocket launcher.
The whole equipment wrangling bit seems to have vanished. Gone the inventory grid. In fact, ammunition seemed to be indicated by the background of the current weapon (shown in the bottom right corner) slowly depleting to the left.
The base building is hinted at but isn't presented in the demo. However, I'd anticipated that I could move around the base's parts by clicking on the visuals, but that doesn't appear to be the case; instead, the base visual seems to be just a very pretty diorama, and the actual functions of the base are driven from boring old buttons.
The game feels, in demo, much less brutal than the original. In fact, you start unloaded around your Skyranger. Gone the days of being Blaster Bombed before you'd even disembarked.
Buildings can be destroyed if you've got the firepower. The aliens seem to get that straight away. Not sure how effect your guns are at that.
The action point system has been radically simplified. Basically, you get two actions a turn. You can move twice, move and setup overwatch, occasionally move and shoot, or shoot, or "dash" (which is a double move that I assume gives benefits against alien overwatch). There's some special powers, depending on your soldier's class that may also use up action points but I didn't really experiment much there, except with the Heavy's rocket launcher, which ended the mission for me.
Soldier advancement seems to be along set lines but, again, very little experience of that yet. I upgraded one Heavy once, and that game him the rocket launcher power (which seems to be once-per-mission power).
Initially it also seems like you're restricted to 4 soldiers per mission, with more unlocked with "Officer training". Even then, I'm concerned that you're restricted to six per mission, given the example I've got so far. So no flooding a mission with ten of your best and hoping it goes well...
With the base becoming more of a diorama, I suspect that base invasions are gone as well.
All in all, I'm sensing some of the spirit but not much of the complexity through variety that the original had. I feel rather like the game has been dumbed down. But, then, maybe that's the disappointly short demo...
How're you finding it?
The demo is very short. There's two missions, and the first one is barely more than a basic tutorial with no actual decisions made in it. The second one looked like it was starting that way but stopped abruptly to the point where I was left wondering if I'd missed the "go here" arrow (there wasn't one, I'd just silently been pushed over into playing the game myself). So, I'd say it's pretty difficult to get a good feel for what the game will be like. All they've really shown is that they can do cut scenes and a single map.
Still, what did that show?
The art style is all very cartoon: think Toy Story, just with guns. It's well presented but I feel ambivalent as I think I'd expected something a bit grittier.
There seem to be different types of soldiers with different innate strengths. For example, the Support can heal, the Assault can move far and still shoot (but if they do, they can't do it again for two turns), and the Heavy can fire a rocket launcher.
The whole equipment wrangling bit seems to have vanished. Gone the inventory grid. In fact, ammunition seemed to be indicated by the background of the current weapon (shown in the bottom right corner) slowly depleting to the left.
The base building is hinted at but isn't presented in the demo. However, I'd anticipated that I could move around the base's parts by clicking on the visuals, but that doesn't appear to be the case; instead, the base visual seems to be just a very pretty diorama, and the actual functions of the base are driven from boring old buttons.
The game feels, in demo, much less brutal than the original. In fact, you start unloaded around your Skyranger. Gone the days of being Blaster Bombed before you'd even disembarked.
Buildings can be destroyed if you've got the firepower. The aliens seem to get that straight away. Not sure how effect your guns are at that.
The action point system has been radically simplified. Basically, you get two actions a turn. You can move twice, move and setup overwatch, occasionally move and shoot, or shoot, or "dash" (which is a double move that I assume gives benefits against alien overwatch). There's some special powers, depending on your soldier's class that may also use up action points but I didn't really experiment much there, except with the Heavy's rocket launcher, which ended the mission for me.
Soldier advancement seems to be along set lines but, again, very little experience of that yet. I upgraded one Heavy once, and that game him the rocket launcher power (which seems to be once-per-mission power).
Initially it also seems like you're restricted to 4 soldiers per mission, with more unlocked with "Officer training". Even then, I'm concerned that you're restricted to six per mission, given the example I've got so far. So no flooding a mission with ten of your best and hoping it goes well...
With the base becoming more of a diorama, I suspect that base invasions are gone as well.
All in all, I'm sensing some of the spirit but not much of the complexity through variety that the original had. I feel rather like the game has been dumbed down. But, then, maybe that's the disappointly short demo...
How're you finding it?
