It seems that you’re approaching this from a perspective of an XCom fanboy. I feel that this is the same criticism people threw at Fallout 3 when it was first shown. Coming at this from the perspective of someone who’s never gotten into XCom, this actually seems like an interesting concept. Taking the conventions and replacing the strategy interface with a shooter interface seems to me to be a strange, but promising approach. I understand that fans wanted more strategy, but at some point, you have to wonder: who even cares about XCom anymore? Your comments on the graphics are misplaced, due to the fact that the game is still a year out, and they have plenty of time to render, and for my money, the art style looks pretty cool.

And as for more strategy, yeah it’s a shame that there’s a dearth of quality turn-based strategy games right now, but that’s more of a result of people having grown tired of turn-based strategy games in general. Apart from the Total War and Civ series, people have moved on. You can’t blame 2K for wanting to make a game that sells, and devoting tens of millions of dollars to making a strategy reboot of an old game series not too many people remember most likely wouldn’t make money. You think it’s a betrayal, fine. But I think more people than you would know or admit are legitimately excited for a shooter that requires thought and brainpower. I’ll hold judgment until the game ships, but for now, it’s an interesting concept, and I think it has serious potential to reignite interest in the XCom series. I’ve mentioned it before, but Fallout 3 had people frothing at the mouth because of its “betrayal”, and look at what a huge success that game turned out to be. (Not least of which it was a great product.) I really like you as a personality, and I value your opinion, but I wish that you wouldn’t spew venom at this game simply because it’s not exactly what you were expecting. That’s all.

But yeah, comparisons with Final Fantasy Tactics are garbage. :)

POINT OF CONTENTION!

Tali doesn’t have Overload!

I hope this new XCOM will be good, but I will certainly be waiting on reviews and possibly a price drop before buying. Keeping my eye on it either way though. Lots of games to anticipate!

The really sad thing about this game is that it’s actually legitimately interesting. The style of the xenos, the idea of a 50s agency fighting a interstellar war. I like it… except for the fact that it’s called XCOM. It has nothing to do with X-Com, and all they had to do, seriously, all they had to do to calm the pissed off fans, was change the name.

But nope. They stubbornly stick to keeping this name slapped on a game that has nothing similar or iconic of X-Com; now I CAN’T get it out of sheer disgust. And really, are they hoping to draw in people with the name alone? Fans of the series won’t buy it, and the mainstream gamer probably doesn’t know what X-Com is. Most people didn’t know what Fallout was, and that is a WAY bigger name then X-Com.

Folks… buy UFO: Extraterrestrials. That’s the true spiritual revival of the X-Com series. Don’t give any money to these twats.

Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who’s never played an X-Com game before: even without having that sense of betrayal it still looks pretty damn bad. Aesthetically it looks a mess, and they “improved” it by ripping off Mass Effect now instead of Bioshock. I may eat my own words come March 6, but that remains to be seen.

Nevermind the fact that’s the SAME EXACT DAY that Mass Effect 3 comes out. Actually, do mind it. This game just got royally screwed by Bioware’s delay, and I’d be surprised if 2K didn’t change the date. Maybe if they delay it more they can pull something out of their ass…

fuck this game, let’s all play xenonaunt!

I don’t really know about X-COM that much, but this does seem kinda dumb.  It would be like turning Doom 4 into an RTS.  Actually, that could potentially be kinda kick-ass…
“Chaingun squad! Flank the enemy cacodemon battalion!”

Oh god, the failure is strong with this game. They are trying to make money on a franchise that has nothing to do with what they are doing, now that’s classy. I think that they came up with the idea for this and figured out it’s going to suck, so they named it XCOM to get some attention. I hope they cancel it. I get the concept that such great titles should be rebooted to be introduced to new generations of gamers, but, as you said, why not just do a fucking remake (or hell, I think more people would buy this if they just ported the original to work on new systems). How the fuck did the even get a permission to use the title? And those squad mates sound like those fuse box repairing idiots from The Thing.

Hmm. Interesting concepts but it looks like a pretty average shooter. They could have went about this game two ways, but they decided to roll the dice and slap on an established name with a fanbase behind it, and they rolled snake-eyes.

Well, we all know “sqaud-based tactics” is developer spintalk for “chunks of your arsenal can now wander off and die,” and while I kind of like the 50′s Roswell G-men feel, this has that whole Wolfenstein vibe where you run around with a Thompson’s fighting Hitler’s Nazi Space Marines and the Elder Gods. It -sounds- fun in an RPG, but as a shooter it’s just a target range with really decorative bull’s eyes. It doesn’t get much deeper than cosmetic.

I never played much XCom but I wouldn’t play this game based on the bland and uninspired trailer. To me this game looks generic and without any aspect that could be remotly interessting. I also have to agree on your opinion about the graphics, they are beyond bad (and I didn’t think that would be possible after other games that I saw).

Everything was better when MicroProse was still around. XCOM, Civilization..

I like the gesture you made to Burton near the end. 

At least there’s a new Syndicate game… Oh.

With him getting this mad over a game, it can’t be that bad. To me that means it’s worth a try.

I’m so sorry about this atrocity Spoony, I really wish they weren’t this blind to their own target demographic, I swear that sort of thing will not fly when I enter the games industry! Also, I will never, EVER allow my reps to compare any shooter to Final Fantasy Tactics. I’ve spent too many hours playing that game to stand seeing its good name tarnished by inadequate comparisons. Any game that I develope that is mentioned in the same breath as that game will have earned that honor.

I think the game looks cool I just wish they didnt callit      x-com. They could have called it Space Invaders instead its a name recognised just as much ^^

agreed, spoonyone! the game was made with the X-COM name, but it doesn’t scream ‘X-COM’. If there’s a playable demo, I’ll check it out. But, I was hoping for a lot of the things you mentioned there. the aliens in this, at least, might make an interesting addition to the original roster of diverse X-COM species if they decide to stick with them.

“He pauses the game… and he goes into Mass Effect”
LOL

“Just like Final Fantasy Tactics”
And so, Spoony’s mind breaks and Doctor Insano is born.

Spoony, I feel the same way. X-com was one of my defining games, played just in my formative mid teens. What would be great way for you to went your frustrations would be doing a X-com Let’s play just to properly convey to those who never faced a Snakeman Terror mission what true horror is. Of course Í say this just to help your mental health, there is absolutely no selfish reason why I would want to see the awesome of Spoony doing a x-com let’s play. And besides, it was a long time since you did one anyway:D  

The thing that blows my mind is that the only people who would buy a game for being in the Xcom universe… are people who know what Xcom is! And they’ll CLEARLY see that this is nothing like the original. So…… who exactly are they marketing this to? Do they think that people who buy nothing but FPS games would give even two shits about a game by the name of Xcom?

First off, who ordered THE LARGE HAM? :-D
They way I see it, the game itself looks kinda interesting, but has nothing to do with X-COM other than some vague themes. An agency who fights an alien invasion/infestation. But it just feels so stupid that the creators keep doggedly insisting that this new XCOM is in fact an XCOM game. So dumb.

I’ll play 

I never played the original X-Com games, but I can see why you guys hate it so much. I’m not entirely impressed, if at all, by this game. Mostly to do with the art style, but also because it looks incredibly boring.

I’ll play the Devil’s advocate here and say that the only thing that really seems wrong with the game so far (I didn’t do any in-depth research – just the trailers and some BT guys calling bullshit, pretty much) is the name.
I am a fan of the original X-COM series, so much that the original three (Including Apocalypse, which I like the most. Sue me) are pretty close to “Best videogame ever made” with me, and I do agree that this has nothing in common with the series at all. Not even as a prequel or “alternate-universe” thing. It’s even less X-COM than Enforcer. Now that’s a scary thought.

It does look like a genuinely interesting game in its own right, though – again, just drop the X-COM title and everyone will be happy – I like the 50′s setting, I like the alien designs (Withdrawing my previous “If you want to write Lovecraft, write Lovecraft” objection), and the trailers give me a feeling of mystery and danger – something I haven’t felt from a videogame in quite a while.

I have to admit, the Mass Effect and the Final Fantasy Tactics things had me going “what” for a minute. That was either very stupid or deliberately provocative.

The graphics, well, eh. I don’t care. If the content’s any good, I can close my eyes to bad graphics. And they still have the better part of a year left to apply as much polish as they please.
As for the “X-COM can’t be a shooter!” sentiment, wasn’t there that X-COM Alliance thing somewhere in the beginning of last decade that didn’t get to be completed? That looked interesting.

And to end it all with some wishful thinking: they might be hiding the iconic X-COM characters up their sleeve. Remember the cameos/references they had in TFTD and Apocalypse? Maybe it’ll turn out that the Ethereal Empire is behind this invasion in the end.

Oh, right: how many successful reboots have we seen so far? Not just games, movies, too? One?

What the hell did you expect? Everything these days is a shooter! Xcom? Shooter? Fallout? Shooter. Everything these days is a freckin’ shooter.

Kristian Jiron, you don’t pre-render real-time graphics. You can’t just have a computer set to do something that will automatically make the game look better. They can update the shaders and engine, but that probably won’t fix the issue. To make graphics look better, you have to go back and re-make the art all over again, which is NOT easy or quick. And they’re too far along to remake their art at this point; that’s right, even a year isn’t enough time for that. :(

Taerdin, she does in ME1. :-P But I guess someone already implied that.

You know, I’ve never really played the original XCOM, never even heard of it until I watched the Infamous Betrayal vid of yours. I guess its a PC game and I didn’t get a PC to myself until about 2006 so I didn’t really get to play many games before that time.

I guess that factors into why I’m not as pissed off about this. I have however played FFT and this game looks nothing on the level of FFT. I may have to find an old copy of XCOM and see what all the fuss is about.

Hmm, I don’t see the big deal about it. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is a fantasy “Ego-Shooter” while Heroes of M&M is a turn based strategy game and it’s still very good. Just forget the fact that they share a name and look at the new game on its own.

“I wanna fire a blaster bomb around a fucking corner and ride up a floater’s ass!” LOL
That was the best fucking line ever! That SO made me laugh!

“You can spend xp and level-up your character’s powers, just like Final Fantasy Tactics.”
After you said that, I’m going “WHAT?… WHAAAAAAT?!…”
Like, are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?! I’ve played god damn Final Fantasy Tactics, and there’s WAY more to that game as AN ACTUAL STRATEGY GAME than what the hell this is game is about (which sounds more like a shooter with rpg elements and would have nothing to do with strategy). It’s COMPLETELY obvious those people know NOTHING about Final Fantasy Tactics. Or if they do, they’re god-fucking idiots. They would’ve made more sense comparing the “tactics” of this game to what you find in Lufia games (particularly Lufia 2), and EVEN THEN there’s more freaking strategy (or puzzles and moving  monsters anyways…)!

I’ve seen this before…….Dare I say it?

Fallout 3?

Before people rage at me, I enjoyed the game a whole lot, but it made me SO fucking disappointed that they didn’t make or will ever make a proper Fallout 1 & 2 sequel. Sure, Fallout 3 was fun, but it’s not Fallout for me unless it’s like the original games, Fallout 3 will be like….a spinoff of some sort. No not really, but you get the idea.

Also, thanks for your hard work Noah, even if you have opinions that clash against many, MANY others. You’ve got balls enough to take the heat. 

is it wrong that I’d never heard of XCOM until this video, and outside of the graphics looking like it’s a PS2 game thought trailer looked cool?

I don’t know. I’m a fan of the original and I can see this working if they kept the geoscape view in all its glory and had the FPS combat be the new battlescape. As much as I love X-COM: UFO Defense, I personally could have cared less about the battlescape (How can you miss with an assault rifle at point blank?). Most likely, this game will be just another shooter, though, as I said, a good idea might be to keep the geoscape view.

If it wasn’t called XCOM, I don’t think people would be having the same reaction. The fact that is has the XCOM name, yet is nothing like the original, speakes volumes about how little the creators cared about the XCOM games. I do not like turn-based games, at all. These guys apparently despise them so much they decided to completely screw fans over and make a FPS where aliens invade the U.S. The only thing taken from the series is the name, which may or may not be besmirched as soon as reviews of the game come out. The game better be one DAMN good FPS in order to make fans even the slightest bit happy.

you really need to lighten up
i have never played a xcom game so i cant really comment
but i think this looks good
cool setting, interesting aliens (which don’t look like transformers) and the idea to take the enemies weapons.
if you don’t like it don’t play it. its so simple. go play the old one or make a new one your self which people like to do when they are not remaking sonic
2k have a fine track record not perfect but pretty good
this xcom is going on the list

I’m going to say “yes”. Now off to Steam with you.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/7760/

Furthermore, I wouldn’t play this game even if it didn’t say “XCOM”.
The alien tech is just lazy. It looks like Star Fox. Floating rectangles that appear through portals! This is 90s crap. It’s boring and illogical, and it forcefully reminds you that you’re looking at a video game. And the aliens look like Michael Bay Transformers.

Furthermore, having the enemies warp in like that is a lazy shortcut around good AI. How can the player come up with clever tactics when enemies can drop in anywhere they please?

The true upcoming X-COM is here:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/05/10/xenonauts-dev-diary-exclusive-first-ground-combat-screens-and-walkthrough/

Review the game when it come out spoony :D

 That gonna be freaking hilarious.

Hey it’s 2K, the crowd that gave us “Putrid pile of Pale Pewk passed-off as Panzer General” while trying to call it Civ 5. Yeah they’re not worth trusting (and frankly I only posted this for the alliteration)

The sad thing is that if they had just created a new IP for it it has the potential to be a really interesting game.   Ugly graphics aside (which you kinda expect when it’s still almost a year away) a squad based shooter set in 1950′s suburbia where you play fedora wearing government agents battling an invading alien army and research their technology to upgrade your own arsenal is a pretty damn cool concept.  Give it some hammy 1950′s B-Movie title and I’d be interested.

*edit* and this is speaking as someone who when he was 13 years old bashed his way through TFTD on Superhuman. If that’s not love for X-Com I don’t know what is.

From the graphics and the gameplay, it looks like they’re partying like it’s 1999….

I have never seen Spoony’s videos before. But sir, You just got a fan!
What are they doing with XCom cannot be worded!
I wish Gollop would return and make a PC strategy game.

While I can understand Spoony I am not sure a proper Xcom game would sell today…
From the little footage I saw it seems like they are making gameplay mechanics similar to “Brothers in Arms”, the older ones, not the upcoming one since there is no current game play footage of that one.

“Brothers in Arms” tactical gameplay has its moments of fun, got it on a Steam sale, but it was no Swat 4 or StarWars Republic Commando. I will check out Xcom FPS since I am into that kind of squad games, but I too, even when I am not giving up on this game just yet, would like more stuff from the old games.I also think the fist SpoonCom:Betrayal was better than this “sequel” jk :D

When I heard “squad-based shooter” the first thing I thought of was “SWAT 4: The RPG!”

I wonder though, how is the game if you completely remove XCOM from it. Let’s say it would’ve been named “Xeno invasion”, how would the game itself stand up?

This is pretty much what I thought it’d turn into.

Fuck this shit. It might have been an interesting game on its own. But this mis-use of the XCOM brand for recognition and outright piss on the fan-base of old and new, I will not stand for.

I may have only discovered X-COM: UFO Defense due to Steam sales, but I am just as outraged by this offensive game as any old fan would be. This makes Fallout: Tactics seem like a diamond in comparison. And it had flaws. Huge flaws.

2K games is becoming fast becoming my most hated publisher XCOM, Duke Nukem Forever, their crimes are mounting.

I may not be the best qualified to talk about this subject, seeing as I have never played any of the original XCOM games, but from what I’ve seen from the trailers, it looks like an interesting game. It may not be anything like the original games but I agree with CheezeFox. If everything was the same, there wouldn’t be any mystery.The Mass Effect-esque tactics seem alright. I just hope there will be some form of splitscreen co-op. I’m willing to at least give the game a try. And to all the people who loved the original XCOM games, including Spoony, I found a game that will be coming out that looks like it would be a lot like the older XCOM games. It’s called Jagged Alliance: Back in Action. Now, it has nothing to do with aliens of any kind, but it does seem to have that same type of turn-based strategy gameplay that the older XCOM games had. I would suggest you guys check it out.

I have no idea why they stuck the X-COM name on this game. I understand that shooters are the “in” genre right now but why attach the X-COM name to this? Fans of the franchise are just going to loudly cry BETRAYAL while younger gamers probably won’t know what X-COM is so the name is meaningless to them.

And best of all, this shit’s getting released on my birthday.
Fuck, man. Boycott this cockbite of a game.

I can definitely relate to Spoony. I would outraged if someone took one of my favorite game series and fucked it up like this.

It’s just the same as if they would take an RPG like Dragon Age and made it into an hack ‘n slash action game.

…oh wait

Now you know how I felt when I saw Failout 3 for the first time….

Spoony, with the rage of ages!

I think the explanation here is that they’re aiming for a very wide audience, PC and Console, so that means: shooter. Really, the turn-based strategy game – XCom or any game of this type from the past – appeals to only a niche market. They can (try to) make a fully faithful XCom sequel, revamped for this millennium, and sell … say, a million units. Or, they can make an FPS and sell, say, two million+.

It’s no justification, just an explanation. Personally, I think I’ll play this ‘FPS abomination’… I dig the 1950′s setting. I loved the original XCom games but those are behind me now, existing in the past, in a special place in my heart. Really, I’d rather have them make a halfway entertaining shooter out of the property than risk them making a really bad turn-based revamp (or the project getting cancelled by some fatcat publisher who thinks it won’t sell).

Yeah, that aspect of the Sectopod was really annoying, because by then you’ve sold off all of your laser weaponry. You might have a laser tank, but at that stage, you probably want a hovertank for the maneuverability.

As for Plasma, you never have to actually make them yourself since the aliens are liable to supply you with more weapons and clips than you could ever possibly need. They’re exclusively using Heavy Plasma around the transition to late-game too, so it’s really no worries at that point. If there’s an alien base nearby, you can run in, kill most of the aliens, steal weapons and Elerium, then run off to the entrance and dust off. You generally don’t have to worry about the ones in the upper part of the command area because they almost never leave, but if you have psi troops you can just disarm an alien soldier and stuff them someplace where they can’t get shot while you’re looting.

This review kind of reminded me of AVGN’s original “dr jeckyl and mr hyde” review. LOL

Ok. I don’t play XCOM. I want to because I’ve heard other people say some good things about it, but I’ve never played it. So I can’t really get the whole ‘Betrayal’ feeling. However, I know the difference between a Strategy game and a Shooter game. Even if you don’t know the history behind a franchise, you know there is a history there. To take all that history of the XCOM universe right down to the genre, and shove it into a garbage disposal is just asking for fans to be up in arms about it. “In Name Only” NEVER works.

So sending this to my brother. He’s a huge XCom fan and when I told him about what they did.. his reaction was so much like the “BETRAYAL!!” it was scary. I was never big on XCom, but even I’m ill at the route they’ve gone. They didn’t do anything new with this and instead just jumped on the popular bandwagon while sacrificing what made it special to begin with.

Can’t wait to get an Ultima shooter.

What’s up with the blasphemy with some of these companies turning games that’s something else into shooters?  They did the same shit with Shadowrun and bombed HARD!!!!

Xcom was before my time and I have never been a big strategy fan, so I can unfortunately not speak to what really enraged you, Spoony One. But I can say, with complete certainty, that this obsession with cramming elements from RPGs, Platformers, Survival Horror games, and every other genre into FPSs, must stop.  If you want to make an FPS, make an FPS, and leave the other genres to people who care about them.

if the word hate was engraved on each nanoangstrom of spoony’s muscle fibers it would not equal one one billionth of the hate he feels for the game at this micro-instant. HATE.

The sad thing is that if this game did not carry the XCOM name, Spoony would just call it a crappy shooter with intriguing alien enemies and be on his merry way. Unfortunately, the fact that the developers are insisting that this game is XCOM is what is sending him into his fit of rage. The same problem exists in many forms–nowadays unfortunately it mainly crops up in movies that are licensed from other sources. Movies or TV shows where they take the basic premise of the original and come up with a completely different and un-unique story around it. The example I use as the highest offender(I’ve personally seen) in this regard is the Resident Evil series of movies. You can change the titles and the movies won’t be any different because they don’t have an egging thing to do with the source material. And that is Spoony’s point. This game has taken the premise of XCOM’s story–government agency fighting aliens–and made up carp. It’s like they wanted to make a period alien shooter but were contractually bound to making an XCOM game. So they slapped the title onto the half-assed game they were developing.
It’s really a shame, because in my mind I can see the game that Spoony wants. I can see a strategy game with great gameplay and graphics that is both challenging and fun to play. A game with a perfect mixture of classic aliens and new technology/weapons to use. Perhaps with a genius new mechanic added to the gameplay to increase the overall experience. Maybe one day it will come, but for now I agree with Spoony on this. Don’t be taken in with the flashy death ray–there are much better period alien games (like Destroy All Humans) that you can get your wanton destruction fix with. I only pray that the game’s release comes soon to spare Spoony any further torment.

Complex controls? Bitch, you move your troops around and make them shoot at shit. How fucking complex is that?

And there you have it, the state of video games, que melodrama. Everything that isn’t a shooter must become more like a shooter, if not a straight up shooter. But what they’ve done to X-COM isn’t some freshly cut wound for me, its more like picking at a scab after Fallout 3, or others besides. 

I know people love to give Fallout 3 a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card, but its no better than people giving this game a write-off for its sins. If you like it, fine, but don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. The problem is everything GOD DAMN thing has to be more and more like a shooter these days. That seems to be the “solution” to every game that wasn’t a shooter, but it isn’t a solution. It’s like having arthritis in your hand and just chopping it off and replacing it with a hook. 

There USE to be a healthy balance, there were fast-paced games and there were tactical/strategic games, and it was fine. But ever year the place you will see all the money getting pumped into are fast-pace, action games. People wonder why some of us who liked older RPGs or tactical games rage so often over the industry and its quite simply because THERE’S FUCKING NOTHING LEFT of what we like. Everything that hasn’t become some bastardized action hybrid will almost certainly become one. One of the last games to even try to serve up less twitchoid gameplay was Dragon Age: Origins, and they decided that DA 2 needed more “action”. Hell in the next decade I wouldn’t be surprised to see the main C&C series kanoodling with some sort of hybrid FPS mechanic that will sweep the entire strategy genre. I mean why not? It quite clear that anyone who doesn’t like to play only shooters is irreverent to the industry.   

And you know what? While we’re at it fuck Chess, nobody likes taking turns. And trying to plan a strategy for 16 pieces is just boring. Make the player one of the pawns and give him a fucking uzi and let him go to town on those 8 other candy-ass pawns. Will we make anymore regular Chess games after that? No, because that was the outdated version, this is the evolution of chess, dontcha know.

And I don’t hate action games or shooters or whatever you want to call them (at least not good ones), but it’s like eating spaghetti for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, every year, every decade. You just get sick of it.

When did Spoony turn into a Renfield impersonator fighting percoset withdrawl ? This is sad. People make bad games sometimes and IP’s get renovated. Considering that the X-Com IP has been laying around except for a few unsuccessful attempts to make an Unreal engine first person shooter and a flight sim I think it’s LUCKY that the worst we have to deal with is an ‘X-files + Men in Black + Torchwood conglomerate set in a cornball 1960′s with Mass Effect controls. this COULD have been a Facebook click for $ game like happened to Evil Genius and Dungeon Keeper. Sectoids are just Greys these days and flying around in a recovered technology troop carrier/fighter that looks a whole lot like the Gallileo shuttle from TOS is not going to fly. I think we should let it officially suck before throwing a fit. 

This isn’t evolution. I’ve seen evolution in game design. This is mutation. Heading sideways, turning one thing into another. No innovation on show, in plot or game design. As is, it appears to be a pretty simplistic shooter, with a simplistic alien invasion plot, that no one’s going to get invested in, and no one, bar the fans of the original, is going to remember.

I’m a fan of innovation; I like action orientated games, alongside strategic ones. C&C3 is one of my all time favourite games, and I really like the way combat’s handled in Dragon Age 2. AFAICT, I’m at least part of the targeted fanbase for this one. But this… this is completely worthless! It makes me mildly ashamed to like those other games, just because they claim the same thing. Only difference is, those two stuck to the baseline, they kept the core of their original games, simply streamlining it and making it flow faster. This….

Betrayal isn’t strong enough. I’ve not even played the original games, but this is anathema to me as a gamer Worthless, pointless, and a complete waste of everyone’s time and money

*sigh* I’ve got to hunt down the original X-Com. It can’t be this bad.

I’ve never played X-Com before…but I smell new series! After Ultima, X-Com Terror from the Deep and so on! Only Spoony can really ramp up the interest in a noob like me to the original.

I totally feel for you Spoony :( I sometimes feel like creative part of gaming industry is going down, that only remakes and few others are barely carrying the light that was set by games 20 years ago (or 30 years ago if you may :P). I had the same shock of the feeling when counter-strike rip off of a game came out baring the name of  RPG franchise of Shadowrun.

Do we really need to turn every good ol’ franchise into something that XBOX generation kids (no offense) can appreciate so they can ooze some money out of it? I mean seriously who is even gonna buy this? And we already had XCOM fps based game ”X-COM: Enforce” and we all know how that went… So this strange FPS with TACTICAL RPG elements will be liked by… minority of people? Any hardcore XCOM fans will probably download a demo or get it at bargain bin when it becomes cheaper.

So if they even wanted to appraise the young gamer crowd, they still got better choices than this! Exactly how many Alien-invasion FPS we had these few years, like a TON! and… How many great turn-based strategy games revolving around the same idea? Well we had the crappy spin-offs like those UFO: Aftermath and the rest… I saw better FAN-MADE mods and even games which bring back the feel of the XCOM better than this FPS!

It is a really sad event indeed. I am a classic gamer at most and I always try to re-introduce these old game gems like XCOM, M.A.X., Dungeon Keeper and many others to my next-generation player friends and I often brainstorm how awesome it would be if they made this or that game with next-generation graphics, upped the game-play a bit and added more content and we could enjoy awesome games on modern systems without the need of back door like DosBOX! I mean exactly Spoony’s words, HOW HARD IT CAN BE?!

F*ck em…

They think that all gamers these days have the attention span of a lightening bolt. The solution to every great sequel is to just turn it into a fucking first person shooter where they cover the player in in so much nerf foam that they could pass for a king sized mattress.

It’s insulting to see such X-Com switch genres like this. Why change the formula like that? What was wrong with the old one?

How do they thing gamers would react by doing the same to say…. Suikoden or Fallouuuu—- oh god! *sob*

I’m starting to think of just sending a letter to 2K saying “Change the damn name!” No one wants to apparently pollute the name of a game that has not been relevant for 14 years. So fine let the name stagnate for 14 more for all anyone cares.

Can’t be worse than “X-COM: Enforcer” and all the Czech crap that came after “X-COM: Apocalypse” (except for “Afterlight” which was pretty good, but lacked a lot of elements to make it a superb game). If it doesn’t have base management and an interactive global map it’s not “X-COM”, period. I’ll check it out though: might get close to the unreleased “X-COM: Alliance” (was supposed to be a fusion between “X-COM” and “Rainbow Six”).

If you’re a fan of “X-COM” you should certainly check “Frozen Synapse” out. I think it’s better than “X-COM”, even though one might argue they’re in different genres. ”Frozen Synapse” is pretty much a reimagining of chess.

Just like Final Fantasy Tactics??? I love FFT. It’s one of my favorite games of all time. Judge what you want on that, but that’s my opinion…. Still, how old is FFT? Seriously. They’re bringing themselves up to date in innovations while thinking the date is in early 1998.

Actually, that might explain X-COM’s graphics right there. It looks on par with Half-Life 1.

If it will make everyone feel better, maybe we should just refer to this game as X-Effect or MassCom. Any preferences as to which?

And in regards to those still bitching about his Zelda reviews: evolution =/= changing to something completely random. At least RPGs and adventure games are related. And I have to wonder if this gave was actually initially conceived as an X-COM game or if they decided just to slap the name on it midway during development.

So… any reason they’re keeping the name “XCOM”, and not just the subtext “Inspired by XCOM”?

So hes saying Tactics was a good game right? i had mixed signals coming from the raging Spoon

Giving it some thought, actually, I think if they had put sectoids, snake men, and the monsters from the older games in (and left in the new ones too, as they are pretty freaky and cool) that would have been fine with me. It is mostly the unrecognizable aspect of it that bugs me as it seems to bug most people. Even if it wasn’t a turn based strategy game, having something reminiscent of the monsters and things from old would have been cool.

If you are gonna reinvent a whole game, Fallout franchise is a good example of how you do it right. Still feels like Fallout despite the drastic change in gameplay elements.

Look, a lot of you seem to be missing the scope of the betrayal here, so I’ll create a metaphor to help you understand.
Let’s say you bought a new CD titled Michael Jackson’s Greatest Hits (you may substitute another classic artist if you prefer). On the cover it lists the top songs the CD include: Beat It, Smooth Criminal, what have you. So you get home, pop it into your stereo, hit play and scroll through the tracks only to hear…Nickelback? Justin Bieber? Lady Gaga? Various popular eastern European techno artists? What the hell, no Michael to be found though some of the songs sound vaguely like his. You take a closer look at the cover and see that it in fact states that Jackson’s old songs were modernized to keep in line with what’s popular and these artists had limitless creative license to do as they pleased, and weren’t even under obligation to remix or cover Michael Jackson songs, but could toss whatever the fuck they wanted onto the CD if they felt like it.
That is a little bit like what XCOM feels like to people who played and loved the original.

It looks like an alright game, but they should have given it an original name.

Okay, should have watched to the end. Apparently, it’s not even really the X-COM universe  :)

I have never SEEN X-Com, let alone played it (It’s on Steam so perhaps someone can suggest a good one to start with. I enjoy TBS but I HATE RTS’s) but here is my idea for a new X-Com game:

You have the Overhead format (as I have not seen X-Com, I am picturing an RTS-like setup). You send your squads and attack the enemy. If things get hairy and tough-and-go, you can click a single character and zoom down into an FPS-like view. Maybe Third-Person Shooter instead, and use that characters gear and abilities to fight the aliens until he dies or you win the fight.

When you pause, you can issue commands in the Overhead format to be carried out by your teammates when unpaused but if your Carrier dies, you revert back to Overhead and cannot take over someone else for a small amount of time.

The Story would be that alien tech was found that allows a being to hook up to a computer and see battles from an omnicent view, and even take over people using tech set to the same frequency, but an unforseen problem arises when used; the user starts to loose his sense of self. He keeps the memories of those he takes over, their personalities all clash in his head, the last moments of those he dies as and thousands of lives being bullied in school, robbing stores before joining X-Com, etc.

It’s still not X-Com the TBS game..but it’s an evolution and an idea scraped up in…5 minutes. What do you all think? :P

Wow. Really? Look, I love ya man. You’re opinion is always usually correct. And there have been times where I disagree with you. This is one of those times. I honestly think you are blowing this whole thing WAY out of proportion. 

Now I understand why you are pissed, really I do. I refuse to play Metal Gear Solid Ac!d because you don’t fucking play MGS game as a turn based card battler. But whatever.But coming from a guy whose never played an XCOM game and whose never even heard of XCOM I can honestly say this doesn’t look that bad. Yes, the graphics don’t look good. Crap or last gen are good words to describe them. But in all honesty it looks like a fun game. 

Now I’m going to bet that from the large list of aliens you gave that the original games were quite lengthy. Now from what I’ve seen they’ve only shown two, that black goop and the polygon things. Whose not to say that the aliens you listed off won’t show up in the game when it’s released. Hell I could this being a great opportunity some kick ass DLC. 

All I’m saying is that coming from a person whose never experienced the XCOM games, this looks like it could be interesting. Hell it may even get me interested in buying the original games off of steam.

Burn it!!!!!!!!! Kill it with Fire now!

Ive played games since the 80s, hell I even played Asteroids when that game was state of the art for Atari. My peak playing days was in the 90 and early 2000s too, and back then X-Com Terrors from the Deep was my favorite game of all time.

Now its 2011, I still game regularly and try out most new games for PC. And here’s the kicker. My fav game of all time is STILL X-Com TFTD! Hailing from a gaming era where micromanagement, playability and re-playability was focus and not the streamlined play itself-Final Fantasy-auto-combat-shit and redneck alien duckhunt-shooters they rehash and regurgitate on the market these days. Modern day gaming just has no appeal to me.

They are an extended features with plot and characters where you play the protagonist winding up with the chick at the final credits, and no matter how many times u play it over(!), its not gonna make any difference for the outcome or actually be what you call replayable. All I can think is, why isn’t this a MOVIE?! in Spoony terms; modern gaming is FMV Hell with updated graphics, its just the audiences are too stupid realizing they are trapped in one! Much like some teenage girls thinks their taste in music, aka all that is Justin Bieber, is epic.., so are the regular young gamer today blinded by the market. I feel for you. But if you haven’t realized this, sit down please. (If u haven’t, why would you be standing around reading internet comments? Are your commute really this late?)

You’ll feel extremely embarressed about what Im about to tell you. You are to the gaming industry what teenage girls are to Justin Bieber. The easiest mark for exploitation they’ve ever met! For the love of God, man. Swallow the red pill and free yourself of the liquid corporate pod you are in!

So back to me…
A new X-Com game is my personal salvation from this void agony that is todays gaming market.
A new X-Com game would be the Messiah to combat the world of CORPORATE!
A new X-Com game has the potential to revitalize a dead era and genre.
A new X-com game is the remake of my childhoods Mario, TMNT, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Battlefield, HALO, Call of Duty, “insert franchise you love”…

And I get this?! This monstrosity, this abomination, this atrocity?! BETRAYAL I say, BETRAYAL!

And for anyone never having played X-Com back in its day, for anyone too young to experience this dagger in the back to veteran gamers; Let me draw up the the most clear picture I can think of; the ultimate rebuttle to any positive angle u wanna spin this in;

Take your favorite game of this decade, then let the gaming world piss on your style of gaming for 20 years until they announce in 2031 they gonna re-make the classic from 2011. Just now its everything you hate, every genre gimmick you deslike, every disgusting decayed part of rotten gaming you’ve grown to despise… And they’ve JUST SLAPPED THE NAME of the most beloved game you ever played as a teenager on it.

“insert dumbfounded enraged Spoony-face of utter disbelief and betrayal here”

So Damn them. Damn them all to hell and back. This is nothing short of Star Wars’ George Lucas sodomizing your childhood with the prequels all over again.

Shooter Game – The purpose of a shooter game is to shoot opponents and proceed through missions without the player character dying.

Roleplaying Game – The purpose of a Role-Playing game is to engross the player/players into the story and character development.

Game Makers: STOP MAKING SHOOTER GAMES THAT INVOLVE POINT SYSTEMS AND SKILL UPGRADES!!! IT DOES NOT WORK!

Does anyone else see a heavy dose of Gurren Laggan in the alien tech?

actually  dude, this is exactly what i wanted, FPS FTW. u are entitled to your own views but come on, this is the future, besides if u want to play the old style play UFO ONLINE.

 Spoony, you should try Valcuria Chronicles on PS3. Just try and look past the anime motif. You know, maybe it’s just because of my general attitude toward “re-imaginings”. I like both the new and old Battle Star shows, but for very different reasons and they don’t share a strong connection to one and other. Also, if the new show had sucked, it wouldn’t have spoiled my love for the older show. So when I heard XCom was going to be a shooter I wasn’t going to dismiss it out of hand. You seem to be giving it a VARY hard time, not really because it deserves it but rather because they used the XCom name. Unless I’m missing something hand you HAVE actually played the game. Once the game comes out, I’ll get a demo and if it sucks I’ll ignor it. Also, I’m wondering if you’d have been more excepting if it had been a sort of SWAT tactical shooter style.

I think Spoony needs to move on. I love the old X:COM, he loves the old X:COM, but why not give this new game a shot? The fruitless, No Mutants Allowed-style fury over the fact that it’s a different kind of game is getting nowhere, and hey- maybe this new one will be good! Sure, it’s not X:COM, but it could be a cool RPG/shooter with a neat art style. I would like nothing more than a new tactical X:COM, but I think all of us neckbeards gotta stop writing off these new games since they share the same name.

They done broke Spoony’s brains!  Quick give him an IV of Ultima set on a continuous drip and somebody get Reb Brown on the TV stat!

I was more excited about this game when it sounded and looked like a Bioshock rip-off with aliens.

Just out of curiosity, were any of the later X-Com games any good? I played UFO: Enemy Unknown / X-Com UFO Defense a lot, and really loved it. I couldn’t really get into TFTD so much (felt like the same stuff… but under water!), and then I tried Apocalypse. Apocalypse just bewildered me so much that I floundered on every mission and wound up quitting (I couldn’t get my head around all the choices you got in the vehicle buying / outfitting section, or the base building stuff).

Were those two, or any of the ones that followed, any good?

I absolutely love watching how angry you get, it’s positively hilarious.

That being said, I will not buy this new X-Com. I never played the old ones (probably should), but just on the principal of the matter I do not agree with the new X-Com. It is blatantly obvious with this game (and with any game that makes such a dramatic genre change) that the developers are trying to cash in on the current trend of FPS games. And the pathetic thing is, it won’t even succeed in being a cash-in. It’s going up against heavy competition, namely the Call of Duty and Halo franchises. They would have stood a better chance of making a good, popular title by appealing to old fans. Doing it this way, their mediocre Mass Effect clone is going to be lost in a sea of FPS games.

And to compare this to Final Fantasy Tactics is both ludicrous and insulting. Tactics was an amazing (if somewhat basic) strategy game in its own right. To say a mediocre first person shooter with halfassed leveling up elements is on par with a legitimate strategy game is nothing short of idiotic.

Spoony man I feel your pain man. It’s like the only RTS or TBSGs out there is either Civ or Total War.

Starcraft II totally BOMBED. Dawn of War turned into an RPG, Warcraft turned into an MMORPG (which I hate). No word yet from Sins of a Solar Empire for sequel or an expansion.

The industry is determined to churn out all these goddamn shooters and MMOs. Literally no new  Strategy games are in the works! No next gen fantasy RTS, or anything! I am so fucking pissed off about it!

Maybe it’s just me, but I have never really bought the ‘ruined forever!’ bit in games.  Metroid: other M didn’t taint the rest of the metroid games, and just because this has been made into fps form doesn’t mean that we are all doomed.  Yes, I realize it won’t be anything like the originals, and it probably won’t be good, but I think somewhere along the li,ne people forgot their priorities. 

You’re killing yourself with this spoony, please calm down, part of the reason I like this site is because you were the coolest even at your angriest before.

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/renamexcom

not sure if this has been posted yet…

So biased. For once I don’t think I’ll even consider his word.

Enjoyable regardless.

I never knew about XCOM until I saw this review (please don’t hate) and your review made me want to reseach the game; and I must say I do agree with Spoony, It really pulls away from what XCOM was into something…completely different…NOW, if this game had a different title, then it could pass as a fairly good game…but it dose not… ¬_¬ Spoony has every right to be bias and mad, for any fan that loves a games/movies/books certain expectations need to be met…why COMPLETELY change the game??? That to me shows no respect to the game and especially the fans.

So you guys think it’s never okay to make significant changes to the method of interaction in a game series? You don’t think there are any exceptions to this?

Also, the comparison to FF Tactics could’ve been completely reasonable. Did he say it was comparable in tactical depth or detail or even quality? I expect he was just saying that they were similar *in that* you had characters that could level up and which had various abilities that could be applied tactically. That may be a strange comparison, but it’s entirely accurate.

Also also, it’s not “biased” in any meaningful sense to have likes and dislikes. Bias becomes an issue when you start having a double standard (e.g., saying that a reboot of X-Com is a betrayal while recommending a reboot of Zelda).

I loved X-Com, but I do not live in the early 90s.

Today Computer Games are a mass product and not anymore for techy kids with wealthy parents. Every idiot has a Playstation so expensive games are produced for this every idiot.

Most people love doing the same thing over and over again to avoid reflection and Call Of Duty part 924 is their game, like the 924 parts before that.

Please stop complaining, because we created this market by buying their games and expanding their production values.

So please get over it.

 That trailer seems interesting. I’m not a fan or have ever heard of the original XCOM but look at this game as something unrelated and the designs seem pretty cool. It’s like someone took the look of old games like space invaders, and made a serious game about them but it still has that simple look.

I have to agree with Spoony, all I gotta say, if it’s not going to be an XCOM game, then don’t fucking call it XCOM!

If they wanted to make this game, fine, make it, just call it something else!

Now, I have to agree with Spoony, and I know this is rather late in coming.

I am not impressed with the new X-com…but at least I found something that might be as good.

A small indie developer called Goldhawk Interactive is doing a version of the game called Xenonauts, and are attempting to recreate X-Com as best they can with updated graphics and what not.

They are small, and this is a labor of love for the group as most of them work regular jobs on top of working on the game. So, this might actually be a worthwhile alternative/successor to the joke of a game that has the X-Com name on it.

Check it out here: http://www.xenonauts.com/

The more pre-orders they get, the more they can do…fingers crossed that its a decent game.

And no, I’m not part of the development team. :D

Just my input on it.

Honestly, imagine if they bought the rights to the “Destroy all humans” franchise and slapped that name on it. It would be a fantastic change of pace for that game because basically, DAH is all about destruction and shooting. 

XCOM is more like Starcraft. It’s like going from chess to ‘Go fish’ and calling it the same. Everyone would say that ‘Checkers’ would have been a more logical step right??

Now, I have never played the X-Com series so I don’t share your feelings about the game. In that respect, I can’t even call it a betrayal. However, I can say that my initial impressions about the game are rather mixed. I do like the design of the aliens and their technology. It’s very Lovecraftian and definitely seems more inspired than generic. I kinda like the setting; 1950′s Midwest is overdone but it isn’t bad. Hopefully they can bring out a solid story and relateable characters; if not this game will end up sucking. Everything else though is either average or bad. I do not think this will do very well and here’s why: timing. XCOM will be released around the same time as Mass Effect 3, and everyone, including myself, will gravitate towards ME3 more. If Spoony is right, then why should we spend the money on a Mass Effect clone when we can buy the genuine article at the same time? Not to mention that the PS Vita will be released in the Spring as well and you know that most people will save their money for the system, the games that will release with it, and all of the accessories. This wouldn’t have been the first time timing would completely crush a game’s sales. For example, Star Wars The Force Unleashed II was released last year in November, but at the same time as Call of Duty Black Ops and a week before Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. Needless to say, everyone bought both Black Ops and Assassin’s Creed, but they completely overshadowed The Force Unleashed II. I’m predicting that Mass Effect 3 and the release of the PS Vita will end up being a huge headache sales wise for XCOM.

Although Iv never even heard of Xcom, I think I understand Spoony’s pain. Try putting yourself in his shoes: My favorite game series is the Mario games. If they turned it into a first person shooter with blood and shit, I would be fucking pissed! Whats yours? Modern Warfare or something? What if they turned that into a puzzle game or a dance game? While were on the topic, I dont find WoW to be as entertaining as Warcraft 3, but at least it was based on the games and lore that preceeded it. If what iv heard is true, they might as well call this “Star Wars” and it would make about as much sense as calling it Xcom since it has nothing to do with the games that preceeded it.
Not only that… but this honestly does look like a Mass Effect clone with a different setting. If I want to play Mass Effect, ill play Mass Effect >_> im not getting this game, im sure theres gonna be better things to spend $50 on.

I think Yatzhee summarized what’s said here quite well: XCOM! Which now isn’t set in the near future and isn’t turn-based, so it could have called itself “Custard Pie Fights with Christopher Walken”, and that would have been equally relevant.

This game sounds like the aborted child of Mass Effect and Resistance.

I’m not touching this new… “X-COM” as they call it… not until they make an ACTUAL NEW X-COM GAME!!! You know? Like the first 3?

Here are 3 screenshots of the Firaxis’ new X-COM: Enemy Unknown

http://images.idgentertainment.de/images/idgwpgsgp/bdb/2276105/bigimage.jpg 

http://images.idgentertainment.de/images/idgwpgsgp/bdb/2276104/bigimage.jpg 

http://images.idgentertainment.de/images/idgwpgsgp/bdb/2276106/bigimage.jpg 

It’s looking up so far! Spoony should make a vlog about his thought about this.

I’m sorry but where is the betrayal? Admittedly I have not played the first XCOM games. I’ve tried mind you, but my dosbox goes into like meth mode at 1200X normal game play. But I have not heard a SINGLE thing about the original two, all I hear is “How dare they make it an FPS”. I tend to not like FPS games either, They seem to be dumb down and simply made with flare for the newer generation of gamer who just want to blow things up. But hating it before its released because its an FPS? There was another great game that became an FPS not too long ago, Fallout 3. Now it was a hybrid of rpg and FPS sure, But it was great! I didn’t play fallout either back then (Didn’t play computer games as a kid, I didn’t have one and was on Nintendo and what not) but I have played it now, and loved it too. Maybe XCOM will get new school gamers to play those old school classics.

Don’t you all think your jumping a little fast? Once it comes out I’ll be glad to hear the hate, hell I may agree with you! I just feel like you may be hating it for the wrong reason.