The Spoony Experiment - Because bad movies and games deserve to be hurt back!

http://twitter.com/DuneBlythe Dune Blythe

Loved this review, you were pretty good in it.

http://www.facebook.com/darek.litawor Darek Litawor

I just knew that you’ll be on this review, but didn’t think that it’ll be soooo good, excellent work guys!

http://www.facebook.com/people/Andreas-Tornqvist/605088298 Andreas Törnqvist

I had gotten the impression that TGWTG-sponsors couldn’t have crossovers with Spoony but I’m happy to see that was not the case.

Jayden Reynolds

According to Spoony in his To Boldly Flee commentary, he is perfectly allowed to crossover with TGWTG characters that want to crossover with him. Hence, the ones he is legitimately friends with (Linkara, Brad, Joe, Diamanda [it seems]) are probably going to occasionally see him in future videos.
- ORCACommander
  
  watch the recent xcom live broadcast. he names all his soldiers except one after them
  - MiniMacker
    
    Recent XCOM live broadcast? Where?
    - ORCACommander
      
      http://www.twitch.tv/spoonyone/b/335550688
      
      hope you have 4 hours
  - Garmrspor
    
    Thank you so much for this comment! After playing the demo 5-6 days ago, I was itching to hear Spoony’s thoughts on the game in some form, and I checked his website for anything related and then his twitch channel to see if he had broadcast it, which he obviously had not. Then yesterday I came on here again, and I saw this video. But fucking of course it wasn’t a Spoony one, and in my disappointment I visited this comment section with the intention to whine about it. Then I saw your comment, and bam, instant excitement. (Alas, I couldn’t watch it on my cellphone last night. But I’m about to check it out now.) If it wasn’t for you, who knows how long it would take me to realize?
    - ORCACommander
      
      your welcome and i am sorry to say you missed another live broadcast a couple hours ago.
    - Garmrspor
      
      Ah, that’s no problem. I don’t much care whether or not I see it live.

http://twitter.com/LazarheaD Lazar Gruev

I knew you will get onboard with this review. NONBETRAYAAAAAAAAAAL!

magnusk_98

Damn, “Italian Mafioso Spoony” is a scary mofo.

Excellent review. I kinda guess Spoony himself will be a bit less enthusiastic, given his gameplay lifestream. ^^

godmars

Happen to have a link?

Though it does feel like a bit of a cop-out Spoony not doing his own review of the game.

Video blog perhaps?
- ORCACommander
  
  http://www.twitch.tv/spoonyone/b/335550688 if you have a spare four and a half hours
- magnusk_98
  
  Link already shared by ORCACommander. Spoony already has recorded his own review and will put it on the website in a few days, according to his Twitter feed.
http://twitter.com/Das_Bass Das_Bass

on twitter he said he liked the PC version, but hated the 360 one. RTS and TBS seem to not work well on the 360.
- http://twitter.com/TheHighC jakedizzle
  
  I’m quite enjoying it on the PS3. TBS works very well on a console for this game. Considering it was designed with consoles in mind.

http://projectkork.blogspot.com DerKork

Okay, who gave Terl’s ship an upgrade? Last time we saw that virtual set, it had static screens and now they got animations running… (Not necessarily the greatest ones, but at least animations.)

Aside from that, Spoony’s got acting chops.
Regarding Spoony’s view on it, I can only say the following: Benzaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee…. you died to protect your home country – germany. :-)

karikaze

Angry Joe Show always had some awesome backgrounds and effects, like insanely good. Last time Joe even had CGI Dredd 3D helmet and it looked good.

http://sbkmulletman.deviantart.com/ sbkMulletMan

Now I want to see a Terl and Corporate Commander team-up. Although I don’t know if there could ever be enough scenery for both of them to chew.

Chris Demas

Greatest team-up ever!
CronoT

If General Zod and Spoony Terl can be in the same room without reality imploding, I’m sure we could cram Corporate Commander and Spoony Terl in there somehow.. Maybe Dr. Insano could lend them an Anti-Hypertime Stabilizer.
- Pétur Ingi Sigbjörnsson
  
  Didn’t reality implode in To Boldly Flee?

Malidictus

Frankly, the game left me cold. It’s good, make no mistake, and it fixes a lot of the heedlessly annoying problems with the original UFO: Enemy Unknown, but it brings a whole host of its own problems at the same time. Repetitive maps, far too many forests, ridiculously restrictive alien ship interiors and that fucking Mass Effect 3 ending add up to an experience that’s as frustrating as it is entertaining. And that’s not “frustrating” in a good way, in the sense that it’s challenging. Sadly, XCOM is just annoying as often as it’s fun.

Bizarrely, what I miss the most is the extended tech tree from UFO: Extraterrestrials. Sure, that had the standard guns -> lasers -> plasma progression, but it also went on to include the bizarrely-named AKEW -> EEW -> Particle -> Ion, making for a much longer game. XCOM feels like it’s going somewhere big, but then it just ends. Technologies dry up, enemy types dry up and all that’s left is either experience-grinding for the soldiers or money-grinding for technology. With no upgrades to the troop transport, a single upgrade to the interceptors and all of… What, three weapons for them? This is a game that’s a bit too big for its limited content.

I’d have given it a 7 or an 8, myself. It does replicate X-COM from 1994, but its sequels since did add things that could have been included. Where were the ship terror missions? Where were the melee weapons? Where’s the ability to gang up multiple jets on the same UFO? It’s a very good game, but also a very frustrating game. Hope for DLCs, I guess.

marabackman

I’ve always liked the dynamic between you two in crossovers. Glad to see another one :)

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jordan-Staley/100000236712805 Jordan Staley

Awesome. I knew it was coming, but didn’t suspect a crossover. Made my day.

Guus van Voorst

I see you are satisfied by this game, Spoony… Concerning no new rants were present in this review… ;-)

http://www.facebook.com/sven.liebe.3 Sven Liebe

I kinda played through the game the day it was released here in Germany on classic difficulty and iron man mode while only losing a single soldier. What do I do now?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Sulkowski/1063430223 Mary Sulkowski

Contact Guiness World Records?

Pyro Raven

Wow good review, and dark councilmen spoony was kinda cool

Merost

For fucks sake Spoony – Your fans are screaming for an Xcom Lets Play – And you do it – BUT HIDDEN ON TWITCH.TV! Why? http://en.twitch.tv/spoonyone/

At least give a message + link.

PeaTearGryfin

According to his Twitter feed, he is recording a vlog about the game tonight. I imagine that will be in place of the twitch video.
http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/cornbredx/ CornBRED-X

He played the original XCom on Twitch TV a while ago now.
Edit: Oh I see he did the new one recently. Ha.

http://www.facebook.com/dreweharding Drew Harding

Glad to see that people at TGWTG are still willing to do crossovers. :D

http://twitter.com/dmh3000 David Herbert

They had this at the EB Games expo in Sydney and I had fun on the demo. I like it as a change of pace since I’m not too big on FPS titles. Did agree with Joe on wanting free-targeting but maybe next time.

http://www.facebook.com/lennetambi.shuyin Lennetambi Shuyin

well spoony, now you really got me, slicked back hair, mustachio, god I love you dearly….with out being your number 1 fan of course.

http://www.facebook.com/people/James-Cotton/1626430495 James Cotton

Council Member Spoony is accidentally terrifying.

ORCACommander

I thought it was hilarious up the ass.
- http://twitter.com/StefaNonsense Stefan Eremia
  
  Yes, the butt.
  - Kendotuxedo
    
    This council has spoken…
Salen Stormwing

Is it bad I want to see Spoony review something where he can have Council Member Spoony return? But I doubt he’d want to review X-Files. Must be something else he could review. Hmm.

http://twitter.com/anceldelambert Aaron Kerr

Dance, Other Joe, dance!

Rothide

I kinda wish the fans wouldn’t get so rabid about different Ideas, I was looking forward to the FPS but now its being changed so much I don’t even want to play it. Thanks guys, some of us liked the idea of that precursor story, but no, anything that doesn’t fall into tight rigid ‘canon’ is considered awful.

Merost

Doesnt the FPS in the 50ties still exist? Thats a different game right?
- Renaissance_nerd
  
  it’s in development limbo at the moment.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Black/100000380573698 Steven Black
    
    Yeah the same development limbo that happened to Starcraft: Ghost (not an RTS, but an FPS, much like X-com going from turn-based strategy to an FPS). My god that would have been sweet to have been Kerrigan or Nova running around kicking ass as a Ghost with a whole suite of guns and psychic powers. Heck I’d even take this game as Starcraft: Spectre. Storyline: Tosh’s quest for personal vengeance against Mengsk goes into overdrive as he and his spectres infiltrate Korhal with the intention of finally eliminating Mengsk, with ghosts trying to counter it (maybe even Nova shows up as a major antagonist). From the other perspective, you could have it as a plot of Nova trying to hunt down Tosh, depending on which result in Wings of Liberty was canon. I think a FPS is rather run of the mill territory, but the X-com game or Starcraft: Ghost could have rivaled Halo in terms of interest. Psychic powers allowing for awesome moments. Multiple weapons to steal. X-com having the alien weapons to steal and use. How about the ghosts stealing various Terran weapons or even Protoss weapons for use beyond their high powered sniper rifle. Or even a needle weapon based on hydralisk attacks as a prototype that could reload from killing hydralisks and cannibalizing the needles. As well as other conceptual weapons from the various Zerg species. Not to mention stealing various Terran vehicles to use on the battlefield. Lot of ideas there that could be used to make a good FPS.

http://www.facebook.com/njmartinelli Nicholas Joseph Martinelli

Spoony, the “Council” look is REALLY effective. Also, the slightly shit audio was a nice touch. Felt like real game footage.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Chip-Lundsmark/506819879 Chip Lundsmark

I have been looking forward to hear what Spoony has to say since this came out. I played the original years ago and was in full agreement with his “Betrayal” rant when it was supposed to be a FPS. This is great, but I hope he still puts out a vlog about it soon.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Valerie-Dicaire/100000800421372 Valérie Dicaire

LOL, I loved the ‘council of shadowy people who sit in poorly lit room and secrelty rules the world’ scene! XD

http://twitter.com/zodd88 Guido Palombi

Terl made my day once again !
Angry Joe as Nick Fury, makes sense…

Richard White

Awesome review from joe and spoony

As a huge fan of the orginal x-com games ive been very interested to pick this up but from what ive been hearing its very buggy atm and suffers from a number of problems so maybe i will check it out when they ironed them out or maybe wait for the sequel

peteman

When you were learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME, I was being trained, to conquer GALAXIES!

Do you even know how to spell your name, ‘Turrell’?

http://www.facebook.com/tolgyfaszegi.istvan Tölgyfaszegi István

Spoony became the member of the shadowy council of people who sit in poorly lit rooms and secretly rule the world

Pétur Ingi Sigbjörnsson

Yes Spoony is a member of the council of evil tables, I think he’s known as the Snarkwood table there

Kendotuxedo

I love Terl.
I still kinda think he may need his “nose hose” to really top it off to perfection.

Kendotuxedo

Wow, G-man Spoony is menacing and epic.
Terl, always the best. Still needs his “nose hose” though. Then he’ll be perfect.

Sriseru

I’ve been playing XCOM so much since it came out last Friday (I live in Europe), it’s so awesome! :3
Although I’ve discovered that using cover isn’t always the best strategy. A few moments ago, I took my team of 6 veteran soldiers to a landed UFO. After I took care of all the grunts I went to what I assumed was the command room.
The room was pretty small and had two doors, one on either side. So I positioned all my guys in front of both doors and put all but one on Overwatch. Then I had my last soldier open the door.
Inside were two Sectoid commanders who basically went “Oh Shit!” and went for the other door, only to walk into my ambush.
I ended up killing one while capturing the other in two turns (if you count the turn I went into Overwatch and opened the door).

Anyway, Joe and Spoony were awesome as always. :D

http://twitter.com/Okanehira Okanehira

Ha great cameos spoony, you look like evil stevie richards as the council guy though!

The game is fantastic too, just finished my frist normal/ironman play-through, took around 24 hours and it was great! Moving on to classic now. Highly recommended
.

Smoke Fumus

Lighting on the government agent set is fucking amaizing. Kudos to this.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Black/100000380573698 Steven Black

Joe’s best review work that I’ve seen in a while. The Spoony cameos were great. The production quality on this video is really good. You can tell throughout that Angry Joe is digging the game despite the small warts he has perceived. Can’t wait for the Spoony counterpoint.

http://www.facebook.com/niQboy Nico Havia

Can we expect some sort of XCOM related video from Spoony aswell?

By the way, I really hated how you only have 1 Skyranger in the game. Since every abduction mission has 3 possible locations, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be able to build another Skyranger and send 2 teams to deal with two attacks at the same time, instead of only responding to one which creates an artificial feeling choice for the player, which could have been avoided if you had another strike team standing by, like you would have in a real scenario.

You can build numerous Interceptors and even construct an advanced fighter with Alien technology in the game, so you should just aswell be able to construct another Skyranger and a hangar.

That being said, the game is absolutely stellar.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Yamato-Petsu-Takeru/1094780389 Yamato Petsu Takeru

Hey thanks Terl for taking over Zimbabwe. . .now even more poor unfortunate oppressed “illegal” immigrants will runaway to us and of course will be mistreated by our people and police and then be deported back to Zimbabwe anyway. . .

Our African neighbor never catches a break it seems. . .

But anyway, it was truly another entertaining review from Joe (with Spoony), I really enjoyed it.

magnusk_98

Oh, and I guess that was another psyclone of Terl? Explains why this ones neckbeard looks once again different than the ones from the prior clones.

http://www.facebook.com/LostProphecies Vincent Beaudry

Spoony’s Turl is always fucking funny. you should make something like a monthly sitcom out of it !

http://www.facebook.com/timm3r Timmer Ratajczyk

No betrayal’s here!

Chris Demas

That was a great review of the game. I especially loved the Spoony Cameos. Your acting has really improved Noah. When you did the shadowy council I thought it was an in game cut-scene for a moment.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Redding/100001210219556 Mark Redding

Didn’t Joe say during the whole FPS betrayal thing back in 2010 that he had no experience with XCOM? Now he’s saying he used to play it all the time…

http://twitter.com/AngryJoeShow Joe Vargas

Uhm, I never said I had no experience with it. I have several videos besides this one that predate betray. Including a UFO EX review (Xcom rip off), Various Interviews for this game and the FPS and an XCOM: EU announcement video where I go crazy.

Maybe you assume I didnt because you have me pegged all wrong. =)

I think my first game ever was INCA on floppy disk, but second was my all time favorite game of all time XCOM: Ufo Defense.

Aiddon

definitely a great game, even coming from a newbie like me. I remember TRYING to play the old ones but I had to bloody clue what I was doing. The old games haven’t exactly aged well

http://www.facebook.com/mikayla.beyer Mikayla Beyer

When I posted my review of “Argo” on Youtube this weekend I thought about how much I like your reviews and vlogs of movies. I wonder if you have any planned for the near future???

http://www.facebook.com/people/Dennis-Henderson/100000450004141 Dennis Henderson

Wow, i have never seen an angry joe review, but i had assumed that he would be incredibly hipster about this game, which i thought would be a shame because i love this game. But he didn’t seem angry at all, not only that, but i also really enjoyed the review.

Garmrspor

How exactly would one be “incredibly hipster about” a game?
- http://twitter.com/kyriakitriti Alexandria White
  
  An example would be denying any good changes made to the game because that meant it was not 100% like the original.
  - Garmrspor
    
    I was commenting on the phrasing itself, but thanks for explaining.

Senna4ever

I like AJ.
But let’s hear the Spoonman’s thoughts on the game.
Personally I’d just like to hear him sitting there being Noah talking about Xcom and not some character driven story review.

It’s Xcom Spoony. We want to know what you think.

ORCACommander

spoony will give an opinion in good time in the mean time find his live stream on twitch and watch the archive or him live

http://www.facebook.com/people/Nash-Knight/740228999 Nash Knight

I remember when I first watched a THWTG movie, I was confused about who’s who, so many characters and so many names, I didn’t get them all right. So this is Angry Joe?? I thought this is Jewario! I mean, he doesn’t seem particularly angry, he seems.. rather nice. And looks like a jew Wario! :)

http://www.facebook.com/people/Tobias-Greene/100000697123546 Tobias Greene

They got Kyrgysztan? That’s where my deviantart page says I’m from!

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OU7Z4DKACDRDJNH4E42XNZUJYI Calbeck

Heh. Heheheh.
I am clawing my way through on Impossible/Hardcore. Rookies are dying, screaming, shooting each other. I’ve barely made it to the first couple of tech advances. But I am there.

Guadalajara was a crapshoot. Calgary was a massacre. Half my squad or more is dead or in the hospital at the end of every mission.

See that stogie in between my teeth? I have fucking well EARNED that, today.

I may not live to smoke another one tomorrow. WHO BROUGHT THE WHISKEY?!

IHeart28

“Oh yes in the butt” Ha. I died at that line

I always enjoy Angry Joe’s reviews and with spoony in them is just as enjoyable as Joe doing the review by himself. This review though was especially funny, with the specific thanks to the enevitable return of Terl *hugs terl*. Joe really does engage how he dislikes/likes something and why and this review encouraged me to try ths game out. So again, nice review Joe and Spoony!

Also, I agree at Spoony’s role as the councilor being cool and creepy at the same time

Garmrspor

Joe is cute when he tries to act. His seriousness upon saying “activate the XCOM project” gives me the gigglygiggles.

Garmrspor

From behind… Yes, in the butt. This council’s spoken.

Guilty Light

One of the best reviews from Angry Joe. And that mad chemistry between Spoony and Joe is still there. You guys make awesome vids together. In the butt.

Also thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for understanding that skits work best in tiny bites. You totally understand that. When some reviewers let a skit drag on for too long it gets annoying, at least imo. But in small doses they add a lot, and you totally pulled that off.

Senna4ever

AJ made a few “misunderstood” niggles.

1) While you do have to pick and chose which country you help. It is possible to get satellites up early enough to cover everything and not lose a single country…I’ve done it on hard (not the hardest setting). Just get those uplinks up ASAP and research the Nexus ASAP too.
Satellites first, then concentrate on upgrading your air combat is the key. Forget soldiers as they are cheap and easy to replace…you can’t get countries back if they are lost.
Plus you can have 4 interceptors per country, not 2.
Once you have all that in place, it’s pretty much impossible to lose a country. One you have the world under control, the bonuses you get from each area (plus extra bonus for covering and entire “continent”) the game becomes too easy…even on hard. You get so much money and workers it’s unreal. Still not tried the hardest setting yet..yet.

2) No you can’t pick up alien weapons and use them “live” as it were. But you can research (in foundry I think) something that allows you to use alien weapons that do not explode when you finish the mission you are on. You can’t “pick up” alien weapons, no. But you can use alien weapons you find.

It’s a good game…but I have to disagree with AJ when he says they have not dumbed it down too much. I feel that have dumbed it down way too much over the original. It’s less about strategy and more about luck after a while.

Still it’s a great intro for anyone that has not played Xcom before.
I hope they do make a sequel…but bring back more form the original (like the free aim AJ mentioned) and random maps, etc.

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Angry Joe – XCOM Review