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XCOM: Enemy Unknown |OT| Neo GAF is Under Alien Control

Cheech

Member
I'm working at home today and it's really dangerous. Getting ready to start some grading and all I want to do is load up the game.

After putting in about twenty hours, I am willling to say that I think I like this game even better than Civ V. I can forsee myself playing this for a long, long time. I hope they release expansions.

I agree. I think Civ and Xcom are different enough to appeal to different audiences, but personally I like the "down and dirty" aspect of Xcom more.

Although for the sequel, I would kind of like them to build in some more Civ-esque features like more control of Xcom operations in the various countries.
 

hitmon

Member
Well, I can zoom in on parts of the base with a 360 controller, but I'm not able to with a keyboard or mouse. That is a bit disappointing. I actually prefer the keyboard and mouse, getting acclimated with the 360 controller gameplay for now.
 

Bigfoot

Member
360 pad all the way. Comfy couch/bed feet up, output to the TV, win! (or as often as not in X-COM, lose horribly).

If you play 360 pad on the PC, can you still use the keyboard to type in stuff (soldier names, ship names)?

I really need to try outputing my PC to the TV one day. They aren't far apart and I do have a PC input on my TV. Is it easy to do software wise? I'm guessing I just need a splitter cable of somesort so I don't have to swap the cable all the time.
 

hitmon

Member
If you play 360 pad on the PC, can you still use the keyboard to type in stuff (soldier names, ship names)?

I really need to try outputing my PC to the TV one day. They aren't far apart and I do have a PC input on my TV. Is it easy to do software wise? I'm guessing I just need a splitter cable of somesort so I don't have to swap the cable all the time.

I was able to play with both on the first day, but I can't seem to anymore (switch on the fly during gameplay). You can type names with keyboard though if playing on 360 controller.
 

Ketch

Member
Holy damn, this game is TENSE. So good. Two stories:

My dudes are all named after my friends. Normal Ironman.

My one buddy was my highest ranking dude, combat medic. But during the second "capture an alien" mission he was put into a two week coma. Finally he comes back and is greeted with a brand new set of Chitin Armor with Plasma rifle. On the very next mission he get's singled out in a group of like 3 other squadmates... down to two hp, so I decide to pull him waaaay back (and that his new nickname would be battledamage). So he's hiding half way cross the map behind a car, no one around... and then, on the very next turn, the muton who damaged him charges past the two other dudes and FRICKEN takes him out! WTF!

So now his wife has enlisted, and wears his armor in remembrance... just took her on her first mission yesterday, she's providing overwatch and doing her thing, but it gets down to the last enemy (a thin man) and I set up a perimeter with all my other dudes and send her in for the kill. Like a dad who takes his children deer hunting, "I really want you to get this one". Misses the first shot (85%), everyone goes back on overwatch again... move her in a little closer BAM! She gets her first kill, promoted to Support, heading down the same path as her husband... they all go out for drinks after the mission.

Next, and this is a good one.

4th or 5thish story mission spoilers ahead
Assaulting the Alien Base
:
My most badass elite dudes, two assaults, two support, one heavy, one sniper. Brad new skeleton armor, and advanced scope for my sniper.

We make it through the facility like an elite squad should, fired a rocket through a narrow ass doorway with 2 of my dudes stacked up on it to take out 3 Chrysalids at once. Had one instance with my two assaults in the middle of the room with nothing for cover but smoke grenades, fighting a Cyberdisk, two drones, and a muton (that was intense).

But finally, we make it to the last room,
the command center, and get introduced to the MF'n Sectoid Commander
I really want to capture this alien alive. So I've got my whole squad forming a perimeter, supports down low, heavy to left, assault to the right, and sniper up top all providing over watch. I've got everyone switched to pistols so I don't accidentally kill this thing before I can capture it and as insurance just in case
he mind controls one of my dudes.. hoping they won't be able to do much damage with just their pistols
.

Anyway, I send in my dude with the arc thrower, AND I SCREW UP! I only sent him in up to the cover well inside dash range... I should of sent him all the way in right next to the target... So now he's center stage, ALONE, hiding behind half cover fighting the meanest thing this planet has ever seen, while the rest of squad looks on from safety... AND HE GETS HIT! Down to half health... I move him in closer, had to dash because that last attack was some kind of debuff... Now him and the alien are hiding behind the same piece of cover, face to face. Alien misses! YES!... but our hero PANICS! FUUUUUUU. So here we are: Center stage, half hp, mono e mono, arc thrower in hand, freaking the fuck out! His squadmates watching in horror as the alien bastard takes him down to ONE HP. Next turn, pulls himself together, moves around the cover, standing right next to this.. this THING. One HP, no cover, 49% chance to stun.
AND HE MISSES!!!!!! fuck....

Now what? Do I risk it? I'll never get this close to one of these bastards again, but our hero has put his life on the line and doesn't deserve to die like this. So I weigh my options, sniper has the shot (95% chance to hit, 65% chance to crit)... take the shot, take the shot, take the shot, BOOM headshot... xeno down. I exhale. Get back to base, everyone's cheering. Military commander says "We took their base, killed their leader, that's a win in my book", Scientist is NOT HAPPY. Whatever, it wasn't her ass on the line.

XCOM
 

Mattdaddy

Gold Member
For some reason KBM feels better than it did in the demo, not sure if they tweaked it or if im just used to it. I used 360 for the demo but Im really prefering KBM now. I think the 360 pad is a little easier when navigating soldier orders, but KBM is quicker and more precise moving around the map, and I like it more for the base management screen. Both work well though, I could enjoy either.
 

Cheech

Member
Yeah, no issues with KB/M here, and I'm playing on a tiny 3 year old Alienware M11x.

There was one time where the graphics kind of glitched and I couldn't click anywhere, but was able to save the game, reload, and everything was ok. I blame the ancient GPU I'm using, though.
 

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
Alright, sounds good guys. Glad to hear the pad solution is viable, my shoulder is shot to hell and I'd probably be doing myself a favor by using mouse/keyboard as little as possible nowadays.
 

FStop7

Banned
For those who preordered on steam, how do we get our extra stuff? The elite/classic soldier packs and all that? Is it just built into the game?
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
I think steam should require that devs must put at least cursory patch notes along with any patch they put on the service.

I hate mystery patches.
 

Mupod

Member
1.8gb patch on steam, hope it doesn't fuck up anything.

I definitely remember Jake mentioning a day 1 patch that would fix things like shooting through walls, and it would have UI tweaks for PC like clickable camera rotate icons. Maybe this is it, just a couple days late?
 

pringles

Member
Another great report, Mattdaddy; keep them coming!
I heard epic music in my head while reading that. Awesome stuff Matt, best of luck in your continued war efforts.

All these status reports are great to read while at work, waiting to get home and play. Only done the first mission so far but atleast I got all 4 soldiers out alive (normal ironman).
 
A couple days later and while I really enjoy the game I do have a few issues/disappointments with it. For example I don't like that 95% of the alien encounters are you just happening to stumble on a group of enemies skulking around together, then they scatter/take cover and then you fight. I prefer the original where sometimes there were lone aliens, and sometimes they patrolled, and sometimes you saw them before they saw you. It makes each level kind of feel the same, unless there's something external going on like the bomb defusal or terror missions. (I know sometimes they like to drop enemies behind or around you to surprise you, but that feels a bit cheap and scripted.)
 
Can't wait to see what the patch changes. So far I only played the tutorial and I had 2 crashes, thought the ui was a chore to navigate with kbm, and had a lot of weird clipping issues.
 
Don't go on the internet and tell lies.

It's not unplayable but it's pretty easy to tell this game was made with gamepad in mind first and foremost. Horrible mouse delay, unnecessary key presses, zoom doesn't work right, etc...

When possible I always prefer mouse/kb to a controller, but in this game, I'm using a Dualshock.
 

Hawk269

Member
Alright, sounds good guys. Glad to hear the pad solution is viable, my shoulder is shot to hell and I'd probably be doing myself a favor by using mouse/keyboard as little as possible nowadays.

Yeah corky, it works amazing with the pad. Once you boot the game it defaults to keyboard and no matter what you do on the pad it does not recognize. Just go to the options and select gamepad for input device and then everything converts to 360 icons. It is a shame that not all games do this (Battlefield 3 I am looking at you).
 

antitrop

Member
It's not unplayable but it's pretty easy to tell this game was made with gamepad in mind first and foremost. Horrible mouse delay, unnecessary key presses, zoom doesn't work right, etc...

When possible I always prefer mouse/kb to a controller, but in this game, I'm using a Dualshock.
Completely agree, the game was made to be played with a controller.

But the keyboard/mouse control scheme is NOT unplayable.
 

McNum

Member

RossCo

Neo Member
A 1.8gb patch? That's more of a content addition then patch, damn.

Sadly not necessarilly. I don't know about this case, but if a product is not set up correctly for Steam you can have large patches just to make small changes.

[Not to be a party pooper, this is just a pet hate of mine]
 

KePoW

Banned
Well one thing I can tell with the patch, is the mouse feels a *LOT* smoother. So kudos to Firaxis for fixing that.
 

DTKT

Member
Sadly not necessarilly. I don't know about this case, but if a product is not set up correctly for Steam you can have large patches just to make small changes.

[Not to be a party pooper, this is just a pet hate of mine]

That's been fixed with the new content delivery system. I believe XCOM is part of that new file system.
 

Hawk269

Member
Sadly not necessarilly. I don't know about this case, but if a product is not set up correctly for Steam you can have large patches just to make small changes.

[Not to be a party pooper, this is just a pet hate of mine]

lol...reminds me of the cluster fuck that was Witcher 2 at first when they were having some issues with the steam version where you had to download the whole thing all over again. 1.8gigs is a lot of memory for a patch, but from what I remember in other RTS games, patches are rather large because there are so many things...but who knows. Patch notes would be nice or something official from the dev.
 
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