Comments on: Thoughts: Xenonauts

By: Gap Gen

Gap Gen — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 12:48:33 +0000

Reminds me of this series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwar_series (which I’ve never read, but did enjoy reading the plots on Wikipedia)

By: Darren

Darren — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 12:26:31 +0000

That’s always the problems with Early Access/Community Tested/Whatever games, isn’t it? Market a game as a successor to a hardcore, niche title and let players contribute to the testing process, and you’re bound to attract the most hardcore, most niche players around.

By: Aleksei Volchok

Aleksei Volchok — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 08:37:43 +0000

>And Xenonauts doesn’t do much with the Cold War theme, sadly

Extremely disappointing. So it’s bloated hardcore’er version of X-COM made more complex where it wasn’t needed and it hadn’t even do a thing with the most obvious gimmick. Setting doesn’t affect any mechanics, sad.

About mechanics: are they at least smoothed? I remember X-COM being awful with action points around 50 and without any indication of possible range forcing you to use calculator and ruler. Do Xenonauts at least use calculatable values?

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 08:30:21 +0000

Riot shielders do have less change of getting reaction shot, but this is because they’re usually holding a pistol in their other hand which confers an initiative bonus. The riot shield itself doesn’t help at all there, it just stops them from getting killed if they do get shot at. The shield is destroyed after absorbing two or three hits and will do nothing against shots from the back or sides, so it’s not an invulnerable aegis shielding them from all harm, just a way to survive the situations (like entering a UFO control room) where you *know* you’re going to be taking return fire.

And Xenonauts doesn’t do much with the Cold War theme, sadly. Aside from the Soviet Union still existing and the starting interceptors being an F-16 and a MiG, it’s pretty much ignored. One of the big wasted opportunities.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 08:25:16 +0000

I have sympathy for Goldhawk because it’s not like this is a problem unique to their version of X-COM — even Firaxis XCOM was rife with balance issues that were only partially fixed by the Enemy Within expansion. If there is one thing I am going to blame them for, though, it’s that they seem to have pitched things too far towards the hardcore end of the market, balancing the game for the people who have been playing alpha and beta versions throughout development rather than for new people. How else to explain 230 UFOs? That’s something that might appeal to the people who play XCOM on Marathon with the Long War mod, but it doesn’t appeal to me.

By: innokenti

innokenti — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 08:06:24 +0000

Hmmm… not sure if I want to try it out or not. Certainly what I’d be interested in is a more granular decision-making process on the battlescape, but it looks like the mission distribution would make the fun wear off pretty quickly.

I do like that experience is de-coupled from killing. That’s really all I ask for in any game where units can usefully contribute to the victory in a way that doesn’t involve landing the killing blow.

Actually, I suspect I won’t be giving this a go – the prospect of facing the campaign structure that you describe really does rather turn me off. Oh well…

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 22:21:35 +0000

This is disappointing. It sounds like all the problems of XCOM with few real advantages. Although kudos to them getting vehicles to work well. The SHIVs in XCOM are one of the least useful, if not outright counterproductive, options I’ve seen in a strategy game.

By: Aleksei Volchok

Aleksei Volchok — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 11:24:32 +0000

You say it uses the old action point system, right? And aliens attack in swarms. Looks like they really wanted to be modern without being modern. All this AP counting nonsense is a mechanic for the sake of mechanic: it’s gamey and just asks for minmaxing and exploiting. Do I understand correctly those shielded guys who open UFO doors won’t risk getting reaction shot?.. Or no risk of dying from it?

As for UFO spam I remember how people initially hated Firaxis XCOM for artificial choice between 3 terror missions. This choice could happen in old X-COM but it was rare and random. They wanted to do it here but without “hardcoding” it. It’s a mistake. It’s an artificial complexity even if it wasn’t accompanied by irritating mini-game. We don’t play symmetrical game where aliens have to follow rule.

Reviews of this game are disappointing as it is expected from pure nostalgia game. The only thing that still intrigues me is the setting. It’s 70′s, right? Did they use it it any way besides aesthetics? Do we have cold war context or something?