I disagree, while I did enjoy the old Xcom, I am enjoying this one even more. No longer do I have aliens "camping" outside of my ship and taking over one of my troops and tossing a grenade or firing a rocket killing my ENTIRE squad before I even get a turn. No more do I need to do a crapload of math which I am grateful for, I am not a student anymore I don't want to sit there and do math all day I just want to enjoy the game. Also the pacing is in my opinion is better cause the maps are smaller and I have less troops to worry about. I don't want to spend 2 hours on 1 map. stan_boyd

And there is the reason why this game is not very good. It's appealing to just this attitude. I don't want to have to think too hard in a game. I don't want to spend 2 hours on one map. So, here's my response. Don't play XCom because that's what XCom was..a turn-based, time consuming, brain numbing, move by careful move, soldier by soldier, tactical combat game. It was a micromanager's dream game, like MOO and CIV but with really great combat.

When you take that away, you no longer have XCom. You have a nice modern 3rd person sci-fi team shooter with a few strategic features with the XCom named tacked onto it. No better, in fact, in some cases, worse than UFO: Aftermath and all the other XCom wannabees. Sorry, but this game is just another wannabee with the old name.

It's winnable.

XCOM is still X-Com in many respects. It presents you with an alien invasion and the tools to repel it. Were talking about two DISTINCLY different games in two very different eras of gaming.

i_am_button

What you described could be attributed to UFO:Aftermath and it's sequels, UFO: Extraterrestials, UFO:Alien Invasion and all the other XCom clones, many of which are far more XCom-like than this game. But they don't rate the XCom name. They don't have the complexity or feel that made XCom what it was and still is to most of us veterans. This feels nothing like Xcom. It feels like a semi-turn based science fiction 3rd person team shooter with some strategic elements added. It's a completely stripped down version of any of the Xcom games. In fact, sometimes it doesn't feel like a game at all, but like an interactive movie, which I've already stated. I mean seriously, you can't pick up an item from a dead comrade, or give an item to another soldier? You heavy equipment guy gets one shot, and your sniper can't move and shoot in the same turn. You can run your full distance, then prime and throw a grenade all in the same turn, and they dare to call this XCom?

These developers who claim to love and respect the original game have gone out of their way to eliminate every aspect of what made it great in the first place.

As a 3rd person space shooter with some strategic elements, it's ok. But it's doesn't rate the title of the new XCom as far as I'm concerned. It's XCom in name only.

I've played over 20 hours and that's long enough to see all the things I mentioned above.

Yes, later on you get better abilities and even more grenades for the Heavy, but with all that, you still have basically 1 auxiliary slot, and 6 team members. It's a fair to midlin' save the world from aliens game, but name aside, it ain't XCom in any way, shape or form that I can recognize any more than UFO:Aftermath was.

13:44:21

You can be as tired of hearing it as you want, but it's still dumbed down, at least the tactical is.

I'm not saying this is true of you, but those who don't care about the changes are the ones who claim to not have liked the original game much to begin with, so frankly, I don't care what they think. They aren't the real demographic of the XCom series. And that's where this game fails. It stoops to the lowest denominator of the gaming public, rather than the highest which Microprose games ALWAYS did. The developers of this game aren't really targetting the older XCom players. They're targetting younger guys who expect fast paced, simple games without having to think too much. This is fine, just don't call it XCom because it's not. This game is nowhere near any of the 3 original XCom titles, in quality, complexity or user control.

It's a highly scripted interactive movie which lets you make a few decisions at the tactical level, but almost none at the strategic level. Not compared to the other games. This one is so dumbed down that it's to XCom what Diablo is to Skyrim. Even the aircraft tactical situation is ridiculous..you get to abort, that's it. No choice in how to attack, what weapon to use..oh wait, you only have one. And the game isn't dumbed down? Who are you trying to fool?

There were certain aspects of the 3 original XCom games that made them what they were:

1. Time units: Time units allowed you to micromanage every step of your turn. Those who think this was tedious shouldn't have been playing a turn-based tactical game. That's what made them what they were. This was the case in virtually every turn-based tactical game. Even Apocalypse gave the option of time units or real time movement.

2. Base design. Even your first base was able to cover a large portion of the world. In this game it covers one or two countries.The idea that in the 21st Century, radar cannot detect a UFO is ridiculous. Why does a satellite need to be there. Ok. let's assume it does. Why should it take a state of the art manufacturing facility, that can manufacture a dozen laser rifles virtually instantly, 20 days to manufacture a satellite. In 20 days, half the world will have gone crazy!! It takes longer to manufacture the freaking satellite than the facility to track it with. This is an example of contrived difficulty that doesn't fit with reality.

3. Control. The original games gave you complete control of your army. What ship they would use, what squad they would be in, what weapon they would use, what accessories they'd carry. And mods even allowed you to place them in the order you wanted them to be in in the Skyranger. This game does all that for you. Isn't that nice? NO, It's not. I WANT control back. A four man squad whose specialties are controlled by the game may be ok for another game, but not one with the name XCOM.

I'm a former Marine 'Nam vet. I carried at least 4 grenades, 4 to 6 clips, cigarettes, munchies, and sometime had bandoliers of M60 ammo thrown over my shoulder for the machine gunner. And this game wants to give you one auxiliary slot? Give me a break. This isn't a tactical combat game. It's a console abortion. Tell you what. go back to the drawing board and come up with a real PC version before you dare to call it XCom. I'm sick of PC games which are limited because they're actually designed for consoles. Why weren't there two versions? If I wanted to play a lite version of the game, I'd buy the console version. But when I want the full experience I play PC which isn't limited by 8 buttons.

4. The ability to augment your income by manufacturing items for sale. As far as I can tell, that no longer functions. With only one base you can only research or manufacture one thing at a time. That's extremely limiting.

From what I can see of this game, it's a programmed to fail scenario. You're scripted to be beaten. It allows the AI moves when it shouldn't, such as scattering when one of your units sees them even if it's in the middle of your move, preventing the element of surprise which was so much a part of the original games. One UFO goes undowned and the whole world goes berzerk. What kind of nonsense is this? In the original game it took a long time for UFO activity in an area to negatively affect XCom. In this game you can basically have 4 countries in the red in a little over a month. In fact, as soon as the first medium UFO appears that you can't shoot down.

5. The AI had fog of war also. But in this game, the AI apparently knows where every one of your units is, even if it only moves one square and not in their visual range.

6. When you succeeded at a mission, everyone was happy. In this game, you succeed in one country, 4 others get panicked. You don't have enough resources to control panic everywhere and you can only build so many satellites and tracking facilities. You can't win for losing. Not only do you lose to the aliens, but to the crybaby countries you're trying to protect. That was true in the first game too, but all you had to do was build a base near them and they shut up. You can't do that here. Not early on anyway.

I know it's possible to win the game losing a bunch of countries, but when it's so contrived it feels like futility to keep playing. Scripted failure sucks the fun out of any game. And that's what I feel about this one so far.

Oh, and I've been playing on Normal, not Classic or Ironman. If it sucks this bad on Normal, how bad is it on the higher levels?

This may be a save the world from the aliens game but it certainly ISN'T XCOM.