XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012)

[Art Blade]

 :)

As a matter of fact, I've got all continents covered with satellites except South America and that on purpose just to get my monthly mission or three to train rookies (levelling up soldiers) and to collect valuable alien stuff needed for constructing or buying better gear.

In this game, South America only comprises two countries but at least I get to choose between two panic-reducing missions (either/or) that only happen because there are no satellites and aliens start to annoy.. err, kill, people. If I fail to complete a mission successfully or if I ignore them, the panic level will jump up on that continent which may hit the maximum of 5. If I complete a mission nicely, all panic on that continent will drop according to my performance which usually means it's down to a minimum. If any country is still at panic level 5 by the end of the month, it will leave the council forever which means you'll lose one option of getting those "resource grinding / soldier training" missions and if you lose too many (I believe eight) countries, you'll lose the game.

OK, I haven't lost any country. So, covering all countries (and thereby continents, in my case: except South America) reduces the overall panic level and you don't have to worry much. I don't have the continent bonus from South America (all autopsies and interrogations would be instant) but that isn't important. I get my research results within a day, anyway.

Now you're likely to see how important satellites are. If you fail to cover the earth with them within the first three months, you'll most likely fail to win the game or at least it will be goddamn difficult to finish it. And it is pretty difficult to live through the first three months doing everything you need to do plus making sure there are as many satellites as you can muster going up.

[Art Blade]

Oh, in addition to levelling up a soldier's abilities, later in the game you'll have to test your guys in order to find those with psionic powers and then level them up, too.

[smg id=6618 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM Psionic Operative"]

[fragger]

Interesting experiences you are having Art, I'm enjoying reading about them :) I think I might enjoy this game but my budget is currently a bit tight for splurging on new games (remember, they cost an arm here). Plus I've got car registration and insurance coming up, also I'll soon be needing new tyres so I need to save some dough ::)

I also remember a game that looked a bit like C&C setting, but was in fact more like XCOM. A group of 4 soldiers, with their own qualities, exploring a variety of levels throughout the game. The same guy that introduced me to Dune 2 was playing that game. I don't remember the name of it, but it must have come out around '94 or something.

That wasn't Commandos, was it? Although I seem to remember it was six guys, not four. And it was a bloody difficult game, quite unforgiving if your timing was off even by a couple of seconds.

On second thought, Commandos came out in the late 90s, so this was all a bit of a pointless comment, really :-()

[Art Blade]

fragger, first of all, get a proper internet connection, then get steam, and then get the game when it's on discount. Like I did :) There's also always that nasty little option to perhaps receive a game as a surprising gift via steam, that's how Binnatics made me play GTAIV and Portal2  ;)

Some more to whet your appetite. Here is a nasty surprise attack in progress without the enemy knowing despite the fact that it's already happening and about to blow up in their faces. I'm using ghost armour that allows you to stay invisible for one turn, up to four times per soldier and mission.  >:D There are walls and a roof that you don't see because the game always toggles them on and off for your gaming convenience, depending on your camera position. So for the aliens, they're inside a room the doors of which I've just opened (and that made them visible to me) but they haven't yet realised that I did due to that ghost armour. I've positioned three soldiers around each of those two doors and now the trap will clap those last two aliens. They're sectoid commanders with psionic powers but my guys have too strong a will to get mind-controlled. Instead, they'll fry the enemies' brains out in just a second :-D

[smg id=6619 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM ghost armour"]

Of course, there's always an option to go in loud with a disturbing lack of subtlety. Here the legendary Blaster Launcher attack (screenshot taken some time ago) that turned Major Harris into Colonel Harris :-()

[smg id=6620 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM ker-boom"]

[PZ]

Sounds like lots to keep track of - way above the capabilities of this old gamer  ????

[Art Blade]

There is indeed a lot of management going on and the missions are only a small part of the entire game (considering all the thinking needed in order to get a proper strategy regarding how to build your base properly and how to get up those satellites and what to do with your rookie soldiers and many more things) but those missions are what I'm enjoying the most -- those battles may easily take an hour or two, depending on your gaming style -- fast with lots of losses or slow with tactical superiority and without any losses, which is how I prefer to play.

Generally speaking, the game requires you to do lots of things outside the battles while the battles are what you're working for: get money, soldiers, level them up, win battles for XP and resources, use resources to build facilities and military gear, use facilities to gain access to better technology and gear.. check top right some of my resources and then the "price" for that gun in the pic. When I was quite new to the game, I didn't even have access to it let alone the funds, now I could outfit an army with it. I'm taking my own time  :-()

[smg id=6623 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM alloy cannon"]

And somehow you want to progress the story line when you're ready or keep on levelling up stuff.. it's a very consuming game. The only really important thing to know is the satellite coverage, the rest is something you will learn and there is quite a bit of freedom of choice. Hard to explain, watch some vids like the ones at the start of the topic and read some wikis.

I think it would take forever explaining the details of this game. In order to understand the game, I watched two entire playthroughs (about 50 hours each) and perhaps half of the DLC Enemy Within playthrough. The DLC expands the game significantly and I'm waiting for a discount offer to get that, too. I want to understand the basics and a little more of the original game first and only then go through all of that with DLC enhancements that will alter a lot of the game (basically changing the entire game as in kicking it up the difficulty and complexity ladder).

But that is what is so great about it. It isn't getting boring at all, and I've already spent more than 200 hours on it without DLC.  :)

[PZ]

... I've already spent more than 200 hours on it without DLC.  :)

Sure sounds like you're having lots of fun!

[Art Blade]

I've never thought about that possibility. Maybe you're right. Perhaps I'm indeed enjoying it. I'll have to think about it some.

[mandru]

Perhaps I'm indeed enjoying it. I'll have to think about it some.

200+ hrs and he needs to think about it.  ::)

[Art Blade]

I'll have to think about that, too.

Spoiler

mandru, you seem to have missed the joke in the quote  ;) <nudges mandru a couple of times>  :-()

[Art Blade]

YAY! DLC XCOM: Enemy Within is on special steam discount for only 24 hours, 75% off! Only 6.24€! <ca-ching> bought, downloading 7.2GB...... :-D :-X


Maybe I do like that game. I'll think about it while downloading the DLC.

[PZ]

Anyone that excited must like the game

[Art Blade]

Alright, I haven't yet thought about any of the previous things I thought I might think about because I think that I kept thinking about the game, instead.

Oh, did I mention that I really like this game? Like, A LOT?  :-D

The DLC is actually a complete new game based on XCOM:EU. When I fire up that game, I get to see a splash screen from which to choose either XCOM: Enemy Within or XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Nice  :-X

I'm not far from finishing XCOM:EU and then I'll give the DLC a shot. Looking forward to it, already :)

Right now, I've just unlocked the psi armour needed to enter the Gollop Chamber which will trigger the final mission. I'll wait with that a bit though because I need a few ethereal corpses from missions to come in order to build mind shields. And for the fun of it, too. :-D

[smg id=6624 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM psi armour"]

[PZ]

hmmm... I'm not yet convinced that you really like the game 

[Art Blade]

ah. maybe you should give it another thought. 8)

[Art Blade]

Here's an illogical calculation. IF a certain amount of research time of say 2 days equals 100% AND IF a certain rebate equals 50% of the research time or 1 day, THEN applying two rebates of 50% equals 100% or a two-days rebate which means zero research time. Now, if we applied three times that rebate, 150%, then we'd get a negative 50% research time which means the research would be finished one day before I ordered it. I'd actually lose that day because I would have had access to the research result a day earlier if I had known it was already available even before I wanted to have it researched at all. Confusing? Well, check that screenshot and read the text.. I get three times a 50% rebate :)

And I won't accept a different approach trying to make it logical: If you apply 50% and are left with the remaining 50% and then apply another 50% you'll get 25% of the original 100% and the third rebate would halve that 25% resulting in 12.5% -- I wouldn't accept that because you wouldn't either if your local dealer gave you a voucher telling you, "one of those grants a 50% discount on any of our products" without telling you that you may not use more than one voucher. However, the real result should be: IF you get enough discount to reach 0% ("for free") then you cannot apply any more rebates. But the result should be "for free" or in case of the research, "instant" because there is no time involved. Still, you see that the pic shows "fast (1 day)" which is silly because the game knows instant research.

[smg id=6625 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM illogical calculations"]

[PZ]

Game percentages are calculated using an alien form of mathematics.  For instance, I'm at 108.57% accuracy using a shotgun in B4.  How in the world can I hit more people than I aim at?

[Art Blade]

it means that you had more than once a double kill with one shot. Could be that you had two guys standing next to each other and you shot between them hitting both of them or that you had two guys standing one behind the other and your shot went through the front guy into the guy behind -- that is what you'd call "to kill two birds with one stone"  :-D Interesting is that your game apparently counts shots rather than pellets. I know games that usually present you with an abysmal accuracy because it basically means: if you send out a cloud of 100 pellets and the guy in the middle of it only soaks up 30 of those, you'll get a 30% accuracy for that one shot despite killing your only target. Also, if you shoot an explosive barrel that takes out 5 guys sitting around it, your accuracy would be 0% because none of your pellets hit any human target. So forget about shotgun accuracy. Also, forget about explosives accuracy. I mean, if at a wild guess you chucked a hand grenade into a window three stories above you and just happened to kill three guys who were hiding there -- without you actually knowing -- with the blast, how could that be called a 300% "accuracy" -- there is no such thing as an accurate kill with explosives. It would have been accurate regarding the fact that you managed to chuck it through and not to miss that open window but definitely not accurate regarding guys who simply couldn't escape the blast radius. In other words, forget about accuracy. I don't care if your accuracy is zero because you only shoot explosive barrels as long as you kill enemies with the explosion, same goes for all actions: only kills count, not how you got them.  :)

[mandru]

In FC2 the shotgun was a accuracy killer.

I'll use rounded numbers to keep things simple.  If there were 100 pieces of shot in a shell and the first 25 pellets were enough to kill a merc when fired point blank into the center of their chest those extra 75 nuggets of joyful overkill actually counted against your accuracy rating giving a 25% for a 1 round 1 kill situation.  :(

[PZ]

I knew it... alien mathematics  :-()

[Art Blade]

I'm just glad that XCOM doesn't show stats while playing. At all. Not even a menu for it. I do know, however, that after finishing the game, you'll see your performance vs the rest of the world playing this game. I think that is much better because you don't get distracted during the game. Also, in FPS games, checking your accuracy may prevent you from shooting barrels or, even worse, from just having fun with your gun because you're too scared to screw up your overly important accuracy that no one else but you will ever know about. So I stopped caring about those stats, just once in a while have a laugh or compare it for fun with friends, like in FC3 coop.

Well. Back on topic, then  :)

[smg id=6626 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM hyperwave info screen"]

With the new device, the Hyperwave Relay, there is a new info item on top of the screen telling me what to expect when raiding a UFO crash- or landing site. These last steps towards the end of the game are a lot more difficult now as the enemies are significantly stronger and more dangerous and numerous than ever before while the player's abilities (should) have reached maximum potential. Intense battles and ferocious alien attacks are now commonplace.

[Binnatics]

I like games where the shotguns leaves its marks. Like a massive hole in the chest, or a head missing ^-^

I actually think it's quite revolutionary for a game taking count of collateral damage and add more than 100% accuracy when hitting more than one guy.

I was doing "score attack" the other day in Max Payne. The best way to get high points there is to keep hitting with every consecutive shot. I was used to aiming for the head, but then I found out that the multiplier, that raises with every 2 consecutive hits or so, also raises when you hit someone in the chest, leg or arm 10 times without missing. So it was suddenly better to kill someone using a lot of bullets instead of starting with the headshots right away. Eventually, you had to switch to headshots anyway, because they would give the biggest score anyway ^-^

In regular playing style I head once a score of 104 headshots out of 113 kills total in a single chapter ;)

I do like stats like that. But I found out too many times that the stats were inaccurate in several games.   

[fragger]

Just curious Art, how do you win at this game? I'm assuming that the game is considered "won" by the player if he/she can render the Earth alien-free, but I may be wrong in that assumption (I have been known to be wrong in the past, although I try to keep such admissions on a need-to-know basis :-()). Is there more than one path to victory?

Forgive me if this is a dumb question (I know, there are no dumb questions, only dumb answers) but being intrigued by what you have posted thus far whilst remaining essentially clueless as to the overall nature of the game, I feel compelled to ask :)

[Art Blade]

no worries :)

All amounts to a last stance, a battle fought on board of the alien temple ship which you will only know about and be able to get there when you have nearly finished the story missions (you have control over when you actually take on any of those) and you must kill the alien leader, some uber-ethereal, and on your way there all enemy species that will be scattered across the ship in vast amounts.

The last mission is a mission of no return, story- and game-wise. All progress of the game will stop, you'll have to confirm that you really want to take the last step and then go for it. If you f@#k up, you may retry the last mission but there is no going back to continue to prolong the game the way you could prior to that last mission.

Actually, you can see that temple ship in the last screenshot (previous post), that lilac thingy hovering above the earth, in the lower right corner of the pic. It was only revealed by constructing the hyperwave relay and that is only possible towards the end of the game.

[smg id=6627 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM we can do it"]
[smg id=6628 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM one way ticket"]

[Art Blade]

OK, finished it (without waiting for the mind shield) -- what a great game.

Some of the stats are compared with the world's total and some with the world's average, it seems.
[smg id=6629 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM victory"]