The new X-com Enemy Unknown

[Johnnyreb]

I very much llike playing Fallout 3 and New Vegas. But I don't strictly consider them sequels to the old turn based game, they simply aren't in that sense. They are set in the same universe, the same sort of in-game history is all. There is a turn based Fallout in the works and I will very much like to see it when it shows up because I do miss that kind of game, much like I miss the old X-COM. Though I think I will buy the X-Com FPS. It looks interesting that I might be able to shoot aliens with a Garand or a Thompson.

Max Payne, I loved the first 2. The 3rd is not the same people. The name only has been taken hold of by a company that makes games where doing bad things, being a crook, is a good thing. Max Payne 3 is in a different setting because that ain't Max Payne. When I refered to Diablo 3. That developer literally had the original Diablo people and a nearly finished game and sacked them and deleted their work. Then offered up a game totally built around a revenue model, paying real money for in game items. Of course, the sales market is anonymous so you don't know if you are buying it from a player or from the game company itself. And the game company can create all the items they want, and also "adjust" the spawn rates of what you are looting, to milk you for all you are worth in addition to the 60 bucks you bought it with. This is in addition to the game not having much of an on screen connection to the first 2 and of course being primarily a console game, not a PC game.

There was also the little matter of how anyone whose game you joined gets to see your REAL name, not just your game name. Diablo 3 is hacker's paradise. I am blessed to have a best buddy who keeps buying these badly flawed things first so I can learn of stuff like this and keep my own money. Well, except for Mass Effect 3, bought that one before he did.

Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 are fine examples of what I mean by a sequel betraying its base. As I think the new X-COM has done. That base being the PC Gamers who made the original so succesful. The latest versions were created for the console gamer first and foremost, and yes, there are more console gamers than PC Gamers out there, so more people will play them than played the original.

They look prettier, but they are less than they could have been, often much less. That is because a console just can't handle as much game as a PC can. In Dragon Age and Mass Effect, I liked having to build up money to go shopping and buy newer, better, guns and gear. I'm a loot guy, gotta have good loot. But then consoles either can't handle you having an actual inventory of stuff, or the programmers are just lazy and want the easy path, so goodbye loot, hello "powerups". And hello in Mass Effect 3 to only the main hero being able to buy and equip anything. The sidekicks just get a couple of powerups each. The story is still decent. the actual mechanics of it, not as good as before.

The thing that burns me is that these big developers who dominate the industry, who are big and fat because PC Gamers made them so, have no loyalty. They are happily discarding their customer base, the PC Gamer, to acquire a new, larger customer base, the Console Gamer (largely kiddies) that will make them more money. But they are doing it this way when they don't have to. If it was a PC game, the PC should be first and the console port version second. But that would take a little more money and time, so instead we are handed the console port, that we know is less of a game, and told to be happy. I simply refuse to be happy with being handed second best because the money is better.

But again fortunately, this is the internet. I think the steadily increasing supply of PC games from Indy developers is going to prove able to take up the slack and seize the market the big shots have effectively abandoned.

[Kommander]

Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 are fine examples of what I mean by a sequel betraying its base. As I think the new X-COM has done. That base being the PC Gamers who made the original so succesful. The latest versions were created for the console gamer first and foremost, and yes, there are more console gamers than PC Gamers out there, so more people will play them than played the original.

I think it's one thing when a studio grabs an IP that has been dormant for over a decade and does their best to make a new game with it. It is quite a different story when the same studio that originated the IP makes a direct sequel only a few years later and botches it. If you don't like the new X-Com fine, but I don't think that it is anywhere near the clusterfuck that Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 are. I should also point out here that Mass Effect was a console game first and a PC game second, with the PC version being competently ported *shock* six months after the release of the X-Box version. While games have sometimes been dumbed down for consoles I think we need to avoid the whole "glorious pc gaming master race" as well.I do think people get hung up on the IPs name and memories associated with it. I have to wonder if it would be better for some of these sequels to have been new IPs instead of reusing old ones.

I have not played and have no interest in Diablo and games like it. However based on what I have read I feel bad for you old fans of it. Blizzard fucked you guys pretty hard. Lastly I thought that I should ask if you have played DX:HR or The Witcher 2? You did not mention having played them in any of your posts and they are great games. I'm also on my first playthrough of Dishonored right now and am quite impressed.

[Yogimus]

Mass effect 3 was a superior game to 1 and 2 gameplay wise. Storyline was horrible. Dragon Age 2 falls into the same category. (Dragon age skill tree system is revolutionary, and I hope catches on)

[Kommander]

I did actually find the gameplay of Dragon Age 2 to be more fun, except for the magically spawning enemies. I suspect that gamers like Johnnyreb thought it was too dumbed down from the original though. What killed the game for we was the constant reuse of the same locations and some goofy ass plot moments.

[Yogimus]

I did actually find the gameplay of Dragon Age 2 to be more fun, except for the magically spawning enemies. I suspect that gamers like Johnnyreb thought it was too dumbed down from the original though. What killed the game for we was the constant reuse of the same locations and some goofy ass plot moments.

Making a tactical party orienter RPG and then having enemies not be confined by the tactical environment was a wretchedly bad idea.

/Still want a modern turn based DnD style game

[Jericho941]

Mass effect 3 was a superior game to 1 and 2 gameplay wise. Storyline was horrible.

Yup. That's what happens when you yank your lead writer to go work on a stupid Star Wars MMO and put a complete idiot in charge of the project.

[Yogimus]

Mass effect 3 was a superior game to 1 and 2 gameplay wise. Storyline was horrible.

Yup. That's what happens when you yank your lead writer to go work on a stupid Star Wars MMO and put a complete idiot in charge of the project.

But God DAMN did that MMO have a great story.

[JohnOC]

One of my favorite online game reviewers just got 'round to the new X-Com. He rather liked it.

Quote:
"Like a first class bowel movement, its solid, its lasting, and its organic."

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... my-Unknown