Sin Vega first introduced me to X-PirateZ three years ago, already a sprawling X-Com: UFO Defense mod by "Dioxine" about leading a crew of sexy lady air-pirates in a post-apocalyptic world. She called it "The greatest total conversion ever made" at the time, but I wasn't so convinced. Massive as it was, I felt it was still skeletal and confusing, requiring much trial and error and many false starts. A lot has changed since 2016, and it has grown into a (mostly) coherent strategy RPG sandbox with a devil-may-care attitude on par with Disgaea.
Orbital, underwater and underground missions are in. Story arcs, bounty hunts, tons of factions, over a hundred mission types and more guns than anyone could ever use. There are duels and even dating, somehow. There are also problems, of course, any mod of this scale has some, but I'm officially on board now. This may be the best total conversion I've played, and less likely to kick newcomers in the teeth than classic X-Com. Still, there's a lot to learn and tons of new systems, so here's a crash course on X-PirateZ, plus a guide for surviving your first year as a corsair captain.
]]>Six years ago, Firaxis pulled off the impossible with XCOM, re-envisioning a DOS classic - next week, they're celebrating this feat with the Tactical Legacy pack for XCOM 2: War Of The Chosen. It's pure fan-service of the less-sexy kind (unless Carapace armour turns you on, in which case fly your freak flag high), featuring old favourite equipment and environments used in a new series of tactical mini-campaigns. Better still, it'll be initially free to owners of War Of The Chosen. It's out next week, October 9th. Check the reveal trailer below.
]]>Is six years within 'fashionably late' territory? Better late than never, at least. Today, Firaxis's alien-bothering turn-based squad tactics revival, XCom: Enemy Unknown has launched on GOG after over half a decade of the PC version being Steam-exclusive. Rather than divide it up, GOG are only selling the Complete edition of the game, including two minor bits of DLC and the rather more significant Enemy Within expansion.
]]>Over at GOG, the reduced-price trips down memory lane continue, only this week there's a whole lot more X-Com. Specifically, this week's GOG sale range focuses on a lot of 2K's older franchises, particularly from the strategy genre. The entire original run of X-Com games can be found here for less than £2 / $2 each, which is nigh-impossible to not recommend. Then there is the 2004 version of Sid Meier's Pirates, a game I've poured more hours into than I really want to think about, and much more.
]]>Oh sure, it's basically been pennies for years, but nothing motivates the merely curious like free-free-free. For that is the case for X-COM: UFO Defense aka UFO: Enemy Unknown, the 1994 alien-bothering strategy game that kicked off a series now made something of a household name by Firaxis' remakes. Only until tomorrow, though.
]]>One of the most exciting games in Los Angeles this week won’t be featured at press conferences or on the showfloor. Phoenix Point [official site] is the new tactical-strategy hybrid from Julian Gollop, the creator of the original X-COM, and we met yesterday to discuss its procedurally generated alien threats, simulated human factions and much more. Here’s the world’s first in-depth look at the game.
]]>In my intro to Silent Storm, I mentioned both modding scenes and UFO (used to distinguish the 1994 original X-COM from the 2012 Firaxis one, and not only out of increasingly sad Eurocentric obstinance) without tying the two together. That, it turns out, was stupid, because X-Piratez, a UFO mod in active development by Dioxine, is the best total conversion for any game I've ever played.
Based on OpenXcom Extended, a long-running open source clone of UFO, it takes the story and gameplay structure of the original, and a huge stock of resourcefulness, and turns them into something that's simultaneously very similar and completely new. The result is a dangerously addictive compound of comfortable old UFO with constant surprise, discovery, and content.
]]>Yer actual breaking news (by which I mean I currently have few details but wanted to inform you as soon as possible because I am very excited). Julian Gollop, legendary co-creator of the X-COM series, plus Laser Squad, Chaos and most recently Chaos Reborn, just revealed the next game from his Snapshot Studios. We only have a name, Phoenix Point, and the following description:
"Turn based tactical combat - world based strategy."
Please tell me that means what I think it means. Is Mister X-COM doing a new, if unofficial, X-COM? Have approximately 37 Christmases all come at once?
]]>I visited Firaxis in 2014 to see Civilization: Beyond Earth and it was impossible not to wonder which closed doors were hiding the XCOM 2 [official site] team. The game hadn't been announced but surely somebody was working on a sequel. Would it follow the path of the original games and take to the Lovecraftian depths? Would it reach toward the stars and a battle on various alien homeworlds? Would it take risks or rest comfortably on well-earned laurels?
The answer, as we now know, didn't quite fit any of the above. These are happy times for the XCOM devotee but I'm hoping for an apocalyptic future. Here are a few ideas and hopes for what the game's first expansion might be.
]]>XCOM 2 is out this week and I'm pretty flipping excited. But what of people whose hearts yearn for X-COM, the bedashed original series Firaxis rebooted and dedashed? Good news: Xenonauts 2 [official site] is definitely happening. Bad news: it'll arrive in 2017 at the earliest.
Goldhawk Interactive's Xenonauts, which came out in 2014 after years in early access, is essentially a tweaked unofficial remake of UFO: Enemy Unknown (or 'X-COM: UFO Defense', whatever). It's pretty great! The sequel will be a bit more adventurous, taking more liberties with the X-COM formula as it also switches from sprites to proper 3D.
]]>XCOM 2 [official site] is a hugely exciting prospect (so much so that I'm genuinely grumpy about the delay), but XCOM and X-COM are so very different things by now that it's unlikely to slake anyone's thirst for a true-blue, Gollopy experience. Fortunately, sounds like we might also be in for a sequel to unofficial X-COM spiritual sequel Xenonauts [official site], 2014's Cold War-set alien invasion strategy title.
]]>Raised By Screens is probably the closest I’ll ever get to a memoir – glancing back at the games I played as a child in the order in which I remember playing them, and focusing on how I remember them rather than what they truly were. There will be errors and there will be interpretations that are simply wrong, because that’s how memory works.
As I said in the last chapter, I had no conception at the time that UFO: Enemy Unknown was or would be an especially important game to me. Instead, it grew in stature in my mind over time, and it wasn't until I began writing about games for a living that I even became aware that it was similarly treasured by many of my contemporaries. Over time, UFO's repute has snowballed in my mind. I think my own fondness for it may even have been exaggerated across the years - this false belief that it was some 'lost' game that only an elite few ever knew of, that it created a standard that nothing since has ever matched.
]]>Raised By Screens is probably the closest I’ll ever get to a memoir – glancing back at the games I played as a child in the order in which I remember playing them, and focusing on how I remember them rather than what they truly were. There will be errors and there will be interpretations that are simply wrong, because that’s how memory works.
Here we are, then. The big one. The game of games. The game that made me, that defined me, that opened my mind to new frontiers and possibilities.
Except it isn't.
]]>Well, he eventually rebooted and remade war of wizards Spectrum classic Chaos Reborn, which I've had a lot of fun with over the last few days, and which took to Steam Early Access yesterday. You can read more about that here. But what happened to the co-creator of X-COM, Laser Squad, Magic and Mayhem, Rebelstar and more over the last ten years or so? While so many long-standing developers have seen their stars rise and rise, Julian Gollop seemed to fall out of sight. In this concluding part of my big interview with him, we talk about where he's been, why he turned to Kickstarter for his comeback, how he was doing Early Access long before it ever existed, his thoughts on latter-day X-COMlikes such as Xenonauts, Invisible Inc and Mordheim, and the pressing question of whether we'll ever see a new X-COM or Laser Squad=style game with him at the helm.
]]>X-COM creator Julian Gollop did have plans for his own new version of the legendary strategy game, but abandoned them in the wake of 2K's well-received XCOM. "I seriously considered that before Firaxis announced their XCOM," he told RPS in an interview published today, "but of course once they announced it I thought, well it’d be a hopeless cause because it’s just not going to get the same traction."
"I may have been completely wrong in thinking this by the way," he added. When I suggested that he'd probably have succeeded nonetheless, he added that "I probably could have. I don't know." The Laser Squad and Chaos developer, who yesterday released wizard-battling strategy remake/sequel Chaos Reborn on Steam Early Access, hasn't entirely ruled out an X-comeback of his own, however. "Well, we’ll see. Got to finish Chaos first."
I think it's on all of us reading this to let him know below that that a new Gollop-made XCOMlike is far, far from a hopeless cause, eh? Also below: the game Julian Gollop almost made instead of Chaos Reborn.
]]>After some time out of sight, X-COM creator Julian Gollop returned earlier this year, with a successful Kickstarter for a remake of/spiritual sequel to his beloved Spectrum strategy game, Chaos. (That being the one where wizards battle each other to death, with the help of various summoned beasties). An early, multiplayer-only version of Chaos Reborn takes to Steam Early Access today, so ahead of that I had a chat with the Laser Squad dev about how it all happened, what's changed, how much of a purist he is about his old work, his thoughts on Kickstarter and what's planned for the forthcoming singleplayer mode.
]]>Some moments in some games stay with you. The right event, the right surprise or the right hats at the right time, and it's imprinted on your memory forever. I've been playing PC games for almost 25 years: I've got a million of these, and so have you. I'll show you just a few of mine if you show me yours.
]]>What happy times we live in for fans of old-style X-COM, the way your Gollopmother used to make. The awfully X-COM-y Xenonauts left early access and launched properly only a fortnight ago, and now "open-source clone" OpenXcom has hit version 1.0 after five years of development ("This is your father's X-COM" goes the tagline in an alternate universe with softer copyright laws).
It's actually more of a replacement engine for X-COM: UFO Defense, mind, requiring the original game to drop in its data files. As well as improving the interface and fixing old bugs and whatnot, it adds mod support. And with that, you can keep playing new old X-COM for ever and ever and ever.
]]>Statistically speaking, you are probably not Ken Levine. That's fine. I'm not him, either. And neither is Graham. But thanks to all the silicon and electricity and stuff, you can at least be a bit like him. One of the ways in which he's been special recently is in the role of cheerleader for the Chaos Reborn Kickstarter, where he's been championing Julian Gollop's return. He has already played (or should that now be 'Let's Played'?) the hexy beast, and now you can too. Head here to grab the time-limited prototype of the strategic wiz thing, and bring some friends.
]]>13 days and $65,000 to go - that's the scores on the doors for X-COM creator Julian Gollop's Kickstarted Chaos remake (which I previewed here). Not a bad situation for the turn-based wizard battler to be in, given it's already $115k to the good, but a photo finish looks likely. The game's also up on Greenlight now, so you know what to do if you're excited about it.
There've been eight updates since the project went live a few weeks back, and it's heartening to see that they primarily focus on explaining features and concepts. Also one of them has a unicorn with a sword for a horn, so big bonus points for that.
]]>Chaos Reborn is the next game from Julian Gollop, lead creator of the original X-COM: UFO Defense - the greatest videogame of all time. This is a remake of and sequel to Gollop's earlier, magical duelling game Chaos: The Battle of Wizards. It It takes to Kickstarter today, but unlike other nostalgia-led projects, it's been in active development for some time already. I played a prototype recently, and I have this to say about it.
]]>Wowee, this is something I need to magic up a fortnight for. Since 2009, the OpenXcom project has been unhurriedly continuing in its quest to make the original X-COM more contemporaneous, - a standalone version that doesn't require DOSBox, that makes the interface a little more modern, that offers more rule-tweaking for those that want it, that finally kills some of the bugs which have dogged the original for the past two decades, and even one that scales up to mega-resolutions impressively convincingly. As of the new version 0.9, it's basically got everything working, and you basically get an in theory improved, but faithful, X-COM to play right now.
]]>I need to set aside a couple of hours to have a thorough read of Julian Gollop's ongoing design plans for his Chaos remake - he's sharing a remarkable amount on his Gollop Games blog. Today though, I take the easy route - monkey see previously unrevealed concept art for the original X-COM/UFO, monkey must post about it. Because said concept art features, as well as some very different looks for X-COM's familiar rogues gallery (e.g. what I think might be an Ethereal design has big thighs) there are some never-before-seen additions. Including what appears to be a giant mutant rabbity thing.
]]>I say 'vs', but the reality of this meeting between the 20th and 21st century masters of X-COM is that they repeatedly seem on the verge of embracing each other, rather than trading blows in a bitter row about time units and action cameras. Rev3Games arranged for original X-COM co-creator Julian Gollop to meet Jake Solomon, the lead dev on Firaxis' XCOM remake, the result being this rather delightful recording of their seventeen-minute exchange.
]]>In this concluding part (the first one is here), we discuss boardgame influences, commercial success, what XCOM might mean for the future of strategy, the need for realism within science-fiction, and why XCOM wound up rather buggy.
]]>With Firaxis' de-hyphenated, largely very well-received remake of the legendary, incomparable, enormous-haircutted X-COM now out there saving the Earth from the worst scum of the universe for several months, now seems the time to sit down with its enthusiastic main man Jake Solomon. What went right, what went wrong and what comes next? As per recent tradition, we had a very long chat.
Covered in this first part - the base, the skills, the missing element of surprise and what they've learned if they ever do this again. Edited out to spare you the horror: his Punch & Judy-style impersonation of an Englishman.
]]>Somehow, I wasn't aware that there was an official novelisation of 1993 strategy/everything game X-COM until just last month. Given my decades-long fixation with X-COM, this was rather like discovering that there was a book about my mum that had passed me by completely.
Diane Duane's slim text X-COM: UFO Defense - A Novel, published in 1996 by game guide firm Prima, has long been out of print (and never made it to e-print), so despite long scouring of fansites my only option was to explore the secondhand market, which in general wanted over £20 for this 250-page paperback. One joker's even asking £500 for it. Fortunately, a lucky eBay bid got it to me for a mere £11, and so it is that I now own this fascinating oddity: a novelisation of a strategy game, written by an author with a long history of penning books based on existent sci-fi franchises. Could it truly recreate the tension and horror of X-COM? The thoughtful trauma of the minute-to-minute decisions and the long game of base-building and troop-nurturing?
]]>The RPS reactions went as follows:
Alec: Woah Adam: Holy moly Jim: Woah
Legendary developer Julian Gollop, best known as one half of the sibling-based team responsible for X-COM and Laser Squad, has just announced he's making a brand new Chaos game.
]]>Oh dear, it turns out it's a first-person shooter with quick-time events and checkpoints after all. Move along, nothing to see here.
No, no, rest assured Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown is, like its 1993 predecessor X-COM: UFO Defense aka UFO: Enemy Unknown, a rich brew of turn-based strategy, base management, a sort of roleplaying and the sudden, frequent, horrible death of people you've developed an unhealthy fixation with, as you and your changing squad of soldiers struggle to save the Earth from alien invasion. This remake, until fairly recently, seemed like an impossibility - large publishers had lost faith that big-budget strategy games could pay for their yachts, iPads and watches heavy enough to beat a donkey to death with, and the X-COM name was sullied by spin-offs that had about as much in common with it as Hulk Hogan has with Stephen Hawking. X-COM was over, surely.
X-COM is back. I've waited 15 years for this, and now I can wait no more. Here's what I think. (Note - this write-up covers singleplayer only. Thoughts on multiplayer will follow at a later date).
]]>I'm only just curling myself out of the tiny ball of rage I'd become due to missing out on getting to play Firaxis' X-COM reboot the other week. Instead, we sent Adam. Adam! He's famous for saying stuff like "aliens are for losers" and "turn-based combat is a dusty relic of a bygone age" and "I wouldn't be caught dead in a Skyranger", then he starts body-popping and singing Flo Rida songs.
I take some small measure of comfort from the following end of the world-themed and rather splendid E3 trailer for XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which you may yourself watch below. It's impressively dramatic and explosive, in a way that I can only presume will be somewhat at odds with the slower-paced, turn-based combat of the real thing, but more excitingly it shows a Cyberdisc transforming, some sort of new alien that might be made of crystallised light, a Chrysalid in action, hints at some sort of psychic powers for soldiers and a glimpse of a very pissed-off Muton trapped in an alien containment tank. I likey.
]]>With their Guile haircuts and their baggy jumpsuits, the original members of X-COM couldn't suppress an alien if their lives depended on it and, boy, did their lives ever depend on it. The new XCOM are all about suppression though. There's nothing they love better than pinning some hapless sectoid behind a car and then flanking the mind-probing little bastard. Of course, all this suppression and whatnot is change and change can be more frightening than a chrysalid in a confined space. Here is a developer diary that intends to explain why modernisation is not necessarily the enemy you know.
]]>I know exactly what I'm doing. Including when I screw up. When I screw up in X-COM, I invariably know that I've screwed up long before the results of said screwing-up actually come to pass. My soldier is out of action points and left standing in the open while an alien silently eyeballs him, or a yet-to-explode grenade lands casually at the feet of an innocent civilian. Next turn, I will pay for these mistakes. Pay in blood.
I make exactly the same mistakes, and knew exactly why they had come to pass and what punishment would follow them, in Goldhawk Interactive's indie remake/reiminaging Xenonauts, which after three years of preorder-funded development today climbs about the wheezing Kickstarter bandwagon for its final furlong.
]]>As promised yesterday, here's another chat with XCOM: Enemy Unknown lead dev Jake Solomon. Here it is - and it brings with it particularly glad tidings if, like me, you weren't 100% convinced the slo-motion 'glamcam' killshots and 80s action movie soldier vocals were for you. Turns out we will indeed be able to turn them off in favour of quieter, interruption-free strategising. I'll probably try it both ways (missus) to work out which I prefer in practice but I'm super-chuffed that we're getting the option.
Also discussed - what he thinks about indie X-COM remake Xenonauts, chat about how to capture live aliens, how alien interrogation and research works, more on the game's lethality, and to what extent the game will shape your advancement up the tech tree.
]]>Two XCOM: Enemy Unknown interviews in (across four huge posts), I'm afraid I'm still nowhere near out of questions. And people are still saying 'why didn't you ask about thing x?' Well, let's do it all over again. Once more, Firaxis' Jake Solomon fields my endless queries about his reboot/remake/reimainging of precious, precious X-COM - and in this first of two parts, we talk about the new look, newly not-stupid Floater, the length of the game, approximately how many fatalities you can expect to suffer, coming up with prototypical names for the soldiers, squad sizes and modding. Oh, and please click on the first three screenshots for larger versions.
Jake Solomon: This is like our third interview
RPS: I know, it’s getting silly.
]]>Much as I love X-COM and would have as many of its turn-based, slow-scrolling babies as it asked me to, I would have zero hesitation in demanding one important change from it - to change the name of hovering alien foe known as the Floater. No, no, no, NO I'm not going to tell you why. If you don't already know you live an enviably innocent life. And probably haven't read many issues of Viz.
Distressing name or no, Floaters will not remain a thing of the past, having recently been confirmed as making a redesigned appearance in this Falltumn's XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
]]>It's probably horribly sensationalist to suggest there's a cold war on between Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Goldhawk Interactive's more mechanically purist X-COMlike Xenonauts, but then again it is the battle to end all battles, one shall stand and one shall fall and the Earth itself will be left in smoking ruins by the time this apocalyptic conflict is over.
Xenonauts has been smartening itself up since the announcement of Firaxis' official reimaginging, as lead dev Chris England chatted to me about a few weeks ago. More detailed environments, and the 'evil alien sheds' have now been replaced with suitably dramatic crashed UFOs. Images of its newly endetailed look are now available for all to clap eyes upon. Which is only so much preamble, innit? Here you are...
]]>Just in case my three-part, 15,000 word interview with Jake Solomon, lead designer on Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown, wasn't enough for you, here's a follow-up chat with the effusive main brain behind the X-COM remake. This time, we're finding out about how much soldiers' special abilities define the game, what's been done to ammo and why the perception that this new version only has one base isn't quite right.
]]>Here are my words on Firaxis' X-COM remake, here are the lead developer's words, and below, for the first time, is your own chance to eyeball it in glorious technicolour and living motion.
]]>Last week, I finally got to see XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Firaxis' X-COM remake, with my own failing eyes. I have various things to post about it over the coming days, but let's start with a break down of what made my little belly flutter with excitement and what made my weak jaw clench with anxiety. It's X-COM, but... not. Here's why.
]]>Up until January 5, 2012, the mega-ambitious Xenonauts, Goldhawk Interactive's Cold War-set tale of alien invasion, was our number one hope for a modernised X-COM. Then, on January 5, 2012, 2K and Firaxis announced they were making an official modernised X-COM. We've already chatted to Firaxis about XCOM: Enemy Unknown at length, but what did that shock news mean to Goldhawk lead Chris England? Here, I chat to Chris about his initial reaction, why it doesn't spell horror for his project, where he's at with Xenonauts at the moment, what's planned for the future, how he believes Xenonauts will be better than X-COM and whether spending his life savings on making the game has paid off.
Also, IKEA UFOs and drinking eight pints.
]]>You've read an awful lot about XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Firaxis' remake of the original, the legendary X-COM, in our fact'n'theory-fat 13,000 word interview with project lead Jake Solomon here, but the only images we've been able to show you thus far are tiny 600 pixel jobbies you need to squint at to make much out. How cruel we were. But how lovely we now are: here are 16 high-res shots to scrutinise for signs of extra information, tribute and/or betrayal. Click on each - including the one above - for an embiggened version.
]]>In the third and final (for now) part of my enormo-chat with Firaxis' Jake Solomon, head brain on XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the official remake of the legendary X-COM, we get into the nitty-gritty. To whit: why throw out time units, how the replacement system works, modding support, difficulty, soldier classes, country funding, Julian Gollop, 'ZCOM' and why he feels this new game has to bear the X-COM name.
]]>In this next chunk of a mammoth chat with XCOM: Enemy Unknown's lead designer at Firaxis Jake Solomon, we talk Chrysalids, the death and critical wounding of your soldiers, the fanbase, why min-maxing X-COM's not all it's cracked up to be, the base, the geoscape and which of the original game's aliens didn't make the cut...
]]>They did it. They really did it. As we unexpectedly discovered last month, Firaxis are remaking/reimagining the original X-COM, the 1993 title that is quite rightly often hailed as the greatest game ever made. Recently, I had a long, fascinating and genuinely reassuring chat with XCOM: Enemy Unknown's lead designer and evident fellow X-COM gonk Jake Solomon - in this first of three parts, he talks how, why, when, the response to the controversial XCOM shooter, Cyberdiscs, whether it's being simplified for console, 2K's infamous 'strategy games aren't contemporary' comment and missing hyphens.
]]>We'll have a very big chat with the XCOM: Enemy Unknown devs at Firaxis up for you at some point in the next few days, but in the meantime an American magazine has released a few more screenshots of the strategy reimagining of darling old X-COM. The magazine's post also shows off some of the tactics you'll be using, how a battle might play out, a little on the (inevitably) contentious new movement/action system and perks and - you'll like this - the destructible environents. Plus a close-up peek at the new-look, slighty Stroggy Mutons. I've snuck a couple of shots below and hope it won't result in a threat, but there are many more, plus vital descriptions over here and over here.
]]>OK, here we go. Brace for impact. Barricade yourself in your home. An American magazine has just put the first screenshots of the XCOM remake 'reimaginging', some teasy details, plus the vital answers to to whether it's linked to the XCOM shooter and if it's been... altered for consoles.
Good news! Well, ish.
]]>Firaxis making a new, true X-COM remake is the best gaming news of the year, and I fairly much expect to still be saying that on December 31 2012. Of course, it isn't that simple. There are things this game needs to do, to get right, if it is to be both a successful homage and a successful modern strategy game in its own right. Here's what I want from it.
]]>EDIT: added Gamersgate deal.
Steam's daily deal sees the complete X-COM bundle reduced to £3.05, while the complete pack is £2.49 at Gamersgate. It's as if they think the whole internet is talking about the series. You probably don't want Enforcer and Interceptor but if you don't have them, you almost definitely want the other three. They are £1.01 each on Steam. I still play the original on a regular basis and find it laughable that it's available for a pound and a penny. HA!
]]>Night will always follow day, controversy will always follow a highly-anticipated game scoring less than 9/10 on a mainstream videogaming website, and X-COM will always see remakes. Xenonauts is the one to watch at present, of course, but Xenowar caught my attention because it's going for a hyper-stripped down, simplistic, scrappy mini-take on the oft-aped formula.
]]>OK, I admit it: I am as cynical as you when it comes to half-suspecting that enormously ambitious, fanbase-courting independent projects announced before work on them has even begun carry the dread stench of vapourware. I've been very interested in Xenonauts for some time, if faintly horrified that lead designer Chris England claims he made the final decision to pour his life savings into funding an X-COM remake based on an offhand oh-if-only comment I made on RPS, but I confess wasn't entirely convinced it would see the light of day. Partly this was due to the many tales of infamy concerning amateur game devs who started working together remotely without ever actually meeting - online tensions can run so high - and partly because I've been waiting a long time for an X-COM remake that actually feels anything like X-COM. It is not in my nature to believe that dreams can come true.
A playable build of Xenonauts was on show in the RPS-sponsored Indie Arcade at the Eurogamer expo last week, and pretty much everyone I spoke to about it said the same thing: "well, it's X-COM," they offered with a wide grin. They didn't say what worked or what didn't or what they'd change or anything like that - they just said "it's like X-COM."
I can't think of a greater compliment for any game.
]]>Curse our limited-length titles! For this post should really be called something like 'Irrational co-founder and now Blue Manchu boss Jon Chey talks more about his splendid-sounding new PC boardgame/ CCG/ MMO mash-up Card Hunter, how to make free-to-play non-horrible, what he thinks the future might be for immersive sims in the vein of System Shock and his thoughts on his former studio's controversial XCOM remake'. Doesn't bloomin' fit though, does it? Oh well. You'll find all that stuff out for yourself simply by reading on: tons of interesting comments in here, and I'm particularly excited by the thought towards the end that a coming wave of mid-budget simulational shooters might be on the cards, and far more likely to take big creative risks than their glossier triple-A peers... (Oh, and if you missed the more Card Hunter-centric first part of this interview, looky here).
]]>After a year long silence, the enemy unknown is among us again. Below, you can find a brand new and very different to the last trailer for the XCOM reboot, which is created by some of the guys behind Bioshock 1&2, as well as the long-awaited release date. Hooray/uh-oh. Here we go.
]]>It's been a bit all-quiet for the Cold War-set X-COM reimagining Xenonauts for the last few months, but creators Goldhawk have finally broken cover to show how the major element - the ground combat - looks in action. The answer, you may not be terribly surprised to hear is "quite a bit like X-COM", but clearly that's exactly what we want. Higher res and detail is a fine thing, but it's especially pleasing to see that destructible scenery, something so bafflingly absent from many of the commercial X-COM remakes, is present and correct.
]]>Around four months ago, I flew to San Francisco to see XCOM, 2K Marin/Australia's remake of my favourite-ever videogame. Where once it was a turn-based strategy game, now it's a first-person shooter. This upset one or two people. All that time, I've had to be quiet, despite my previews appearing in PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazine UK - games publishers, I love you, but your print/online emargo split is just dark-ages idiocy.
Now, at frigging last, I can talk about it. There's a preview over on Eurogamer as of right now, though I do advise picking up the PCG issue for more details still. Read at least one of previews first, then come back here, because I'm afraid I don't have time today to re-describe the game in this post (but will definitely unfurl my thoughts about what I saw tomorrow). Back? Well, okay then. Below is a long interview from that showing in March, never before published, with three members of 2K Australia - Creative Director Jonathan Pelling, Art Director Andrew James, and Studio General Manager Anthony Lawrence. We talk about why it's a shooter, why set it in the 50s, how it references the original, how it's going to escalate and, yes, the possible fan reaction.
]]>Me! I saw XCOM! Me! And I still can't bloody talk about it. But I can direct you to buy, beg, borrow, steal or consume the latest issue of PC Gamer UK, which contains a big-ass feature wot I wrote about 2K Australia/Marin's controversial do-over of The World's Greatest Videogame™. What I can say - I hope - is that the feature goes into why the game is a lot more interesting than the infuriatingly brief press release suggested. The issue's lurking on the shelves of UK agents o'news now, or you can buy a copy direct from here. Free delivery, I'm told. Oh, and the feature also includes the largest picture you've ever seen of a Sectoid from the original X-COM. We'll be spilling XCOM details on this very website in a few weeks: print/online embargo splits are absolutely ludicrous in this day and age, but there you go.
]]>The enduring question around 2K Australia's upcoming XCOM FPS has been "why not just come up with a new IP?" Well, that three posts about X-COM each clocked up triple-figures of comments on Wednesday is the answer to that. A secondary question is "why is everyone so upset that it's using the X-COM IP?" The IP is not what's important about X-COM. In terms of fiction, X-COM has only ever been about killing aliens. The important thing is having a game that plays as X-COM did, with its sublime multi-genre cleverness. While it's unlikely a major publisher would tackle it, the door is not closed to someone else doing that. As has been mentioned by various people, someone like Stardock would be insane to not pick up this baton - there's a vast and willing audience out there.
First out the gate, though, is indie title Xenonauts, which is militant in its desire to do X-COM properly. It also has a cute genesis - its lead designer Chris England (who is indeed from England) says he was inspired to create an X-COM remake after we wished for one on our podcast. Aw!
]]>Funny thing. Whenever I try to write about X-COM, as in X-COM the game, not X-COM the place in my heart, I stall. It's too big. I need to do it at the right time (or perhaps for the right paycheque, I suspect). Where to start? Where to end? There have been superb summaries, makings-of and play diaries. It's a well-documented game, for sure. Yet I'm not sure there's been that simple one-two punch of why our collective knickers remain so thoroughly entwisted by it. Perhaps the words of one are not enough. Let's try the words of many.
]]>Oof, tough day. I totally get why people are upset, but once again it's worth waiting for a few more details before you decide the new XCOM is the end of all that is sacred. Maybe it will be, maybe it won't, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with a little honest hope. Today does, however, spell the end of a decade-long dream that someone would throw really serious money at resurrecting the fantastic hybrid genre 1994's X-COM created. There is a great sadness there - so many ideas left to die, never bettered in the long gap between then and now. So let's be hopeful, cautiously or otherwise, about XCOM, but let's also raise a glass to X-COM. We owe it so much, and we may never see its like again. Sniff.
This is the first of two posts exploring why I (and many others) unwaveringly believe X-COM is one of the most important and greatest games ever made. We'll talk about the game itself in the second one, but first please allow me to indulge myself with this autobiographical prelude. This is why X-COM matters to me.
]]>Yeah, you heard me. X-COM, the game to end all games, is finally getting its long-rumoured remake/sequel. [Boom. Internet explodes.] Wahoo, basically. Yes, it is indeed a first-person shooter - it is extraordinarily sad to wave away X-COM's traditional genre, but c'mon, did you really think a AAA title in 2010 (or 11, or whenever it ends up being released) was going to be a turn-based strategy game? Let's wait and see where they take it, at least.
Contrary to ancient prophecy, this tantalising do-over isn't being made by Ken Levine, but rather is pitched as a game from 2K Marin, the Bioshock 2 chaps. Though it also seems 2K Australia (née Irrational Australia) are heavily involved. Sparse announcement details and the first in-game screenshot are below...
]]>Not at all inspired by John's visual homage to Day of the Tentacle, I find myself compelled to present this large roster of attractive images from a game I'm rather taken with. UFO: Enemy Unknown, also known as X-COM: UFO Defense, is an exciting new science-fiction tactical action game from British developers Mythos, due for release in October 1994. You'll need to make sure your IBM-compatible personal computer has been upgraded to 2Mb of RAM and a VGA monitor for this one!
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