Good Job!
I was pleasantly surprised to see this first screenshot of 2K Marin's new 'XCOM' game. Apparently it will use game mechanics similar to Valkyria Chronicles for the combat, but all of the strategical features of the original game are still present. Nice!
Yeah, it's not true ._. I made it all up.
27 comments:
:|
You TEASE!!!
Your picture looks really, reeally good!
I also heard it was going to include exploration in the vein of castlevania or metroid, and that they were merging it with the star control universe.
I wish I lived in you guys' reality...
;)
haha, awesome.
Ouch, that's so amazing that it hurts. As to the existing version I wonder why they even bothered calling it X-COM.
The new game may or may not be good in itself, of course. However, it's rather suspect that they haven't showed any of the features that people associate with X-COM.
I heard a rumor once that they were working on two different X-COM games.
one can only hope
From what I understand (there's a dev talk video on GameTrailers), there is a base where there are a couple of predefined characters (like Bond's Q), and a map which missions appears on when conditions are met. The missions can be played in a different order and new ones pop up as things happen.
I got the impression that they want to control the player's experience tighter than in the original game, like: The agents arrive at the (first) scene, it's an idyllic small town, then bam, black blobs, then bam, it gets worse and the player has to retreat with his team, research some stuff and new missions appear.
-Arne on a bus
@Arne:
I hope so to both of your comments. Unlike a lot of Internet commenters I'm not angry at the new interpretation of X-Com, more confused. There is literally nothing of the previous games in what we have seen of this new one. No part of the continuity or the gameplay. I wonder if they are going to pull aside the curtain and suddenly we are going to be shown a rich tech tree, high difficulty curve and squad based gameplay.
I would love to see a "Batman Begins" style alternate origin story to the X-Com universe with F-86 Sabres chasing down UFOs and an overextended government agency trying to balance the Cold War with a secret conflict with aliens. You could even throw in a rival Russian team (which you could play as if you wanted) that you race to alien crash sites for first salvage rights.
Speaking of, have you ever read Charles Stross's "A Colder War?" Alt-history Cold War Cthulhu, good stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePEajfi_BMo shows some of the scenes from the new game...
The fake screenshot above is actually a 'paintover' of a frame from that teaser/trailer which they released. It was done as prank in a tigsource thread where the original screenshot was posted. At first I just wanted to replace the black mass with a Celatid, but it escalated.
-Arne (in Uppsala)
I haven't read any Charles Stross, but I do remember the name. I think someone recommended him. I've mostly read what the small local library where I live has (i.e. not much), unfortunately. I also read kind of slow and it's hard for me to find time for it anymore. Still, there's a lot of stuff which I want to sink my teeth into.
- Arne again
Really nice!! I have seen all your game projects too, and I would like to see all games moving one day. Surely you know already this tool, but it is quite powerful to make 2d games: www.scirra.com
hehehehe
:(
I kind of wandered off to complain about a video game there, didn't I? Great art though, I can spend so much time reading back and forth over those design docs you've got elsewhere on here. Skeleton Wars and Megaman Legends both rule. SW makes me want to make a Dwarf Fortress mod, that battle-suited dwarf is so awesome.
I understand not having time for pleasure reading. I'm getting back to school and I'm out of video game time half the time. If you feel like it, "A Colder War" is available free on the internet over here: www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm
I seem to rarely use the language part of the brain when I draw and paint, so I sometimes listen to lectures or stories to make more effective use of my time. I've actually used speech synthesis a couple of times, so I might try that with "A Colder War"
I once fell asleep to Call of Cthulhu read by speech synthesis. I wonder if that affected me on some weird unconscious level.
Hmm, returning to X-COM. It's a little funny. If they hadn't called this game XCOM, then people might have said that it's similar. Now it's the other way around. I guess the problem for them is that the game seems to lie somewhere in between X-COM and something else.
On a related note, Peace Walker looks sort of interesting.
Perhaps an X-COM game needs to be a little inaccessible? I do think that accessibility is a good thing, but I also think that depth is a good (maybe better) thing.
It's good if a game is scalable so it can appeal to, and grow with different kind of players. But the possibility space for game ideas is huge and there are probably a lot of game concepts which can't be made accessible and are still great fun.
It reminds me a bit of how some game concepts can't be easily prototyped, since they rely on a lot of complex parts coming together before they work.
It's a space which few dare to explore because... exploration is risky, and making a game is a big and costly 'expedition'. It's a desert full of sun bleached skulls, but I'd rather go there than risk being choked to death in a crowd around a safe waterhole.
VC style system? Thank fuck. If I had designed the game a VC style system for engagement is how I would have kept action and stratagy in the game.
Still I'm skeptical, hope they do a good job.
I haven't actually played Valkyria Chronicles, but many have mentioned that they like to see it used with a new X-COM game.
Personally, the isometric TBS mechanic has grown to be my favourite because it's cute, gives a nice static overview (no zooming around, even less so with today's resolutions), and it allows you to follow all of the action.
In VC, as I understand it, the camera does zoom around a bit, but on the other hand you have the immersion of getting down there in the dark with the character. Makes the LoS situation more clear too.
I wish more games were designed around "losing is fun". Playing to win shouldn't be a chore. Game Over shouldn't be frustrating. Yet nearly all games make you replay a level over and over and throw away the control in anger. I've stopped playing games all together because I messed up a save and didn't feel like replaying. If you do manage to progress it feels more like you've done with a piece of labor. But, maybe it's just me getting old and not really enjoying games in the same way anymore.
If I were to make an X-COM game I'd design a whole bunch of different aliens and have a limited selection of them populate the Earth with their bases. Each alien faction would bring different gadgets for you to perhaps capture, pick apart and develop new tech from. This would hopefully make each new game more interesting to play. I like being forced to think on my feet and respond to situations that are unique to the particular game. It's a bit like being forced to adapt your city/base to the terrain in a strategy game. If the terrain was flat and featureless, you could just build the same base over and over.
Having a whole bunch of aliens that may or may not show up gives me that feeling that I had as a kid when I didn't understand the restriction of games, and there could be mysterious and amazing new game content just around the corner.
Arg, it really hurts to see that pic. If the real game looked that stellar (and used a VC-ish combat system) I'd easily have forgiven it for being a FPS. Well done piquing my interest in a game that doesn't exist, as usual. ;)
Great artworks man, just add you to my follow list.
Keep it up.
So, in some X-Com related news, check this out: http://tinycartridge.com/post/954552931/x-com-creator-and-ubisoft-working-on-a-launch-title
Might be a ray of sunshine?
Julian Gollop, one of the designers behind X-COM and Laser Squad, said last week that he is working on a turn-based tactical game that will be a launch title for Nintendo’s upcoming 3DS hardware.
Read More http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/08/julian-gollop-3ds/#ixzz0xRBrfW2O
Oops, forgot to approve comments. Got too much spam and had to change the comment system. Anyways, thanks for the links! I did not know.
love your style
That would be SO MUCH better than the game they are giving us! ...which frankly looks nothing like xcom other than it has aliens.
Truth is stranger than fiction
Post a Comment