Considering how X-Com have popped up more than once, both in the original and the remake from Firaxis, in various stories and in conversations, it might interest the people around here that,

XCom 2.
My personal suggestion for more would be IGN, which has much in the way of info.

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

"Welcome back Commander."

Apparently they're using the timeline where I tried playing on Impossible and was losing countries and entire squads before I even knew what was happening. Kind of a shame, but hey, it was that or claim our tech doesn't work in salt water again. :)

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

In other gaming news, Bethesda has set up a countdown on their page, and it's set to hit zero tomorrow at 8am GMT/12pm ET. Considering its using the classic "Please Stand By" placeholder, odds are we're either about to be hit with a teaser trailer or something related for Fallout 4.

Have to imagine Mass Effect 4 will get a nod within the fortnight too. This may be a good year.

Oh yes...and counting 'this year' as the common fiscal year, which ends March, even more so.

Just for the setting, if nothing else, Assassin's Creed Syndicate
Arkham Knight
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided(though, admittedly, that might be optimistic, but...)
The Division
Homefront 2, which looks interesting with the scrounging they're talking about
Just Cause 3
Overwatch
Rainbow 6 Siege, which I'm sorta worried about, but at the same time...R6.
Rising Tides for Civ:Beyond Earth
Uncharted 4, which I'll buy the damn console for. Just have to have.
XCom 2

Then, of course, are the ones probably NOT coming this year, but which will probably be at E3, so more info, at least.

Borderlands 3
Fallout 4
Mass Effect 4, before all others really.
And the new and secret stuff that hasn't been revealed yet.

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

Okay, so the armageddon came a little earlier than advertised, but it's here(Not a rickroll, I swear). And I can already tell I'm gonna need to invest in a new console. But considering this is Bethesda, that means I have at least a year to do so.

>And I can already tell I'm gonna need to invest in a new
>console. But considering this is Bethesda, that means I have at least
>a year to do so.

More like two. One for the game to come out, and one for the version that actually works to follow.

--G.
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zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>More like two. One for the game to come out, and one for the version
>that actually works to follow.

Ah, too true, I can't wait to see the Day One bug list on this one. And it's next-gen too, so that probably means all the teething problems of a new engine thrown in as well. Still, I like to maintain some measure of optimism, if only because I've been waiting on this game since at least 2011.

Still, I'm not sure how thrilled I am by this trailer. One thing is for certain, Bethesda is no JJ Abrams when it comes to keeping secrets. Most of the reveals in the trailer, from Boston being the setting to the player character having a voice were leaked months or even years ago. About the only surprising thing was a lack of Ron Perlman narration, unless that's him doing the news report. Please, Bethesda, don't tell us you got rid of Ron!

It's definitely Ron. He tweeted this morning about it being one of the hardest secrets he's ever had to keep.

>It's definitely Ron. He tweeted this morning about it being one of the
>hardest secrets he's ever had to keep.

Well okay then, Bethesda did manage to keep at least one secret.

No, you don't. It's a Bethsoft game. Which means you're almost certainly going to want to mod it. Which you can't do on consoles.

>No, you don't. It's a Bethsoft game. Which means you're almost
>certainly going to want to mod itcheat using the developer console.

:)

--G.
tcai
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>No, you don't. It's a Bethsoft game. Which means you're almost
>>certainly going to want to mod itcheat using the developer console.
>
>:)

Yes, this, too.

...welp, I know where my November gaming budget is going.

Figure while I'm working with the links today, I'll include one to the XCOM 2 teaser, which like the Fallout 4 one is supposed to be in-game footage with only minor touch-ups.

20 years later, we see the world that exists for 99.9% of all people foolish enough to try Ironman Impossible.

>20 years later, we see the world that exists for 99.9% of all people
>foolish enough to try Ironman Impossible.

So... the premise of XCOM 2 is, "You lost XCOM 1."

And that's not the sound of me reaching for the preorder button.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>So... the premise of XCOM 2 is, "You lost XCOM 1."
>
>And that's not the sound of me reaching for the preorder
>button.

Yeah, I'm left wondering what was the whole point of the first game's narrative, with the big twist in the finale that there was some bigger bad out there that even the Ethereals feared, if the idea for the next game was "Let's just act like everybody who played the first game gave up in frustration."

...Yeah, I gotta admit I'm not super stoked about that part. But I can overlook a wonky story/timeline if the gameplay is there, and XCOM scratches an itch.

Granted, there's probably something out there that does it better than XCOM, but I have yet to find it.

>>20 years later, we see the world that exists for 99.9% of all people
>>foolish enough to try Ironman Impossible.
>
>So... the premise of XCOM 2 is, "You lost XCOM 1."
>
>And that's not the sound of me reaching for the preorder
>button.

It doesn't sound promising, does it? But they've got an IGN article out with quotes more or less explaining the reasoning.

It goes something like...

'We want to make the most awesome gameplay' --> 'We want to have it make more goddamn sense than Terror From the Deep did' --> 'Some kind of big new threat'd be pretty hard with the setup we had from the last game' --> 'So what about a Bad End continuation?' --> 'That'd be kind of a gyp to players that won the game?' --> 'Not if we set it after the abandoned campaigns.'

...And y'know? I'm okay with that. I play on bloody easy, and I haven't finished every run I ever started. I'm sure every player has at least one campaign they failed or gave up on.

A second chance to clean those up seems pretty neat.

-----

"V, did you do something foolish?"

"Yes, and it was glorious."

>I play on bloody easy, and I
>haven't finished every run I ever started. I'm sure every player has
>at least one campaign they failed or gave up on.

If I play this one, in my head it will be the continuation of my first-ever attempt to play Enemy Unknown (also my first-ever attempt to play any small-unit tactics game!) Normal difficulty, IIRC, and things were going so well until the first terror mission, at which point the Chrysalids executed a textbook TPK on the only squad I'd bothered to train, leaving me with nothing but rookies. Faced with this, the base commander just ... gave up, and ignored all further alien activity for two months, which is how long it took the Council to pull the funding.

(Out of character, I figured there was no way I could win at that point so I might as well hit fast-forward and see the bad ending.)

>It doesn't sound promising, does it? But they've got an IGN article
>out with quotes more or less explaining the reasoning.

IMO of course, but sugar-coating, "you, the player, fucked up last time around and this the result," doesn't make it any less bitter.

>'We want to make the most awesome gameplay' --> 'We want to have it
>make more goddamn sense than Terror From the Deep did' --> 'Some kind
>of big new threat'd be pretty hard with the setup we had from the last
>game'

... if we hadn't explicitly set such a thing up in the closing cutscene, anyway.

What? I'm just sayin'. :)

--G.
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

It's not like it'd even be that hard to make the advances from the first game irrelevant. Give the x-rays gear that's highly resistant to plasma fire and new weapons that are even more deadly, bring in some of the other races from the originals (which they're doing already, but I digress), upgrade some of them like they did the Mutons, and figure out the new Big Bad. Ready-made alien army, just add plot.

For that matter, they could opt for orbital bombardment as a strategy, and where would we be then? In need of new gear for a new environment, new craft to combat the threat, and very far behind the curve with most of our critical infrastructure down - all XCOM's gear is designed for surface work, they'd need new tech for zero/low-G environs. And by the end of the game, we're taking the fight to them in space, possibly with a final mission on the moon or Mars. And the next game? Interplanetary/interstellar warfare as we seek out the source, while the aliens just keep getting weirder and more dangerous. And maybe, just maybe, at the end of the line we find out that we have become the bad guys they were afraid of to begin with.

...Yes, I realize that's a gross oversimplification of the process and a LOT of speculation. I woke up with an urge to plot, please don't hit, etc.

Or they could have made a game that wasn't a direct sequel and let individual players figure out how it fits with their own prior experiences if they care.

>And maybe, just maybe, at the end of the line we find out that
>we have become the bad guys they were afraid of to begin with.

I've assumed there was going to be no maybe about this, regardless, ever since Dr. Shen first started telegraphing it with his Curiously Specific Concerns in the original game - and never mind when Enemy Within practically came with a Western Union logo. Of course humanity's adaptations to win the war with the aliens makes it cease to be humanity, that's always the message in 21st-century sci-fi.

--G.
yawn
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>And maybe, just maybe, at the end of the line we find out that
>>we have become the bad guys they were afraid of to begin with.
>
>I've assumed there was going to be no maybe about this, regardless,
>ever since Dr. Shen first started telegraphing it with his Curiously
>Specific Concerns in the original game - and never mind when Enemy
>Within practically came with a Western Union logo. Of course
>humanity's adaptations to win the war with the aliens makes it cease
>to be humanity, that's always the message in 21st-century
>sci-fi.

I was surprised, with the way the first half of the trailer looked, that they went with flat-out stating "you lost X-COM 1" rather than "X-COM won the war but the aliens won the peace", considering how much alien tech that Earth appropriated. Seems like a gradual infiltration / EXALT type government would have blended in better.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

I'm just waiting for the cries of 'This is a terrorist sim!!!1!1111eleventyone!' to begin, with popcorn close to hand.

>I'm just waiting for the cries of 'This is a terrorist
>sim!!!1!1111eleventyone!' to begin, with popcorn close to hand.

Just tell them the aliens are an allegory for illegal immigration, problem solved and best-selling game of 2015 to boot!
What, me cynical? never!

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

>>I'm just waiting for the cries of 'This is a terrorist
>>sim!!!1!1111eleventyone!' to begin, with popcorn close to hand.
>
>Just tell them the aliens are an allegory for illegal immigration,
>problem solved and best-selling game of 2015 to boot!
>What, me cynical? never!

Mercifully(?), I think this is a game setting too preoccupied with that "post-human singularity" bullshit to bother being political.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

LAST EDITED ON Jun-05-15 AT 04:37 AM (EDT)
 
...I can think of no way to respond to this that doesn't resort to conjecture based on barely half-understood concepts, and so I shall return to the peanut gallery.

(I literally typed four separate responses before this one, each taking a different tack on the post-human thing, before realizing that I am neither qualified nor particularly inclined to soapbox on the subject and thereby humiliate myself.)

>So... the premise of XCOM 2 is, "You lost XCOM 1."
>
>And that's not the sound of me reaching for the preorder
>button.

Further, and deeper explanation of this found HERE,
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/11/xcom-2s-bleak-future-why-impossible-iron-man-mode-is-canon-ign-first

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

>Further, and deeper explanation of this found HERE,
>http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/11/xcom-2s-bleak-future-why-impossible-iron-man-mode-is-canon-ign-first

Still not reaching for the preorder button.

Preorder...no, definitely not.

But I do think I can get along with the "whelp, you failed; now try again only poorer" setup to at least get around to playing it eventually.

Are you trying to convince me, or are you trying to convince yourself?

Ha! Point :-)
The latter, for clarification. I'm not particularly inclined to convince others when I'm not myself.

How about the idea that this is a parallel universe where the humans lost?

No, sorry, not idea, the other one. Fact. Fact is the word. Firaxis's designer said so, can't remember where off the top of my head, I'll dig it up and link to it later.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

>But I do think I can get along with the "whelp, you failed; now try
>again only poorer" setup to at least get around to playing it
>eventually.

You can do that with the original game, though. You don't have to give Firaxis more money for the privilege. :)

--G.
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

But...snakemen! The original doesn't have snakemen!

>But...snakemen! The original doesn't have snakemen!

Would I be indulging in a bit of old-mannery if I said "Good." at this point? :)

--G.
-><-
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Not at all!

I hated seeing them pop up on UFO Defense every time. Snakemen == crysalids back in the day, as you know well. That association will forever be burned into my mind.

>Would I be indulging in a bit of old-mannery if I said "Good." at this
>point? :)

Considering that, as far as I know, we're about of age, and I'm pleased as SHIT that they're there? I don't really know...

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

>>Would I be indulging in a bit of old-mannery if I said "Good." at this
>>point? :)
>
>Considering that, as far as I know, we're about of age, and I'm
>pleased as SHIT that they're there? I don't really know...

I thought the Thin Men were a pretty good replacement, is all. They filled mainly the same gameplay niche and fit the "UFO Pop Culture" theme better.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>I thought the Thin Men were a pretty good replacement, is all. They
>filled mainly the same gameplay niche and fit the "UFO Pop Culture"
>theme better.

Plus I still think that, of all the little videos we get during the interrogations, the Thin Man's was the coolest. He doesn't screech or pound against the glass, he just gives the scientists one hell of a death glare.

>I thought the Thin Men were a pretty good replacement, is all. They
>filled mainly the same gameplay niche and fit the "UFO Pop Culture"
>theme better.

On the one hand, point, definetly. On the other hand...well, harkening back, as it were, to the original X-Com? Definetly a bonus for me.

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

As an aside, I love the comments on the Fallout 4 trailer that amount to, "Eh, it looks awfully samey to me." It's a Fallout game. What did you guys figure, that it wouldn't be set in the post-apocalyptic future of an alternate history in which the early 1960s lasted until 2077? Honestly, kids today. :)

--G.
-><-
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

And with a voice-over from the man that has been the voice of the game-series, since it came out. I think people have been missing the idea of the Fallout games, somewhat.

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

>As an aside, I love the comments on the Fallout 4 trailer that
>amount to, "Eh, it looks awfully samey to me." It's a Fallout
>game. What did you guys figure, that it wouldn't be set in the
>post-apocalyptic future of an alternate history in which the early
>1960s lasted until 2077? Honestly, kids today. :)

These are the same fans who, if they'd been handed a trailer showing that all the work that had gone into the previous two games had been thrown out and everything looked totally different, would scream "It looks nothing like the other games!"