XCOM: Enemy Unknown (on 360/PS3)

[MrPopo]

Having more spells to choose from is tedious if the majority are not worth using.

Spells that only work (well) in certain situations and under special conditions, as opposed ones that you'll always use, separate the good players from the bad ones.

There's a few different ones that fall under that category:

1. Utility spells. Things like antidote. These are boring. The only real reason to have antidote and soft vs. remedy is that you can impose different resource costs, but that's still boring; everyone always uses the appropriate spell.
2. Spells only effective against a subset of opponents. This is also boring and feels terrible if not implemented well. The couple of party members in Phantasy Star II who are specialized against biological/robotic opponents come to mind. The two implementations are either a character has a handful of super effective spells, which isn't skillful since you use them when appropriate and don't when not, or it's specialized characters where the skill comes down to knowing that you're in the robot level.
3. Combo spells which are highly effective once a particular game state is reached. Maybe you need to impart several status effects on the enemy before your damage attack can work, but once it does you're in the money. This can feel immensely satisfying and is the first interesting application, but it can also be a balance nightmare. This is also the first one that separates the good players from the bad ones in a meaningful way (is it worth it to spend time on the debuffs, or is this enemy better faced with regular damage spells?)

Now go back and think of how much stuff fits into the bad categories of 1 & 2, and how much fits into 3.

The real meaning of "dumbed down" is when you remove depth. To "simplify" is to remove complexity.

Removing elements from a game doesn't necessarily remove depth from it, but doing so never brings any additional depth to it.[/quote]
Correct, but if depth is maintained while complexity is removed then things are better.

[Menegrothx]

Just watched Spoony and Angry Joe reviews of this. Looks like the game isn't quite as good as it could've been, but nonetheless a great game and I cant wait to play this. Many people have suggested that the game could be improvided via DLC or expansion pack (I hope the latter) in the future. If this game has mod support on the PC side, it could become something truly great, given enough time.

I think this game is like Rayman Origins, gamers need to buy it to show that there still is support for 2D platformers, strategy games and other genres that dont get much love from publishers these days.

Xenonauts looks very promising, it's trying to be (lets hope it succeeds) a real spiritual successor of the original game.

[jfrost]

Removing elements from a game doesn't necessarily remove depth from it, but doing so never brings any additional depth to it.

I disagree. It's perfectly possible to bring additional depth to a game by removing elements (thus making gameplay more flexible), and it's also perfectly possible to add elements to a game and make it less complex (because the rules are less flexible and thus there would be less room for strategy).

[Pulsar_t]

I hope they release an Android port if the iOS version does well. TBS is perfect for touch-controls!

[noiseredux]

I just finally picked this up for a good price. I just played the first mission, which is just a tutorial basically, but this seems like an awesome update to the old XCOM games.

[MrPopo]

I just finally picked this up for a good price. I just played the first mission, which is just a tutorial basically, but this seems like an awesome update to the old XCOM games.

Ironman Classic, I hope.

[Jmustang1968]

I just finally picked this up for a good price. I just played the first mission, which is just a tutorial basically, but this seems like an awesome update to the old XCOM games.

Yeah I had a great time with it

[noiseredux]

Left it on normal popo.

[noiseredux]

so as a dude introduced to the XCOM series at the age of 16 with Terror From The Deep, I am just jaw-droppingly amazed by Enemy Unknown. This game is just incredible. I can't believe how awesome and detailed and deep this is. And best of all - it all makes sense with a friggin' controller.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Too bad the crappy line of sight and bugs all ruin the fun, especially later in the game and on higher difficulties where those sorts of things can totally mess up the rest of the game for you.