melkathi

I throw a tactical scanner. The scanner reveals three mutons who get a cut-scene of growling and posing for the camera, then scatter and run out of LOS and behind cover. Of course it was the sniper who threw the thing, so her/his turn is basially over as he/she can't reposition and shoot now, having performed one action already. So there goes the ambush. Of course I could have my assault person rush out and shoo one of the mutons out of cover... and be left in the open (but of course with improved defense). That is of course if the Mutons did not run in a way that makes the flush out shot flush them into fog of war. As I said though. I believe it has tactics. I don't think they are a result of a great tactics game though, rather that of restrictions and flashy game design. All I got to see while playing was moving carefully and slowly down the map"so as to trigger alien to spawn in as small numbers as possible at a given moment and each time, followed by using the various abilities of the soldiers to defeat the spawn and move on to where I expect the next group of aliens to spawn.

Meh. The only thing worth buying for Zen is the freeform character slot in Champiosn Online. Besides that... nothing really. Especially nothing that has to do with keys for lockboxes

Not so much skepticism. I think it released just as the EU council presidency was drowning in ECOFIN meetings and Cyprus was knee deep in the dept crisis / money laundering alegations. So i was drowning in work. I absolutely loath the move away from action points and to only letting you do specific things in a specific order (you can move then shoot, but you can't shoot then move (unless you are a heavy with the ability), you can move then reload, but you can't reload then move. Touching your gun for any reason other than carrying it ends your turn after all). I find the need for "tactics" this adds to be the cheap kind: add some arbitrary restrictions forcing the players to work around them. XCOM arguably gives players more toys to play with, with all those nifty abilities to choose from. But I feel I am allowed to do less in the end; the abilities allow me to do what the developer envisioned, not what I want to do. I can't fire my assault rifle in full auto, spray and pray - the character is the wrong class for that, doesn't matter that its a fully automatic weapon. If I want to empty the clip I have to use some sort of supression fire. I wont deal damage anymore, but who would ever think that a clip in an assault rifle, when empited could kill things? At the same time, I can't duck. I can duck, if the context sensitive environment has a glowing little shield symbol. And of course ducking doesn't steady my aim. It's silly considering that in the games where you only have standing stance and kneeling stance, people have been criticising the lack of a prone stance. But with XCOM all shiny and new its ok that there are no stances at all? It is irrelevant in which direction I am facing. There seems to be no friendly fire outside AoE attacks like grenades and rockets. And of course no stray bullets - if a bullet misses the target, it vanishes. I can have overwatch, but it's a la Warhammer 40k: I declare overwatch and then when it triggers I do my attack in my opponent's turn. No "I have that many action points left over and can make a reaction check to fire with them in my opponent's turn" and deffinitly no setting at what threshhold to start shooting (as some tactics games allow you to). But what bothers me the most is the fact that aliens on the map seem to exist in potential only until someone reaches a trigger distance: then they spawn in groups of three and immediatly get a free move. There is no sneaking up on them, there is no setting up a sniper from afar, or using thermal imaging or nightvision or psionic detection. If you know where they are, they get to run for cover during your turn. That's what I could think of off the top of my head. But it results in me personally feeling this game to be closer to DoW2 and even Republic Commandos than older small units tactics games. So I had far less fun than I had with UFO: Enemy Unknown or the UFO trilogy by ALTAR, or UFO: Extraterrestrials or Fallout Tactics. (or even Paradise Cracked and Cops 2170)

Probably going to give up on XCOM. Seriously disliking it.

Still playing Go Home Dinosaurs! Very educational game. I learned why dinosaurs went extinct. They tried to raid the gophers' BBQ. To protect their BBQ, the gophers used giant magnets to pull meteors from space and drop them on the dinosaurs.

"I shall not confront Drowsy Emperor as an enemy, but welcome his cookies as gifts to be cherished." -Gaian acolyte prayer

This quest for enlightenment is just another false god. To which I have to ask: "Will we next create false gods to rule over us?" Sister Miriam Godwinson, "We Must Dissent" Ok, that's stretching it a bit in relevance, but I wanted to show off my ability to quote AC as well

When you still know that its a life you need and not a Phoenix Down, you are fine

Gave it a bit more time. May play through it, but am glad I did not pay full price for it. Most likely I will return to UFO: Extraterrestrials Gold Edition for the true UFO experience. It doesn't have fancy graphics and may be a bit deadlier, but at least gameplay doesn't feel dumbed down for consols (my soldiers can crouch ). In this new XCOM throwing grenades is a pain. I had enemies with jetpacks jump through a solid concrete roof, then land on the roof they jumped through, so they could shoot at me from a higher elevation... It isn't as bad as UFO: Aftermath, which had random maps that i would generate from scratch when you loaded a game, even while on the map - so if you were taking cover behind a house, saved the game to have dinner and loaded afterwards to continue playing, the house would most likely not be there anymore...

Playing "Go Home Dinosaurs!" A fun little tower defence where gophers are trying to protect their BBQ from ravenous hordes of dinosaurs. The pop refrences and terrible puns are priceless. Gopher grunt shoots from his tree stump: "This is my stump. There are many like it, but this one is mine." Gopher with freeze ray: "I see dinos. Get it? Icy dinos?" Though my favourid has to be the laser which is "historically accurate!"

Trying out XCOM. Man is the gameplay terrible... will I have to play a strategy game with a gamepad?

Do you get any knockback attacks? Nothing is as rewarding as sending enemies flying off of buildings

Decided to back a point and click aventure called Realm: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/995134339/the-realm-game It has extremly beautiful art and they seem to have thought about the adventure game genre.

For some reason I slept all day. I saw very wierd dreams, including one in which I was Sansa Stark, part of the Winterfell Rugby Team and had been assigned to guard Arya, our newest and fastest player, so she could score. This included flying tackles at opposing players such as Sandor Clegane, dragging them down into the mud. Arya did score and we did win.

There isn't for their other games.

I find it frustrating that customers are so fickle that you have to ask them if its ok if you will sell t-shirts as well. Because I havea nagging feeling that they are not just asking to see if people will buy, but to gauge what nerd rage they could expect. Or perhaps I just have a low opinion of people

Your internet ran past you, only stopping for a moment to say "Meep meep" ?

Ok, going to post a Defiance screenshot so I can reply to the "simplyfication" discussion without feeling guilty I have less and less patience to spend too much time searching. I don't need a light-trail to guide me places, but I do want at least some sort of reference. Currently playing Defiance, where some of the daily contracts can be Kill Raider Blasters at Farms. Just that the farms aren't labeled on the map. So you have to search for / remember the location of the two or three farms that are under raider attack or have been taken over by raiders. Fair enough. A bit annoying that raiders killed in the fields just outside the farms don't count. They have to be at the farms themselves. But fair enough. When it tells you to kill x number of enemy type y in the Sausalito area, but the game does not indicate when you have changed area from Sausalito to Marin... that is annoying. Anyway, the screenshot:

Meh, then you'll have to type it outside the game and copy/paste it Or join the chat channel, then I can see your info there and post your complete name here (if you aren't sure what your handle is) for people to add you (you know the "In soviet russia you didn't add friends, friends added you" line...)

And once an MMO has been out for a while there is no soul in sight when you do these

When you hit level 15 you unlock the foundry. The foundry is like many mod tool kits, it allows you to make full adventures. It includes many, if not all, of the assets from the game. You can script conversations, encounters, etc. Then the adventures are made available to the public via the in-game job boards. I don't know what the approval process for adventures is like, if there is one, since I'm yet to finish making an adventure. It's a really cool feature, and, frankly, all games should do it. Access to it will be pay though after launch if I am not mistaken.

They have usermade content in STO as well if I remember correctly. Kinda had to - community pressured them a lot since CoH had the mission architect.

Earthalan, your formers could raise and lower levels as well (though most people, myself included, just put them on auto). It was a slow process, but I doubt anyone plays this kind of game for speed. Tectonic payloads on missiles were a lot of fun as well: drop a terraforming payload near a city and watch it suddenly be by the sea. And then, Earthalan, there was the whole fungus planting and removing and of course fungal payload missiles - now those were fun.

The strong underlying narrative is very important. As is its, inmy opinion, subtle presentation with different bits of story triggering through different... erm triggers (for example your first ever mindworm unit you trained yourself being killed by an opposing faction triggering the revenge story and adding the setting that the next city you conquer from that faction is renamed in the dead unit's memory). Beside that: The attention given to faction and faction leader personalities The social engineering The unit customization Terraforming Diplomacy - politics - voting in the council The decission to include real world politics/political views and have them interwoven with all aspects of the game. I fall right into the validation of your theory though I guess: to me narrative is extremly important. Yes I could get all that from a new setting. But that goes for any sequel, no? This is a setting that I enjoyed a lot. Probably my favourid setting in PC gaming that was created for a particular game. (I would have loved a Dune MMO or a Dune rpg, before Brian Herbert took the setting out back into a dark, smelly alley and shot it in the back of the head) Right now there are two games I would pay to have made sequels to, even at an early stage: Alpha Centauri, Alpha Protocol (and I just noticed the pattern there...) And one game I'd love a modern remake for: Magic of Endoria I am not sure if I should add Syndicate to either of those.

Seriously? I'd back a sepparate crowd fund just for them obtaining the rights.