Part 2
Time Units
This version has done away with the time unit system. Now you get to do 2 moves and that soldier is out of the game til the next turn. You can either run a few safe tiles and fire, or you can run passed your safe tiles and use up both your turn options. This is a bad idea, because once its the aliens turn, you cant defend yourself if you are caught out. If you chose not to move and just fire your weapon, that will use up both move options as does reloading your weapon.
However after you build up experience and your soldiers gain ranks, you can unlock a lot of newer abilities like run to futher tiles, get extra grenades, dodge alien fire and all kinds of other cool stuff. Some abilities can be used without using up a turn option meaning you can probably pull off 4-5 things in one turn.
The Game Maps
The maps look really nice, but are much smaller than the original. In this version it pretty much tells you the direction where you need to go and its one straight line, in the old xcom, you had no idea where the ship was, nor did you know where all the aliens were hiding. You start each mission facing the one direction where you need to go and thats it, no more creeping through farm houses looking for that one clever sectoid, but you do get to wander through shops and streets, but after playing a few of these missions you start to notice that they are really all exactly the same. This game does offer a lot of cover to hide behind, no more exposed open sapces so that is good, but like i said after day 3 all the maps ended up blending into one.
Alien AI
I have to give credit to this, the alien AI is pretty good, if you stumble into a pack of aliens, they will all scatter into cover all in defensive positions. They will try to flank you, if you kill too many at once, the rest will run away into better cover and most will not run into you sights asside from the modified mutons that love to run right up to your soldiers during your turn and just stare at them. Grrrr!
Bugs Problems
There were a few problems I found with the game, but nothing a patch or bug fix wont sort out. As mentioned before the camera does not handle very well when you are trying to throw a grenade or manually aim a rocket launcher, it will shake all over the place and you spend a while trying to get it aimed where you want it to.
When you are inside an alien ship the camera keeps shifting up to the top view obscuring the soldiers and you have to constantly press the descend floor key.
In one mission I had to fight 2 mutons and an ethereal leader, when it went to the alien turn, they all fell through the floor into an abyss of nothingness and the mission ended.
I found the glam cam could really block out the action when you performed a kill shot. Sometimes it would pan around your soldier and be pointed at his face when he fired and you had no idea if he hit his target or not. It would be nice if they arranged it so you had a nice close up glam cam shot of him aiming at the target and taking it out all in view
Conclusion
This was a very enjoyable game that i had trouble pulling away from, there were many times where I kept saying "aww just one more mission then i will go to bed." but then I would be back at the base selecting a new research, buying new weapons and before I Knew it 4 hours had passed and I had completed 4 other missions after. This will draw you in and keep you playing, it has a lot of newer, better and cooler features than the last, but has also lost just as many features that you would have preferred to have been kept in. Graphics are good, but you feel that with todays graphical advances it really could have been pushed a bit further, but that isn't an issue that will turn you off, the game is still beautiful to play with destructible enviornments and different difficulties in each mission. It will keep you playing, but it did seem shorter than the original, but as i said a lot of the stuff that kept you playing before has been cut to save time.
Game Tips
Okay, here is a basic guide i have used myself to progress pretty well through the game. Starting off with the base.
The more you research the quicker the game gets harder. As soon as you have unlocked the reasearch for lasers and plasma weapons, you will suddenly find that your opponents become much harder to combat. Before researching the alien plasma weapons, I recommend unlocking all the laser weapons as soon as possible. You will get some priority research options, but I suggest you leave these because unlocking the items marked priority just progress the game story faster and you need to be able to walk before you can run, trust me.
Save Everything you recover I mean everything. Before xcom advances well with all the gucci weapons and flash facilities and priority research stuff, you will need to keep as much stuff you recover as possible. Do not sell alien corpses or alien computers/power sources because a lot of things you want to manufacture require these items and if you sold them, you really cant manufacture much until you assault a downed/landed space ship and have I already mentioned that they are RARE.
Use your monthly wages sparingly, use it to build lots of satellite uplinks and satellites to cover the globe, because the more satellites you have the more money you earn. Do lots and lots of missions fighting sectoids/floaters on basic human weapons, wait til you have an entire warehouse of alien technology and only then do you research them. Because if you have a limited stock of alien stuff, you will not be able to outfit your whole squad with the new stuff. But if you have lots of stock and researched everything then you can build more things at once.
Do Not I repeat Do Not attack the one alien base until you have researched and equipped your soldiers with laser weapons. I made the mistake of attacking with the standard assault rifles, shotguns and rocket launchers and just as I got to the end of the map, suddenly a whole pack (Literally 8 of the sods) of cryssalids swarmed round my whole team. Now these things are an absolute barsteward to kill with earth weapons. It took my whole squad to kill one of them yet there were still 7 running about and they bit/zombiefied all my team within the next alien move. Running away doesn't help because they relentlessly chase after you and they can run more tiles than you can.
Take your time. Trust me the maps are not as big as they look, unless you are in immediate danger always end your turn in cover and on overwatch, trust me it saves your life more times than you know. When you have unlocked all 6 soldiers to play in mission split them up into 2 teams of 3, make sure both teams has a medic, an arc thower and a grenade. The sniper is useful, but I found I can get through without one, your sniper at a high rank with a laser/plasma sniper rifle can be deadly with a one shot kill, especially on overwatch.
Always stack up at a door in a full team, do not just run into a new room blind on your own, you may end up having a very bad day.
Prioritize your targets if you have multiple enemies in view. Sometimes you can have up to 8 enemies on screen and you may not be able to take them all out. Attack the closest more immediate threat, once he is down, then concentrate on the next one. If you manage to use all your soldiers to kill 2 aliens in one turn, that is much better than not killing any and having 6 really annoyed wounded aliens that can still shoot and attack you, then It is a matter of luck to see who is left standing at the end of it.
Save the game when you first touch down, then autosave after each turn. If it goes wrong, reload and try again. if reloading the autosave doesnt work and you really are in the thick of it, try loading the whole mission again and try a different approach. I managed to complete the game with all of my original soldiers I started with, simply because I never let a single man die.
I am sure I am forgetting a ton of things, but my hands are sore and I have already covered so much so if you did get to read down this far, then thanks for sticking with my mini novel. I'm off to bed now.
Thanks
Dave
