1994 xcom is hard, but terror from the deep ... 😱

​@stevenvanhoorick1907 We don't want to scare Jon off too soon. We build up his confidence with 94's Enemy Unknown, and then we introduce him to the brain squid.

I'd love for him to see openxcom project. With so many amazing mods and full reworks of the game there is decades of content there to dive in :)

He's need one of the modded up fixed versions. The UI and controls were more a villain than anything in the game back then.

It's actually sad how John talks about things like time units, stat growth and etc. as if it's something new, when xcom (or UFO in some regions) already did it back in 94. Xcom 2012 is nothing more but a much simplified version of xcom 1994 in a slicker graphical wrapping. Xenonauts is just one of the projects that tries to bring the magic back.

>Xenonauts is almost a 1:1 recreation and update of the original 1994 XCOM Except not really ? And it's not as good or fun to play as the original. The first Xenonauts wasnt, at least.

It's probably good that they simplified the inventory management. Old XCOM had separate inventory grids for belt, shoulder pockets, backpack, etc.

I would have settled for a 1:1 but it just isn't. The one thing putting me off is when you shoot down a ufo on the map it is perfectly intact. In the original the ship would be in various damage states.

@@karry299 You're right, it's not 1:1 although it is infinitely closer than Firaxis' version. While I deeply love the original, it can be a chore to get it to run well seeing as you have to run dos box and the UI has its quirks as well being as it's ancient in terms of PC Games. Xenonauts "just works" and has a lot of QOL improvements. But no, it isn't the same.

@@Jon-pc6ch The game is still in early access, right? That might be something they aren't done with. I don't know.

Class abilities are cool and fun but I much prefer the inventory and stat system of this style, the old style feels like it calls for more well thought out tactical movement and planning than the newer style which is generally more fast paced and flashy, like you said neither is really better, it's a matter of what the player is looking for

I greatly prefer the name UFO: Enemy Unknown. :) And yes, Xenonauts is pretty much the closest adaptation to the originals, at least of the actually completed ones.

It makes so much sense

It's a little depressing that he just keeps talking about this like something fresh and new and original. It's not. It's the original X-Com with modern graphics. Right down to the soldiers growing organically over time. To those who didn't play it, in the original Enemy Unknown your soldiers improved by what you made them do. So if they take a lot of auto shots, their accuracy will improve gradually, if they use up all their time units every move they will gradually gain time units and be able to do more each turn. Seriously, this is UFO: Enemy Unknown/X-Com: UFO Defense with a modern graphical design more or less.

@@glenngriffon8032 It also feels a bit reminiscent of Rebelstar Tactical Command.

Also a Julian Gollop project

@@glenngriffon8032 Not to mention this sequel is almost just an exact copy of Xenonauts 1. Like there's nothing special about it, they just decided to make 3D models and some new missions and call it a sequel. In the original trailers for Xenonauts 2 they even advertised improved graphics, but that was scrapped in favour of copying the graphics of Xenonauts 1.

@@zrize101 I'd never heard of Xenonauts but as a fan of the original UFO game I'm likely to add this to my collection

To save the world, the nations funding you only see fit to give you a bunch of part time gym teachers wearing second hand body armor. It's great and I love it.

Ah yes, *Valkyria Chronicles*, the franchise about anime characters slowly figuring out all the different ways that war can suck

DDRJake did a play through of Xenonauts 2 quite recently where the soldier list was completely subscriber submitted, they had a stat allocation budget for the character and then he drew from the pool. Very good and there were some rather unorthodox characters that turned out to be heroes. Could 100% see this working for MATN’s format either for livestream or a fully blown series. I would think it would be livestream however due to the XCOM2 series being very similar.

I never played the OG X-COM, but, every time people talk about the way it worked compared to the newer ones it feels kinda like comparing how the combat works on D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e.

Issue with explosives is you lose out on four things: Money, autopsies, analysis and ammo trust me youll need so much ammo in some missions youll have to grab guns from fallen aliens and soldiers.

Sure its dumbed down in some ways, but also far deeper in others. Its just a different type of game

Eh, typical military spending. Add couple zeros to the price, nobody's going to notice.

If he has already played Xenonauts 2 then there’s little reason to also play X1.

In his defense, it isn't common for games released nowadays to have the depth and complexity of old school pc games after the industry went chasing console market sales.

Yup! Classic X-Com was notorious for its sacrificial lambs. Always lead with a few rookies, 'cause _someone_ isn't making it home alive, and it's better that it be Rookie #54 than Colonel Dave "Outruns a Tank" Beastly!

@@TheKeyser94 Yeah, I said that and then I remembered that I really enjoyed Wasteland 3, which has a similar combat system to XCOM, but with a lot more tacked on if I recall correctly.

I remember playing that, then getting quite annoyed that the final mission had... I probably shouldn't throw out spoilers willy nilly. Imma press enter a lot and hope that hides the spoilers from those who don't want them. Wish there was an actual spoiler function tho. The final mission had sudden time pressure, as a few turns after you started it the Crysalid-like aliens started to spawn enmass in the entry hallway. No other mission had time pressure, and it threw me for a loop. Then fridge logic happened and I remember thinking of an alternate method to beating the invasion without needing to board the mothership and get chased by crysalids all over. I think it involved the final craft weapon (the black hole one) somehow. I just couldn't think of a story reason why you couldn't just nuke it with the Black Hole Bomb.

@@xarm23 Yeah, I totally agree. Super disappointing. Overall Xenonauts has very convincing and well explained lore, even if it's still techno babble. One example is the explanation why at the start we're sending soldiers into battle in nothing more than just blue pajamas. It's said that we don;t even know how aliens perceive surroundings or do they even see colours, and that we have no idea about how alien weapons work so putting heavy armour on our soldiers would only slow them down, which is validated later on, where it's said that even tanks with their conventional armour can't stand a chance against plasma weapons, and only after designing special energy absorbing materials we're able to offer our troops some protection. This was amazingly well thought out! And the quality of writing just continues this way throughout the game. And then we have the final mission. We can land a boarding vessel with an entire squad of soldiers, bring a tank if we wish, but somehow we could not fill it with singularity torpedo warheads (the weapon used by X-120 Fury, one shot killing any UFO)? Surely few dozen of these detonated inside the ship, technically no further away that, what was it, 200 meters, from the end boss, would do the job of killing the alien in charge by disintegrating the entire ship along with Reapers that were threatening to infest the Earth, and then some!

@@xarm23 On that note, a final mission where we would need to actually capture a live end boss, or maybe just it's intact dead body, would allow for the premise that we're not allowed to nuke the mothership. Let's say that we would need the end boss (or it's remains) to send some subspace signal to propagate the anti-FTL effect of our end game device, and it would be only that final boss that's capable of doing it, for whatever the reason writers could come up with. Now that would be a lot more convincing.