New XCOM: Enemy Unknown screens should be reassuring

@Osmium "We need more games that encourage trial and error and mystery these days."

Gosh do we ever. Just playing through Abobo's big adventure reminds me of how thrilling it was to discover mechanics through playing a game; wondering "how do I beat this boss?" then trying something and having it work. No sudden tutorial pausing the action, flashing a pop-up at me telling explicitly what to do and when to do it every time I encounter something new.

Of course some sections of the game, as with old NES games, are mind-numbingly frustrating, but I'm a big believer in being able to achieve the former without necessarily resorting to the latter!

@Osmium It's ridiculous to request a technical turn based strategy game not have a tutorial system. Blindly clicking on statistics pages and stumbling through strategic combat is a horrible way to introduce new players to a game. Imagine setting a chess board in front of someone who was unfamiliar with the game and telling them to "go at it"! How long would it take them through "trial and error" that a knight is only allowed to move in an L pattern?

@(Unverified) That's actually a *really bad* analogy. A turn based strategy game should *always* highlight a legal move. That is not a tutorial by any means. Showing you what you can do is completely different than a newbie tutorial. Yes games should always show you what you can possibly do, but tutorials tell you what you *should* do and that's a very different scenario.

Chess games don't tell you what moves to make, as in which one is the smartest move. Neither should a TBS game.

@whatisdelicious Who knows? Maybe it'll give them the drive to make it an interesting, unique take on the formula.

@whatisdelicious the shooter is currently delayed according to an ign article today

@whatisdelicious I think that game was also a great idea, not many AAA FPS in that time period.

@whatisdelicious

The announcement of this actually increases my interest in the FPS Xcom. By itself, it felt like cashing in on an old franchise without doing any real work. But in concert with a strategy style game, it feels like they are trying to rebuild that franchise and flesh it out.

@ovoon What with it having been already released and allowing everyone to make a clear, unbiased judgeme- oh, wait

@ovoon

Hey, cool, someone's writing from the future.

@Azurist

well it's being developed by the team behind BioShock 2 so..it's pretty much guaranteed to suck. right?

@Lucky The Fox

My name is John Titor.


And I'm talking about the gameplay preview. Just the very idea behind the game is bad, let alone the part where it looks incredibly poor visually and the game is butchering a classic. FPS and XCOM shouldn't mix.