[PC/PS3/360] Xcom Enemy unknown

[LoweGear]

It is kinda odd that it's the MEC option that's fixed, but the Gene mod options can be respecced. You'd think replacing organic body parts and changing DNA would be harder than replacing mechanical parts

[LoweGear]

YouTube

https://youtu.be/W5fp9GsCPHU

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Flying Invisible Tentacle Aliens.... as if this game was nightmarish enough at times

I do like the addition of snow maps though, adds much variety to the environment.

[Skane]

So was the rocket punch added in before or after Pacific Rim?

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by Skane

So was the rocket punch added in before or after Pacific Rim?

Given how both were probably made at around the same time, likely independent.

All I know is that I'm naming my first MEC Gipsy Danger.

[Duo Maxwell]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

All I know is that I'm naming my first MEC Gipsy Danger.

>Not Cherno Alpha

That punch screams Tesla Punch. Now I only need a fine hat.

[LoweGear]

Inside Gaming Daily - PAX Prime 2013: Firaxis' Ananda Gupta and the Enemy Within XCOM

Well, we have new story content confirmed at least, though only part of it:

Originally Posted by Inside Gaming Daily said:

“One of the new things that’s in the expansion is ‘Operation Progeny,’ another sort of side-plot, similar to [previous DLC] ‘Slingshot.’ We had intended to release it as a DLC, and then we ran into some scheduling problems, where basically they made me choose between finalizing ‘Operation Progeny and getting engineers to start working on the mechs. Well, I’d really rather get a headstart on the mechs and the gene mods, and the stuff we’re going to do in the expansion, because that’s what Firaxis is about.

“But I thought, ‘since we’re in the final stages of ‘Progeny’ already, how about we put it in the expansion? And 2K Games and Jake were fine with that. And that let us put out the second wave option in December and have a nice spacing.”

But it wasn’t as simple as all that. “Operation Progeny” was started separately from Enemy Within, so just plopping it into the expansion wouldn’t work.

“We put it in the expansion and we decided, you know what, this is cool, but it doesn’t feel right…We need to change this a little.

“So we went back, we re-recorded some of the dialogue, and we wove it into the narrative of the expansion better….I can’t talk about [the story] a huge amount, but what I can say is that we took the opportunity to take ‘Progeny,’ unraveled it a little, and then restitched it into the expansion narrative in a way that really, really works well with Enemy Within. And it’s still optional, so you can check it on and off.”

Also:

Originally Posted by IGD

On that note, Gupta’s hoping players will give it a shot as soon as possible.

“I really hope players will play the first time with it on, just so they can get the full narrative of what’s going on. But I think it really now supports and reinforces the Enemy Within narrative, which, again, you’ll be hearing about later.”

They are announcing more stuff later this month though, so we haven't seen all this expansion will offer yet.

[LoweGear]

This game no longer gets much interest in these boards does it?

Anyways, here's a couple of new Enemy Within gameplay videos, first is an official (scripted) gameplay video narrated by lead designer Anana Gupta:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/EF3AwytdPh8

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

And here's an actual playthrough of the PAX Prime Enemy Within demo by Destructoid:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/1uMHNOuj5SU

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[LoweGear]

Steam just updated the Enemy Unknown achievements to reveal the challenges for Enemy Within. Guess what we got ladies and gentlemen:

Images

XCOM: Enemy Within Steam Achievements

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Spoiler for Enemy Within:

BASE DEFENSE

[Wandering_Youth]

Ooh that last last achievement better be true!

Aww, we got no pure soldier achievement? I was hoping I can go all normal soldiers and beating the game.

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

Aww, we got no pure soldier achievement? I was hoping I can go all normal soldiers and beating the game.

Ananda Gupta is on record saying that he didn't add such an achievement to the game because he didn't want to create a disincentive for using the new Gmods and MECs. The game is still beatable with a pure non-modded force though.

For those who haven't seen it here, here's a developer blog featuring the new enemy, the Seeker:

Originally Posted by 2k Dev Blog

One of the things we wanted to do in Enemy Within was to get the player looking over her shoulder more often. We have terror maps that can get out of hand with zombie infestation, but the aliens were missing a subtle assassin, something that can attack suddenly and without warning when the player least expects it. The Seeker was an obvious candidate. It never made it past the early concept stage on Enemy Unknown, when we wanted to emphasize the 1993 XCOM’s enemy lineup. And after we saw how players started to play Enemy Unknown after gaining some experience, we knew this kind of threat was called for.

Making the Seeker a flying unit made a ton of sense; an assassin has to have a lot of mobility, especially if we want it to make hit and run attacks with a close-quarters ability. Stealth would also help it approach the player’s squad without getting chewed up before it can get to grips. But stealth proved very difficult to get right; in a turn based game, there are defined windows for player action, and we needed to make sure that players didn’t spin their wheels hunting the last cloaked enemy on the map. The Seeker’s stealth was initially unlimited, but this was quickly changed to a fuel-like system both for multiplayer balance reasons and so that “hunt the Seeker” didn’t become a problem during abduction and terror maps once it was clear the player had a strong advantage.

Seekers appear in pairs; this is pretty tightly controlled. Originally, Seekers could appear in moderate numbers, but one too many missions where the entire XCOM squad was simultaneously strangled led us to change that. To compensate for their small numbers, they will often defer combat until XCOM encounters another alien group; this keeps the player suspicious, and offers a choice: try to locate and destroy the Seekers immediately, or move on and hope you can deal with them when they combine with other aliens on the map?

There are several counters to Seeker stealth, but they fall into two categories: detecting the cloaked Seeker, since Seekers cannot Strangle if they are visible, and defending specifically against the Strangle attack. In the former category, Bioelectric Skin (a gene mod that is unlocked from the Chryssalid Autopsy) and Snipers’ Battle Scanners will detect Seekers in their radii of effect. For the latter type of defense, the Respirator Implant prevents strangulation as well as granting some bonus health. And many advanced armors confer immunity too, due to their life support systems and heavy construction.

The Seeker was a great challenge for the whole team. It’s the only unit in XCOM that’s capable of occupying the same tile as its target, which required fancy code. Its shape – elongated and squidlike – posed a lot of problems for the character artists and animators. And it required a custom AI routine to support its tactical behavior. We think the Seeker will make a great addition to the alien invasion; good luck facing it!

-Ananda Gupta
Lead Designer | XCOM: Enemy Within

[Wandering_Youth]

Interesting. He says certain armors will have a inherent ability to cancel strangulation. The only armor I can think of right now that would get this ability would be the Titan armor because it's XCom's heaviest, self sealed powered suit unless they are introducing new armors for normal soldiers. Maybe they're adding new abilities to the old armors to give some incentive to go with normal soldiers because as far as we know Gene or MEC soldiers can't wear the old armors.

[Myssa Rei]

Wait, Genemod soldiers can't use stuff like Ghost Armor?

Well, that adds a definite wrinkle to my future tactical plans.

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

because as far as we know Gene or MEC soldiers can't wear the old armors.

Originally Posted by Myssa Rei

Wait, Genemod soldiers can't use stuff like Ghost Armor?

AFAIK according to dev interviews G-Mod soldiers can wear standard armor, they just get their own armor deco style when doing so in the same manner as Heavies, Snipers or Assaults do. If you notice that pic with the Seeker in my post, you'll see the G-Mod Sniper has the Skeleton Suit brace, which we don't see in G-Mod snipers in the PAX Prime demo or the Narrated gameplay vid.

It's the MECs that get their own suits though in the form of the MEC Suits which you insert the MEC Trooper into.

[LoweGear]

YouTube

https://youtu.be/fd9CmpLZVMI

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

BASE DEFENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And human enemies too

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

-video redacted-

BASE DEFENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And human enemies too :)

Intriguing trailer.

Looks like I did call it after all; XCOM will have to deal with a 'fifth column' after all. GameInformer has some more info in this recent article.

Originally Posted by GameInformer article

Taking out Exalt quickly will be important, as their skills and abilities ramp up throughout the game. The operatives, snipers, heavies, and medics use gene mods, and some of those include ones that aren't available to XCOM troops. At a certain point in the timeline, Elite Exalt troops start showing up with these new abilities.

I'd expect 'not available' to include the qualifier 'until researched'... after all, just like with the EBEs, odds are that ruining an Exalt team's day will leave you with some useful material...

Also wondering if this means we'll be seeing triangular battles in both campaign missions and the adversarial mode. Bonus points if Exalt-themed customization is unlocked at some point just for giggles.

[Myssa Rei]

Covert missions seem to be suicide for low-rankers, as you're inserted with pretty much no armor and just a pistol, if what was revealed so far is accurate. That would put a wrinkle on Exalt raids, as THEY have stuff like assault rifles, machineguns, and sniper rifles.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by Myssa Rei

Covert missions seem to be suicide for low-rankers, as you're inserted with pretty much no armor and just a pistol, if what was revealed so far is accurate. That would put a wrinkle on Exalt raids, as THEY have stuff like assault rifles, machineguns, and sniper rifles.

Dude if James Bond could dish out a huge amount of destruction and damage with a Walther P99 I'm sure an Xcom guy with just a pistol would do just fine.

[Wandering_Youth]

Hmm. Does this mean only the Exalt can assault XCom HQ or can aliens do the same?

I was expecting the rise of the Cult of Sirius or something, but this is close enough.

There was an article on Kotaku about the Exalt saying not only can they assault your base but also wreak havoc with your funding, base functions if left them run wild. It's bad enough we got to keep the panic down from aliens, but now we got to deal with human espionage.

Is Fireaxis poking fun at the other FPS XCOM game? The human enemies look almost exactly look the agents from that game.

Originally Posted by Myssa Rei

Covert missions seem to be suicide for low-rankers, as you're inserted with pretty much no armor and just a pistol, if what was revealed so far is accurate. That would put a wrinkle on Exalt raids, as THEY have stuff like assault rifles, machineguns, and sniper rifles.

Heh, I like to see how well the Exalt fair against a Psionic gene modded XCom agent.

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by Myssa Rei

Covert missions seem to be suicide for low-rankers, as you're inserted with pretty much no armor and just a pistol, if what was revealed so far is accurate. That would put a wrinkle on Exalt raids, as THEY have stuff like assault rifles, machineguns, and sniper rifles.

Well, the Covert Operative you choose will be gimped badly if you choose a rookie or squaddie for the role. On the other hand, if you choose at least a Captain for the role and give them Laser or Plasma Pistols, then your Operative can wreck hell on the EXALT even without their primary weapon. And that's not even accounting stuff like G-Mods (Which is shown in gameplay demos to be compatible with Covert Operatives), and Psionics...

Here's a good, hefty video showing off the EXALT, and the Covert Operations gameplay:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/vnd7U5YVXZM

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

All my guys will now wear FEDORAS from now on

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

Dude if James Bond could dish out a huge amount of destruction and damage with a Walther P99 I'm sure an Xcom guy with just a pistol would do just fine.

Sniper with Gunslinger perk saved my life in lots of missions.