![\"PAX](\"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pax_east.jpg\" "\\"PAX")
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So, yesterday I watched 2K’s PAX East<\/a> live feed, because there was going to be discussions and live new footage of XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Sid Meier’s Civilization 5: Gods & Kings. The coverage was very nice, could almost feel I was there in the show room. Congratulations everybody. The discussions and the gameplay demos were pretty good but unfortunately they are not yet available (at least officially), so, here are my impressions from some notes I took and from stuff I still remember.<\/p>\n The XCOM:EU presentation was great and very fun to watch. Jake Solomon (the Lead Designer) explained many things in good spirit and with lots of humor. I took note of \u00a0several things, that I’m not sure if they are really big news or not, but here it goes.<\/p>\n XCOM:EU will feature several\u00a0difficulty\u00a0levels. It will offer the traditional Easy-Medium-Hard options with two interesting ones on-top: Classic (that got a general laugh from the audience) and Ironman mode. Classic mode was explained in a humorous atmosphere, and apparently it has something to do with the original games difficulty, so it should be something around “nightmare”:) Ironman means that save-and-load is not allowed. Oh, those were the days.<\/p>\n Jake has been working in Firaxis for several years now, under Sid Meier’s supervision. He explained that XCOM:EU was his personal quest for some years now. Eventually he could persuade Sid and others to back his vision for a new XCOM. He explained that the major trouble he faced was how to deal with the classic XCOM features like fog of war or destructible environments and implement that in modern technology, and in a 3D world.<\/p>\n The panel has talked a great deal about the process of coming up with the XCOM soldiers. They explained that their goal was not to go for a real soldier look but more of an action-figure look. They\u00a0surely\u00a0seem a bit cartoony to me (but I don’t really have a problem with that). They also announced (I never read about this one at least) that we will be able to fully\u00a0customize\u00a0our soldiers. Not only change their names but also how they look. They also talked about the ships design process, how they wanted to be close to the original designs but not, and they congratulated themselves, and seemed very happy with the results.<\/p>\n Then there was talk about a possible narrative parallel with the original XCOMs and someone from the audience also asked about the “why a single base”. That question would have to pop-up at some point. About the single-base question Jake humorously asked if someone would want to answer that for him. He then explained that the single-base decision was his personal call. He said that when playing the old XCOMs he always felt a bit uninterested with the secondary bases, what he called to be “defending\u00a0themselves\u00a0with toothpicks” (or sticks, don’t quite remember). So, he decided to concentrate efforts on the main single big base and extend its\u00a0functionality, which looks quite amazing to say in his behalf.<\/p>\n About the narrative and story line parallels with previous XCOMs (start small, progress, arrive at the alien world pattern) Jake was a bit less sure of himself and basically replied that there will be a parallel to some extent. In other words, that the plot, or storyline will be similar. But he added that XCOM:EU finale is quite crazy and mind-blowing, can’t remember the exact words. So, ok Jake, there’s not a problem there. If it’s close to the original we’ll buy it, don’t worry.<\/p>\n Then, the new footage demo. First of all the presented gameplay demo, that was supposed to be something really new was not in my opinion. For me it was pretty much a straight approach to the gameplay bits you can see in the deep dive #1 video<\/a>, now without the commentary. Sorry guys if I’m mistaken as you said to have worked night hours to build the video demo.\u00a0Now, excluding all the graphics (which are\u00a0gorgeous-looking \u00a0by the way) I felt a bit unease with the pace which I found to be a bit too frenetic for my taste (after all this was the first time I saw a complete mission gameplay footage).<\/p>\n People were commenting on the channel feed that it felt more like real-time tactics than turn-based. And effectively that’s how it felt to me. The tactics are there no doubt. Your moves and all the decisions you do in the battle zone are meaningful. You order a soldier to keep an alien busy with suppression fire while you send a sniper soldier take him out. So, you see, things are happening in real-time, or at least feel that way. Turns although there (somehow) almost aren’t felt. The unlimited ammo thing is also bugging me a bit.<\/p>\n But, overall, I was excited and enjoyed the demo video a lot, and would wish to try it out as soon as possible no doubt.<\/p>\n \\edit (10 Apr 2012): And here is a video with the XCOM:EU presentation. Thanks CurseNetwork<\/a>!<\/p>\nXCOM: Enemy Unknown<\/h3>\n
![\"XCOM:](\"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/xcom_enemy_unknown2.jpg\" "\\"XCOM:")
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