Alaxk Knight of Galt
First Post
So 2K announced a new X-Com game yesterday. The problem, its a First Person Shooter.
I'm not sure why you do such a thing. Does Civilization need to be turned into a first person shooter to get sales? No, Civ is churning along nicely. Would you redo Master of Orion as a Gradius clone?
X-Com, however, is the poster child of how not to run a franchise. The first game is often touted as one of the best video games of all time. It has a seamless mix of gritty action, exploration, advancement, and resource management into one of the tense and atmospheric games of all time. You form an odd bond with your troops and hate losing them (and you will lose them, by the dozens). Investigating and countering the alien menace is great and plays out differently each time.
Since '94, its all been down hill. Terror from the Deep was a rushed sequel, and while good, the move to an underwater setting was a very bad idea. As humans, we can easily connect to crashed ships in a desert, farm, or forest. An underwater setting is very alien to most of us. Apocalypse tried turning the game into a real time combat experience, but the massive size of the maps combat maps and the sci-fi setting hurt the game. Interceptor tried to turn the series into a space combat game. Since then, the property has been sold several times, two games got canned (X-Com Enforcer, a squad based FPS and X-Com Genesis, an attempt to take the game back to the UFO Defense roots). Now we get a second attempt to turn one (if not the) best turn based strategy game into a FPS. It's all wrong I tell you!
I've never experienced such mood whiplash before. The joy of hearing that a new X-Com game was on the way to the soul crushing cruelty of learning it would be a first person shooter is almost too much for my tiny geek brain to comprehend.
Here's hoping someone can produce a quality sequel to Master of Magic some day...
I'm not sure why you do such a thing. Does Civilization need to be turned into a first person shooter to get sales? No, Civ is churning along nicely. Would you redo Master of Orion as a Gradius clone?
X-Com, however, is the poster child of how not to run a franchise. The first game is often touted as one of the best video games of all time. It has a seamless mix of gritty action, exploration, advancement, and resource management into one of the tense and atmospheric games of all time. You form an odd bond with your troops and hate losing them (and you will lose them, by the dozens). Investigating and countering the alien menace is great and plays out differently each time.
Since '94, its all been down hill. Terror from the Deep was a rushed sequel, and while good, the move to an underwater setting was a very bad idea. As humans, we can easily connect to crashed ships in a desert, farm, or forest. An underwater setting is very alien to most of us. Apocalypse tried turning the game into a real time combat experience, but the massive size of the maps combat maps and the sci-fi setting hurt the game. Interceptor tried to turn the series into a space combat game. Since then, the property has been sold several times, two games got canned (X-Com Enforcer, a squad based FPS and X-Com Genesis, an attempt to take the game back to the UFO Defense roots). Now we get a second attempt to turn one (if not the) best turn based strategy game into a FPS. It's all wrong I tell you!
I've never experienced such mood whiplash before. The joy of hearing that a new X-Com game was on the way to the soul crushing cruelty of learning it would be a first person shooter is almost too much for my tiny geek brain to comprehend.
Here's hoping someone can produce a quality sequel to Master of Magic some day...
