XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Demo Released

We haven't really been following XCOM: Enemy Unknown but Klar sends word that a demo has been released (6Gb from Steam) for the modern re-envisioning.
Apparently there has been some controversy over the demo and RPS argues it's not as bad as it seems.
More information.

I'm not an Xcom fanatic so I feel a little more impartial to some of the gameplay changes than some of the rabid fans. I enjoyed the demo, it's short, one tutorial mission and one slightly less of a tutorial mission. Both missions took me less than an hour together and I was quite slow about it.

My thoughts from the demo
Pros:
I love the graphics, style and atmosphere.

Cons:
The UI isn't horrible, it looks polished but it's not PC centric by any means.
Did they license the Deus Ex: HR music for that first mission? I like it but I was waiting for Jensen to step off the helicopter with me.
The controls are little wonky and unintuitive. The basics, left click to select, right click to move are fine but the other stuff that felt odd.
Some mouse lag, apparently tied to VSync but I didn't try turning that off.

The camera drove me nuts. Even in the second mission when you get control of your squad for real and I turned off all sorts of kill cams in the options I still felt like I was fighting the camera. A little bit too much auto-focus jumping around, I'd rather it stayed where I put it instead of moving around so much.

Still, I pre-ordered months ago and I'm still very happy with that decision. Looking forward to the full game.

Hell, yes. Was thinking I would pre order this next payday, right before release. Will definitely try the demo. Looking forward to hearing impressions before I get home tonight.

I love the "ant farm" base, looks very nice. I didnt like the controls at first, but i got used to it. It's a bit strange to not be able to freely rotate the camera, but instead it's fixed to a few views.

The america and china mission are the same, why is that? I hope it's not going to be like that in the original game, felt very cheap.

I noticed a lot of people on the Steam forums last night who seemed to think that the whole game would be easy and extremely linear. It didn't seem to dawn on them that this was just the TUTORIAL.

Ah well, maybe it will encourage Firaxis/2K to cough up a bit more content in the demo.

5) Yes, cover is basically mandatory for survival. At least until you get the flying suits. It is a cover game in a way that X-COM was not. If you can’t stomach the need to have everyone in cover, and that combat depends on being able to shoot ostensibly around corners once in cover, then you’re and this game aren’t going to be friends: it’s a big change and one of the major factors in this being a different take on XCOM rather than a remake. It’s about the tactical challenge of soldier positioning rather than being Gears of War. With each soldier unutterably precious, part of the puzzle of each mission is how to get close enough to the enemy to take them down effectively without getting killed first. And if a soldier ends their turn out of cover, don’t bank on them being alive come next turn.

WTF? Did this guy really play the original?

Originally Posted by Thrasher
…Did this guy really play the original?

That through me off too. I was playing TFTD recently and its all about realistic cover.

For the amount of download that was a seriously disappointing demo. They really should have put in a late game battle or something just to show it off a little more. And I agree reusing the same map for both missions was disappointing.

Pretty decent way to do full turn based and still have decent animation and be visual eye candy. I seriously hope the maps are much bigger or more tactics are required since it was mostly a let down for me from that one battle. Steam has a screenshot of vehicle combat but looked simple so would be nice to see more of it.

I'm close to preordering but that wasn't quite enough to put me over the edge.

Demo is too short, too easy - and too directed. Maybe it's good for the mainstream audience - but it's a very bad demo for X-Com fans expecting a faithful remake.

Fortunately, I kinda sense that it's not like that in the full release - and I'll buy it anyway.

Downloaded in less than 14 minutes. Gotta love my new connection.

Not sure if I'm gonna try it or not though…

I'll be keen to try this sometime, not going to pre-order but when it's £17.99 i'll probably jump in.

hour of game footage, two missions i think and some customisation….

http://youtu.be/1VP4YmExQAE
"2K Greg went to Firaxis to join Jake Soloman (lead designer) and Casey O'Toole (lead programmer) in showing of brand new gameplay footage of XCOM: Enemy Unknown."

There is a thread on modding the demo (AKA editing the config files) on the 2k forums. You can change difficulty levels and the aliens you encounter amongst other things. Push the difficulty up to Classic (2nd highest) and it is a lot more challenging. I tried sending a 6 man low-level squad against Mutons. They got wiped repeatedly.

Warning SPOILERS:
http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread…the-Demo/page2

A poster also created a handy little app that allows you to change the difficulty and types of aliens without having to manually edit the files.

Again SPOILERS (you will find out what aliens are in the game).
http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread…or-I-just-Made

I just finished the demo, and I really like what I've seen so far. The interface is a little clumsy to use at first, but I adapted to it quickly. I'm pre-ordering it.

Ok, I've played through it. I don't really know what to think. I miss my time units, the movement feels so…weird. And where are all my stats? But maybe that will be different in the full game. I perordered a long time ago so I will absolutely play it. But can in compare to the originals? Ask me again in a couple of weeks…

I think it will serve as a reasonably good modern "remake". But I find it endlessly disappointing that streamlining everything to the core is apparently always better in the minds of current-day developers.

Sometimes, it's ok to have more complexity even if it's not apparent what advantage it has over the streamlined version. Having two units of time for movement/actions is NOT necessarily better than having action points with a wider array of options, including timed grenades, sit/stand - and what not. When potential actions become too spelled out, you're left without the flavor or the wonders of chaos and unpredictable consequences in many cases.

Also, I don't like what I'm hearing about a 15 hours campaign on standard difficulty - or that the maps seem rather small.

15 hours sounds a bit short, but since I probably will be playing on a slightly higher difficulty than normal it will probably take longer.

Doesn't sound THAT short though, but I've no ide what it took me to get through the original. 20-30 hours? Maybe it was twice that, not sure…

Originally Posted by tomasp3n
15 hours sounds a bit short, but since I probably will be playing on a slightly higher difficulty than normal it will probably take longer.

Doesn't sound THAT short though, but I've no ide what it took me to get through the original. 20-30 hours? Maybe it was twice that, not sure…

Well, I honestly can't remember, but my nostalgic sense of time tells me it was more like 30-40 hours. That said, I spent a lot of time searching for that last alien in the closet on many missions. The sequel was even worse in this way.

However, I think it's good with a balance of "straightforward" combat missions and extended exploration missions where you have to spend a long time on the tactical map.

I don't think it's a good thing if they've made the tactical combat a matter of small scenarios that are too similar.

One of the great things about the original X-Com was the variety of mission types - and I hope they've kept stuff like base invasion missions and terror missions.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
One of the great things about the original X-Com was the variety of mission types - and I hope they've kept stuff like base invasion missions and terror missions.

No base invasions. I believe alien base missions are still in game, as are terror missions, UFO crash/landing sites plus a few new missions types such as VIP Extraction and timed disarm bomb missions that I've seen.

In terms of mechanics this is a VERY different game from the original, which is upsetting some people, but based on the many hours of gameplay videos I've watched, and playing the modified demo I think they've captured the spirit of the original game.

Originally Posted by Zaphod
In terms of mechanics this is a VERY different game from the original, which is upsetting some people, but based on the many hours of gameplay videos I've watched, and playing the modified demo I think they've captured the spirit of the original game.

I agree. For the people missing the old mechanics, Xenonauts is your game. It's on course to be a very good game, and it's truer to the gameplay of the original X-COM.

I'm going to play both this and Xenonauts…but this will come out first. Although I COULD play the beta of Xenonauts scheduled to be released in a couple of weeks too, since I've already bought the game.