Man up, fans of X-COM! [Xenonauts]

[Echo35]

XCOM: EU was already praised by critics and fans alike as being a wonderful sequel to the series with much improved graphics and game mechanics. From what I can tell, there's just no need for Xenonauts to even exist.

That doesn't mean everyone likes the new XCOM, or that everyone only wants to play the new one, or that nobody ever wants to play a game like the old one ever again, or that there aren't people who like both styles and would play both.

[Wingflier]

Anyway, if Planetary Annihilation were supposed to be the "spiritual successor" to Total Annihilation, but basically just remade the old game with similar graphics and slightly improved gameplay, I dare say a lot of people would get frustrated and angry at the developer.

Uhm, this is not so obvious to me. There are a some old games that I'm hoping for remake with updated graphics. I would not be too disappointed if the mechanics would not be too different from the old game. I would expect *some* innovations of course, but mostly I want to play the same game that I knew and loved in the modern setting (read updated visuals).

Case in point: Dungeon Keeper 2. Recently I looked at the promo screenshots/video of war for the overlord and by the look of it, they are targeting folks just like me. There are so many things there recognizable from DK2. Given the lot of recent flops (Dungeons, A Game of Dwarfs, Impire) I don't have very high hopes, but that's beside the point. The point is "the old game with updated graphics and slightly improved gameplay" is exactly what some people are looking for, so there is no reason to be frustrated or angry. On the other hand, haters gonna hate.

You may have a variable playerbase for those kinds of games, but the reviewers are going to tear those games to shreds in my experience. Even Starcraft 2, which is wildly different than the first game, was criticized for being too similar to it by several reviewers. Age of Empires II HD was recently released and it got terrible reviews.

I think the biggest example I can think of off the top of my head is Disciples 3. My friend was a big MM6 and Disciples 2 fan. So when Disciples 3 came out a couple years back, I bought it for him because I knew it would make his day (or week, or whatever). Except that it literally turned out to be Disciples 2 with better graphics. Almost no significant changes were made to the game whatsoever. We were both extremely disappointed to say the least.

[Aklyon]

Its hardly difficult to find someone who dislikes a game, though.

[keith.lamothe]

Reviewers can do whatever to the game, there's still a huge audience who just wants a modernized (higher-res, better UI, bugs fixed, any particularly annoying gameplay "features" perhaps fixed... and not much else) version of the original XCOM

[orzelek]

I was personally quite disappointed by XCOM: EU - mainly how they modified combat and stuff like to much randomness that you can't prevent (nothing you do can stop UFO raids).
I'm quite... reluctant with Xenonauts. I'm not exactly sure what to expect there and I'm still thinking if they are worth the price. Especially that if buy them now and manage to finish the game - I usually don't replay games like this. So I would be missing on stuff they are going to add/upgrade before actual release.

[Aklyon]

Well, technically you can't finish the game right now, the final mission isn't complete enough to play. The tech tree is for the most part working (if lacking a few descriptions and a couple pictures), however.

[x4000]

Wow, they've been working on this for 30 months now judging by Moonshine Fox's original post? That's huge. Small team, naturally, I assume. But wow. This is clearly quite an undertaking, no wonder it has the price it does.

[Aklyon]

They're also using what sounds like a terrible choice of engine (more or less the same  or slightly improved one used in Diner Dash, with a good amount of head-meets-wall to make it work) because the guy who had picked it left shortly afterwards and they'd already put some good work into it by then. And they had a kickstarter for it last year.

[Mick]

They're also using what sounds like a terrible choice of engine (more or less the same  or slightly improved one used in Diner Dash, with a good amount of head-meets-wall to make it work) because the guy who had picked it left shortly afterwards and they'd already put some good work into it by then. And they had a kickstarter for it last year.

Well you know, when I was playing Diner Dash, all I could think was: "a few tweaks here, a few tweaks there - and this game could become the perfect XCOM clone."

[x4000]

Heh.  Well, that's not going to make things easier, certainly.

[keith.lamothe]

Well you know, when I was playing Diner Dash, all I could think was: "a few tweaks here, a few tweaks there - and this game could become the perfect XCOM clone."

Here's Mr. Muton, and he wants a heaping helping of Plasma-to-the-face!

[doctorfrog]

They're also using what sounds like a terrible choice of engine (more or less the same  or slightly improved one used in Diner Dash, with a good amount of head-meets-wall to make it work) because the guy who had picked it left shortly afterwards and they'd already put some good work into it by then. And they had a kickstarter for it last year.

Just because an engine was used in a casual game doesn't mean it's a slouch... but still that has me hitting pause. I'll wait until a few release reviews crop up before jumping. But this is otherwise still the XCOM I've been waiting for!

[Aklyon]

Thats not why it was a problem, the problem was that they've had notable problems before while working on it that had to work around something or other in the engine they're using with no source access. Thats the simplest I can describe it without going to their forum to find the post that mentioned what problems they'd been having since its not exactly a recent one.

[Echo35]

Thats not why it was a problem, the problem was that they've had notable problems before while working on it that had to work around something or other in the engine they're using with no source access. Thats the simplest I can describe it without going to their forum to find the post that mentioned what problems they'd been having since its not exactly a recent one.

I seem to remember a whole bunch of issues with how the graphics and tiles are done and it slows down development by a lot. Something like that.

[zespri]

Wow, they've been working on this for 30 months now judging by Moonshine Fox's original post? That's huge. Small team, naturally, I assume. But wow. This is clearly quite an undertaking, no wonder it has the price it does.

19.99 is by no means overpriced. Look at prison architect - this is the definition of overpriced =)))