JonathanStrange wrote:How many hardcore XCOM fans are there? Do you stop being a hardcore XCOM fan if you don't mind changes? Do "change little, if anything" posters represent a vast number of XCOM gamers - or just an outspoken and tiny fraction of them?
I have a feeling that most potential Xenonaut gamers aren't going to be judging the game on its fidelity to a 20-year-old XCOM they never played - or if they have, they find quaintly outdated - but on whether it compares well to other games they're playing lately.
It's hard to be nostalgic when you can't remember anything.
I find your opinions on this to be a bit odd, to be honest.
I've replayed the original X-Com, which came out when I was 11 years old, probably 20-30 times. Only beaten it twice, of course. And my thing is that I feel like the original game was simply the most fun. There's a charm to the liberal usage of high explosives to level entire buildings, and there's a charm to giving each rookie just a cattle prod until they prove themselves in combat.
The design decisions you are claiming, "Just need to be improved" are part of what made the game fun. As much as I want the game to be even *better* than X-Com, I also recognize how difficult it is to change thing and still maintain the original flavor. I mean, read about what I asked for two years ago:
ChrisGrenard two years ago wrote:All I want is X-Com with some way to strafe around corners, better mouse control and a bit more weapon differentiation. That's *it*.
I say nothing about cover-based systems, nothing about improved AI, etc. All I wanted is three simple things. And Xenonauts, from my very impressions of it, does two of those three things. We have much improved mouse control and far more weapons. And that third item I could probably live without.
My confusion comes in when you start basically railing against people like myself who want this. Why should you care? We all got the superb XCom Enemy Unknown last year. You've personally probably played one of the dozen X-Com knockoffs throughout the years that does change up the formula. Why are you letting your jimmies get rustled by something that attempts to simply ape the original minus some of the annoying bits (such as, say, doors that can't be opened without stepping through them).
And this isn't rose tinted glasses, I should point out. Like I said, I've been replaying and still enjoying the original X-Com for years now. It is simply a great game, and I merely wanted more of it.