Escapist Podcast: 119: XCOM Enemy Within, Nintendo and Space Sims

[The Escapist Staff]

119: XCOM Enemy Within, Nintendo and Space Sims

This week, the Podcast crew discusses the inner workings of XCOM: Enemy Within, the Fallout series, and Nintendo's stance on user petitions. We also talk about the upcoming resurgence of the space sim genre with Star Citizen and Galactic Starfighter

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[Avaholic03]

The only problem with squad sight snipers in Enemy Within is that now there are the seekers that can strangle them if you leave them behind the group. Until you get upgrades/genetic abilities that offset the cloaking, you have to keep your guys grouped up more.

 

[Agayek]

The only problem with squad sight snipers in Enemy Within is that now there are the seekers that can strangle them if you leave them behind the group. Until you get upgrades/genetic abilities that offset the cloaking, you have to keep your guys grouped up more.

Pretty much this. Nerf to squadsight crits and Seekers means Snapshot is a hell of a lot better.

Also, 1 of each class + 2 MECs is easily the best unit set up ever.

 

[Avaholic03]

The only problem with squad sight snipers in Enemy Within is that now there are the seekers that can strangle them if you leave them behind the group. Until you get upgrades/genetic abilities that offset the cloaking, you have to keep your guys grouped up more.

Pretty much this. Nerf to squadsight crits and Seekers means Snapshot is a hell of a lot better.

Also, 1 of each class + 2 MECs is easily the best unit set up ever.

It depends on if you have the randomized skill tree or not. I got an assault who got multiple med packs plus lightning reflexes and close combat specialist...so she can run into any situation and heal plus gets a free shot if the enemy comes in close. Way more effective than any support(because you can use shotguns rather than rifles). The skill randomization really makes the game more interesting so you don't have that one "ideal" build for each class.

 

[Hoplon]

Janelle Bonanno; Madam you are thoroughly incorrect. New Vegas was much better than FO 3, an actual story, not totally retarded ending "Yeah sure i won't send the radiation immune mutant in to the reactor i will go in and die" Some motivation to follow the story, the wild wasteland perk so you can find strange stuff all over the place and DLC that expands the story.

 

[Xman490]

Janelle looks really good here: a colorful lower dress, hair nicely knotted together, and of course... the shape of her shirt, for lack of a more appropriate term.

EDIT: Mario 3D World is losing to The Last of Us FOUR TO ONE?! I'm feeling so sad for it. Even being a sequel to the least creative 3D Mario game and being on the underdog Wii U, it doesn't deserve that level of apathy.
The Last of Us must be the bee's knees, but I still refuse to get it because I don't like to be severely restricted with instant-kill monsters around in the world filled with thousands of dehumanized foraging/shooting bandits.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

This week, the Podcast crew discusses the inner workings of XCOM: Enemy Within, the Fallout series, and Nintendo's stance on user petitions. We also talk about the upcoming resurgence of the space sim genre with Star Citizen and Galactic Starfighter

Is there an audio-only version of this podcast? Seriously, if I wanted to look at a screen for an hour and a half, I'd watch a good movie or play a game. Podcasts are for listening to while commuting, not watching on a screen.

 

[Agayek]

Janelle looks really good here: a colorful lower dress, hair nicely knotted together, and of course... the shape of her shirt, for lack of a more appropriate term.

Don't be a creep dude.

Janelle Bonanno; Madam you are thoroughly incorrect. New Vegas was much better than FO 3, an actual story, not totally retarded ending "Yeah sure i won't send the radiation immune mutant in to the reactor i will go in and die" Some motivation to follow the story, the wild wasteland perk so you can find strange stuff all over the place and DLC that expands the story.

100% agree. New Vegas was definitely much stronger narratively than FO3, and the writing and mechanics were significantly improved. FO3 has a much better atmosphere and moderately fewer bugs than NV at launch (not sure about now), but that's about all it has going for it in comparison.

 

[-Dragmire-]

I still can't get out of the first town in NV... something on the horizon crashes me to desktop. I just started playing Fallout 1 though and it's pretty enjoyable but it's firmly in the ground of RTFM[small](Read The Fucking Manual)[/small] which is not the ideal situation when your manual is digital and requires alt tabbing away from the game.

From the lets plays I've seen(Shamus Young's Spoiler Warning), FO3's story was kinda dumb compared to NV.

 

[-Dragmire-]

This week, the Podcast crew discusses the inner workings of XCOM: Enemy Within, the Fallout series, and Nintendo's stance on user petitions. We also talk about the upcoming resurgence of the space sim genre with Star Citizen and Galactic Starfighter

Is there an audio-only version of this podcast? Seriously, if I wanted to look at a screen for an hour and a half, I'd watch a good movie or play a game. Podcasts are for listening to while commuting, not watching on a screen.

Does the link below the vid not work?

Remember, the audio-only version of The Escapist Podcast is available for free from both our RSS feed or our iTunes page!

Look for that line.

 

[DRTJR]

New Vegas, is better than Fallout 3 in every way shape and form.

 

[Raziel]

Thats why I hate the witcher and might not even try 3. Consequences might be interesting but in the witcher ALL the consequences are bad. It makes you care not at all about the world. If every action leads to mass destruction and horror I stop caring, there is no way to win anyway. I just kill anyone that bugs me and save anyone I like.

 

[awdrifter]

I can't get pass the Microsoft ad to watch the actual podcast, after the ad plays it just stuck. Please fix this if possible. Thanks.

Edit: Nevermind, now the video starts after the ad.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

This week, the Podcast crew discusses the inner workings of XCOM: Enemy Within, the Fallout series, and Nintendo's stance on user petitions. We also talk about the upcoming resurgence of the space sim genre with Star Citizen and Galactic Starfighter

Is there an audio-only version of this podcast? Seriously, if I wanted to look at a screen for an hour and a half, I'd watch a good movie or play a game. Podcasts are for listening to while commuting, not watching on a screen.

Does the link below the vid not work?

I clicked on that link, and it is described as "The Escapist Podcast Video Podcast" - so I assume that's a video podcast, since it says it's a video podcast.

 

[Rassmusseum]

Yeah I actually realized that Starfox 64 and TIE fighter style games are completely unrelated. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it til after I sent the email =/

I have tried out the Galactic Starfighter a little bit now and I'm happy to report that it's fairly complex--much more so than the on-rails missions that originally came with the game. There is ship energy management, different types of ships, and different abilities depending on your crew members you bring along. I'm pretty terrible at it still, but its a ton of fun. If anyone does get it, I'd highly recommend you doing the tutorial level before jumping into pvp. Lastly, preferred players can play it on January 14, so Greg, I'd advise you to just wait until then.

 

[Thuggych]

Yeah I actually realized that Starfox 64 and TIE fighter style games are completely unrelated. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it til after I sent the email =/

I have tried out the Galactic Starfighter a little bit now and I'm happy to report that it's fairly complex--much more so than the on-rails missions that originally came with the game. There is ship energy management, different types of ships, and different abilities depending on your crew members you bring along. I'm pretty terrible at it still, but its a ton of fun. If anyone does get it, I'd highly recommend you doing the tutorial level before jumping into pvp. Lastly, preferred players can play it on January 14, so Greg, I'd advise you to just wait until then.

If you don't mind me asking, what's the progression system looking like in the expansion? Honestly, the main thing that caused me to leave, and still keeping me away from anything swtor is their absurd monitization structure...So even if it's a great pvp game, if it has the bog-standard MMO-style grindy progression coupled with EA's highly *cough* aggressive f2p micro-transaction storefront, I'm not interested, regardless of how great of a game is under the hood =/

 

[Hoplon]

.

Janelle Bonanno; Madam you are thoroughly incorrect. New Vegas was much better than FO 3, an actual story, not totally retarded ending "Yeah sure i won't send the radiation immune mutant in to the reactor i will go in and die" Some motivation to follow the story, the wild wasteland perk so you can find strange stuff all over the place and DLC that expands the story.

100% agree. New Vegas was definitely much stronger narratively than FO3, and the writing and mechanics were significantly improved. FO3 has a much better atmosphere and moderately fewer bugs than NV at launch (not sure about now), but that's about all it has going for it in comparison.

I realise the bugs must be particularly horrible on the console where you can't get community patches to stabilise the game (thank you new vegas nexus)But a lot of the stability bugs are the gamebrio engine rather than obsidian's fault, is why even Skyrim can just randomly fall over on you. Hopefully they use the id tech 5 engine for the next game.

 

[Floppertje]

You are so wrong, it would be terrible for major publishers to wait for pre-orders to actually greenlight a game! Besides the fact that it would lead to even less risk-taking, Star Citizen is hauling in more cash than they know what to do with because they actually TELL people what they're doing with it. Sony won't even release sales data and we all know how eager microsoft was to share their DRM policies.
This kind of thing requires faith in a developer and publisher that they'll actually give you what you paid for and none of the major publishers has earned that faith. Developers go to kickstarter specifically BECAUSE they don't want to work with publishers. What's the point in publishers doing it themselves? Taking the financial risk is exactly what they're there for! They really have no reason to cry because people expect them to do their job (see also the disaster that is EA marketing).

 

[Reynaert]

I clicked on that link, and it is described as "The Escapist Podcast Video Podcast" - so I assume that's a video podcast, since it says it's a video podcast.

Copy the RSS-link in your RSS-reader. It says video podcast but it is just an mp3-file you can play from within the RSS-reader. Works for me.

 

[svablnn]

It's not exactly what you're looking for, Paul, but you might be interested in Inquisitor, an isometric RPG by a small Czech studio that only recently became available on Steam. Like The Witcher games it doesn't chart your morality on a graph, but there are tons of interesting and often rather subtle ethical choices to be made that are often a lot more complicated than they first appear. The premise is, basically, that you are a member of either the church, a knighthood order or the gentry who has been sent by the inquisition to investigate strange occurrences in a small border town suspected of harboring a group of heretics.

It can be a bit dry at times - during your investigations you'll spend a lot of time reading massive (albeit generally well written) walls of text - and it's definitely not the prettiest game, but in spite of its flaws I found it to be one of, if not the, most enjoyable RPGs I've played this year. Not for everyone, certainly, but I'd recommend looking into it at least. At $10 it's super cheap for the amount of content.

Anyway. Enjoyed the show this week!