I'm an hour into XCOM, and already I hate it.

[ImBigBob]

I can get past the uncanny valley character models. I can get past the bad sound quality for the voice acting. I can get past the fact that I'll have to mostly be railroaded through the tutorial before I can start getting to all the really fun stuff.

But I finished the second mission and found that the game didn't recognize the "X" button on my PS3 to continue. I mashed it repeatedly, and tried all the other buttons on my controller. None of them responded aside from the start button. I attempted to reload a game, and found that it hadn't autosaved anything. I just lost an hour's worth of progress.

Before playing, I thought that XCOM was likely to end up my game of the year. Because of this bullshit though, now I can't in good conscience give it an honor like that knowing that I could lose my progress at any time. Congrats, Spec Ops. You win it by default.

 

[Murderiser]

There is an option to enable autosave. It's a little daft that it isn't switched on by default though.

 

[scorptatious]

You can actually disable the tutorial. Plus Iron Man mode has nothing BUT autosave.

Not sure about the glitch though, I've heard about it, but I haven't experienced it myself.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

I did the exact same thing. Game crashed, hadn't saved, lost my first hour's play. I kept going and ended up putting over a hundred hours into it. Give it another shot; it gets better once you're out of the tutorial.

In fact, since you've already done it you can can disable the tutorial under the options tab when starting a new campaign. It will throw you directly into a random mission with a random team of soldiers. The plot still occurs at normal, but you have free reign from the get-go.

I didn't notice anything wrong with the character models or the voice acting. I actually liked the semi-cartoonish visuals, as well as the soldier barks.

 

[lRookiel]

That's a shame. I would avoid getting strategy games for consoles in future (LOOKING AT YOU RED ALERT 3 AND HALO WARS!!). I just think strategy games are more suited for Keyboard + mouse rather than a console controller.

If you can overcome this problem (I can't really help with it sorry) then XCOM will overtake Spec ops the line by a country mile. Good luck!

 

[BLAHwhatever]

Heh. I had a few games try that move on me.
Rage, cry, weep, sleep over it. Then do it again.
DON'T LET THE FUCKING GAME WIN!

 

[ShinyCharizard]

I love XCOM. Classic Ironman is probably the most intense and stressful (in a good way) gaming experience this year.

 

[Judgement101]

Spec Ops was your alternate for GotY? Huh, looks like I'll actually have to try that game. Anywho, yeah, the game is a tad odd but I think it was designed as more of a throwback and less of a revival.

 

[Eddie the head]

Yeah, played the demo for it a while back and there where too many bugs for me to consider getting it for full price. I might get it if it goes down to 10 bucks, but if Fallout NV is a buggy game then this is a bug that happens to have a game in it.

 

[unstabLized]

I would never play a strategy game on a console ever in the first place, but since you are, I can tell you that if you play Ironman mode, you get autosaved automatically. Also, the tutorial can be disabled, and once the game is out of its tutorial, it really shines. At least for me. I was considering of uninstalling, but once it got out of the tutorial, a spark went off in me that hadn't gone off in a long time when it came to video games.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Something reviewers always forget to mention, this game is buggy as hell, and not just on a technical level but everything from graphics, sound, animation, camera, controls, UI,... it all has problems even now after all the patching.

 

[daveman247]

That's a shame. I would avoid getting strategy games for consoles in future (LOOKING AT YOU RED ALERT 3 AND HALO WARS!!). I just think strategy games are more suited for Keyboard + mouse rather than a console controller.

Not sure what that has to do with the op... but i can say xcom works just as well on a controller as a mouse/ keyboard

AND halo wars was awesome!

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I can get past the uncanny valley character models.

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of robotics and 3D computer animation, which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The "valley" refers to the dip in a graph of the comfort level of humans as a function of a robot's human likeness.

Seriously? They're all cartoony and stylized.

THIS is Uncanny Valley:

 

[Weaver]

Got it on PC. Put about 10 hours into it. Pretty disappointed overall.

 

[janjotat]

Sorry to hear that, but I am still looking forward to picking it up once I have the funds to do so.