Amen, man.NuclearShadow said:
Possibly there's also a change of playerbase. Look at Football Manager forums, full of complains of people who just lost a game. First it was supergoalie, rumour that was properly shot down by an user making proper tests, now it's all about prescripting "I lost and reloaded but lose again! The game had decided I had to lose that match AAARRRG!" (of course they'll never reload a game they won to find they win again and won because the game had decided so with nothing to do with their tactical acumen). In short, what you see is a lot of sore losers who don't play the game for a challenge, they just want the game to let them win and pat themselves in the back about how great genius they are.
I feel like the games nowadays have dropped their challenging quite a lot compared to the old days of eighties and nineties. It's the continuing almost from the point one fell (or in the point one fell) without consequences, it's the gameplay simplification that goes beyond just making understanding the controls easier or but actually making the tasks themselves easier. It's COD telling you where to go and leading you by the hand. There it not only gives you so much of the work done (finding the best route) but it also cuts you the tactical options. I only remember one map and one spot in another where you could be choosing, and then in the one sport it was limited to go around one block that didn't really helped to get around an ambush and didn't offer too much in terms of new angle of attack of enemy positions beyond "now you're not in the way of their main attention".
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Back now to the matter of X-COM, the demo did convince me to pre-order it, as it looks interesting enough to want to get this new take on the game. It does seem what I've been waiting for for many time.
The changes of gameplay make it to bring it something different enough to the tactical game that it makes it worth playing along the original X-COM, there's now accesses to rooftops that the soldiers can take without flying suits that allow some more meneouvers. Combat can be very interesting. I'm not sure about the in base works because the demo didn't allow to see that.
The soldier progression is something I don't know how to feel about. I suppose I need to see various level ups to see how it works. It may turn to be better or another way of progression with its own appeal and interest. The thought of it makes me think I'll prefer the old type of progression, but not necessarily a bad thing, just less appealing to me.
The one thing that's been kind of a disappointment is that in neither of the two missions I had to take the soldiers out of the Skyranger, they were out from the start. That was an interesting part of X-COM's combat and required care to perform. From the demo one would think at the start the soldiers are displayed in a safe zone, instead of having to find out if the Skyranger landed in one or not.
There's another point that may be a disappointment, though I expect it not to be. I think the most likely options are A) I missed it as I forgot to look for it during the demo play B) It's just not included in the demo as they wanted to show the battle and skipped it (maybe we'll find the Skyranger unload was also a part of the full game skipped in the demo?): equipping the soldiers and change equipment during the mission, with a pile of unassigned items in the Skyranger or point X. I'm afraid the unloading from Skyranger is not something removed for the demo as the Skyranger didn't seem walkable
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