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Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

One of my favourite things about XCOM was the destructible scenery. The isometric building design (on the procedurally generated maps) was superb, and you could blast holes in it to make your own routes through the map. Likewise the design of the larger UFOs themselves was so exciting - not to mention the variety of scenery a UFO might land in.

It was so far ahead of its time in that regard.

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One of the fatal flaws that made the reboot X-COM worse than the original was the inability to control the environment. Shots could no longer be aimed at scenery, and stray shots that hit the walls anyway proved that said walls were made out of cardboard. Even a pistol round could break an undamaged wall!

This made hiding behind corners much less useful: if you're suddenly flanked, you have a great risk of losing your cover entirely, no matter how strong the wall looked.

Not being able to create own passages or drop floors from under aliens are just nasty consequences of that.

The second flaw was that the enemy did not just seek you out, they always knew where you were, making it impossible to sneak up on them. I get the need to shorten the battles, but catching enemies unaware was my favorite tactic to survive despite technical disadvantage.

You can still catch enemies unaware. In fact, enemies in the reboots only become aware of you when you are within visible range of their pod (ie group).

The pod system is at the heart of the reboots. High level play involves exploiting it to the hilt.

If I remember correctly, they gained awareness unconditionally, so they always or almost always had the opportunity to take the first shot.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLwSYej6R2k&list=PL_lgEqY9K6... for more than you ever wanted to know about the rebooted X-Com.

To get the beat on an alien pod, you need to use some kind of stealth-ing mechanic.

Otherwise, it's mostly about guessing where they are, and trapping them with overwatch.

I generally liked the rebooted X-COM2 (rebooted X-COM, only so-so), but this pod system is very unfortunate. Wandering aliens on the map in the original were way better.

X-COM2 has wandering pods, for what it's worth.

I like the rebooted X-com series but in my opinion this "pod" system really kills the atmosphere of the original game. No more shots from the dark, no more searching for enemies, and no more throwing grenades blindly in hope of taking some aliens out.

I would say the more direct successor to the original X-Com is the excellent Silent Storm game (with Sentinels add-on).

Destructible environment and the off-screen action in terror missions. You'd never be able to save them all (attacked civilians), but where your team did stumble into an instance of the aliens grinding through a bunch of still-alive civilians they made a difference far more palpable than any sequence of artfully scripted set-pieces could ever achieve.

Don't forget the damage dealt to UFOs when they were shot down. Sometimes there was but a single alien with what amounts to a few tiles of scrap left from the encounter with my vigilant fighters. Talking about immersion.

And the day/night cycle!

Sometimes I waited for the day to start a mission, even if this could means that the aliens could escape

This was the most disappointing things about the new xcom games. They got great reviews but to me the world seemed so much like a theme park without it.

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