Xenonauts - The Good Kind of Remake

Do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with 40+ meme names for soldiers? Hey guys, it's been a while. I originally wanted to post a video around May, but a few things happened. Mostly it's that the video demanded a higher degree of knowing what the hell I was talking about, which isn't my strong suit. Plus I had to convince a bunch of assholes to give me a piece of paper saying I mastered science or whatever, so that took some time. But then this video idea came to me and the script practically wrote itself, so here we are. I'd like to release at last one more video before the year is over, possibly two if things go well. The Portal 2 video is about 70% written, but like I said I'd like to take my time with it to ensure I don't make too big a fool of myself. As for what's after that, well, I have a few ideas, one of which you might spot a hint for here. 'til next time.

On the humor in the xenopedia, "Which I find funny but occasionally tries my patience." is kinda the descriptor of most high-functioning turbonerds, like the lead scientist who writes the xenopedia entries.

“They might fall into the hands of those pesky aliens, or even worse... ... THE RUSSIANS” lmao

7:19 - The trick to using missiles against fighters is to launch two missiles at intervals. They can dodge the first one, but they can't immediately do a second dodge to get away from the second one. I found that firing the second missile while the first one is about half way to its target is a good rule of thumb.

Funny thing, in XCom Apocalypse selling weapons and gear willy-nilly did actually result in you essentially arming your enemies and was therefore something you should only do sparingly.

The new games, and xenonauts to some extent, just lack the meatgrinder feel. X-COM 2 I feel like I am raiding dungeons and pulling mobs instead of being in a real war with aliens. I am 6-7 missions into a new hard mode ironman campaign and have only lost a rookie, where-as UFO defense even 4-5 missions in I can have a memorial with like 20+ casualties. Not that the new games are bad by any means, but they just lack the scale and lethality of the older games. Going into an alien base with 26 soldiers and coming out with like 6-7 or less was just brutal and really made you appreciate that high ranking soldier in the back lobbing blaster bombs.

I actually really like the graphics design of Xenonauts - if you look closely at the maps (and even your own base) the graphics are very detailed and good looking. I also like the 80's style cars, shops etc. - it grounds the game very well. I hope Xenonauts 2 maintains this graphics style because I don't want to see an X-COM look-alike. It would be a bummer.

I always thought that the xcom remake alien invasion was basicly a hostile uplift program. The fleet parked over a planet and rolled out their slave races until resistance ultimately crumpled, and the planet's population was harvested then modified and added to the next big test. All ultimately, in search of the next addition to the galaxy. By the end game, humanity has made light years leap in tech. Unlocked psychic and joined one of themselves to the collective mind of the aliens. In all of this, I wonder to myself. How better would it have been if the last words of the final boss were. "Congratulations, you passed."

It's been mentioned below, but man. X-Division. It's basically to Xenonauts what Long War was to EU, and sweet goodness does it have content. Manufacturing isn't necessarily profitable, but it's used as a sort of material repurposing system, which brings back the old engineer base, but makes it far more interesting than just "we need to pay our rent for the month, and those 40 new scientists ain't cheap". It deepens every mechanic in the game by a ridiculous degree, and holy crap man, it becomes amazing. As someone who found Long War to be a bit too repetitive, but loved the ideas, X-Div somehow has kept my interest for well over a year now, and I look forward to each new stream's discoveries. Literally almost every mission has some new research, it's such a good loop.

Actually, Stingray missles had a use. Smaller UFOs, basicaly anything up to the large scout could get outright destroyed by Avalanche. Furthermore, Avalanche usually caused damage to UFO, that would translate to destroyed components, slowing down your research. So keeping a single craft for intercepting scouts equipped with Stingrays is a good idea.

Another thing to consider which too little people talk about it's the music. I always hear in reviews of games in general, that they say "the music is great", period. In this particular case, one of the key features for me that made so much of the original game, is the lack of humanity in the presentation of the audio (No voices, only some kind of reminder of sounds that humans and aliens make, but no insesant dramatic chatter, that's why Homeworld for example does it so well, because the whole atmosphere is like being in a weird dream) AND talking about the music, in the original Xcom, the combat music does ALL the work almost... That continuos misterious and scary synth music with little to no quality (because you know, at the time, really early sound cards for PC had their own set of limited sounds to use) is what makes the atmosphere of that game so simple, scary and effective. Not to mention, the rythmic nature of the lower synth in the combat stages and the lack of so much audio effects like reverb and known instruments like samples of orchestral strings for examples, made the synths feel upclose and personal... Idk, I think that's something to consider as well.

The artstyle is something that's hit or miss for me. While I like the emphasis on the Cold War look and feel to a lot of the early game visuals, there's also a sterility to it as you said. A lot of the art assets remind me of a mobile game, albeit a decently polished one.

there used to be a mod that adjusted all the sale prices on all the equipment so that you could sell them for a slight profit. It disappeared a few years ago. I think the original mod author either stopped updating it or removed it. Ive been looking into modding myself lately in an effort to remake that mod.

i love the air combat ost, that tune slaps so good

Xenonauts is also good because its able to be relatively easily modded. One of the ones I used to use was a mod that fixed the economy and gave a % chance for friendly military NPC's to spawn with better armor and weapons based on how much of it you sell.

Loved playing the original X-Com and never even heard of Xenonauts before! Thanks.

I played it because I missed the original Xcom, and wanted that experience with a less massive interface. It was fun, but I do prefer the Xcom reboot. The biggest problem for me is that the ground battles change so little over the dozens of hours you fight them. The balance between the weapon types is good, but it stays the same for each tech level. The 50-150% damage spread on shots means upgrading your weapons doesn't give you guarantees that you can kill something in two hits that took 3 before. Upgrading armor gives you a few extra options (jetpack, 360 vision, carry LMGs easily) but they're not massive changes. And upgrading soldiers just makes them better at what they already did. Only the strength upgrade that lets you carry a sniper and carbine sidearm changes the battle slightly. The biggest change comes from the inclusion of new enemies like the reaper or that teleporter. But they are usually outnumbered by various slight stat upgraded versions of the greys or reptiloids. And the funny thing is, the short air intercept minigame does noticeably change over time. Different UFOs require at least slightly different strategies, newer fighters handle differently and even weapon upgrades are immediately impactful. There is no damage spread, and a fixed ammo count, so a stronger weapon can reduce the needed amount of fighters to down a particular ufo. By the end of the game, I burn out on infantry battles, but look forward to interception missions.

Shotguns are your friend in this game. Like my tactics was. If I can't get him at range make him come to me. Or in a building rush him with 2 shotguners. Man they where good

Great video, and great analysis! At around 7:30 you talk about the risk of "fixing" flaws from the base game that's being remade. In my opinion, I think you talked about the solution earlier: play testing. Developers who are also players or fans of the original game (hopefully) have some idea of what made the original special. They effectively are their own play testers in that case. Refining and capturing the core of one game will always cause some things to be cut, but if the designers are trying to author a specific experience then sometimes that's a good thing. Anyways, nice video! Well thought out and much appreciated!

Not gonna lie, I can respect that you liked the logistics bit, but holy shit I don't want to touch that sort of tedium with a 10 ft pole.