Hope it’s okay to post here. GOG is giving away Xenonauts for free for the next couple days. Xenonauts is an excellent XCom style game. I recommend playing it.
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They may also have a free alpha demo for Xenonauts 2. I know I got one from them a while ago.
Xenonauts is a lot closer to OGXCOM than the firaxis remake, and really worth a playthrough. Its air combat is also a nice addition, but it gets a bit repetitive after a while. Some Ufopaedia entries are worth the read too, especially since they’re written from the point of view of the dickish lead scientist.
IIRC, it also borrowed OGXCom’s cluttered interface. It’s not the end of the world though.
If I had to carry one gimmick from it, it would be the Final interceptor. Long story short, it is an I-win button that will obliterate any UFO with 100% success rate and coverage of the entire world, but won’t leave a wreck. I find it an elegant solution to late game worthless UFOs. You’re free to annhiliate the small fry and only focus on ships that carry stuff that will move the plot forwards.
I’ve read some good things about it (however graphically it doesn’t look very fancy) so I decided to claim the game to check it.
I hope it’s not too long because I’m a bit busy these days and I like to finish the games.
I just bought that! It was the cost of a sandwich at the cafeteria, but there is $6.50 I could have used for a sandwich at the cafeteria.
… also, it’s good but not that good. I’m really impressed with the strategy layer. But, I think the tactics layer could have used a bit more work.
I’ve played it quite a bit… and we have a year until PP comes out! LOL.
I personally just couldn’t get into Xenonauts. I think it just felt too…drab with the colors. Might seem petty but yea I just couldn’t keep playing.
That said, from what I did play it was very true to the OGs in regards to its gameplay mechanics while still adding its own touches to the gameplay. I’ve heard the balance of some of the endgame weapons/armor is a bit off but overall it’s fairly well done.
I kinda liked the cold war atmosphere and drab colors, but I can see why it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste.
The light blue starter uniform was a bit silly though. Not exactly sure what BDUs would have looked like back then but these really felt like a bad case of “I’m wearing bright colors, shoot me now please”.
The uniform would depend on the country. For example the USAF was likely using the green fatigues during the time frame of the game, though I don’t know if all US services were using the same uniform or if that didn’t start until the switch to BDUs.
But yes, the blue uniform was kinda wtf with how much it stood out compared to everything else.
Oh dear… I hope those numbers were after more than one play through.
Right now I’m in the middle of a TftD campaign and I want to play the Firaxis XCOM after it. If that’s the duration of a campaign I don’t think I would be able to play any time soon 
I’d expect a regular playthrough of Xenonauts to be approx 35hrs, so you’re fine 
just don’t install Long War mod to it. Because then it makes game really fu*ing long and difficult… 
Okay that’s more reasonable for my current free time
Didn’t have the intention, I like to play the game without mods for the first time and then (if I like it) I’ll try mods.
But if Long War makes the game that long it’s simply a no go right now, because I suppose that “fu*ing” means a loooot of time specially if it’s your first time playing it.
Anyways thanks for the advice!
Long War on your first playthrough is asking for a terrible experience anyway. While I do love the Long War mod for XCOM EW, and couldn’t really picture myself playing withtout it, the existence of a mod of this scope on a non moddable game also means it lacks tutorial, tooltips, UI cleanup and all that would make it beginner friendly. In order to play it well, you need to have one eye one the game and one eye on the ufopaedia website.
Should you decide to play it one day, bear in mind there is a second wave option called dynamic war that allows you to adjust campaign length to suit your needs. It’s likely to be longer than a vanilla game but can remain reasonable.
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The Long War EW mod does fortunately have an option to shorten it. Look up the “Dynamic War” variable.
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