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And that car crashing into the gas station is probably my favorite pyrotechnic effect in this whole game so far. I think it's the wall shattering as the car hits it that makes it.
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Oct 13, 2014 01:16
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Man not saving DaSilva is like watching someone play FF and not saving Aeris
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Oct 13, 2014 05:09
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I didn't know you could even kill DaSilva, I imagined the game would uninstall itself if I selected it.
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Oct 13, 2014 10:13
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Spudd posted:I didn't know you could even kill DaSilva, I imagined the game would uninstall itself if I selected it. A mustache like that, you owe it to humanity to keep it around. If it's gone, then the aliens win.
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Oct 13, 2014 10:20
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This LP inspired me to try the game myself (currently getting my rear end kicked by the ship at the end of the Doctor mission.) It's certainly trying to do something unique but having to do the squad micromanagement while also trying to keep track of your own situation makes things a little frustrating at times.
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Oct 14, 2014 05:06
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monster on a stick posted:This LP inspired me to try the game myself (currently getting my rear end kicked by the ship at the end of the Doctor mission.) It's certainly trying to do something unique but having to do the squad micromanagement while also trying to keep track of your own situation makes things a little frustrating at times. The earlier missions are a little more difficult than later ones, if only because you just don't have access to many skills yet, and your agents are a lot more fragile. Constant micromanagement is the order of the day though, but I've kinda of learned to like it. I think a large portion of that is because I've replayed these levels several times, so I know the battlefields well, and can better take advantage of the terrain. My first time through the game, I would park me and my agents wherever the battle started and try and attrition my way out of it, which more often than not led to me getting my rear end kicked. But later, when I replayed the same sections, just knowing the best angles and locations to take advantage of makes a huge difference, and goddamn if it isn't fun to stomp all over a section that was a brick wall the first time through. So, I dunno, it's a flawed system at times, but it becomes more rewarding when you know enough about the coming fights to manipulate everything to your advantage. I guess it's biggest failing is that really learning how to turn the tide of a fight isn't intuitive the first time through.
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Oct 14, 2014 06:04
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There was one pretty early side mission, as I recall, where I think I kept trying to make my guys flank to one side while I took the other, and they kept abandoning their orders to rush to my side through the middle of the he enemy kill zone because apparently I was trying to send them too far away from my "command radius" or what have you. Was quite frustrating.
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Oct 14, 2014 16:31
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Man, this game gets loving whacky later on. Please LP more so I can have some loving clue as to what's supposed to be going in the release version, what was planned, and how it all got to be as hilarious as it is now. Gameplay wise, i don't super-mind the micromangement, but it'd be nice if you could switch speeds in tactics mode between like no speed and slow mo and more normal time. I mean as it is now it's a fairly unique-ish system, and reminds me of how Mass Effect was originally supposed to play. I wish the AI squaddies weren't so much more automonous as they were less dumb. Like if you could give them behaviours and how to react, but primarily still needed (aggressive) commands, but could react on their own to being charged by Mutons or grenades, or etc. Possibly even set a couple of other commands to be bound to F3 and up, like how F1 and F2 are used. Or if you could use abilities beyond their "range" and have your dudes move into range on their own, instead of having to walk them there, but that's mostly convenience. Or if you could set it so they'd follow move orders while staying inc over as much as possible, or just suicide dashing as fast as possible.
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Oct 15, 2014 05:35
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I was playing Operation Grifter and one of the blueprints bugged out (it wouldn't let me pick it up) - it turns out to have been the gunner's pack  I ran through all the post-mission errands and don't know if I really want to replay the mission and do all the base stuff after - does it appear again in the game?
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Oct 15, 2014 07:13
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monster on a stick posted:I was playing Operation Grifter and one of the blueprints bugged out (it wouldn't let me pick it up) - it turns out to have been the gunner's pack Sadly I don't think so - The side missions are only about 15 minutes long though, and you can load them up from the Load option at any time. I wouldn't stress about it - there's much better backpacks in the near future.
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Oct 15, 2014 07:55
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monster on a stick posted:I was playing Operation Grifter and one of the blueprints bugged out (it wouldn't let me pick it up) - it turns out to have been the gunner's pack McKilligan posted:Sadly I don't think so - The side missions are only about 15 minutes long though, and you can load them up from the Load option at any time. I wouldn't stress about it - there's much better backpacks in the near future. Wasn't it distinctly brought up in this video that every pack appears twice? Never played the game to tell you if you missed the first one though.
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Oct 15, 2014 08:39
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/\ /\ If the gunner pack does show up twice, I'm not sure where it's other appearance is, a cursory check online seems to claim that's the only time you can find it. But like I said, at that point you're going to be finding some much more useful packs anyway so it's not a huge loss. But I digress! You lucky dogs, you get 2 updates in one week! This video is a little bit longer - Both the base section and the mission felt a little too short to post on their own, so I slapped 'em together. At any rate, this time we're just handling the sidequests and side missions before we dip our toe back into the main plot points, so there's lots of running about and a bit of chattiness going on.             Edit- Minor mistake on the folder there - the Second 'Lab Notes - Weir' ought to be something about treating the Sleepwalkers by Dr. Hara. My bad. McKilligan fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Oct 16, 2014 |
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Oct 15, 2014 12:13
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All I can say is that the V.A. for Carter was fantastic when it came to the Russian; he is obviously speaking Russian, and yet... he keeps his accent at the same time. It's hilarious.
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Oct 15, 2014 13:45
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I'm seeing Totally A Human going down a lot. Is that because he's an engineer or poor use of engineers? Also, I have reconsidered my color choice for him. Purple would be better, as to proudly show his family history...as a human of course. Also, I'm disappointed you didn't choose the enhanced silacoid upgrade. I love my silacoid, both as a war buddy and a pet. Usually the first thing I do in a fight is throw down my blob behind enemy lines to by a second or two to prep my side.
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Oct 15, 2014 13:47
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The reason his agents are going down a lot is because he's not microing them constantly. If you keep giving them orders, especially movement to react to enemies moving you can get through encounters without any downed agents (which you'll have to on the hardest difficulty).
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Oct 15, 2014 14:13
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Samovar posted:All I can say is that the V.A. for Carter was fantastic when it came to the Russian; he is obviously speaking Russian, and yet... he keeps his accent at the same time. It's hilarious. There's a mention on TV Tropes of the interrogation scene. Apparently the spy's voice actor was a Russian expat who was very out of practice with the language, while Mark Hildreth is presumably a good enough voice actor to imitate decent Russian. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Oct 15, 2014 |
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Oct 15, 2014 15:15
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One of your agents is apparently Brandon Keener doing his Garrus Voice without distortion.
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Oct 15, 2014 19:53
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I actually enjoyed using the Laser Pulse Rifle through all but the very end of the game. I think I kept a heavy hitting weapon in the other slot but the Pulse Rifle was great at dealing with smaller enemies. I can't remember if I also brought the headshot pack with to increase it's damage, regardless I liked it's accuracy and and damage for taking out regular outsiders and sectoids while having a decent ammo count.
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Oct 15, 2014 21:10
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Emissary666 posted:I'm seeing Totally A Human going down a lot. Is that because he's an engineer or poor use of engineers? Also, I have reconsidered my color choice for him. Purple would be better, as to proudly show his family history...as a human of course. I admit I'm not managing my dudes QUITE as effectively as I could, but I don't mind so much if they go down once or twice in an encounter, at least in this point in the game. In the really tough encounters you do need to make sure they stay up since after being revived, all of their skills are on a much longer cooldown while they recover, which leaves you up poo poo creek as you try to defend a relatively helpless squadmate while you wait for them to be useful again. That being said, I think part of the reason why my engineers tend to go down a lot is that they insist on trying to shoot things with their shotguns from range, which is pointless, while the enemies pick them apart with much more accurate weapons. If you can get an engineer into relatively close range or flanking, they can chew guys up pretty well. Since I wasn't doing much of that they default to trying to snipe people with their scatter lasers, which works out about as well as you'd expect. ALSO! I was wrong earlier - You CAN find the gunner pack in a later mission, 'Not of This Earth', but we'll talk about the specifics of that mission later.
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Oct 16, 2014 02:29
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Kurieg posted:One of your agents is apparently Brandon Keener doing his Garrus Voice without distortion. Yeah, I think voices are assigned by heads, and the one who (I think at least) looks most like Archer when you put him in a black turtleneck has Garrus's voice.
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Oct 16, 2014 05:38
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Oh my God you can get the Heavy Plasma Pistol then? gently caress right off.  Also iirc if you save Dasilva he's actually in the medical place where that woman was in the beginning saying "Honey... I'm scared..."
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Oct 16, 2014 16:29
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Worth mentioning - X-Com + Bureau combo is on sale on Steam for the next 3 days! Annoyingly, you can either get Enemy Unknown + The Bureau, OR The full X-Com complete, which is X-Com plus all the expansions, but not including the Bureau. There isn't a total package, yet, but hell, X-Com + Bureau is only 8 bucks!
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Oct 17, 2014 02:49
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I definitely support picking this game up if you have any interest in it beyond watching. It's still fun and very pretty even if it didn't reach its potential.
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Oct 17, 2014 02:51
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I agree. The game is legit fun to play, even with its flaws.
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Oct 17, 2014 02:54
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McKilligan posted:ALSO! I was wrong earlier - You CAN find the gunner pack in a later mission, 'Not of This Earth', but we'll talk about the specifics of that mission later.  Though, I've picked up the Tactician's Pack which seems to do the same thing (maybe better.) This game is pretty fun - once you get used to the "I need to manage my squad and tell them to flank" mechanic, it's fine, though the story is still a little wonky. Like why we seem to know enough about the aliens to grab a transponder for a counterattack in the third mission. Is there even a reason to keep standard human weapons past a certain point? I just finished Signal From Beyond using the Laser SMG and the Blaster Launcher, and did fine (though the Blaster does suffer from a low ammo reserve.)
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Oct 17, 2014 05:47
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Sylphosaurus posted:Man, this game would have been custom tailored to have an DLC that replaced all the dialogue with material from the Archer series instead. I really liked this, actually. "I never saw Paris!" got me to crack up.
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Oct 17, 2014 06:16
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monster on a stick posted:
The tactician's pack extends the range of abilities, and boosts offense and defense. The gunner pack (on the player) expands the magazines of your guns, and on your squaddies allows them to fire in longer bursts - which also means they lean out of cover to get shot more, I think, so is not that great? One of the annoying things about the packs is that there isn't anywhere to compare stats - for example, there's another pack we get later that extends the range of abilities, but that's all - it doesn't specify if, or how much further it extends beyond the tactician pack, and these redundancies crop up a couple times. As for the human weapons - Once you get the Laser Pulse Rifle, the human weapons are pretty much outclassed. You CAN still use them if you're a masochist, or are trying for a human superiority run (Commander difficulty, no alien tech), but I wouldn't recommend it. Once plasma stuff starts showing up on the field you're going to want to match it asap. As for the plot, the humans are just reeeeaaaaalllly good at reverse engineering and incorporating alien tech on extremely short notice. I guess you can chalk that up to Weir and Dresner being supergeniuses, or a plot that was compacted by a half dozen cuts and rewrites. McKilligan fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Oct 17, 2014 |
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Oct 17, 2014 06:49
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The plot also doesn't really show the passage of time either. Enemy Unknown XCOM has plasma cracked in like, three weeks, even if you never bothered to get more scientists or build more labs. Maybe when it comes down to it, it's more about figuring how to use it without melting your own face off.
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Oct 17, 2014 07:50
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Welp, consider me a new owner of a Steam copy of The Bureau. I hope you're not making the game look too much better than it is.
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Oct 17, 2014 11:57
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McKilligan posted:Worth mentioning - X-Com + Bureau combo is on sale on Steam for the next 3 days! The Bureau itself is on sale for about $4. So both that and X-Com complete is less than $20.
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Oct 17, 2014 12:33
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DLC is on sale too, all 75% off, so you can get the broken plasma pistol for $0.24, an extra mission for $0.74, and more Nico for $1.24. Anyone play the extra missions?
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Oct 17, 2014 14:37
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anilEhilated posted:Welp, consider me a new owner of a Steam copy of The Bureau. I hope you're not making the game look too much better than it is. If you go in expecting The Bureau it's a fine game, don't worry. A little repetitive, but what game of this type isn't?
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Oct 17, 2014 16:37
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Both this thread and all the other X-COM threads have convinced me (and the steam sale didn't hurt either) to buy The Bureau+dlc and the full X-COM deal, so that's another sale due to this LP.
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Oct 17, 2014 18:14
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PSA to everyone who is buying the game - Please finish the original game before playing Hangar 6. H6 is a sort of "Bureau-masterclass" in that it takes the lessons you learn in the last mission on The Bureau and slam-dunks you right back into the fire from the word "go." I looked back through the voice cast for the game and I'm still stunned that we managed to get so many top-class VAs for the characters - We have a veritable who's who of the game VO industry doing voices! I think the only really high-profile VAs we didn't get were Nolan North and Steve Blum. I was incorrect in my statement last week about the voice of Axis - it's J.B. Blanc, who does General Deems in Prelude, as well as J. Edgar Hoover.
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Oct 18, 2014 21:13
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Speaking about slam-dunking, it took me an hour to beat that loving gunship at the end of operation 2. The whole flanking mechanic takes a lot of getting used to. Maybe I shouldn't have started on Veteran. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 21:56
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SilentW posted:PSA to everyone who is buying the game - Please finish the original game before playing Hangar 6. H6 is a sort of "Bureau-masterclass" in that it takes the lessons you learn in the last mission on The Bureau and slam-dunks you right back into the fire from the word "go." Thanks, I'm half-way through the last mission now and it's pretty intense. Combat is a lot more fun once you've leveled up a bit and have some new toys. I can't wait to hear the story behind the story. monster on a stick fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 05:57
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SilentW posted:I think the only really high-profile VAs we didn't get were [...] and Steve Blum. How can you sell us this DLC with a straight face when you say there's no Steve Blum in it? For shame. 
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Oct 20, 2014 06:28
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Aaaaand here we are - getting back into the heavier, more plot related stuff. All that said, I really like how they handled Angela as a character, it's hard to strike a balance making a 'tough' female character without pushing it into tryhard territory. That's another testament to the game's writing, there's really not a single character that I don't like, or at least enjoy interacting with. Anyway! Let's go skinnydipping.              
McKilligan fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 15:57
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I know its a bit late, but I just found this, and I'm working my way through the updates now. Thanks for doing this LP. Like apparently a lot of others, I bought this game on sale and played a few hours before getting frustrated. The cover was kind of wonky, the AI was bad and the game was perfectly fit to punish you for not making up for that. However, I haven't uninstalled it yet because it has a specific charm. I love the aesthetic, the main VA is great, and I like the cast of gruff no-nonsense stereotypes. I am going to try and play along as you go, though I am not sure I will make it. Great LP so far.
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Oct 20, 2014 17:33
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| # ? May 24, 2024 09:12 |
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Ever since this LP informed me that DaSilva could be saved, I've been going back and redoing missions to experience this. I managed to save him, he's in the medical wing, but that whiskey bottle and dialogue ("Too bad about DaSilva, huh Faulke?") is still there in my playthrough. Is it supposed to be synonymous throughout or is this a bug?
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Oct 20, 2014 21:13
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