x-com posts

It's the first full day of fall but Direct2Drive is still doing daily sales for its "Summer Ends" PC game download sales promotion. From now until 1 pm on Friday you can get big savings on two PC titles (actually more than two). One of the games is Section 8 from developer TimeGate Studios which is priced for the moment for just $14.95. If you haven't played the game before it should prep you for the upcoming Section 8: Prejudice.

The other game is actually five titles: all five games in the X-Com series are in a bundle and for the next 23 hours you can get them all for just $4.95, which is a true bargain.

A while back Irrational Games asked people to call in and give their guesses about the next game that the folks behind the original BioShock are working on. Today a new episode of Irrational's official podcast had the best of the fan's guesses (we really liked the Myst Babies for the Nintendo DS guess).

Then the podcast turned serious as the podcast confirmed that a GC trailer for the unannounced game will be shown on Thursday, August 12. That's the day after a planned press event will be held in New York City to reveal the game to the media for the first time. The podcast then talked to a number of Irrational team members about how excited they are that they will soon be able to talk about what they have been working on for the past few years. Stay for the full podcast to here one of the fan's suggestions of a rather ... interesting ... ideal for a game.

The X-Com game franchise remains one of the most loved in all of PC gaming history. The original X-Com UFO Defense from the now defunct publisher Microprose is still a very good example of addictive turn-based strategy gameplay. The X-Com trademark is now owned by Take Two Interactive via their 2K Games brand and after several years of waiting the franchise is now coming back to life but in a very different version.

Yep, there's a reason why the new game is called XCOM (with no hyphen). The title, which is being made from developer 2K Marin's Australian offices, has shifted its focus from a strategy title to a first person shooter. Many fans of the original X-Com games have already cried foul claiming that this is not their idea of a new X-Com game. And we agree with them up to a point. This is definitely not what we pictured a new entry in the series would be like. At the same time, that doesn't mean this new title has to be a bad game. We got a chance to see a live demo of XCOM in action during E3 2010 and at the moment we think it could be a solid game title in its own right.

So you have been waiting to see what the new first person shooter-based XCOM game is supposed to be like in motion? Well IGN has managed to get the first trailer for the 2K Marin-developed game that's supposed to be a (sort of) successor to the terrific X-Com 1990s turn based strategy titles from the now defunct Microprose.

We will say this about this revamped XCOM; the aliens are a bit more frightening than those slightly goofy gray aliens from the original games. They are all black and liquid like a BP oil slick (and how ironic is that?). Hopefully we will see more of this quasi-1950's world when we see the game in action at E3 2010. In the meantime the IGN trailer can be seen after the jump.

Download HD XCOM Trailer (247MB)
Check out all XCOM downloads

The PC Gamer magazine article on the newly announced XCOM game has now been posted up on GamesRadar for everyone to check out, effectively making this the first lengthy preview of the upcoming first person shooter revival from 2K Marin's Australia offices. It also has a number of new screenshots for this reboot of the X-Com franchise.

The new screenshots show that the game takes place in 2K Marin's version of the 1950s with the appropriate amount of paranoia and suspicion that was the product of the time. Don't expect the aliens of the original X-Com to show up either; these new enemies seem to be unlike any that have been made for a game before. It's clear that this new game will get a lot of attention at E3 this June.

A few weeks ago we got news that the X-Com game franchise was getting a reboot with XCOM, a first person shooter that's being developed by the Australian branch of 2K Marin. Now the new June 2010 dated issue of the Official Xbox Magazine has a new cover story on the game with some of the first details of the title. In fact the mag has two XCOM covers; one for subscribers (shown to the right) and the other for newsstands.

The NeoGAF message boards have posted up an extensive look at some of the info revealed in the OXM preview. We won't reveal too much here for anyone who wants not to be spoiled but here are a few tidbits. One is that the X-Com world map has been changed to one of the US but you can still choose which missions to take on in the game. You also get some fellow agents to help you out in the field against the aliens but you have no direct control of them. Finally it's still not know if the game will have a multiplayer mode.

This week's announcement of the 2K Marin-developed XCOM has generated some mixed results as fans of the original X-Com turn-based strategy game have wondered why publisher 2K Games decided to make this official revivial a first person shooter.

Hoever, fans of the original X-Com certainly have seen their share of games released that are "spiritual successors", from UFO: Aftermath from Altar Interactive and its two sequels, Aftershock and Afterlife, to Laser Square Nemesis, designed by the original creators of X-Com, Julian Gollop and Nick Gollop. Now comes word of a new game, Xenonauts, that's under development by Goldhawk Interactive. This group of former Crysis modders state on their official web page that "almost everyone on the team is a huge X-Com fan and has spent years awaiting a game that did the original justice." Whether or not they can make that game themselves remains to be seen. They claim that they have been working on Xenonauts for nine months and plan to release it sometime this year.

We were wondering why we were hearing about a new game, XCOM, from developer 2K Marin so quickly after the release of their game BioShock 2. Now we have a reason. 1Up.com reports that the new revival of the classic turn-based strategy game (now as a first person shooter) will be coming from 2K Marin's Canberra, Australia office (previously known simply as 2K Australia).

2K Marin, based in Marin County, California, did most of the big single player campaign development for BioShock 2 while their Australian buddies handled the PC port of the game. Now the sister studio has gotten a big game project to call their own. That also means the main BioShock 2 team in California is likely now working on their next game, which has not been announced.

Remember all those rumors about how BioShock developer Irrational Games was supposed to be working on an X-Com revival for 2K Games? Well as it turns out the rumors were half-right. 2K Games is reviving the alien invasion game franchise but it's being made by 2K Marin, the development team behind the recent sequel BioShock 2.

The revival game is being titled simply XCOM (no hyphen) and instead of a turn based strategy game this new title will be a first person shooter (although it will apparently have some strategy elements). The press release sent out early this morning states you will be playing the role of an FBI agent who will be in charge of taking out the unknown enemy. 2K Games states, " . . players will be able to feel the tension and fear that comes with combating a faceless enemy that is violently probing and plotting its way into our world."

One screenshot from the game has been released which you can check out below. A teaser web site is also live. No release date has been revealed.

Gallery: XCOM Screenshots

It's one of the worst weekends of the year; the weekend in between the NFC and AFC championship games and the Super Bowl. Sure there's the Pro Bowl but that game is worse to check out than a junior high league football matchup. However we do have one thing that will make the weekend cool; some great game sales including a way to get a PC game for free.

That free game offer comes from Telltale Games who, as we reported earlier today, is offering the first season of Sam and Max for just $4.95 from now until Sunday. Telltale is also giving folks a chance to get one free game episode from any of their many episodic titles if they complete an online survey. The survey should take five to 10 minutes to complete. The free game offer is valid until Telltale gets enough data from the survey so if you want your freebie you need to move quickly.

In other PC game sales news, Steam is offering two game bundles for just $2 each for this weekend. One is for the Freedom Force bundle (with both of Irrational Games' super hero RPG titles). The other is for the X-Com bundle (with all five games in the sci-fi series). In addition Tropico 3 is on sale this weekend for just $13.60. Finally, while not a weekend sale, Steam has added a new bundle to its lineup, the 1C Complete Collection. You can buy 17 games from 1C Company in this bundle and pay just $69.99 for the entire line-up.

Direct2Drive also has a weekend sale, as it takes off $5 from the recent action game Dark Void for this weekend only. The discount is valid if you put in the code 5OFFDARKVOID at checkout. And for the next week they have the first person shooter Red Faction Guerrilla for just $4.95.