I’ve been following the XCOM Enemy Unknown feature on Game Informer since its announcement on January 5th. When a true remake of classic was announced I was just as skeptical as every other hardcore fan. Everyone knows XCOM UFO Defense caught lightning in a bottle way back in 1994, and every attempt at furthering the series was just imploded the franchise. UFO Defense is labeled as the perfect game by many strategy gamers and was easily way ahead of its time. The mix of RPG elements, turn-based tactical gaming and base management was leaps and bounds ahead of anything we’ve ever seen before. Not to mention destructible environments that are programmatically generated and an AI that was brutal on “Easy”.

Now after 10 articles and watching some great interview videos with the staff at Firaxis, I have high hopes for the project. I’m starting to realize it would be a mistake to want Firaxis to create the same game I loved for so long. A re-imagining would be better suited for what they’re trying to accomplish here. Fixaxis has admitted they are streamlining the game for consoles and inviting new players to the game. Things like delegating which pocket your squad member holds their grenade will probably be removed. I’m concerned what this means for the base management though. So far the big differences in the articles seem to be the elimination of time-units and the hint at smaller squads. Firaxis has instead decided to use a “move then attack” system that many other tactical games use, and have added class abilities to squad member types.

The elimination of time-units seems like a big deal to many people right now but I don’t think it’ll have a huge impact on how the game plays out. Whatever people say about time-units being the best part about the original XCOM I still think they were a bit broken in calculating shot types for different weapons. Reducing the number of squad members would limit how large each battle is or increase the difficulty since Firaxis has already said they are keeping perma-death (squad members die and cannot be revived). I did feel like towards the end of the original game you had too many units though.

Overall I’m excited by how the game looks so far, the character design and environments breath new life into the 3D pixel world. I’m impressed by what I’ve read so far but I’m going to try to temper how psyched I am so I’m no too disappointed with the outcome.

UPDATE: Available Now!

RAAM’s Shadow will be an additional campaign chapter, actually a prequel to the events that unfold in the first Gears of War. The DLC will include at least 3 hours of campaign, 6 additional characters to use in multiplayer and new multiplayer maps. The DLC is set to release on Dec 13th for 1200 MSP. If you’ve already paid for the Season Pass this DLC is included.

Epic also announced that they will be releasing a free “Versus Booster Map Pack” on November 24th, which includes throw-back maps Swamp and Clocktower.

Epic will be releasing the first of four DLC packs starting with the Horde Command pack. It will be available for 800 MSP starting November 1st, 2011. If you paid for the Season Pass this DLC is included. The DLC includes 3 new maps, 3 new characters (Onyx Guard, Big Rig Dizzy, Bernie), weapon skins and new purchasable fortifications for Horde mode.

The new fortifications include the ability to upgrade the Command Post to call in snipers, mortars and hammer of dawn.  The decoy can be upgraded to a bot. The sentry can be upgraded to fire flame bolts. Finally, the Silverback can be upgraded with missiles.

The DLC will be backwards compatible with non-DLC users. New maps can be played by non-DLC users if the DLC owner is the host. In Horde mode non-DLC players will not be allowed to purchase the new fortifications.

This rather short demo consists of a single 4 minute quarter where the user is locked in to playing as the Dallas Mavericks in a Championship Finals rematch against the Miami Heat.

I sort of feel a bit shorted by the length of this demo because Madden 12 offered a full length game this year. You would think in a down year for the franchise where rosters won’t be updated the franchise would try to sell the game on improved gameplay. It’s also rumored that the Classic teams will not be usable online. This is very disappointing when considering what new features will actually be added this year.

The latest developer blog highlights a lot of areas of improvement that will be hard to experiment with in just 4 minutes.

Netflix sent an email to all of their subscribers today explaining and apologizing for the recent price increase of their service. The email also goes on to announce the launch of Qwikster the new brand for their DVD and Video Game rental service. For some reason I still felt pretty empty inside after reading this email…

Dear ______________,

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

p.s. I have a slightly longer explanation along with a video posted on our blog, where you can also post comments.

The Technical Support forums were once again a clamor as subscribers voiced their issues with the quality of the Online Stream. The customer service and technical support teams are in obvious disarray even conceding to post the following on their own message board.

Thanks for the post (and apologies for the delayed response) – Windows 7 is not currently supported for NFL2GO

Source

This statement is a bit disconcerting and should be false. The stream is available to nearly any Operating System and Web Browser that supports a recent version of Adobe Flash. Many are claiming the same low video quality issue is occurring on PS3 as well. However, the Mobile App on my iPhone seemed fine. It may be because the mobile app uses an HTML5 Stream.

Hopefully we’ll hear another apology from DirectTV soon.

This is the official apology email I received and countless other NFL Sunday Ticket To-Go subscribers received today. The apology is mostly for the unavailable online stream of NFL games for the entire day. The mobile stream was also spotty during the early games and got a little better later in the day. Satellite subscribers also complained about poor or no service during the early games, but I’m am unaware if they are receiving credits.

I hope this means everything will be working correctly this coming Sunday.

Furthermore, trading between CPU teams never happens. I’ve heard that the CPU only makes draft pick trades during the draft. Overall, I’m pretty disappointed with these aspects of Madden 12 Franchise mode and I hope these can be fixed in an update or at least by Madden 13.

I’m going to make an NBA 2K11 comparison because I have no Football game to compare Madden with, but I like how NBA 2k11 had a trade calculator system. You could choose which players and picks you wanted to trade from your team or another team and it would give you possible trades to choose from. I really enjoyed that system, it made finding trades a breeze. In addition, CPU teams would make trades between each other during the season and offer you trades as well. It was even more realistic because you would see more trade offers when the trade deadline was coming up. Not to mention multi-team trades.

Madden 12 Franchise is so inferior when it comes to transactions.

IGN Rewind Theater breaks down the latest MW3 Multiplayer Trailer.

The most interesting parts:

• Strike Packages
• Weapon Proficiency
• New Kill Streak Toys
• Multiple Weapon Sight Attachments at the same time.

Following news from Engadget.com that DirectTV was working with Sony to bring NFL Sunday Ticket to the PS3, new light was shed on the topic. The article even mentioned the feature would be available starting September 1st.

When September came around I tried my best to find a way to sign up for the service but came up short. I reached out to the Engadget.com community by posting a comment and luckily I received a reply from Sometymes with a link to the Online Only page. So there you have it, NFL Sunday Ticket To-Go is available separately for the 2011 season for a hefty price tag of $350.

NFL Sunday Ticket To-Go Online Only