If XCOM already has you bent over a barrel, you might want to pass up on today's free DLC offering, Second Wave. The download unlocks a bunch of game options designed to punish sloppy generalship, where "sloppy" stands for "not quite comparable to the achievements of Tacitus and Sun Tzu". For instance: council funding dropping over time, and soldiers losing all their gear when they die. Ouch.
Four of the new options unlock once you complete the campaign on Impossible. There they are below, care of CVG.
New Economy: Randomized council member funding.*
Not Created Equally: Rookies will have random starting stats.*
Hidden Potential: As a soldier is promoted, stats increase randomly.*
Red Fog: Combat wounds will degrade the soldier's mission stats.
Absolutely Critical: A flanking shot guarantees a critical hit.
The Greater Good: Psionics can only be learned from interrogating a psionic alien.
Marathon: The game takes considerably longer to complete.
Results Driven: A country offers less funding as its panic level increases.
High Stakes: Random rewards for stopping alien abductions.
Diminishing Returns: Increased cost of satellite construction.
More Than Human: The psionic gift is extremely rare.
War Weariness: Funding goes down over time. **
E-115: Elerium degrades over time. **
Total Loss: Lose all soldier gear upon death. **
Alternate Sources: The power source cost to build facilities increases dramatically. **
*Unlocked prior to completion of campaign.
** Obtainable upon completion of Impossible difficulty
Still playing XCOM? How are you getting on?
11 comments so far...
SkinnerChinner on 8 Jan '13 said:
Wow...
And I'm still getting my arse handed to me on Impossible Iron Man!
fracturedrich on 8 Jan '13 said:
You must be the bomb cause my arse is being handed on normal ironman.
Maverick_McCool on 8 Jan '13 said:
Quite like the sound of "Marathon" a lot of the others just seem like kicking yourself in the nuts just for the hell of it. As Skinner said Impossible Ironman is scary enough as it is!
AllusiveTurtle on 8 Jan '13 said:
Absolutely love this game! Any support for a great game is always welcome, and it’s all the sweeter when it’s free! I’m currently on my second play-through, having started on Easy having never played a game like it before and wanting to get a feel for it. I had a go at Impossible, but couldn’t get past the first fight, so decided that I needed a little more experience and understanding of the game, so I’m now playing on Normal and at times the game can be pretty unforgiving. I am intending to have a go at Classic Ironman next play-through, and was kind of dreading it anyway; these changes may make that a total nightmare.
Here’s hoping that the next DLC includes new missions, enemies and / or weapons. Xcom is a great game. If you’ve not played it, then do so, it’ll have you hooked in no time. In my opinion, it is the best game of 2012 and I played a lot of games last year!
Jerman on 8 Jan '13 said:
If you don't know already a modder on the pc discovered these and allowed people to download them. But many are bugged, so it's not a full version, But second wave was on the xcom game disc already (Except for me who bought it over steam)
Decent_Jam on 8 Jan '13 said:
Sounds like a bunch of options which I will be to technically terrible to enable, since it almost certainly guarantees failure...
What even is Iron Man? I'm sure I should know by now. I have seen it knocking around in the options.
I am getting by OK on normal at the moment, I suspect upping the difficulty would decrease the enjoyment for me, but if I do manage to breeze through to the end then I will have to try it again on hard (or equivalent).
Still just enjoying playing the game as is at the moment, but nice of them to offer these as free rather than charging, since that would be pretty tight.
SkinnerChinner on 8 Jan '13 said:
Basically disables reloading, i.e. you can't reload to an earlier point if you bugger up/are unlucky/lose a prized soldier etc... - I remember getting a squad wipe during the Alien base assault in Classic IM, lost all my best guys...(affectionately named after the Marines from Aliens
)...there was no coming back after that, only a long list of rookie casualties...
Some of these option seem unreal! Although a few like 'Marathon', randomised stats & funding, Alien materials degrading etc... could spice things up a bit more
Has the DLC actually gone live yet? No sign on the dashboard or website.
fracturedrich on 8 Jan '13 said:
Has the DLC actually gone live yet? No sign on the dashboard or website.
I was waiting all day as it said dlc, its more like a update put the disk in and it will download.
DGR1980 on 8 Jan '13 said:
I like the look of randomised starting stats, and randomised stat upgrades at promotion
Drainwater on 9 Jan '13 said:
The damage roulette intrigues me, but I know I'd be on the wrong end of it too often. I'd definitely have to pass on the decreased funding over time though. If I sacrifice some of my best troops defending them (Colonel Quixote, you died too young), they damn well better keep supporting me.
I completed a normal ironman but I haven't dared to ramp up the difficulty. I'm just not that hardcore yet
.
Maverick_McCool on 9 Jan '13 said:
A note for anyone thinking of using the Marathon option as it can be a bit misleading , it dosn't just lengthen the time between story encounters and stuff what it actually does is lengthen the time it takes to do stuff whilst making everything stupidly expensive. Be warned.
I had a guy who was hit be a Sectoid plasma pistol and he was laid off for 3 weeks and after 2 months I still hadn't raised enough cash to build even a workshop , never mind a sat uplink!
It's a sodding nightmare!