The Bureau: Xcom declassified

[Dewar]

For all the crap that this game went through, a lot of the other 2k games have come out really well with the same hire/minimal oversight strategy. Not everything can be a hit I guess.

[Jake]

I imagine between this one and SpecOps, there is a little bit of "oh shit" going on in the publisher offices.

[Justin Leego]

That'd be a shame considering The Line's reputed artistic merits at least.

[sclpls]

I played this yesterday. So far my impression is that a lot of the reviews seem very reasonable and fair to me. However, I do think the way the game fails in a lot of really interesting ways. It is such a tonally bizarre game, but it does have these moments of very Phillip K. Dick style insanity. I'm also really glad I read that Polygon piece before playing the game because I feel like the underground bunker you operate out of in the game acts as this interesting metaphor for the difficulty of the game's development process.

[Frenetic Pony]

Great article! I love the early vision for the game:

 

 

 

I totally want to play that game! Too bad they couldn't make it work. 

 

So would I, but there was so much whining that it wasn't exactly like the original X-com and it wasn't tactical enough and blah blah blah. So 2k changed it until it was everything people were whining for and now the game is mediocre and all those people that whined about it aren't buying it. I think this makes a big case for certain times being very good for not listening to fans.

 

Thanks for the Polygon piece! I'd noticed it on there but thought it was a just a timeline of PR releases rather than an actual story of what happened.

[sclpls]

If you look at the Polygon article it looks like the reason they ditched the 1st person mode is because there were a bunch of design problems they ran into that they weren't able to solve. So I'm not so sure it had anything to do with some people complaining about it.

[Frenetic Pony]

If you look at the Polygon article it looks like the reason they ditched the 1st person mode is because there were a bunch of design problems they ran into that they weren't able to solve. So I'm not so sure it had anything to do with some people complaining about it.

 

Yah, read it, definitely seems dev problems were partly responsible. I can't help but wonder at all the well published whining which suddenly turned up a game that sounded more like what the whiners wanted. Ohwell, just speculation.

[Twig]

Yah, read it, definitely seems dev problems were partly responsible. I can't help but wonder at all the well published whining which suddenly turned up a game that sounded more like what the whiners wanted. Ohwell, just speculation.

I'm similarly pessimistic in this regard. That original concept sounds great and so much more interesting than what it's become now. I mean, I think that I will still like what it is now, but... bleh. I also vastly preferred the aliens (i.e., the weird obelisks, the polygons, the smoke, etc.) in the original concept to the stuff found in XCOM proper. U:

[Denial]

It's interesting to see what's left of the different layers - the bouncy blobs, now called "Silacoids" are still around, and the black ooze still features in the environment design and the storyline, but it's completely at odds with the design of the core alien baddies and their technology. The textual justification being that the "Outsiders" are a scavenger race who co-opt technologies and races, which is also how the presence of Sectoids and Mutoids is justified.

 

Being able to look at that Polygon article and see where things have survived or been welded onto is fascinating. Not many games wear their development on their sleeve quite like The Bureau...

[malkav11]

I think a lot of the initial cool reception was just that people had been anticipating a new X-Com for over a decade and a first person action game was definitively -not- what people were looking for from a resurrection of that brand. I for one would have been very interested in the original XCOM: Enemy Unknown game as pitched back in the day  on its own merits but I didn't appreciate the use of the license and I wanted a new strategy X-Com more. Fortunately, I got the latter. I'm not convinced that the version of the shooter that arrived as The Bureau maintains what I found interesting about the initial pitch but maybe someday I'll see. When it's on sale.

[Murdoc]

If there is anyone was genuinely curious about playing this but didn't want to plunker down the cash, I have 4 steam codes for whomever you are.

 

Just PM me and I'll send ya a code sometime this evening (west coast time)

[Dewar]

That's a heck of an offer, but I know that it would just sit on my hard drive, sadly neglected.

[Murdoc]

Have a couple keys left, maybe this will entice someone...

 

[twmac]

I finished it last week and I am so mixed about what it did.

 

There were so many things that felt utterly pointless and yet I can't see how the game would have got away without having them implemented (talking to people between missions, permadeath of the team mates). It just felt like they could quite go all the way in one direction so this game just ended up being nothing.

 

The combat and the commands seem at odds with each other and the AI, although earnest, is utterly wretched in places.

 

However, I did finish it and there were moments where I did enjoy it. I know that doesn't make sense but there you go.

 

Love that screenshot Murdoc.

[sclpls]

Yeah, it's not that the game doesn't have some solid points to it. The setting, when it doesn't plop you into generic sci-fi territory, is quite lovely, and there are moments when the tactical combat can be thrilling. But there were also so many design decisions that were clearly intractable problems that it was just too late to rework, and so many unfinished ideas. The game's a fascinating mess, but not something you can really recommend.

[Twig]

I will passively volunteer to take one of Murdoc's keys, but only if really no one else wants it (and one is still even available). Doubt I'd get to it for a while, but I am interested in it.

 

I guess I should've PM'd, now that I think about it. I'm the worst!

[osmosisch]

What Twig said basically

[Bjorn]

So thanks to the 2K bundle, I'm a few hours into this.  It's such a crazy beast of a game. That's not to say it's good, but it's not bad either.  The mix of shit going on is weird.

 

Gender and racial stuff

 

As discussed previously in this thread, they clearly had a desire to not be racist and sexist dickbags in their game, but still managed to cock it up.  There are a variety of non-white personnel wandering around the base.  The people you can recruit are of a good racial mix.  Your office mate is a Hispanic/Latino chap.  And there are a couple of early badass female characters you meet.  The second in command of XCOM is a highly skilled field operative who is now stuck to a desk thanks to her promotion.  And the head of communications and PR is, based on her uniform, a super decorated Air Force (?) officer overseeing an office full of dudes.  But, no women on your field teams.  Because?  Fuck if I know. 

 

A committed gay male couple is introduced early in the game.  That was unexpected. 

 

There are audio logs and overheard conversations about both sexism and homosexuality on the base, but I haven't heard any about racism yet.  It's like they recognized that these things would have been out of place in this era to some extent, but instead of just letting them be, felt the need to point them out through NPCs. 

 

Gameplay

 

This thing is XCOM: Mass Effect edition.  Conversation wheels, slowing down combat to issue combat orders to your 2 squad mates. You have a hub with little side missions in it that you wander around in and talk to people.  You select your missions from a map, including small side missions and multi-step story missions.  Your character has Lift, for god's sake!  Like, not even a different name or anything.   At level 1, the squad mates were terrible, more of an encumbrance than help.  But at level 3 they seem to be pulling their own now and actually being useful.

 

Story

 

The plot is like XCOM alternate universe fan fiction.  I can't possibly see how this ties into Enemy Unknown.  The lore appears to be significantly different than EU.  People in your base have important items and info that can help defeat the aliens, and they won't give it to you until you've done some minor quest for them!  It's deliciously absurd.  Normally stuff like that would bug me, but I'm just amused at the ridiculous of it all. 

 

I think buying that bundle was worth it just to play this.  I forget that sometimes I like things that are delightfully bad, but mechanically competent enough to be fun. 

[sclpls]

It's such a weird mess of a game. Especially off of a sale or bundle it's worth checking out because there are some shadows of great ideas in there... but yeah, what a mess.

[Twig]

As discussed previously in this thread, they clearly had a desire to not be racist and sexist dickbags in their game, but still managed to cock it up.  There are a variety of non-white personnel wandering around the base.  The people you can recruit are of a good racial mix.  Your office mate is a Hispanic/Latino chap.  And there are a couple of early badass female characters you meet.  The second in command of XCOM is a highly skilled field operative who is now stuck to a desk thanks to her promotion.  And the head of communications and PR is, based on her uniform, a super decorated Air Force (?) officer overseeing an office full of dudes.  But, no women on your field teams.  Because?  Fuck if I know. 

Haha MAN. The whole time I was reading that paragraph I was like "did he make a typo when he said they cocked it up" because that all sounds great, and... then I got to the last three sentences and immediately understood. How strange they can do so many things so right and then fuck it up so gloriously despite that.

 

(It's probably because female animations would take too much work AM I RIGHT UBISOFT oh yeahhh)

[Bjorn]

(It's probably because female animations would take too much work AM I RIGHT UBISOFT oh yeahhh)

 

If I had to guess, I'd say the reason voice acting.  There's a bunch of comments that your field team will make when on a mission when you find or see certain things.  They would have had to either record twice as much audio for field team, or scale back/eliminate your team interacting with you. 

[Gormongous]

If I had to guess, I'd say the reason voice acting.  There's a bunch of comments that your field team will make when on a mission when you find or see certain things.  They would have had to either record twice as much audio for field team, or scale back/eliminate your team interacting with you. 

 

Wait, so are you saying that all the team barks are just the same one dude's voice, no matter who you've brought along? That sounds pretty awful all its own.

[Bjorn]

Wait, so are you saying that all the team barks are just the same one dude's voice, no matter who you've brought along? That sounds pretty awful all its own.

 

It's possible I'm wrong, but I don't think so.  The subtitles don't even identify which of your people is talking.  The barks aren't that frequent (maybe a couple on a small mission and a few more on a major mission), so they aren't frequent enough that the same voice for different agents would end up super noticeable.  And it would fit with some other stuff.  At one point walking around my base, there were 2 guys taking a break and they had the exact same face model.  Could be they were twins, but I doubt it. 

 

One of my favorite ridiculous parts of the story so far is that Agent DAWG (Drunk Angry White Guy, my nickname for Carter) is super concerned about how paranoid their director is.  Like he has brought it up in conversation with almost every single person in the base that he can talk to at this point, and expressed how disturbed by this paranoia he is.   Except that there are alien infiltrators who can shapeshift (?) and look human.  One has already tried to blow up Xcom.  Another successfully assassinated a bunch of high ranking military and civilian leaders.  And in game he knows the Soviets still have active spies trying to infiltrate Xcom.  And there's a bizarre disease of alien origin sweeping across the land.  The paranoia of the director has been to increase security, create a test to identify infiltrators and infected and to limit information about certain missions to key people.  This all seems super reasonable to me, but DAWG can't handle the man breathing down his neck.  Maybe this goes somewhere, but if so, they've done a terrible job of justifying DAWG's paranoia about his boss' paranoia (Yo DAWG, I heard...).

[Justin Leego]

Twist! DAWG is an alien.

 

...is that the twist?

[Bjorn]

Twist! DAWG is an alien.

 

...is that the twist?

 

That is, in fact, very possible and isn't going to surprise me at all.  The very opening cut scene sets up that possibility.