Man we need a new, good X-Com game. The clones have been kind of fun but none of them has matched the original.

better be a non-fps!

holy christ the last I heard form X-Com was that 3DO were making a game before they went bust...

False! Ken Levine went to Japan to work with Kojima on a new Zone of the Enders!

Kojima has been hiding the clues in the new trailers. If you listen carefully you can hear them say the letters of Ken Levine's name while they speak.

That's me dying from heart failure from the geekgasm. Some rumors deserve to become truths...

@ethic: Agree completely, and it should be on the PC.
XD I'm getting a little too excited about this rumor u.u

Oh GOD please let this be true! This, not Starcraft 2, would be the game to make me sell my macbook and buy a computer with muscle in it.

I still play X-Com :)

Sure, I have to disable DirectDraw to play it, but its worth it!

It better be just x-com with better graphics, but same mechanics. More weapons, enemies and stuff is ok... I don't have high expectations...

Here's to hoping the rumors are true. I have been aching for a true X-Com sequel since TFTD. I know Apocalypse was a solid game but I didn't like it myself, I found the base and world map systems of the world game far more enjoyable than sending troops through the subway or a car to some particular place. I wasn't a big fan of the whole alliance/rival factions thing. It just made the game far too complex for my age at the time (UFO/X-Com was a part of my childhood).

Also there was something about the Apoc graphics which I didn't like when compared to the previous games (despite the obviously higher resolution and what not). Maybe I just liked the comic/cartony (?) style of the original two games.~

But I digress -- I just hope they make a proper near-remake of the original games (or at least an RTS or turn-based) and not some crappy FPS/Flight Sim spin-offs like some companies did to milk the franchise back in the day which ended up killing the series.

Yes, please!

I don't know how many hours/days/weeks of my life I wasted on X-Com 2, but I want to do it again!

@ethic: i AGREE....while i am eagerly awaiting fallout 3 I cant but help to miss the original gameplay of fallout 1.

please dont suck, please dont suck, please dont suck, please dont suck, please dont suck.

I so did love in Xcom how new recruits could shoot the ground right infront of them. Or miss an alien 1 square by shooting off 90 degrees to the side.

I'll kill a kitten if they dumb it down for consoles.

*joins Witzbold in the anti-suck chant*

@Witzbold:

I remember how pissed I get when one of my experienced soldiers bit the dust. The new recruits were terrible!

Ah... lots of UFO: Enemy Unknown and X-Com: Terror From the Deep fans here I see. Enemy Unknown is still my all time favorite game.

Please let this be a turn based strategy game.

Mr Levine, don't let us down on this one!

i cant even beat x com ufo defense with infinite money :(

The original is still more rich and complex than most anything called a strategic game today. All attempts at sequels have been shoddy compared to the first. I wouldn't hold my breath. Only a polished remake with some new features would really pique my interest.

Holy shit. If this is true then I will eat my dick. X-Com is the standard by which I judge all other tactical RPGs. A well-deserved continuation of the franchise has been a long time coming.

Just give us a HD remake for PSN/XBL and we'll be happy!

The XCOM games - good memories. I remember one very dramatic scene from TFTD when the last enemy on the map chased a soldier of mine down a structure in one of the beach resort terror missions. There was no chance for him to get out of there alive, but the guy managed to blow both of them up with a grenade. What a victory. Plus he was one of the new recruits so it was not so much of a loss. ;)

I´m not sure anyone noticed, but I always thought that the first two XCOM games had great pathfinding strategies. My troops somehow managed to always find their way around the map, even in half-destroyed spaceships. I can´t think of one Y U WASTIN MY MUVMINT POINTZ moment in both games.

Let´s think, what do those games really need to work today? For me they just need better balancing (TFTD was pretty hard), some physics (floating treetops and roofs may look strange nowadays) and maybe some kind of campaign with more story milestones.

But no realtime, please. o__O

Oh man, how I hope this is true. X-Com needs a good shot in the arm. The tactical combat in that game was some of the best ever. Second only to maybe a few turn based squad level games.

I`d bet money they won`t go turn based. Too niche a market nowadays.

It`ll be RTS, and it will be good.

Wow... that pic brought back SO MANY MEMORIES... time to fire up DosBox, I guess...

BTW, I remember that they changed some sound effects in XCOM with one of the later patches. I always wondered why, because the sounds are still very popular. I just recently heard a lot of them on a Sound Ideas collection.

This has the potential to either be one of the greatest or WORST things ever. They could make a really fantastic game...or they could horribly murder a classic franchise.

Lets pretend X-COM Interceptor doesn't exist when we consider that last statement, yes?

@ImmortalZ: Oh, I think that if they can, they will.

Bioshock was horribly dumbed down for consoles. They had the mechanics of System Shock 2, arguably one of the best games ever made in the history of this industry, and the stripped out all of the fucking excellent RPG mechanics and made the "spiritual sequel" a standard (if beautifully executed) FPS game.

Must...not...get...hopes...up

@Atheist Jew:I'd like to debate you on that point. Even dumbed down (And if it's on consoles you know it's not going to be complex), a new Xcom done properly could really, really kick ass.

If there's any truth to this at all I hope it results in a turn-based game. If it's just another real-time squad game I'll be so damn sad.

XCOM isn't the normal genre I play, so I'm crossing my fingers that this sucks me in like the first one did back when I'd try to sneak onto my brother's computer without him knowing... ah, good times...

Cydonia or Bust!

Blaster Bombs will be had, and many alien corpses will litter the battlefield, and I'll sell those excess corpses for a few thousand dollars, because its nice to sell dead bodies for $$$!

@Foxstar Sixtail: Well yeah! That was sort of the point I was trying to make with my Bioshock comment, but I guess I wasn't lucid enough.

While I feel that Bioshock was seriously flawed due to its dumbing-down, it was still a fantastic game. Not on the level of SS2, but then what is? If they are working on a new X-Com, and they do dumb it down (how can they not?), I'm sure they'll still be able to deliver a great game. It just won't be as great as the original, of course, which is a shame. I think if they were developing the game only for the PC they could keep the complexity of the original in there, but to be a success in today's console-centric industry, "complexity" doesn't help sales.

Wow, I hope it does go through. I haven't heard any X-Com rumblings since X-Com: Alliance & X-Com: Genesis

X-Com without any involvement from the Gollop brothers ain't X-Com as far as I'm concerned.

Meanwhile, fans of dumbed-down console versions of the X-Com games might want to check out Rebelstar: Tactical Command on the GBA, which had Julian Gollop as the designer and Nick Gollop as the lead programmer.

I always thought Rebelstar was the closest I'd ever get to a "modern" X-Com game. Oh boy.

What i actually liked about xcom was finding technology, researching it and slowly watching your organization grow from some regular army dudes to psionic super cyber badasses with alien armor, weapons and aircraft. The strategic layer impressed me FAR more than the tactical one. As long as the tech tree is ginormous and the paths you can take along it are long and flexible and leave a real imprint on your playing style, they can do whatever the hell they want as far as i'm concerned.

I WISH we could get a good x-com game, I don't think anyone can replace the old x-com. At least not in my opinion.

I still play the original X-COM/UFO. It does have numerous flaws, which if released today, without any prior exposure to the game I and many others would probably find too grating to deal with. The interface is clunky, there were bugs in every version released, and most people(not me) would find the graphics ugly.

Every sequel, and spiritual successor to X-COM/TFTD has failed as far as I'm concerned. Most of us got used to the clunky interface only because it was a good game despite it. And because we're used to it now, we still play it despite many of us not having the patience for it in modern games. I could never get past the interface in Apocalypse or really, any of the spiritual successors to be able to enjoy them as much as x-com.

The bugs, oh the bugs. I know there were buggier games released, but still X-COM/TFTD had some doozies that were never really fixed. I honestly don't remember much from MS-DOS x-com. I did play it, but I was much younger and I lost those disks and bought the collectors edition when I was older. It was only at this point that I could appreciate the bugs. The Collectors edition remake, made for windows, years after the original release actually introduces NEW, different bugs one of which makes basically useless one of the most useful weapons in the game, the proximity grenade. TFTD wasn't immune either, it had at least one game killing research tree bug. If you reasearched something wrong, there was no way to advance to win the game without cheating.

The graphics are ugly to most people. I still like them though. Of course I play ascii based rogue-likes, so that's just me. I wouldn't mind an update in graphics as long as it doesn't hurt gameplay. One thing I've hated about the newer games is that with 3d, you basically have to rotate the camera or else you might miss something. In the original x-com you really had little need to rotate the camera and in fact, they didn't let you.

A couple of last comments. It MUST remain turn based in order to be a good x-com game. Real time is fine, give us the option if you want, but do a good job on turn based. I think that killed apocalypse. They offered a decent real time option and a crappy turn based option so that you basically had to use the real time game just to play a decent game.

To all the people who hope they don't dumb it down for consoles. Remember, X-COM was released for the Playstation in basically the same form as for the PC. (Well, they added cutscenes to replace the still slideshows of the pc.) If they do it right, there's no reason to dumb it down.

I really would like a sequel to X-Com I could enjoy, but I doubt it will happen. People have tried but there's just something in nostalgia you can't emulate. At this point, I think only a re release of the original, with bug fixes(and no additional bugs), could make me happy.

@tossrStu: I've actually been looking for a legit copy of that game for [i]years[/i]. Don't have a GBA rom holder, although I suppose an emulator would work.

Let's take the original 2 games, add in destroyable environments that can actually collapse if their supports have been damaged or destroyed(take out an entire building of hostiles! :D ), and then even add in some late-game goodies by continuing the game on a new world, where you are effectively the invaders and have to take over the aliens. Maybe even by trying to free a previously captured world from the bad guys.

But for the love of everything good, don't use any of the newer clones as a baseline. Forget they even exist. They're not worth anything to anyone! I felt sorry for even downloading the damn things, they were so bad!

BEST NEWS OF THE MONTH!(goes back to playing gta iv)

I played so much X-com when it came out - I really hope that they carry over the real flavor of the original. It's all about the team, the tech tree, and gaining experience.

X-COM is that type of game that has a legion of followers, even after a zillion years of his release. TONS of people have tried and failed to capture what was that cool in X-COM, even original developpers failed, for one, or another reason. Is the tech tree? is the tactical combat? is the strategic side?. There has ben like 4 comercial games, and 2 no-commercial proyects triing to get the feeling of X-COM, but no one as conquered that hill.. yet. And maybe never will.

Echoing what others have said: I want a prettier X-Com / TFTD. Heck, have a game where I can do land and sea missions, combining the best of both.

Add new aliens, new weapons, that's fine. But don't mess with the core game mechanics. Keep it turn-based, keep it grid-based, keep the destructable environments, keep the base building. Keep the really nifty globe that you could spin around.

As for the PC elitists, don't listen to them. Far more complex game UIs have been put upon the console, and effectively.

Heck, I'd even pay good MS points for a XBLA HD update to the games...

For all you old school just wanting a fix from the old X-com with better graphics I found the game for you :

[www.ufo-extraterrestrials.com]

It's basicly a clone (up to almost the same tech tree) of the game we love. Check it out.

@Black-Dog-Howls:

Kojima working on a new ZoE would make me salivate about as much as the mere POSSIBILITY of a new and true X-Com game.

Turn based strategy or GTFO.

Knowing the way developers work these days, they'll make an FPS-based X-Com for the 360 and PS3, then make the turn-based, tactical version for the PSP.

I hope not, though. I don't want to be forced to buy a PSP. Because I would be. :(

(Seriously people! Just port the originals to the DS just as they are!)

And oh yes, I'd just like to say:

THE BLASTER: The Most Lethal Weapon Known To Man.

@Garo: I second the HD remix treatment idea!!!!

Or heck, I'll take a hacked up Wii virtual console port of the Dos version . . .

Oh lord I hope this is actually true or the rumor gets quashed quickly because my heart couldn't take being teased on this one. Xcom was such a huge part of my life it's scary. To this day I can email someone with "So and so has panicked" and receive a follow up stating "So and so is under alien control " rofl. My brother and I still play the first two games now and then.

@dullin:

In my opinion that game fails to capture the same feeling x-com has. Just my opinion though.

"Holy shit. If this is true then I will eat my dick. "

...

Okay, that's it - I don't want to be a hardcore gamer anymore.

W-what...? There might be a God?

If Levine's team really does this, I'll buy.... even if it is an FPS.

Interesting, because if you followed 2K Australia and Boston between 2002 and 2005 when they were Irrational Games then you may have noticed fans of their game, Freedom Force, kept wishing for some X-Com inspired features in a sequel. Various members of the team commented and expressed interest. I suppose that's what got them moving towards this idea, but could there be a new Freedom Force following new X-Com?

I'd be just as happy with an original IP from Ken Levine. That's a lie, no I wouldn't. I mean, it'd be awesome, and I'm all for new ideas, but it's hard to trump the idea of a AAA game designer reviving a franchise I enjoyed so much as a child.

Oh, and that picture? Hi-larious!

Wow, if true this would be pretty awesome. X-Com 1 was amazing. The second one though was damn near impossible, or maybe I just sucked at it.

Wow, where do you go with the series at this point?

Turn-based will turn off about 2/3 or more of the gaming market.

Real-time will destroy credibility with the long-time fans.

No win situation.

This would be spectacular if done properly. I still play the original all the time thanks to Gametap.