Machine guns can unleash whole volleys at a time. These are heavy, take an accuracy penalty if their bearer moves and shoots in the same turn – and hit like a ton of bricks. At this stage, however, it looks like the squad’s real killing power is in its support weapons. Shotguns are hideously short-ranged, but take relatively few action points to shoot, meaning a Xenonaut can still fire after moving long distances. Assault rifles are jacks of all trade, masters of none. The “interesting choices” extend to your soldiers’ weapons, which feel nicely differentiated.The Xenonauts (bottom left) prepare to engage an alien (top right) Unsurprisingly, this is a big improvement over the original. The controls feel like Jagged Alliance 2’s: left-clicking on a destination square will show a soldier’s projected path and how many APs will remain right-clicking on a target determines how long a soldier will aim his shot burst fire is toggled by hitting a button. There are fewer buttons to worry about the art style is simple but clear and a faint dark outline helps you pick out soldiers and aliens. Xenonauts’ clean UI and aesthetic are also evident in its battles.So far this is a nice change, though it’s possible it could eventually become repetitive. You now have two fighters available early on, and each fills a different role: F-17 Condors armed with cannon and light missiles are good against small, agile UFOs, while lumbering MiG-32s with Avalanche torpedoes are good against bigger foes.
And unlike the original game, where two air-to-air weapons were hands-down optimal (Avalanche missiles at the start of the game, then plasma beams once they became available), Xenonauts’ air combat is closer to rock-paper-scissors. Instead of hitting one button to engage, your aircraft and the UFOs now manoeuvre in pausable real-time – a little like a real-time Steambirds.
Its concept, mechanics, and feel are straight out of the original game however, Goldhawk’s clear intent is to make it more user-friendly iron out some of the original’s annoyances cut down on busywork and no-brainer decisions, and replace them with interesting choices. Is it worth your attention?Īfter spending some time with a preview build (a recent predecessor of the public demo), I can say this: as promised, Xenonauts is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Developer Goldhawk Interactive has taken pre-orders for a long time, but now it’s launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise US$50,000, and released a public, alpha demo of the game. I’ve previously written about Xenonauts, the indie strategy game inspired by UFO: Enemy Unknown/ X-Com: UFO Defence.
#Xenonauts base selection black screen series#
This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Xenonauts
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