Now that they have EWoM...

GalCiv 2 was clearly heir to the Master of Orion series.

I am filled with hope that EWoM can be the successor to Master of Magic.

I was reading through Wikipedia (that fountain of always 100% accurate information), and noted that EWoM is part MoM, part Populus, and part X-COM. I can see where that is coming from, by in my mind it still echoes strongly MoM. But the quote got me thinking.

I think Stardock really shines when bringing those blasts from the past up to date with their own improvements and awesome AI. I reckon they are working on a GalCiv3 at some point, but perhaps before then they could revisit another Microprose classic.

I'll donate a kidney if Stardock can make a tactical/strategic game a la X-COM.

I've seen what 2K Games is doing with X-COM, and it's interesting, but it's not X-COM (in fact it's "XCOM," they dropped the hyphen). I think Stardock could whizbang the finoozles out of such a hybrid game, and I would gladly give up a kidney and my social life to see what Frogboy & Co. can do with a game like that when they put their minds to it.

Just my two cents (and potentially an internal organ).

elemental

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Just use the great Silent Storm engine. Best tactical squad based game ever. Yes it beats JA2 and X-Com. Not as strong on the role playing but the in game mechanics of using your hearing to hear through walls plus having the ability of picking from different classes makes it a must or any squad based tactical fans.

Be warned though because it was released back in 2004 it will not run on a comp with over 3 gig of RAM. It will come up with an unsupported vedeo card error but if you try to play it and this happens just google it and it will explain how to disable your RAM so you can play.

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Keep an eye on...

http://www.xenonauts.com/

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Silent Storm did not do that much for me. I suppose it's because I want the strategy as well as the tactical aspects, and the story was absolutely brilliant. I suppose a randomly generated, or at least varied enemy would add to replayability, but I fought the mutons and chrysallids again and again and again...

Xenonauts looks interesting, but there have been a lot of tries to nail X-COM. UFO Aftershock and its successors were alright, but almost too RPG-y, IMHO. I want my squad of 12 on a mission, and to rotate out soldiers as they get injured, start up a new base, etc.

I liked Apocalypse. Terror From the Deep was alright, but someone got the idea that huge maps would make the game more fun when... it didn't. I did like no chrysallids in terror missions (woot!) and fighting lobstermen/including melee combat. The ships were also neat at first, but after a while it started to become a case of "Another ship? Again!?"

I still think Stardock has the right resources, experience, and most importantly, drive to breathe new life into this classic concept. My fingers are crossed, and the hospital's on standby.

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I absolutely loved silent storm, especially with whatever fan balance/fix mod there was for it. Can't remember now what it was called... The wanzers were kind of silly/not needed but they were cool at the time.

X-Com was fun the first couple times I played it on a demo disc from Computer Gaming World magazine years and years ago... but I never got too into it. Most of the remakes are very poor replacements.

Gaming-wise it seems like Stardock sticks to 4X games, and galciv2 was clearly awesome. I don't know how a purely tactical game like Silent Storm or X-Com by them would be as great from them, but I definitely would love to see what ideas they could come up with for something like that. I'm sure they could win me over if they chose to make a game like that.

The 2k Games xcom shooter they're making is going to be just like Shadowrun; a complete failure. Shooters are so saturated and the only great ones for multiplayer seem to be the mainsteam ones (CoD/Halo/TF2/CSS), I just can't enjoy other shooters like Crysis or FEAR... and xbox Shadowrun was the biggest letdown of a game in a very long time for me. They turned a great IP with awesome RPG roots and turned it into a MP only shooter with no story whatsoever. They could have made an action adventure game with a Shadowrun story and made it more of an RPG (with an eqipment system, magic, levels etc) and done awesome. The old fans of shadowrun hated it and the shooting just wasn't up to par to be popular. The same thing will happen with "XCOM". It can't be as good as the original games, not even close. Its certainly not going to be close to the experience most people have with xcom, staying up late learning about the crazy aliens coming to take over the world and fighting with everything they had to stay alive. Shooters simply don't have moments like that. Its always one guy running around alone and he's practically invincible and saves the world for a story.

I love changes, but if you tried to turn Master of Magic into a RTS it wouldn't be master of magic. The same as turning XCOM into a shooter or Halo into a strategy game. It just doesn't work very often.

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