Stupid Marketing Decision of the Month #1

The marketing people at 2K are idiots.

So there’s a new expansion coming for XCOM: Enemy Unknown. I watched the trailers for Enemy Within and… well, they didn’t exactly create in me an insuperable urge to purchase it. Granted, by virtue of introducing actual new gameplay mechanics this expansion is already superior to Longshot and its silly linked Council missions, but one worries how the innovations fit with the existing content.

All in all the marketing footage left me only moderately interested, at best. It wasn’t until I browsed the screenshots provided that I discovered a compelling argument for obtaining the expansion pack. I don’t think I’m the only veteran of X-Com games who thinks they should have led with this:

There's a Floater on the roof and a Muton in the shed.
There’s a Floater on the roof and a Muton in the shed.

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8 responses to “Stupid Marketing Decision of the Month #1”

  1. ShaunCG Avatar

    To be honest with you, I want to play this just for the farms. It's not an XCOM game until you've got a rookie nervously stood outside a barn that two of his comrades have walked into and not walked out.

    And man, those trailers. Good job we play XCOM games for the cutscenes.

  2. badgercommander Avatar
    badgercommander

    I had the same problem then I listened to the Super Joystiq podcast and I ended up very interested in buying this new expansion. It sounds like they addressed a bunch of the exploits, changed up the spawning mechanisms for enemies and introduced new enemies that counter a lot of the tactics that people tend to fall back on. They basically made it a new game.

    I might do it when I have the time but until then I am all about Assassin's Creed II. Curse you Woolie.

    1. Simon_Walker Avatar
      Simon_Walker

      That's nice to hear. The point still stands, though; 2K have completely failed to sell the expansion to us.

      How do you like ACII? I played it for a bit, but haven't gone back yet. After one of the most depressing intros I've suffered through (walk after me over there; now wait a bit; now walk after me here) I did a couple of missions and challenges, quit, and never went back. And I did finish the first one.

      1. ShaunCG Avatar

        You did better than me if you finished the first one.

        Hell, you did better than me if you got past the first four hours of the first one.

        1. Simon_Walker Avatar
          Simon_Walker

          Hey, Assassin's Creed is a pretty good game as long as nobody's talking.

          Why they decided to undermine their core attraction by wrapping it in a lame framing story highlighting its unreality and your lack of agency I'm not quite sure.

          1. badgercommander Avatar
            badgercommander

            The actual controls were inoffensive. But what made up the body of the game – cutscenes that are unskippable, and 'press X to advance storyline' – was fucking terrible.

            A dire, miserable, experience that I curse everyone for telling me it was good.

          2. ShaunCG Avatar

            I liked the utterly uninspiring approach to parkour.

            Immediate response: "Oh wow, it's so easy to do!"

            Soon after: "Oh… it's so easy to do."

            Sword fighting was a bit more engaging but was pretty one-note.

  3. badgercommander Avatar
    badgercommander

    Also, worth checking out the XCOM talk from videogamer.com
    http://www.videogamer.com/podcast/

    It makes it sound really interesting