Previously posted on GameInformer.com
So, who here's heard about XCOM? Who here has heard about the latest FPS spin-off, a tactical FPS that is set at the dawn of the agency's existence. Who here has heard anyone say anything positive about the FPS spin-off? Chances are, probably not a lot. Especially not from people who are fans of the original games.
Why is this? Why is it suddenly that, without even having gotten a proper release, the new XCOM FPS is declared a waste of time and money by fans? Oh, because it's an FPS. How in the hell does that make sense? By that definition, I should be utterly repulsed if they made an RTS based off of Killzone, no matter how well designed it might actually be. Why? Well because nostalgia dictates we must be like the games beforehand, but better, and we must never deviate from the genre we started in or fear the wrath of the internet.
Let me show you an even earlier example of nostalgia killing a perfectly fine game. Syndicate -- probably one of my favorite FPS games. It sold pretty badly. I think they might be nearing over 70,000 units now, maybe not, I'm not sure. What I do know is, there's three reasons given for why the game didn't review great everywhere, and I'll write them in order of on-going opinion:
1. It's not a strategy game like the originals, so of course it can't possibly be good
2. Deus Ex was a Cyberpunk shooter game thing and it had open world environments and everything*
3. The gameplay isn't that interesting
Now the third one is a matter of opinion. Some people claim that Spec Ops has badly aged controls but I find them mostly to be some of the most fluid shooting in the market -- but I say that with the grain of salt that I also find Timesplitters: Future Perfect to be one of the better FPS games that's ever been developed. I frankly find Syndicate's gameplay and all it's neat little tweaks (the weapon mods you can unlock, the surprisingly well done difficulty setting variations, the chip abilities that are often multi-purpose, the Dart 6 overlay), but that doesn't mean it is perfect. HOWEVER...
No one should have expected EA to produce a strategy game. They're EA, people. Get that into your head. Accept that they prefer action games, and no matter how hard we yell, money will often more likely state your opinion. So buy lots of stuff in the new F2P C&C game, then they'll respond. However, Starbreeze is known for making polished shooters that have a few new ripples to the FPS frame while leaving most of it firmly intact. They did it with Butcher Bay, they did it with Darkness, and they did it with Syndicate. They even cut the competitive multiplayer in order to better focus on co-op and singleplayer. But that apparently doesn't matter, because it wasn't strategy, and its name was Syndicate, so therefore it was thus damned from the beginning. There is absolutely no reason for this other than people being blinded by nostalgia for a series so old that you could play them on a PS1.
And for the people who say "well Deus Ex Human Revolution was totally a better Cyberpunk game" -- they're practically in two separate genres. Human Revolution is another favorite game of mine, but I played it for entirely different reason than when I play Syndicate. I play Human Revolution for the morality, the story, the details they sneak for the observant, the brilliant dialogue boss fights. I play Syndicate to blow people's heads away with a semi-automatic sniper rifle and alternating to my dual fire mode shotgun to take out anyone who gets too close. I play it for the crazy boss fights against opposing agents. I play it because it feels like Mirror's Edge if Mirror's Edge actually had an easy mode. I play it because it's like that one great moment in the Matrix that everyone knows because it's probably why Drake in Uncharted is always given the option to carry a Micro SMG. So stop comparing, the only thing they have in common are brooding protagonists and the general cyberpunk universe standards we all know and love or hate.
I for one am looking forward to hearing more about XCOM the FPS. And I am still, with plenty of joy, playing Syndicate on my PC, even if it means I have to play by myself. I'm getting quite good at it in fact, I can solo some missions on Hard, in a game where you're supposed to have four people. Except, because no one dare upset nostalgia, only usually three people at a time are in a match, because if there were a full game Starbreeze might get the idea someone actually gave a crap about their game. And we clearly wouldn't want that, would we?
