Wishlisted, pending initial user reviews that might swing my decision to buy now, or wait, because it certainly does look an interesting concept.

Although I enjoyed Hard West briefly for what it was, the game itself felt very short and somewhat shallow, even with the Scars of Freedom addition. Admittedly, I got it for free during one of GOG's offers, but it's not a game I'd have paid anywhere near the original release price for, or the current price of €19.99 + €2.99 for the DLC. From memory, I think I completed both over two or three evenings and there wasn't much replay value.

For that reason, I'll be mostly interested in feedback on the game mechanics, length of missions/campaigns, and obviously, replay value in terms of different branches that can be explored within the gameplay. If feedback for those is mostly positive, I might be tempted to go for the 15% discount I'll get on the current release price.

Worth noting that the release price itself isn't the issue here for me, just whether Phantom Doctrine will offer value for money. I tend to consider "new" game purchases a lot more carefully these days, before chucking my money at them.

Not to resurrect a dead topic, but this is an interesting read. The same idiom (buy a cat in a bag) made its way into Indonesian through Dutch in the colonial era. I was wondering how "membeli kucing dalam karung" came about, given that the practice doesn't seem to have actually taken place here.

And as for the main topic: I decided to take the plunge and buy this, even though I'm not sure my laptop can run it. I enjoyed XCOM: Enemy Within, and although reviews indicate that this is somewhat different I'm willing to take a chance.

Hmm...buying or wishlisting...most the time i wait several month after release until it's clear if the deliever a stable build, free of gamebreaking bugs.

But Hard West was quite fun and special, even with it's "failures".
Well...i give them support and see if they wrong me...

Glad to notice a Creativeforge member is an active GOG Community member as well. That was a real boost for my hype. Will we see you writing in orange or is that classified?

Just to name drop another good one in this regard, Starz' Counterpart TV series is well worth checking a look, in particular for its novel 'grounded sci-fi' take on the Cold War.

Nah, since 99% of stuff I post has nothing to do with CFG that wouldn't make sense.
Oh yeah, actually I wasn't referring to that statement of yours on the game being historic - I just wanted to make sure that nobody reading my post would get wrong ideas about the game or our state of mind.

- The early purchase bonus is a free upgrade to the deluxe edition (artbook and soundtrack) plus a 10% discount instead of in-game exclusives.

- There is an additional 5% loyalty discount - a small but nice token of appreciation from the company to fans.

- The early purchase offer stands for two weeks after the release date.

Awesome - that's the way to do it! Preordered. :)

thanks for the reply , its hatd to explain why i cant play some games, even people i know in real life dont understand it, only a small group seems to have problems so, i guess the game can be played by the majority and will do very well and sell well i know it will be a great game and a hit perhaps, thanks again for the reply.

Anyway its not that bad that i cant play many game types, one benefit is i can save cash otherwise i'd be out of funds every month and thats not good, so basically its like a limiter on expenses preventing me to buy anything , this way i have to carefully check and like i said it will prevent me spending all my cash on games only.

Never said a game sucked :D , there's and audience for any type of game, music , movie ...... etc etc etc ...
besides, my old dino pc ( 2009 build) isnt fit to play more demanding games, thats why i started to buy casualgames years ago , most dont stress my pc, some casualgames are poorly optimised usually a FPS issue which the devs dont know or do know but dont care about :D

This looks like a great game. But I bought a few lately that missed the mark, so I will wishlist it, wait until it comes out, and then wait a bit to see if I can find some gameplay clips. Then if it looks good, I will buy it. Neat concept behind the game too. Well done!

I might have to keep an eye on this one, though I'm not inclined to to preorder unless I'm *really* into what they're doing or there's physical goodies at stake. Hard West sounded interesting but the genre isn't quite my thing and it's been associated with a number of complaints about the depth and quantity of gameplay.

Not trying to talk you into pre-ordering the game, just wanted to say that we were very aware of Hard West's flaws while working on Phantom Doctrine and I like to think that we've done a great job avoiding those. Since obviously quite a few people (not just here) have brought up Hard West and drawn comparisons to it, I'd like to go over a few of the big changes:

One of the design decisions that really bit us in the A were the reaction shots (automatic 100% hit when getting close to an enemy), those were replaced by a very nice overwatch feature where you and the AI can actually choose what area to cover. No overwatch: okay, safely walk up to the enemy and shoot them in the face or perform a takedown.

In Hard West many characters were plot-related and losing them resulted in instant game over. In Phantom Doctrine all characters besides your avatar are allowed to die and you can even lose entire missions without losing the game (certain missions have to be won, of course).

Hard West was divided into chapters and you regularly had to start over with a new team as you made progress in the campaign. Now you can use your favourite guys from start to finish.

In Hard West there was no saving during tactical encounters (until quick saving was introduced as an experimental feature in a patch) and only autosaving on the world map. This time you can save at any time and the game is also automatically saved each turn during tactical missions and at regular intervals while at the hideout.

Hard West's world map lacked a bit of depth and progress was quite linear. This time you have an actual strategic layer where you manage your many agents, research new tech, send your agents on various jobs to counter the enemy, launch many optional tactical missions etc..

One thing that everyone seemed to enjoy in Hard West was the Luck system that replaced random hit chances. The system returns in a new guise as "Awareness" and was greatly improved. Now it regenerates per turn and there are many ways to replenish it actively or attack enemies' awareness directly. Again it additionally serves as "mana" for using certain abilities and does so more effectively.

Another well-received thing was the "Setup" mode where you can move quite freely before engaging in combat. This one was extended into a full-fledged stealth mode called "Infiltration" where you can actively eliminate enemies and even finish entire missions without engaging in open combat.

These things are just the tip of the iceberg, of course. There have been zillions of other additions and changes, whether it's to the combat mechanics, mission design, character development, artificial intelligence or the presentation. Then there's of course the entirely new stuff like kidnapping hostile agents and brainwashing them, support powers (e.g. snipers helping out from outside the map), weapon modding, multiplayer and much more. It's safe to say that we've come a really long way since Hard West.

I must say that the more I read about this game, the more I want it.
Besides, seeing this written by a GOG community member I personally know and respect doubles the effect.
Phantom Doctrine has really the potential to be a big hitter (relatively speaking, of course a small team cannot have a marketing campaign of a multimillion budget game), and I really hope it will surpass even the best expectations.

Man, I need this game. Alas right now I am in no position to buy it at day one, but be sure it will enter my library as soon as possible.

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