Where did you download the demo from? Desura?

Anyway here's a quick AAR of my last battle. Shit was brutal but fun. I lost 4 good men - 3 due to carelessness, 1 due to a risky manoeuvre.

The following is an entry from the diary of Corporal Vasili Kutznetsov ...

18th July, 1979

I don't know how much more of this I can take. Yesterday, I just saw 4 men fall before my eyes, one of whom was my superior.

Honestly? We never expected a defense of this scale. Damned creatures were everywhere; we counted 5 of them when HQ sent in the cleanup personnel. It was a small victory for Asia and the world, but my laughter was mirthless.

Indeed, what good is a victory if it means losing more of our own? This war is wearing us down. It all seemed like such a good plan at first. Joseph, the pilot, would land in the marked LZ, and we'd split 3 ways from there. I was to move out with Vasili, Anthony and Christian.

The 4 of us headed into a seemingly abandoned warehouse. There were a couple of scared civilians in there, but they didn't get in our way. We took up positions at the various windows, while the rest of the team moved into place. Our Hunter - the armoured vehicle - would plow a direct route through the generator area to the East, while behind it tagged Philip, Jacob and Misha. Sergeant Liam made sure no intruders stabbed us in the back from outside of the warehouse.

That's when it went to hell. Liam spotted a Sebillian patrolling the area, and tried to fire on it. The thing got the jump on him first, and a blast knocked him off his feet and tore through his chest. He was left choking on his own blood as all of us turned in surprise.

Anthony, the boldest and fastest of us all, took charge. He ordered us to not leave our stations, and tried to sneak up on the Sebillian through the back door. He was about to give the order to fire, when the Sebillian, in another lightning fast reaction, whipped about and fired a shot at him. The blast struck him square in the heart, and he crumpled to the ground like a ragdoll. Not even a choke from him, but that expression of sheer surprise he wore still haunts me.

Vasili, in an attempt to drag his friend to safety, risked his own and sprinted for the door. The Sebillian - that damn cursed sonuvabitch - was simply too quick for anyone to yell out a warning, and .. goddamn. Goddamn. He took Vasili too.

That cold, hard rage started to burn in me, and all I could see was red. I needed to splash this bastard's blood on the walls. I simply lost it, and started firing away at him through the window. At the sound of glass breaking, he fired back, but I was there first. I must have gotten him in the leg, because I heard another gunshot, presumably from our sharpshooter Kutznetsov, and this one hit the bastard straight in the eyes and all but tore its head from its neck.

The streets were quiet once the gunfire sounds had died down, but ahead of us loomed the wreckage of the crashed spacecraft. Jacob, by this time, had started to panic, and started mumbling about the darkness and the demon Tsathoggua. He was beyond comforting, and could only sit there for a while.

The rest of us looked at the looming structure, and cautiously approached it. Ahead was a black silhouette that none of us had noticed, and it would have spelled my demise too, had Misha not shouted a warning. A thunderous crack behind me was all it took to bring me to my senses and peer into the darkness ahead, to see the Sebillian about to take a shot at me, only to be stunned by the projectile that had saved my life. Quickly taking aim, I fired in the direction of the Sebillian, and that was all it took to punch a hole through its brain and whip it into a dance of death.

The final moments of the battle were near. I could feel it. We strained our ears cautiously for alien footsteps, but none could be heard. That only left the space craft, where the last remnants of alien scum were hiding. Misha rounded the broken ship to get a glimpse through its cockpit window, and there found a cowering Sebilian.

Enough was enough. We were all battle weary by then, and had no wish to risk our lives anymore. Better to stay alive and fight another day at the expense of losing some alien artifacts, than to risk dying. There were enough dead that day. A single rocket fired from our Hunter and struck the shuttle. The impact was ... spectacular. The whole craft exploded and caught fire, and according to Misha, who strode to the front of the cockpit, the alien inside gave him an undisguised look of hatred before being cooked alive.

That concluded the battle at Warehouse 11. The locals were really grateful to us, and we were showered with friendly smiles and thankful tears. We were happy, of course, to have saved the lives of these people, but I wonder. How much more of this fighting can we take, before we really tire of it? Even Jacob broke down that night, right in the battlefield. Can we drive out the aliens, or will the aliens eventually overrun us? As we took the Chinook back to Indonesia, I simply could not express the torrent of emotions running within me ...

Yup, I'm really looking forward to this. Currently installing again.

If it still doesn't work, forget Desura and use this link instead. It's on the KS page:
http://x-com.org.uk/xenonauts/Xenonauts_Kickstarter_Demo.zip

Lesson learned: DO NOT send the bloody Chinook in the same squadron as the Interceptors, it'll only slow them down. I feel like an idiot now. ;)

Looks like Xenonauts will reach its funding goal within the first two days of the campaign. They really underestimated the demand for their game.

But make sure you send interceptors along for the ride when you visit crash sites. If the Aliens are feeling irritable they will intercept your Chinook and shoot it down.

Ace!

I already backed $20, go go go!

Btw, are there Chrysalid equivalent aliens or mind control in the game?

IIRC, Crysalids are confirmed and MC was removed for balance reasons. It really was game-breaking in the original, after all.

I felt like a god using MC, after suffering the alien incursion having them kill my troops with plasma while i was firing bullets, turning my troops into zombies, blowing my hovertanks repeatedly while I reload and reload and MCing my troops continously; having able to get back at them with my own veterans who MCed the Etherals to make the aliens kill each other and MCed Chrysalids as my scouts, it really really felt incredible.

Yeah, I know, but it could also for example be used to win the final map of the game in a single turn by MCing a few Ethereals to find the control room, MCing anyone inside there and bam -- end of game.

It's a controversial decision, that's for sure, but I can see why they made it.

Allright, I got it to run (Desura is shaping up to annoy me, however).

The game is exactly what I expected it to be. Brilliant. I'm really looking forward to this. What is the release date?

October according to Kickstarter.