Thal
Augur
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2015
- Messages
- 413
My first playthrough of UFO: Enemy Unknown was in the 90s, and that time I reloaded every time my dude got scorched. Like many others, I couldn't stand losing them and I also didn't have the patience for a more cautious playstyle. The game was massive fun even then, but there's no question that the game is even better ironman. The reason for that is that it's not actually very punishing. Even if your best dudes get wasted you are still progressing in the game. You may have captured an alien leader or gotten heavy plasma, or your hard won battles have earned you more funding. In fact, the only battle you that you have to win is the last mission. Everything else in the game is building up to that and trying to stay alive while doing so.
Recently I played couple ironman starts on a browser until the game froze, and I can say that you get over losing your guys pretty fast. Now I consider losing 2 guys per mission a success. The game even acknowledges this approach by withholding from you the info on psi strength of each soldier, which happens to be the most important stat in the game. So in the start of the game you don't even know which one of your guys is even worth keeping. There's no reason form attachments then, especially since soldiers are cheap and sometimes rookies even come with pretty good stats. And the bad ones are ideal to be sent on the frontline. If you don't want to sacrifice anyone, send in a tank. The real training begins when you get psi powers, but that's when you have flying suits and blaster launchers. Hell, your best guys would most likely never even leave the ship with their psi-amps. The game is quite brilliant in this sense. Your strategy in battlescape will go through multiple iterations throughout the game, which makes the game stay fresh despite going through dozens of battles.
JA2 and Chaos Gate it doesn't work quite the same way though, as there is a limited amount of mercs. Ironman is doable of course, but I think these games is designed to take advantage of save/load. Ironman here is an added challenge. In UFO it really isn't.
Recently I played couple ironman starts on a browser until the game froze, and I can say that you get over losing your guys pretty fast. Now I consider losing 2 guys per mission a success. The game even acknowledges this approach by withholding from you the info on psi strength of each soldier, which happens to be the most important stat in the game. So in the start of the game you don't even know which one of your guys is even worth keeping. There's no reason form attachments then, especially since soldiers are cheap and sometimes rookies even come with pretty good stats. And the bad ones are ideal to be sent on the frontline. If you don't want to sacrifice anyone, send in a tank. The real training begins when you get psi powers, but that's when you have flying suits and blaster launchers. Hell, your best guys would most likely never even leave the ship with their psi-amps. The game is quite brilliant in this sense. Your strategy in battlescape will go through multiple iterations throughout the game, which makes the game stay fresh despite going through dozens of battles.
JA2 and Chaos Gate it doesn't work quite the same way though, as there is a limited amount of mercs. Ironman is doable of course, but I think these games is designed to take advantage of save/load. Ironman here is an added challenge. In UFO it really isn't.
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