The Amazing X-COM Thread

[Galdred]

A cool video about how X-COM was cancelled, but the heads of Micrprose UK decided to disobey orders and kept the development going, without even telling the Gollop brothers the heads of Spectrum Holobytes had decided to stop the X-COM project.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...cancelled-but-development-continued-in-secret

 

[v1rus]

Being a complete nooby, and never having checked any of the X-com games, what would you say, which are the greatest aspects of this game, and where should i start?

 

[Galdred]

This one feels like war: You send countless guys into the meat grinder and hope something good comes out of it. It feels like the Aliens have their own agenda.
On the other hand, the new XCOM feels formulaic. Missions are created at regular interval. You pick one among 3, and try to optimize your action economy and manage pods (avoid activating alien groups that have not seen you yet) so that you almost never get shot back.

Get the game (on gog, steam, or somewhere else), then install openxcom (lots of quality of life improvements).
You should start with gamefaqs to get some clue about starting out.

 

[Endemic]

Then your base gets attacked in the first month.

 

[Temesis]

In the original XCOM, you had a cool procedural block map with patrolling aliens and totally destroyable environment. And huge fires! Smoke! The new ones truly felt very formulaic and dungeon crawly compared to that....

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Then your base gets attacked in the first month.

Only if you are unlucky. I rarely get a base defense mission in my playthroughs.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

In the original XCOM, you had a cool procedural block map with patrolling aliens and totally destroyable environment. And huge fires! Smoke! The new ones truly felt very formulaic and dungeon crawly compared to that....

You also had a simplistic tactical system that could be summed up as "walk and shoot on sight". And if by patrolling you meant wander aimlessy and occasionally shot at your soldiers if it saw them with its extended vision range.
The original XCOM did a lot of things right. The tactical portion wasn't one of them. At least now you have flanking maneuvers and cover.
Sure, the procedural block map and fires might sound nice, but keep in mind this was back when everything looked like crap and AI didn't take up any room because of how basic it was. Its a bit harder to do now because everything is more resource intensive. Its a pity, but that's just how it is.

The new game also has destructible terrain. The only difference is that you can't target it freely without an ability, because that would really mess up the cover mechanic.
Apoc does win out with its destuctible cover system though; you can truly demolish buildings in that game. I can't wait till open Apoc comes out.

 

[Temesis]

You also had a simplistic tactical system that could be summed up as "walk and shoot on sight".

. At least now you have flanking maneuvers and cover.

Ok I'll give you that ... the cover system is very nice, much nicer than the facing and kneeling system of the old ones. But in the old ones, you did much more large scale flanking. The question was: "do I send 4 guys to that house to cover that area" as opposed to "Do I send I guy to flank them from behind that lamppost". I guess which one you prefer is a matter of taste.

 

[Endemic]

Only if you are unlucky. I rarely get a base defense mission in my playthroughs.

Well, yeah, there's some RNG involved. It generally happens if you're very efficient at downing UFOs, aside from the late game scripted attacks.

 

[Trash]

Hell yeah, despite the game being a bizarre mix of wierd art and wierd gameplay it did provide for some truly awesome moments. Firing a rocket inside a big downed UFO and then seeing massive secondary explosion after massive secondary explosion tear the thing apart was at that point the most HOLY FUCK WHAT THE HELL moment I had in gaming. Another good one was using incendiary grenades to create a hellish inferno in the basement of some building to drive out the alien infestation. Like the fucking finale of the thing.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, as much as I like apoc, the art is pretty shit. Also the real time mode was unnecessary. They should have stuck with turn based. But hey, it was the 90s, and they wanted to experiment with crap like that.

 

[Arrowgrab]

Yeah, as much as I like apoc, the art is pretty shit. Also the real time mode was unnecessary. They should have stuck with turn based. But hey, it was the 90s, and they wanted to experiment with crap like that.

Turn based doesn't allow you to do this:

Firepower is love.

 

[Efe]

those rookies probably have %5 hit chance dual wielding those

 

[laclongquan]

1. I hate the meatgrinder aspect. I dont like command a bunch of faceless nobodies. I want to control a group of known faces (and maybe personalities) and hate getting one of them killed.

2. War on aliens should mean stretched resources. Your orbit get captured by them, so you lose the high ground and should be pressed pretty much everywhere. You should not have enough resources to do things need to be done for a major part of the game. This means both strategic and tactical battles.

3. Gunporn! A global fight againts common enemies should mean a large arenal of guns from everywhere aside from alien stuffs. And if there's customized guns it just mean the number of guns increase.

4. Reasonable Graphic. DOS era level is right the fuck out. So yeah, older games can go get stuffed.

That said this is my recommendation list.

1. UFO Afterlight. At hardest or second hardest it can be pretty tight on both personels and items. There is a stretch of time where I produce mostly the most simple weapon: TNT, because it's fast and I can use it with greatest effect/time produce ratio. All game use all alien loots, because there is simply no time to produce lot of gun. The number of soldiers are limited, unless you choose to use robots, which return to the concept of faceless shooters. And the war on several factions mean we have to be selective about where and when to fight. Graphicwise it's a bit cartoony thanks to the suits they wear all the time you cant have people on Mars in helmetless state, right?

2. UFO Aftershock. The previous version of UFO AL but it's different enough. The graphic is a bit more primitive but totally servicable.

3. UFO Extraterrestrial. I recommend Grayfiend mod than other mods because it seems to be more exciting. You can do the faceless meatgrinder thing or you can raise your team.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, as much as I like apoc, the art is pretty shit. Also the real time mode was unnecessary. They should have stuck with turn based. But hey, it was the 90s, and they wanted to experiment with crap like that.

Turn based doesn't allow you to do this:

Firepower is love.

Its so jank to play though. Maybe its me, but I found the RTS mode to be really awkward to use due to the old controls.

 

[Temesis]

Those Apocalypse headcraps (or whatever they were) sure were annoying. Kinda ruined the real-time mode for me. Or maybe I just didn't know how to play.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, the brain suckers and the poppers were a nightmare to play against on RTS mode. They really should have stuck with TBS instead of trying to compromise.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Brain Suckers and Poppers are a nightmare on Turn-Based too

Yeah, but at least you had a chance to react and plan. In RTS I remember them charging at you at top speed, and due to the clunky controls it was difficult to react fast enough.
I really hope they improve the RTS controls in OpenApoc and make it smooth like a modern RTS.

 

[Arrowgrab]

Brain Suckers and Poppers are a nightmare on Turn-Based too

Yeah, but at least you had a chance to react and plan. In RTS I remember them charging at you at top speed, and due to the clunky controls it was difficult to react fast enough.

It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure the RTS mode could be paused at any moment and orders could be given during the pause, so I don't get this recurring notion that "it was hard to react in real-time".

 

[Galdred]

I had found them much more manageable in RTS. I don't remember why excatly, but it felt like low reaction was not so big a deal in RTS, while in TB, it would spell the quick death of anyone to brain sucking.

 

[Luka-boy]

I always found brainsuckers a bit more manageable in real time because even after they jump on their target's head, the game gave you a little bit of extra time to shoot them before they actually started brainsucking.

Same way you could try to throw back grenades in RT if you paused the game as soon as they fell at your soldiers' feet.

 

[Black]

Fun fact: if you name your soldiers after RPG Codex staff members, brain suckers ignore them.

 

[asfasdf]

I always found brainsuckers a bit more manageable in real time because even after they jump on their target's head, the game gave you a little bit of extra time to shoot them before they actually started brainsucking.

Same way you could try to throw back grenades in RT if you paused the game as soon as they fell at your soldiers' feet.

You could dodge brainsuckers in RT also. Those blue exploding things however were hell.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Deflowerer]

Started playing X-COM for the first time.

Fucking amazing.