X-Com and all its glory

[Squickster]

Finding myself enjoying that i can play these games once more due to Steam and all of its glory i wonder who remembers this fine franchise? Which of the games was your favorite? and is it even worth finishing Interceptor? i stopped when my bases were covering the map and i was slowly sweaping my way to the other corner ... nothing was a challange and i had waste $20 but gave it to a worthy cause at the time.

My favorite is ... well Defense, Terror and Apoc. Yes i love them all.

mmmk ... reminse

 

[Kelbear]

Incredible games, too bad I can't get them working on my current computer. The first one was always my favorite in the series. I loved the sense of dread as your men and women plunged into the dark unknown. The horror when a fusion ball barrels in from out of nowhere! Spent hours building up those people to be the elite killing machines they were, but it just takes one terrible moment for it all to taken away forever.

I had one premiere soldier who I had nurtured since the start of the game, who I treated as a squad leader of sorts. He fought his way through the entire alien invasion and ended up dying right before the final mission! Really hurts to lose people in that game. I usually kept a bunch of redshirts around as meatshields for my cherished few

 

[Anton P. Nym]

I had X-Com 1 almost working on my WinXP machine, but couldn't get the sound to run... arguably making the game unplayable, given how important audio cues are on the Battlescape for picking out unseen but nearby alien activity. I'll try again when I get Win7 on my new one. (Or if Good Old Games adds it to their catalog... *puppy-eyes*)

The first one is my favourite; I must've spent a couple-hundred hours playing it, and I know playing it to moderate-excess took some of the sting out of a bad stretch of unemployment. It just had everything; base-building, character management, strategy, tactics, economics... something for everyone.

-- Steve

 

[CD-R]

direct2drive.com has the whole set on sale for 5 bucks this month. http://www.direct2drive.com/4/7614/product/Buy-X-Com-Complete-Bundle-Download

 

[Proteus214]

X-Com was great, but it's getting a bit dated. If they could come up with something with the same kind of strategy and theme with modern graphics technology, I think it would be an amazing game.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

You people who can't get it working know about Dosbox, right?

The first one is the only one I love. Terror from the Deep was too poorly balanced and I wasn't a fan of the theme. Apocalypse, well, I haven't played it as I'm not a big fan of RTS and wasn't following PC games when it came out.

How much do I love it? So many years later and I happen have the players handbook for my AGA Amiga version on my desk.

 

[Jandau]

X-Com is one of the earlies games I played and it's still awesome. Yes, it's a bit dated, but it's still a damn hell more complex and deep than most of what passes for strategy & tactics games these days.

The original one is by far the best. Terror From the Deep was basically a reskin of the first game with the difficulty ramped up (and some gamestoping bugs thrown in). I could never get into Apocalypse, that game was just ugly.

The action spinoffs barely count, since they have little to do with the actual X-Com games and because they all suck.

The remakes fall into the same category and I'm honestly suprised that there are so many of them and they all invariably can't even match up to the original. Seriously, if someone just recreated the first game with modern graphics, it would beat pretty much any of the remakes...

 

[nekoali]

I loved and still love the X-Com series. I played them to completion so many times. Oh, and Apocalypse isn't a RTS game. It plays just the same as the first two games, only set in a single city, with more detailed... well just about everything that made the first two good. It's still my favorite of the series.

 

[oranger]

sigh, don't I wish...a new xcom, a real one...but the sad reality is this: ever since certain genres emerged, which shall remain anonymous for their own protection, the ratio of people who desire such challenges to their intellect to those who don't shifted dramatically, making games like xcom difficult to market. I am starting to think that stuff like bioshock is the closest we will ever get to the clever games I grew up with.

 

[Squickster]

sadly i think what made everything great about xcom WAS the simplicity and to want to recreate that would be where you come up with the most troubles. But if anything about 'cult' games has taught us is that as long as the production stays cheap they COULD do a remake of the game just for people who loved this game. Probably the biggest thing about the franchise's death is that the game was made back in the 90s and its too long forgotten to actually be remade oh and the fact Micropose is basically a forgotten name of game design companies.

As for the general dislike of Apocolypse, i understand it. It wasn't well balanced when you got to the end of the story line and you had to wait like 3 weeks before steamrolling the aliens using androids because anything else you sent thru the portals would basically became mindcontrolled annnnd TPK. After you accepted that, and learned to love the realtime play style, it was basically an enjoyable waste of time.
TFTD was great because you basically learned to wipe the alien bases from the map on the first stage before going onto the 2nd. Then you learned to toss a sing gernade at the power core and run.
So take the real time part of Apoc. combine it with TFTDs multistaged assults and basterdise it into Terror and what you would have there would probably be THE greatest Xcom remake ever.

 

[Antari]

The only thing DOS Fans need to know is DOSBOX exists and it works better than DOS ever did. Its how Steam gets the stuff working. There are more than a few sites where you can download nearly any game out of the 80's. X-Com was certainly a classic series, and one I'm still shocked hasn't been redone. I find myself playing more and more games from that era, mainly because they are FINISHED and don't crash. And because they didn't have superfantastic graphics to work with, they had to make the game FUN.

Out of the series though, definately the origional. X-Com UFO Defense.

 

[Hong Meiling]

sigh, don't I wish...a new xcom, a real one...but the sad reality is this: ever since certain genres emerged, which shall remain anonymous for their own protection, the ratio of people who desire such challenges to their intellect to those who don't shifted dramatically, making games like xcom difficult to market. I am starting to think that stuff like bioshock is the closest we will ever get to the clever games I grew up with.

Yes. I would too love to see a new game in the xcom series. However, I also know it won't be xcom. It'll be dumbed down xcom with shiny graphics. (Or hell a "squad based tactical" FPS based on xcom eugh)

 

[blood77]

I loved and still love the X-Com series. I played them to completion so many times. Oh, and Apocalypse isn't a RTS game. It plays just the same as the first two games, only set in a single city, with more detailed... well just about everything that made the first two good. It's still my favorite of the series.

Yeah, I remember the first time I walked into my friends room and he had that up. It was pretty awesome.

BTW, nice avatar dood.

 

[theonecookie]

Yay for x-com one of the best turn based stratagy games ever

the first one is my fav but apoc can have its moments if you can get it to run on your computer that is

BTW has any one played the ufo games thay are sorta on the same wave length as x-com but fall short of being great still fun to play for bit mind

 

[Shoqiyqa]

The first one is the only one I love. Terror from the Deep was too poorly balanced ...

... and made no sense as a sequel. Eighty years have passed and we've completely forgotten how to build laser rifles, plasma cannons, interceptors with plasma beams (their flying subs can't fight back over land and we wouldn't need diving gear to pick up the pieces), HE grenades or any or the other stuff we had at the end of Enemy Unknown? Not only that, but somehow we've lost all possible back-up. Dart guns and harpoon guns? Okay, underwater, maybe when this was developed the Soviets hadn't revealed their underwater assault rifle yet and that was reasonable, but an island or a port facility? Two air cadets with .22LR target rifles would have been more effective than my short-sighted squad with their dart guns. Give me my old L98A1 and two full magazines and I'd drop the lot, Deep Ones included. Heck, never mind even the old Interceptors from X-Com 1. SAM, anyone? A couple of Tornados getting in the sub's way with 27mm cannons? One Hurricane?

Also, X-Com 2 took most of its scenario from the John Wyndham book The Kraken Wakes, and didn't credit him.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Eighty years have passed and we've completely forgotten how to build laser rifles, plasma cannons, interceptors with plasma beams (their flying subs can't fight back over land and we wouldn't need diving gear to pick up the pieces), HE grenades or any or the other stuff we had at the end of Enemy Unknown?

Yeah, I don't see why laser beams and power armour wouldn't work underwater and surely high explosives would be super effective. Just adapt them to work under water in high pressure.

Also, X-Com 2 took most of its scenario from the John Wyndham book The Kraken Wakes, and didn't credit him.

That doesn't bother me so much but I haven't read any of his books. I actually liked the first one because it was like the TV show UFO and Ian M Banks novels.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

You should. They are good.

The Midwych Cuckoos was filmed ... badly ... as Village Of The Damned.

The Kraken Wakes will remind you of X-Com 2 and a few other things.

The Day Of The Triffids is an excellent book about humanity in a collapsing society. There's a film of the same name that has some superficial similarities in plot, but noone's ever made a film of the book.

Trouble With Lichen is about people and society and how they respond to things.

Web is the creepiest, crawliest and bleakest of the lot. It's also about ===><=== this far from coming true, compared to the others.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I had X-Com 1 almost working on my WinXP machine, but couldn't get the sound to run... arguably making the game unplayable, given how important audio cues are on the Battlescape for picking out unseen but nearby alien activity. I'll try again when I get Win7 on my new one. (Or if Good Old Games adds it to their catalog... *puppy-eyes*)

DosBox.

The Steam version comes with it preconfigured.

It's what I used for this. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/362.82574]

 

[Valiance]

X-Com: UFO Defense is one of the greatest games ever created.

Apocalypse is pretty cool but pretty different.

Once Hasbro got the franchise it was basically non-existent and ruined (see: email missions, enforcer, alliance though it didn't come out, etc, etc...)

 

[oranger]

didn't alliance have some sort of 'lost in space' crossed with 'above and beyond' feel to it?
a shame they didn't bring that one out...it would be sweeter still if it was all Elite style too. (or what was that game, where earth was living under a red slave shield, and when you finally get to earth you find the "jailors" gone?)