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A proper, entirely faithful X-COM remake- feature by feature. Finally.

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Only difference is it's not set on Earth, but a colony of Earth. Earth's already been conquered. Hopefully a sequel deals with taking Earth back.

While we're huge fans of the polished and prodigious revelation of the original X-COM, UFO's adherence to the basic model leaves little room for the innovations and refinements we've seen in recent TBS tactical games like Silent Storm. Whether or not the 15-year-old gameplay style can still win players over in the face of stiffer competition remains to be seen.

Silent Storm has nothing on X-COM.

And I just bought UFO: Afterlight.

Guess I have to buy that one also.

I've been waiting for something like this for about a decade. We'll see whether I'll still want it now that I've got it, or whether I'll go running back to X-Com instead of playing this remake.

I'll be getting that one. One of my favorite games of all time remade! YESS!

Edi

Oh goddess. It's the 'Undefendable Y-Shaped Hangar Layout' again! I'm in love already.

Shame on you, Neph! It took you four whole posts to find this thread?

I'm still getting my ass kicked on the original X-COM.

Oh man, this makes me happy.

As a sidenote though, there's also the UFO: Alien Invasion game, based on the Quake 2 engine. Open-source, and therefore not done, but still looks promising.

White Haven wrote:Shame on you, Neph! It took you four whole posts to find this thread?

I know. I'm so sad.

I'm reading the article now, but I don't understand why being faithful to UFO means you can't have modern stuff like overpenetration, collapsing buildings, etc. I much prefer UFO's interrupt (simply shooting instead of full turn functionality) but if they remake UFO with no imagination that'll suck.

Suck like the UFO:AS games. I am not a fan, and I really wanted to like them.

EDIT - am I crazy or is it the UFO:AS engine? Both tactical and strategic looks the same.

Ok, if this is really true this time, I'm giddy with excitement. I don't want "innovation" that fucks up the basic gameplay, and while there are a few bits of innovation I wouldn't mind (SS's damage modeling for example), if they just recreate XCOM I'll be ecstatic.

Neat. The original still kicks sweet ass

Stark wrote:I'm reading the article now, but I don't understand why being faithful to UFO means you can't have modern stuff like overpenetration, collapsing buildings, etc.

X-COM had collapsing buildings. You shoot out the supports on a building with pillars, the floor being supported will collapse.

Of course, it doesn't look very real, but it's the thought that counts!

I much prefer UFO's interrupt (simply shooting instead of full turn functionality) but if they remake UFO with no imagination that'll suck.

Bah, I want a remake with no "imagination" if that imagination includes fucking up the core gameplay.

Vympel wrote:Bah, I want a remake with no "imagination" if that imagination includes fucking up the core gameplay.

I agree - every XCOM clone has changed SOMETHING, and it sucked - but a slavish 'no it wasn't in UFO so we won't do it even though it won't change anything but be cool' is silly.

Consider a small list of 'X-Com successors' and what they did right and wrong, compared to the classic, shall we?

TFTD: It's the same game, but harder, uglier, and with a lot of random rules like 'no good weapons on land', or 'your guns all can carry only two bullets', or 'your sub can't intercept over land, or in deep water'.

Apoc: Suddenly combat is less fatal, nobody can hit anything, psi-warfare is pointless, the strategic-view of the city is cool, but interception is a pain. Also, Brainsuckers are the only way your soldiers ever die. PS, your starting equipment more or less is usable for the entire game for some reason.

UFO Aftermath: Interception means crap, you only get 7 soldiers, real time makes it just easier to use a large blob of soldiers instead of actually taking cover and positioning, every damn Reticulan has an automatic rocket launcher and will kill 5 of your troops a second, the stationary weapons are cool but useless. No base management period. Taking territory is stupid.

UFO Aftershock: The game is longer than the first three X-COMs combined, the XM8 is the best weapon in the universe and you get it early. Psi-warfare is ridiculously overpowered. There were cool plot twists, but the inability to actually kill the cultists (they always 'auto-win' your land if you do), and such.

Wait, no intercept? Super-basic base management. Taking territory is stupid, and takes weeks. Go faster, game! Faster! Also, I still don't like how blobbing a mob of your troops wins more than spreading out and taking cover.

UFO AFterlight: This is shorter (so it seems now) than AS, and is on Mars. Oooh. The Reticulans are lame bastards who utterly abuse the 'total win' weapon of Psi-attacks that you have no defense against. Seriously, they can kill you through walls, through armor, with perfect accuracy. They are also invisible.

No interception. Base construction is like old X-COM, but the infrastructure building is at least interesting. It's sorta cool waiting for NPC military aid. It's lame that you don't ever get a chance to increase your numbers of soldiers or scientists though. Also, all your weapons suck except the basic rifle and basic pistol. Again, the real-time mode has plenty of issues regarding maneuver and positioning. Faster to send a large cluster at enemies than think on how to flank or whatnot. Also, your remote control cars tanks are stupid as hell.

Laser Squad Nemesis: It's got strategy, but also about as much depth in details as a minigame. You've got 'peices' like 'laser rifle soldier' or 'grenade soldier'. Cool combat system, but again, there's no strategic mode period. It's a simple game, like X-Com super lite.

...

So, after all of those.. I think I'll be happy to see old X-COM with a few minor new features?

Vympel wrote:X-COM had collapsing buildings. You shoot out the supports on a building with pillars, the floor being supported will collapse.

WRONG WRONG WRONG

You can tell that vympel has never played the first two games; floors would magically float in midair. It was Apocalypse which added the collapsing floor.

Indeed. I saw that a lot in the original, as my strategy evolved from 'Doors kill X-COM operatives' to 'Remove the building, remove the cover.' You'd be surprised at the 'oh shit' look on a Sectoid's face when an HWP-Rocket takes the entire first story front wall off the farmhouse he's hiding in, and still has the TUs to peg a second missile inside.

White Haven wrote:Indeed. I saw that a lot in the original, as my strategy evolved from 'Doors kill X-COM operatives' to 'Remove the building, remove the cover.' You'd be surprised at the 'oh shit' look on a Sectoid's face when an HWP-Rocket takes the entire first story front wall off the farmhouse he's hiding in, and still has the TUs to peg a second missile inside.

It'd be interesting if you had to pay for damages done to 3rd party structures.

Not like farmhouses would exactly cost much. And that each time you blow shit up like that, the 'heat' rating increases, and word gets out, panic begins to set in...

You had to pay damages in Apocalypse, IIRC.

I'm in. hopefully it will have the tactical innovations that have come across since, with new action and overwatch options that were added to the genre by Jagged Alliance II and Silent Storm.

White Haven wrote:Indeed. I saw that a lot in the original, as my strategy evolved from 'Doors kill X-COM operatives' to 'Remove the building, remove the cover.' You'd be surprised at the 'oh shit' look on a Sectoid's face when an HWP-Rocket takes the entire first story front wall off the farmhouse he's hiding in, and still has the TUs to peg a second missile inside.

And the second damn rocket misses again and destroys the rest of the house!

Oh, this brings back memories. Taking crashed battleships was awesome, especially if you jetted onto the roof and blew a new entrance. I can't remember ever being any good at picking teams, and I'd inevitably lose men on each mission, good and shit alike. Had one Japanese guy who made it through the whole game before dying in a tunnel beneath Cydonia.

I always liked Apocalypse, I liked the faster action, the city map, the interaction with the various factions across the city, the way you could just raid people to steal stuff.

Any fans of X-Com - Interceptor, I thought it was great, though near impssoble to actually shoot down any ufo's.

Ah, fond memories, Dwight McNeil - the Uber-Soldier!!

Covenant wrote:It'd be interesting if you had to pay for damages done to 3rd party structures.

Not like farmhouses would exactly cost much. And that each time you blow shit up like that, the 'heat' rating increases, and word gets out, panic begins to set in...

Actually, in highschool the most common ideas for 'improving' XCOM weren't lameo realtime nonsense like the UFO:AS games but things like this - a political system that actually worked and meant something. Who didn't wish you could go to withdrawn countries, kill the infiltrators, liberate the humans, and GET YOUR DAMN FUNDING BACK? It'd be neat if you could either be 'top secret' thus not pay for shit and more at the whim of the funding council or public and have more expenses but able to just show up and play the liberators.

And of course so long as you kill lots of aliens nobody cared that you always wait till dawn to do missions.

Stark, half of those ideas were 'meant' to be in Apoc, but got scrapped. Stuff like kidnapping corporate CEOs and blackmailing them, or exposing certain groups of alien influence, or playing alliances between power blocs. Oh how grand Apoc would have been if that worked.

Anyway, I liked Interceptor, but would have liked it a lot better if they added more features. Carriers and the like to fight aliens. But sheesh, that was the fastest space sim I ever played. It was a real challenge to bag more aliens than your wingmen. They were so fast...

Yeah well everything about Apoc sucked and they would have been better served spending time noticing how brainsuckers made the game lame and unplayable. It had interesting ideas (I liked the vehicle config) but pretty much everything about the tactical level was shit.