UFO: enemy unknown

[kaini]

so since just before christmas i've become completely and utterly addicted to UFO: enemy unknown again (X-COM: UFO defence to my transatlantic brethren). absolutely superb game, and it's reminding me that games used be *difficult* back then.

 

if you're not familiar, there's a management screen where you manage finances and a civ-like research tree, set up bases, and add things like radar, hangars and facilities, then use them to intercept UFOs. once intercepted, it switches to an isometric turn-based strategy style where you have to kill various aliens in various terrains and recover bodies, materials, and prisoners in order to further your cause of figuring out exactly why they're invading.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfoelRLeaLY

 

it's probably the most unforgiving game i've ever played, even on easy. only now am i getting even slightly an edge on things... i have fond memories of first spending an entire christmas playing this about fifteen years ago too!

 

any other fans of this game? i think it might be the finest turn-based strategy game i've ever played, even beating the civs.

[Guest Pennywise]

so since just before christmas i've become completely and utterly addicted to UFO: enemy unknown again (X-COM: UFO defence to my transatlantic brethren). absolutely superb game, and it's reminding me that games used be *difficult* back then.

 

if you're not familiar, there's a management screen where you manage finances and a civ-like research tree and set up bases and add things like radar and hangars and facilities, and use them to intercept UFOs. once intercepted, it switches to an isometric turn-based strategy thing where you have to kill various aliens in various terrains and recover bodies, materials, and prisoners in order to further your cause of figuring out exactly why they're invading.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfoelRLeaLY

 

it's probably the most unforgiving game i've ever played, even on easy. only now am i getting even slightly an edge on things... i have fond memories of first spending an entire christmas playing this about fifteen years ago too!

 

any other fans of this game? i think it might be the finest turn-based strategy game i've ever played, even beating the civs.

i was hoping your minecraft absence was due to something more important lol. I need to try this game at some point. It has a great reputation

[kaini]

it's incredibly good, but be prepared to be brutally assraped your first couple of times playing it. that playthrough linked above has some good tips.

 

edit: you have mail, pete

[DerWaschbar]

This is by far my favorite game of all time. It is ridiculously good.

Terror from the deep catches a lot of flack for being essentially more of the same, but I never minded.

The joy you feel when you finally have an established group of super soldiers that can psychologically and physically dominate anything in there way is so incredibly satisfying.

It's like a beautiful three dimensional dystopian chess.

[kaini]

TFTD is even fucking harder though. i have it waiting for when i've mastered XCOM, which i'm still very far from even though i'm eventually kinda getting somewhere.

 

edit: my brother is also a huge fan and he bought the third one when it came out. it's a bit clunky cos julian gollop was forced to shoehorn a non-turn-based mode in there (command and conquer was a big fucking deal at the time). i do remember the soundtrack to #3 as being absolutely incredible though.

[DerWaschbar]

Yeah TFTD, with the undersea and above ground levels is tricky. I remember the first time I realized I couldn't use certain weapons on land. What a debacle.

I find it really helps if you keep your guys in close, but not deadly close formations. Always move from cover to cover and keep your everyone looking in different directions at the end of a turn. I would never enter a space without having at least three guys immediately ready to rush in and always leave one guy with full movement points at the door to react if something came back out.

[DerWaschbar]

Also, strategic saving is crucial, if not a little cheap. I'd always have a few world map saves, a before combat save and if you feel very cheap, several combat saves.

[kaini]

yeah, i save pretty much constantly.

 

that 'let's play' linked above - the guy is a fucking nutter. he abides by the following rules:

 

insane difficulty

only one base, at the south pole

only save at the beginning of missions

 

and he still does really well. i'm up to video #18 and there's about 50 vids in total.

[DerWaschbar]

insane difficulty

only one base, at the south pole

only save at the beginning of missions

 

That is madness.

[kaini]

i've learnt loads from him - like only give armour to soldiers that get promoted. that way the shitty ones get weeded out by natural selection.

and of course, get straight onto things. like STRAIGHT away when the game starts buy another bunch of soldiers and scientists and start building facilities.

[kaini]

oh man i just found a couple of sweet interviews with julian gollop

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-11-28-the-story-of-x-com-interview

 

http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2005/05/12/4cr-interview-rebelstar-tactical-command/

 

http://ie.gameboy.ign.com/articles/626/626717p1.html

[kaini]

Yeah TFTD, with the undersea and above ground levels is tricky. I remember the first time I realized I couldn't use certain weapons on land. What a debacle.

I find it really helps if you keep your guys in close, but not deadly close formations. Always move from cover to cover and keep your everyone looking in different directions at the end of a turn. I would never enter a space without having at least three guys immediately ready to rush in and always leave one guy with full movement points at the door to react if something came back out.

 

fascinating:

 

 

Eurogamer: And the sequel, Terror from the Deep, came next?

Julian Gollop: Microprose wanted us to do a sequel in six months. We told them the only way we could do a sequel in that timeframe would be to change the graphics and tweak a few bits. Eventually we came to a compromise: they'd license our code to make a direct sequel, and we'd do the third one in the series in two years. TFTD was made entirely by Microprose; we had no input apart from giving them our code. They managed to do it in a year, but they had a much bigger team. A shockingly large team, I thought at the time, 12-15 people.

We earned lots of cash from X-Com, so we hired more staff at Mythos. But the deal that Microprose wanted was that they did the Apocalypse graphics. It was a disastrous relationship from the start. They had some very fancy, rather expensive ideas: they hired some relatively famous artist who made physical models of the aliens, which were then scanned into their software. It didn't work very well. The Microprose artists couldn't quite understand how isometric graphics worked. It was enormously difficult, and I think overall the artwork was done pretty poorly on that game.

It was a disaster area. Apocalypse was quite a sophisticated and ambitious game, but it was a big mistake from our point of view. In retrospect, we should have originally agreed to do a sequel in six months, and spent a year doing it, like they did! It would've been a lot better

[DerWaschbar]

That's interesting. Apocalypse certainly was more ambitious, I could never get in to it. I'll give it another shot, maybe it was just too advanced for me at the time.

I've just downloaded and installed UFO and TFTD.

Thanks Kaini

[YO303]

I remember playing this when i first discovered emulators. 160mg of adderall + this game , 2 straight days of obsessive playing time, even at my best i could not be good at this game.

[Guest abracadabra]

Well, maybe expect 2 revivals of the game: first person shooter, and strategy:

http://www.gamespot....-sequel-6238162

 

the first person shooter has a trailer and everything. not much word on the strategy but read rumors on sid meier developing it.

[oscillik]

i played this on the Amiga CD-32

 

I always wanted to get that chaingun that you see during the opening sequence. I never got far enough to get it. Had fun playing it.

[vamos scorcho]

i remember reading somewhere that this is one of the most non-linear open ended games ever. not sure if it's true though.

[Guest disparaissant]

i spent SO MUCH TIME playing this game when i was really young, it was the first game i got good at. and now i suck at it :'(

[chaosmachine]

never played this as a kid, but i've seen it hyped a lot. i downloaded and tried to play it once, but without any nostalgia factor, i didn't get far.

[data]

always loved this game.

 

yogscast does x-com:

 

[Guest disparaissant]

Finally had motivation to get andosbox running. Runs beautifully, lost my first squad member the second he stepped off the ship. Just like the good old days.

[kaini]

i'm gonna check out laser squad:nemesis later, which is one of gollop's more recent games but looks very similar to ufo

[zkreso]

This is an awesome game. You might also like Frozen Synapse which is a newer turn-based simultaneous tactics shooter thingie.

[kaini]

Environments are generated randomly or pseudo-randomly with specified seeds. Moves are planned ahead of time in the planning phase and the player has the ability to 'dry run' the planned moves by hitting the 'play' button. Moves are finalized by clicking on 'prime' button. Both the player's and opponent's turns are executed simultaneously in the outcome phase, while the decision phase is asynchronous. During a turn, resolving factors like cover and aiming determine the outcome. There is no 'dice-rolling' to determine the winner. A unit in cover beats an aiming unit which in turn beats a non-aiming unit. Aiming units move at a slower pace and are vulnerable to flanking. The game's environment can be destroyed using the rocket-launching units

 

that sounds fucking awesome, gotta give that a try

[Guest disparaissant]

frozen synapse is amazing! really frustrating too.