Help me enjoy X-Com

Again, let me emphasize for X-Com lovers that the first half of Silent Storm is very nearly as good. When the SF part starts, and you'll know it once it does, that's your Game Over.

Malor wrote:

Again, let me emphasize for X-Com lovers that the first half of Silent Storm is very nearly as good. When the SF part starts, and you'll know it once it does, that's your Game Over.

I've looked all over and can't find a place to buy Silent Storm, Malor. If you have a source, you have to hook up the junkies.

So being the sheep that I am I started up a game. I even named folks after forum goers, which has an interesting side effect. Because there's the ever-so-small bit of attachment there, I'm reluctant to send folks brazenly to their deaths. Therefore, the poor dude bearing my handle is the official squad door opener. So far, he's made Captain!

Four landed spacecraft, two crashes and two terror missions. I just picked up my first casualty (wounded) during terror #2. Fittingly it was Prozac who was sniped by a distant floater. He usually can't hit the broad side of a barn, but instantly avenged himself.

I think this is the first time I've ever given laser rifles a fair shake. I can see why folks like them.

I love X-Com. It has the distinction of being the game I've purchased the most often (2 disc copies plus a Steam version from the sale a while back). This thread is really making me want to start a game up again but I've got way too many other games on my pile to think about it right now (though I will say that it runs really well on my netbook).

Of course, if any of you want to add me to one of your games I'll be happy to live (and probably die) vicariously through you.

Malor wrote:

Again, let me emphasize for X-Com lovers that the first half of Silent Storm is very nearly as good. When the SF part starts, and you'll know it once it does, that's your Game Over. :)

Didn't the Silent Storm: Sentinels expansion add a strategic layer that brings it even closer to X-Com? I never played the expansion (I think it was only released in Europe), but could any Euro Goodjers enlighten us as to whether it's worth tracking down?

mrwynd wrote:

Breaching doors is every bit as frustrating as I remember it. First UFO door I tried to enter - 5 dead soldiers. Of course I did things over again and managed to complete the first mission with only two deaths!

Again, the opening doors thing is so nice in TFTD.

In UFOD I've just been setting up 3 guys covering the ufo door and spamming end turn. If the alien fails to come out, I have my green recruit charge into the ship while dual wielding grenades, usually you can blow them out. If that fails then at least the door is open for a turn(?) and you can shoot some rockets into the ship Usually the aliens get impatient and try to leave the ship and get blasted by my 3 guys covering the door.

I like in TFTD when the downed ship actually has some holes blown in it. While it does create a "quite door" for the aliens it also seems a lot easier to enter. Of course, when you get flying armor you can just blow a hole in the top of the ship and enter that way.

I'd buy a "remastered" UFOD or TFTD on any console in a heartbeat. I'm just saying.

I think there's a mod somewhere that removes the cheesy sci-fi stuff from Silent Storm.

As for breaching UFOs, I really like that TFTD let you open doors without having to walk through them. So yeah, my main tactic was to wait outside the door for several turns to see if an alien walked out. After that, I'd stack up on the door and send in an unlucky squaddie to open it up.

By the way, motion scanners are very helpful for figuring out what might be on the other side of that door. Of course, they only work if the aliens have moved recently.

The next time I replay the game, I'm totally blowing the door(s) open with high explosives.

Itsatrap wrote:

The next time I replay the game, I'm totally blowing the door(s) open with high explosives.

This doesn't work in UFO does it?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Stumble blindly across site, see X-Com thread, read entire thing, join site, make pointless post, start a new game of X-Com. Yeah, that's my day so far.

Welcome Milkman, GWJ does that to people.

clever id wrote:
Itsatrap wrote:

The next time I replay the game, I'm totally blowing the door(s) open with high explosives.

This doesn't work in UFO does it?

It shouldn't. The only weapon capable of breaching a UFO's hull is a blaster launcher, though heavy plasma can take out interior walls.

I have piles of games to play, and I started a new game of X-Com. There's something wrong with that, but I'm having so much fun I don't care.

mrwynd wrote:

So I picked up the X-Com pack at Direct2Drive because their version is DRM free. Breaching doors is every bit as frustrating as I remember it. First UFO door I tried to enter - 5 dead soldiers. Of course I did things over again and managed to complete the first mission with only two deaths! I'm ready for a Wiiware version with "easy mode" attached.

This, in my opinion, is the single biggest issue that X-Com has...and the one I suspect that has stalled its adaptation into modern gaming. Since the time that X-Com was released, there have been games like Rainbow Six and SWAT that have not only increased gamer awareness to modern squad/infantry tactics that X-Com struggles with (e.g. breaching, moving in formation/tandem), but have done so in a way that provides more agency, more immersion to the player. How do you solve those problems without breaking -- or outright moving away from -- the intricate tactical framework that drives everything else in the game? And, if you're moving away from that style a game, does it really still feel like X-Com in the first place?

bighoppa wrote:

I'm very surprised that there's folks who like Apoc better than UFO.

Yeah, I am too. Even though the pausable real-time nature of the combat runs fairly well, I don't think it ever reaches the same level of satisfaction of Baldur's Gate or even Icewind Dale, and the turn-based "half" of it really suffers in the process.

Everything else in Apocalypse, as a whole, just feels completely slow and muddled to me: the weapons, the monsters, and the art direction all lack the same punch and immediacy that the previous games had in spades and the rest tends to get bogged down in minutia. I don't really care to micromanage my research at the individual scientist level, I don't really care to micromanage my individual relationships with factions around the city to make sure they don't turn around and raid my base.

There are some good pieces in there that definitely address issues in the previous games; the greater flexibility in soldier movement (e.g. running, crawling) was long overdue. But the rest of it just didn't do anything for me at all.

Rat Boy wrote:
clever id wrote:
Itsatrap wrote:

The next time I replay the game, I'm totally blowing the door(s) open with high explosives.

This doesn't work in UFO does it?

It shouldn't. The only weapon capable of breaching a UFO's hull is a blaster launcher, though heavy plasma can take out interior walls.

IIRC, one of the "fixes" incorporated by XComUtil was that high explosives could breach UFO walls.

The guy I send in has great reactions, and generally gets to autofire anyone waiting on the other side. There was that one time ... but my eyebrows grew back.

EDIT: Casuality #2 is Quintin. Pop up floater plasma-ed him right in the groin. I could get used to this "naming squaddies after goodjers" thing.

IMAGE(http://rps.net/QS/Images/Smilies/knockout.gif)

I spent last night migrating to Win 7, so I haven't out anymore time into this. I suspect that today will be the day from hell at work, so maybe tomorrow I'll have time to continue the saga

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Stumble blindly across site, see X-Com thread, read entire thing, join site, make pointless post, start a new game of X-Com. Yeah, that's my day so far.

30+ years of gaming (ever since I saw that Space Invaders game rolled into the pizza place next to my mom's office and I watched them plug it in, was hooked then), and X-Com is IMO still the best game ever made. Awesome.

Congratulations. One of the best games ever made helped you find one of the best gaming sites ever in existence.

Welcome.

Coldstream wrote:

Congratulations. One of the best games ever made helped you find one of the best gaming sites ever in existence.

Welcome. :)

True story.

I found a set of videos with a guy detailing his strategies in key areas of the game. I didn't see this posted earlier but I may be wrong.

Playlist (5 videos)

Coldstream wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Stumble blindly across site, see X-Com thread, read entire thing, join site, make pointless post, start a new game of X-Com. Yeah, that's my day so far.

30+ years of gaming (ever since I saw that Space Invaders game rolled into the pizza place next to my mom's office and I watched them plug it in, was hooked then), and X-Com is IMO still the best game ever made. Awesome.

Congratulations. One of the best games ever made helped you find one of the best gaming sites ever in existence.

Welcome. :)

You lie. "One of the best games"? Heretic.

Feh, based on site title alone there's promise, as it seems to imply the number of attention-started 14-year-olds spouting l33t-sp33k who infest every other gaming board I've looked at probably won't show up.

Also, first terror site mission. Walk around the corner with just enough time for an autoshot, and two cyberdiscs are just waiting . . . well, she went out in a blaze of glory at least.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

IMAGE(http://rps.net/QS/Images/Smilies/knockout.gif)

No, I didn't say it killed you. Although you might be in the med bay a while. Some say you might never really recover.

Eh, I'm married so I doubt it'll affect me all that much.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Eh, I'm married so I doubt it'll affect me all that much.

Well we DO have all that elerium and alien metals lying around....

You know what, any other forum and the thread title would probably have been considered flame bait, too.

I knew you guys would have my back.

I was playing some last night and I had clear almost the entire map and I was running guys around looking for the last snakeman. He was in the corner with some cover so he was hard to hit anyway, but it took 8 laser rifle shots to take him down. He killed two people while getting lit up like a Christmas tree.

I am clearly behind the tech curve.

Ah yes, TFTD was the game that taught me that dye grenades can be really, really, really useful when you're trying to deploy from the Triton. Too bad it doesn't work quite as well with the Skyranger and its elevated ramp.

Itsatrap wrote:

Ah yes, TFTD was the game that taught me that dye grenades can be really, really, really useful when you're trying to deploy from the Triton. Too bad it doesn't work quite as well with the Skyranger and its elevated ramp.

And incendiaries seem to help the aliens more than it does you.

I'm sad

I dug up my collectors edition CD and tried to get UFO to work with Xcomutil. Everything seems to work fine until its time to enter combat, then the game simply CTDs instantly.

Did any of you guys try to get XcomUtil working with the Steam version? It looks like I will have to buy it again.

EDIT: Wait! Success! See the problem was I installed it before running tactical combat for the first time. The utility had a hernia and borked itself for all subsequent tries. Deleting and reinstalling everything fixed it up just fine.

The only problem is the game runs fullscreen and as a result all of the pixels are rounded and blurred, instead of sharp and square. Not a huge problem, I can just lean back in my chair, but does this happen with the steam version too?

EDIT, EDIT: Okay now I'm pissed. It worked right the very first time, but every since tactical combat fails to load. The only difference now is that it doesn't CTD. PC gaming for the lose.

The Steam version runs through DOSBox. I haven't had any display problems or crashes, but it does run a little slowly sometimes during combat missions.

It's amazing that in spite of the game's age and how often I've played it, it still can stress me to no end. Had a particular tense encounter with a crashed Floater supply ship, presumably the one operating out of the now destroyed base. Once I got to the top deck, I blasted my way out of the 'lift room rather than take the door. Found a Floater outside and thinking he might be important, I had my lead soldier equip a stun rod and move in on him only for another Floater standing right behind him take a potshot. An auto shot from the heavy plasma gun killed both of them and ended the mission, but it was certainly a pucker moment when I thought my bright idea might result in my squad getting butchered.