36 ms·

X-COM

449 points by jqcoffey 6y ago

kqr 6y ago
If you liked X-COM, I can recommend Frozen Synapse, which is similar in many ways and very different in others. The biggest difference is probably that after all players have planned their turns, they are executed simultaneously.
- nottorp 6y ago
  Frozen Synapse is a simplified clone of Laser Squad Nemesis, which was done by... you guessed, the Gollops. Sadly that game is no longer available. It was multiplayer only (it had some single player but it was an afterthought) and they've taken it down long ago.
  - eru 6y ago
    I played Frozen Synapse a bit. I seem to remember there were some local multiplayer options? Play by email would work ok for this kind of game. (But I don't think that was ever supported. Laser Squad Nemesis might have supported play-by-email, I'm not sure?)
    - nottorp 6y ago
      LSN was play by email only. It probably made sense in 2002. They did add a web interface to get your new turns a few years later. Plus you could spend a day setting up your turn in a rated game against a good opponent, so who cared how the turns arrived. Frozen Synapse decided to go with a time limit for turns... same mistake as xcom 2.
      - eru 6y ago
        The limited number of turns in Frozen Synapse make more sense than in XCom 2. Mostly because Frozen Synapse is actually a multiplayer game. Also compare the 'turn limits' in Into the Breach that are very well done: you have to hold out for four turns in all missions.
        nottorp 6y ago
        I'm complaining about the time limit to send your turn in in multiplayer. I'm afraid I never played single player Frozen Synapse. Laser Squad Nemesis (multiplayer, that game was never seriously single player) was so good that when I saw Frozen Synapse copied the simultaneous orders mechanic I jumped straight into the multiplayer and never looked back. However instead of having 90 day games like in LSN you had like... 10 minutes per match? Felt too much like Starcraft.
        eru 6y ago
        I seemed to remember that you can set your own time limits on private games? My memory is a bit hazy. I mostly played with a friend, and only a few times on random internet matches.
- publicola1990 6y ago
  Perhaps Darkest Dungeon is also closer to XCom, and even though entirely in 2d it manages to achieve the spatiality of combat in XCom.
mcbuilder 6y ago
My favorite game of all time is another one in the turn based tactical genre, Jagged Alliance 2. A game still under active fan development some 20+ years later with the excellent 1.13 mod.
- defen 6y ago
  Oh man I loved that game. It had so much personality...the characters and voices, the little web browser with PMC websites and gun stores, the email client, the sheer number of items, every little thing was so cool. I had no idea people were still working on it. Thanks for the reminder.
- lapfi 6y ago
  My all time favorite too. I still return to this game every few years. If you're a fan I suggest checking out this book: https://bossfightbooks.com/products/jagged-alliance-2-by-darius-kazemi https://bossfightbooks.com/products/jagged-alliance-2-by-dar...
- ido 6y ago
  If you loved JA & JA2 make sure to NOT play any of the sequels that came out after it.
- leoc 6y ago
  For those who haven't played it: Jagged Alliance 2 is the missing link between X-COM, Fallout and the most childish scriptwriting you've ever experienced.
- isolli 6y ago
  I never played the 1.13 mod (did not manage to make it work with my Steam install). But imagine: better AI, more refined movement points, multiplayer! Maybe once my son is old enough I'll play with him (hopefully it will still be available in another 10 years).
- senectus1 6y ago
  Oh wow.. JA2! loved the personalities in this game... I might have to break that one out again.. you say is has a big community dev going?
aidenn0 6y ago
I don't know if the author reads HN comments, but the story I heard about "Terror from the Deep" being so hard was because people were complaining that X-Com was too easy, due to an unfixed bug: Any time you loaded a save, the game reset to the easiest difficulty level. Not only would people often not play in one sitting, but many strategy gamers aren't above save-scumming either. Result, a large fraction of game hours on X-Com were on the easiest difficulty level.
- lbeltrame 6y ago
  As far as I remember, the Amiga version did not have that bug. In fact some missions were quite hard at regular difficulty levels. That changed once you had access to psionics and the blaster as weapon. It became a large shoot 'em up afterwards (probably not at higher difficulties).
  - Tuna-Fish 6y ago
    IIRC there was still another bug, the first tier of armor (which was supposed to be basically a little bit better than paper) accidentally provided as much protection as the much more expensive power armor.
  - aidenn0 6y ago
    In the US, nobody owned an Amiga in the 90s :P
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  "Save-scumming", such an ugly name for speculative execution...
  - eru 6y ago
    I would actually welcome the following variant of save-scumming: You can plan all you like, ie save-scum. But you can't keep it. You can only make forward progress that counts, when you first disable your save-scum ability for a bit. Of course, that only works for questions of probability, like hitting shots or not. It doesn't address that save-scumming also reveals information you are not supposed to have. There's a middle ground for X-COM, called bronze-man-mode (in contrast to iron-man-mode). In bronze-man-mode you don't get to save-scum inside of missions. You can at most reload the whole mission to get another randomly generated one. I used to play the original X-Com as as save-scummer when I was younger. I went back to replay a bit of the game via OpenXCom and stuck to a more 'mature' approach. The game was more fun that way.
NegativeLatency 6y ago
If you liked the original xcom you might also enjoy xenonauts which is a more faithful recreation than xcom enemy unknown. https://store.steampowered.com/app/223830/Xenonauts/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/223830/Xenonauts/
jonathanlydall 6y ago
One of my favourite games growing up. I tried replaying it about 10 years ago but it’s got serious quality of life problems with the mission aspect of the game. Particularly, it had no way to remember or save gear assignments between missions. So you would spend like 5 minutes at the start of every mission giving your guys the correct stuff for their stats. Every. Damn. Time. The other thing that bugged me on missions was no keyboard shortcuts, particularly for moving the view up and down levels. You had to use the mouse to click a UI icon which was quite tedious. Still fond memories, but a pity those aspects made it too tedious to replay for me. The newer XCOM game fixed those aspects and allowed you to jump right into the action.
- n3k5 6y ago
  > Particularly, it had no way to remember or save gear assignments between missions. OpenXcom has this, plus a lot of other improvements and bug-fixes. I'm no expert (played it and the original for a few hours each about a year ago) but my impression is that it manages to pull off nice QoL-improvements while staying faithful to the feel and gameplay of the original game.
  - on_and_off 6y ago
    I really need to try open-xcom. I know that there are also some total conversion like Piratez XCOM. I tried to love the firaxis XCOMs. They kind of scratch the same itch and I appreciate not to have to manage bullets in the inventory but some of the simplified mechanics just don't work that well. Clusters of enemies in particular seems like very poor design to me. It has caused tons of issues in their 2 games, from encouraging turtling as a the main dominant strategy to forcing firaxis to add timers to try to force players out of the play style their game made dominant.
senectus1 6y ago
With the exception of the lateest one, I've loved all the x-com games dearly. So many hours spent recruiting newbies, training them up, building equipment, researching tech then hunting down and killing alien scum!
- sgillen 6y ago
  Do you mean Xcom2 or Chimera Squad?
  - nottorp 6y ago
    Xcom 2 is a disaster due to the arbitrary time (or turn, for the nitpickers) limits in all missions. If you don't rush via the shortest path or if you do the unthinkable and explore the map a bit you'll run out of time and die. And if you install a mod that removes the turn limits it becomes way too easy because it's balanced for rushing blindly ahead and it's like taking candy from a baby if you have time to scout and position yourself. Chimera squad... what's chimera squad? Didn't look at anything after xcom 2. To continue whining, the current Firaxis ruined Civilization as well. They tried to 'improve' religion and ended up adding another tactical layer. You're fighting the military war and the religious war. But with the military war you can make peace now and then, or simply not attack. The religious war never ends. Which means that every single turn you have to take care of umpteenth religious units making the game full of pointless busywork.
    - user5994461 6y ago
      Chimera squad is the latest Xcom game. It's a bit simplified and you jump straight into position. It's nice to not have to spend 50 hours moving around but not everybody likes the change in gameplay. Do NOT buy it though, the game is buggy as fuck.
      - eru 6y ago
        Yes. If you want to have a quicker tactics game that's a tiny bit like some aspects of X-Com, then 'Into the Breach' is probably a better use of your time than Chimera Squad. Chimera Squad is an OK game, and good if you like the (rebooted) X-Com universe.
1915cb1f 6y ago
Open source re-implementation with bugfixes: https://openxcom.org/ https://openxcom.org/
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Not just bug fixes, but a slew of optional gameplay enhancements and even mods if that's your bag.
- bjelkeman-again 6y ago
  Hugged to death. I’ll need to come back
Sami_Lehtinen 6y ago
You can also play it online in browser: https://epicport.com/en/xcom https://epicport.com/en/xcom
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Many thanks!
avmich 6y ago
Train Grisha Yakubik so his skills would overflow one-byte counter; he'd step very slowly, but hit alien two screens ahead in the eye before their first move.
jeffbee 6y ago
Great write-up. X-COM really grabs you just the way the article says. The characters are pets and it hurts when they die. I will never forget when my college roommate threw his keyboard across the room after his elite squad got wiped out in Terror from the Deep (which was really, really hard to win). The fact that nobody can die in Chimera Squad is why Chimera Squad is not a real X-COM game.
- eru 6y ago
  Yes. Chimera Squad is a spinoff game set in the (rebooted) X-Com universe. Nothing wrong with exploring different genres, though.
type_enthusiast 6y ago
I grew up here :P This was such a passtime for me that 20 years later I remember the randomly-generated names of some individual soldiers who came through for me and turned a battle around when there seemed to be no hope. Siegfried Krause, I applaud your sniper abilities to this day.
- type_enthusiast 6y ago
  It was also interesting from a design perspective; the various parts of the game were all separate executables and I never did figure out how they all interacted (though clearly some people did, as evidenced by the excellent XComUtil which has proved difficult to track down lately!)
  - zlorch 6y ago
    IIRC the game just wrote a plain data file onto disk and the next executable read it up with all the needed info.
    - type_enthusiast 6y ago
      Well sure, when you put it that way it sounds simple! I was 12 or so, and I spent a few nights trying to figure out the "plain data file" before shrugging and going back to playing X-Com.
      - Delk 6y ago
        Well, reverse engineering binary data is hard and laborious, and probably incomprehensible to almost any 12-year-old (and the majority of adults). (I'm assuming they were binary. I really can't remember what they were.)
        type_enthusiast 6y ago
        Gotta be honest, I installed the game tonight under DOSBox thinking I would give thirty-something, seasoned engineer me another crack at decoding the file format. But then, those UFOs kept landing and I mean, somebody had to do something about it. And then all of a sudden my kids were like "daddy where are you" and the file format (and UFOs) once again had to wait for another day...
hooande 6y ago
I loved, loved X-COM. It had an ability to capture imagination in a way that few turn based strategy games do. The randomly generated soldier names still loom large as heroes in my mind. I was affected when they were killed in action. "Bernard Dujardin", wherever you are, I salute you
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  I find this emotional attachment between a real human and a fictitious entity absolutely fascinating, unsettling, beautiful and creepy at the same time. This is pure fiction, generated by some C++ code written in Visual Studio and yet, we are attached to it like a real human. Same thing with fiction books. It’s just words being consumed by the brain but emotional impact is real. Then I question, isn’t all human to human interaction just data exchange through our “sensors” (sight, sound, touch, smell and taste)?
  - eru 6y ago
    Slight nitpick: I am fairly sure the original X-COM was not written in C++ in Visual Studio. No clue about the actual language it was written in, probably C or assembly. C++ is unlikely but possible. But I am rather sure that the game was not written with Visual Studio. Of course, your point still stands. As an addition to go even further back in time, I would add stories that people just tell to each other. It's a great feature of humanity that we can communicate about situations that we weren't personally involved in. Emotional attachment is then just a general feature of how mammalian brains seem to work.
    - nottorp 6y ago
      If I remember well, it should have been Watcom C, like most DOS games that wanted to go beyond 640 kb. The two separate executables (it had one for the geoscape and one for the tactical battles) displayed the DOS4GW banner at startup if i remember well.
      - pjmlp 6y ago
simonw 6y ago
One of my favourite things about XCOM was the destructible scenery. The isometric building design (on the procedurally generated maps) was superb, and you could blast holes in it to make your own routes through the map. Likewise the design of the larger UFOs themselves was so exciting - not to mention the variety of scenery a UFO might land in. It was so far ahead of its time in that regard.
- choeger 6y ago
  Don't forget the damage dealt to UFOs when they were shot down. Sometimes there was but a single alien with what amounts to a few tiles of scrap left from the encounter with my vigilant fighters. Talking about immersion.
  - madarco 6y ago
    And the day/night cycle! Sometimes I waited for the day to start a mission, even if this could means that the aliens could escape
- rhn_mk1 6y ago
  One of the fatal flaws that made the reboot X-COM worse than the original was the inability to control the environment. Shots could no longer be aimed at scenery, and stray shots that hit the walls anyway proved that said walls were made out of cardboard. Even a pistol round could break an undamaged wall! This made hiding behind corners much less useful: if you're suddenly flanked, you have a great risk of losing your cover entirely, no matter how strong the wall looked. Not being able to create own passages or drop floors from under aliens are just nasty consequences of that. The second flaw was that the enemy did not just seek you out, they always knew where you were, making it impossible to sneak up on them. I get the need to shorten the battles, but catching enemies unaware was my favorite tactic to survive despite technical disadvantage.
  - eru 6y ago
    You can still catch enemies unaware. In fact, enemies in the reboots only become aware of you when you are within visible range of their pod (ie group). The pod system is at the heart of the reboots. High level play involves exploiting it to the hilt.
TimSchumann 6y ago
This and Master of Magic were many _many_ hours of my childhood. Also some of the first programs/files I opened up in a hex editor.
- simonebrunozzi 6y ago
  Me too. At the risk of ruining you next several weekends, there's Caster of Magic out there, a magnificent mod for MoM. [0] [1] [0]: http://seravy.x10.mx/CasterofMagic/CASTEROFMAGIC.HTML http://seravy.x10.mx/CasterofMagic/CASTEROFMAGIC.HTML [1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1250690/Master_of_Magic_Caster_of_Magic/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1250690/Master_of_Magic_C...
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
> It had no video demo playing in the front window of Babbages, This specific reference baffles me. Anyone cares to elaborate/clarify? (I guess when you grow up somewhere other than the US, there's a chance these things happen).
- rriepe 6y ago
  It's where you'd go to buy games and other retail-y computer stuff. Kinda like Steam, except it's a real place and it's in the mall.
skocznymroczny 6y ago
I loved the original X-Com, but I couldn't get into the new ones. My biggest issue with the original game is that as soon as one alien sees you, all aliens sees you starting to mindcontrol your entire team which easily spirals out of control. Luckily, modern reimplementations such as OpenXcom allow you to disable it and require line of sight checks before MC attempts.
- jonathanlydall 6y ago
  We got the Prima Games strategy guide which was superb in that explained every single mechanic of the game. After reading it my brother worked out how and then made a super bad ass psy team. The key understanding is that there is a base psy attribute for characters which can never change and then another one which can improve through experience. So your previously best characters probably land up having terrible base psy stat, so you need to abandon them ultimately unfortunately. So he made lots of psy labs to find the strong soldiers. Then started getting them to skill up psy skill on missions. Once they could mind control then it was to skill them up in other regards like accuracy and reactions. You would mind control aliens, have them drop their weapons then end your turn with them facing away from your guys ready to shoot them. During the aliens turn they would start walking and then get shot by the reacting “rookie” 3 blocks away. The rookies accuracy and reaction improved quickly. If I recall he managed to complete the final mission in like 3 turns per part by mind controlling the first alien he could see, then using that to find the next alien to mind control and so on.
pjmlp 6y ago
I loved this series all the way back to Rebelstar Raiders. Must have spent endless hours playing all Laser Squad versions on the Speccy and it was only natural to jump into X-COM. Although the ones that moved away from the Rebelstar Raiders/Laser Squad initial concept are not worthy to me.
- Marazan 6y ago
  Laser Squad is basically the perfect level for me. Lots of complexity and subtly in the battles but just one off scenarios, I had no desire for base building on long term character development.
- joosters 6y ago
  I grew up playing Rebelstar 2, and Chaos, his other amazing game... part of my early programming experience was making a map editor for R2 and making new monsters for Chaos!
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Chaos! Another one, including its successor that was more Laser Squad like, Wizards something.
    - joosters 6y ago
      I think that was Lords of Chaos? I got that game from a magazine cover tape, but wasn't that impressed (it didn't help that I had no manual for it!)
      - pjmlp 6y ago
        Yeah that was it.
- nxpnsv 6y ago
  My takeaway from the article is I got to get these running on an emu...
caf 6y ago
I still remember playing night time missions up late in a darkened room, hearing the soft padding of those alien footsteps, somewhere out beyond the limits of vision in the darkened fields...
burlesona 6y ago
Great article, and a very fair review of a wonderful game with very sharp edges. I will say, the best part of the Firaxis reboot of X-Com is that it perfectly captured the fun that I _remembered_ from the original game. It captured this so well that I remember thinking it was literally the same game with new graphics. Then I went back and replayed the original... and remembered how hard and clunky it actually was :) But still one of my all time favorites, along with another Microprose title of the same era, Master of Orion.
- jraedisch 6y ago
  I did not play the original Master of Orion, but absolutely loved the second part. I started focussing on science (namely Psilons) and only later developed a taste for trying out other strategies/races. I often played multiplayer with friends too, and really liked the laid back atmosphere enabled by turn based strategy.
  - eru 6y ago
    Please go ahead and play the first Master of Orion. It's by far my favourite of the pair. (Make sure you get the latest community patches.) The genius of the first MoO was that it really paired down the tedious busy work. And the tech system works a charm, it's cleverly randomised in a way that's not really possible with the more prevalent DAG based tech trees.
    - int_19h 6y ago
      If you like the first MoO, take a look at Dominus Galaxia.
      - eru 6y ago
        Slider-based colony management! Looks like they are staying close to the original. Neat.
    - avisser 6y ago
      I had a soft spot for Master of Magic. I preferred it to MoM and MoM2.
kiksy 6y ago
A solid article. I'd disagree with the "single play through" and "pointless starting weapons" comments though. For me it was multiple play throughs learning about what worked and what didn't. This for me was actually a thing that kept me coming back. Trying out new tactics, base locations and equipment to see what worked. All the while trying to balance the budget and keep the squad alive long enough to level up. A truly great game. Played the newer versions on Xbox 360 and mobile, and whilst fun, they had removed far too many features to keep me engaged for more than a few hours. OpenXcom is a much better offering, especially on mobile.
- madarco 6y ago
  Totally agree! I played it endless times when I was young, and I was able to complete it (by destroying the mars base) only recently playing on dosbox! The recent reboot is just a tactical console game. It was fun for a while but I get bored quickly. Also X-Com Apocalypse is not on par with the original, but still quite enjoyable with the realtime combat mode.
  - the_af 6y ago
    Apocalypse was the biggest disappointment in my (gaming) life :( Horrible graphics, different (but not good) gameplay, and worst of all it didn't "feel" like it was the same world of XCOM. All of this is subjective, of course.
- freddie_mercury 6y ago
  "for many or most of us, this is a strategy game to play through once rather than over and over again" What part of that do you disagree with? He didn't say that everybody only played it through a single time. You don't need to argue against a strawman.
  - kiksy 6y ago
    Neither did I say "everybody played through it multiple times". I stated "for me".
- 6y ago
majke 6y ago
Ha! One of my preferred games. There is a fun anecdote coming from another of my fav games, Diablo 1: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/268507/20_years_later_David_Brevik_shares_the_story_of_making_Diablo.php https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/268507/20_years_later_Da... > “We were very excited, so we signed a contract to do Diablo,” remembers Brevik. The studio then had to figure out what, exactly, this turn-based isometric game it had been thinking about for so long would actually look like -- and how it would be angled and rendered on-screen. “This was not easy back then...I kind of took a screengrab of X-Com, and we just took that, and put it right into Diablo,” said Brevik. “So the actual tile-square basis -- the same shape and size -- is exactly the same in X-Com and Diablo.” So in a sense, says Brevik, the look and technology of Diablo is all based directly on a screenshot of X-Com. So, x-com heavily influenced Diablo. In retrospect it makes sense - X-com tile based world, and lightning was pretty unique.
Markoff 6y ago
One of the best strategies ever for me together with Sim City (2000) and Transport Tycoon, was much less of fan of Dune 2 or C&C or Commando, so this was pretty much only strategy with actual fight and not just construction, which could capture my interest supported with popular TV show X-Files at times.
dbg31415 6y ago
Best game ever made.
cgearhart 6y ago
I loved this game so much growing up, and this was a great article about it. It captured all the things I loved, and covered a lot of history I never knew. One thing that caught my eye was the author’s complaint about no in-game exposition or tutorials at the start of the game. It seems silly in 2020, but in 1994 it was common for games to come with a reasonably lengthy manual printed on dead trees that explained all those things—or else there were printed strategy guides and magazines that talked about clever tricks. I read a borrowed copy of that book cover to cover before I even had a computer to actually run the game on. I still have a copy in my garage. My first copy was pirated on 3.5” floppy disks from the school computer lab. Eventually I bought a copy to get the manual. Later on I bought a copy to get it on CD. Eventually I bought another copy to get the whole original collection on CD. And last year I played the reboots which got me nostalgic enough to buy the original and apocalypse on steam. Good times. :-)
- el_oni 6y ago
  I had X-COM:enemy unknown [ufo defense] for the PlayStation, the manual for that thing was huge. It had a tutorial in it that walked you through a mission as well as told you how all the buildings worked (even the ones unlocked later in the game like the psylab). I do miss the days where you'd get a physical manual. Nowadays you just get a slip of paper with an advertisement and a registration page. Saying that though, with live updates a lot of manuals would be out of date after a few years. I dont think the tome that is the world of warcraft manual is relevant to the modern game. Though maybe for classic.
zenojevski 6y ago
Even greater than UFO Defense, in my opinion, was its expansion - Terror From the Deep. It truly taught me that our oceans are so close, yet much farther than outer space can ever be. Looking at that lone blue globe in space always makes me feel so insignificant, so meaningless. Space is vast, but empty, and sterile. Down the abyss, not even light can shine to bless and purify. The greatest contributor to that is certainly its soundtrack. With its unnerving, relentless low horns; harps hitting on the same two or three notes; there's a feeling of utter despair, hopelessness. A sense of doom, as aquanauts armed with teeny darts and harpoons grunt through the deaths of their colleagues, outmatched by opponents so unfairly superior, in the harshest environment on Earth. They couldn't have done a better job. I have been working on a new "HD" soundtrack for TFTD that I plan to release as a mod for OpenXCOM (this article is great timing!). I am not finished yet, but you can listen to some of the tracks already (and download them if you wish): • Geoscape 1: https://clyp.it/b3wf24qt?token=1171341361084200df1e81a5699dda4c https://clyp.it/b3wf24qt?token=1171341361084200df1e81a5699dd... • Geoscape 2: https://clyp.it/4qog1dq1?token=91b0b871435a3beac898f96cec945946 https://clyp.it/4qog1dq1?token=91b0b871435a3beac898f96cec945... • Geoscape 3: https://clyp.it/cr2uakoj?token=f1e0cda592185ae0152d47bf70a9dc99 https://clyp.it/cr2uakoj?token=f1e0cda592185ae0152d47bf70a9d... • Geoscape 4: https://clyp.it/cf0c5xbx?token=4557e7bd10b693695f04085eeed9b6d0 https://clyp.it/cf0c5xbx?token=4557e7bd10b693695f04085eeed9b... • Geoscape 6: https://clyp.it/gyspu3ry?token=502115f5d9c7c0f0b5f844aa63ef69a6 https://clyp.it/gyspu3ry?token=502115f5d9c7c0f0b5f844aa63ef6... Or follow updates on the mod page: https://openxcom.mod.io/orchestra-from-the-deep https://openxcom.mod.io/orchestra-from-the-deep Enjoy, and let me know, shall you try them in OpenXCOM!
- usrusr 6y ago
  > The greatest contributor to that feeling is certainly the music. If you are ever startled by a mobile phone nearby ringing with the menacing gmbigmar.mid buildup, please say hello, it's probably mine. I found TFTD a bit too much work-like in some missions (finding that last panicked Gray on a freighter...), but they sure earned an entire spot in gaming history only for their audio.
  - zenojevski 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
FiReaNG3L 6y ago
Didn't have the computer to run this at the time (not enough RAM!) but I was SO EXCITED that I opened the files with a text editor and read the bits of text that were sprinkled in the binary, and even that was so immersive and exciting (for 7 years old me).
- AnthonBerg 6y ago
  To describe my experiences in Dwarf Fortress, we'd only have to generalize and abstract this passage ever so slightly <3
spiritplumber 6y ago
https://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/XcomAcademy.XcomAcademy.html https://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/XcomAcademy.XcomAcademy.htm... https://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/category/blog-entries/the-xcom-saga https://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/category/... Here's some collaborative xcom fanfic.
rawbot 6y ago
Fans of XCOM should give Xenonauts a try. It's pretty close to the original, but the new penetration and building destruction mechanics make it really enjoyable in combat. If you are a big fan of the XCOM OST, I think you might enjoy the XCOM 2 Tactical Legacy Pack OST, which is a reimagining of the original's soundtrack. I played through XCOM 2: WotC with this and it was fantastic. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydXsA6zXiitzsl9JBCFsHGYPLeu_Bz8g https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydXsA6zXiitzsl9JBCFs... One of my favorites is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZv1brsTE_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZv1brsTE_A
- clircle 6y ago
  I don't think I've played a game as good as XCOM 2 since it came out.
neilprosser 6y ago
Definitely one of my favourite games growing up (along with Colonization). I'm reminded of one of my best gaming facepalms which occurred playing X-COM. We'd been playing the game for ages and had found it very difficult to kill all the aliens during the ground missions. We'd go round the whole map attempting to find the last remaining aliens before having to give up. It was only when one of us accidentally clicked inside the UFO that we realised we could actually go inside the UFO. Our mission success-rate improved somewhat after that 'discovery'.
- TheAlchemist 6y ago
  I will just say - you are not alone with that 'discovery'. And I also loved Colonization - I played like once a year or two until recently - it's really fantastic.
  - m12k 6y ago
    I'm not sure what it is about Colonization, but the mood and atmosphere of it just hit the nail on the head for me, and kept me coming back again and again.
    - tomalpha 6y ago
      Completely agree. For me the upbeat music really made the atmosphere of the original Colonization, and the later remake (based on Civ 4?) with its more downbeat soundtrack was much less enjoyable.
      - TheAlchemist 6y ago
        Oh yes ! I've recently, by accident, found some of the tracks on Spotify: Old Joe Clark - Fiddle Fiddle Fiddle: https://open.spotify.com/track/7HgGcA99K6wvF2nBwTY8nm?si=f-AGowqNSeW5Ucvlq54RLg https://open.spotify.com/track/7HgGcA99K6wvF2nBwTY8nm?si=f-A... Music for a found harmonium - Patrick Street: https://open.spotify.com/track/5vKaYFrSdHcFYsSz9gaDQg?si=pv-qc8EuSj-U-uJ0TCAkjA https://open.spotify.com/track/5vKaYFrSdHcFYsSz9gaDQg?si=pv-... Here you go back to teenage years :D
spiritplumber 6y ago
A few years back I had the problem of how to apply the x-com model to, of all things, the Left Behind franchise. Turns out that the strategy/tactical layer separation works pretty well with large scale PNPRPGs, too! http://f3.to/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=LeftBeyond.QuestRules http://f3.to/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=LeftBeyond.QuestRules http://f3.to/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=LeftBeyond.Quest2Rules http://f3.to/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=LeftBeyond.Quest2Rules The gist of it is, it makes sense to decide a strategy interval (it was 1 year for the first quest, which had to span a century, and 1 month for the second, which had to span 8 years), and then "zoom in" on tactical actions at the end of the interval, with each being its own little dungeon instance. The tactical stuff would autoresolve if only nameless mooks were on scene, but would be roleplayed out if one or more of the heroes were there. One of the tasks that could be given to said mooks and heroes is "stand by" and react to another faction attacking out of turn; if nobody was on standby, defense ability was reduced. It was a pretty weird pair of games given that the enemy is supposed to be literally God, but the story came out well, and the players had fun.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Loved this: “ X-COM provides the merest glimpse of what it must feel like to be an actual commander in war: the overwhelming stress of having the lives of others hanging on your decisions, the guilty second-guessing that inevitably goes on when you lose someone. It has something that games all too often lack: a sense of consequences for your actions.” All a consequence of getting to name your soldiers. Humans have so much affection for something they can name...
chris_st 6y ago
So many great memories of that game! One thing they miss, in the intro about "plug into the success formula", is that there was a single-level demo on a floppy that came with one of the gaming magazines. The wacky thing about the demo was that you were given raw recruits with minimal weapons, and then put up against the most difficult aliens in the game! It was brutally difficult, even by X-COM standards. The other cool thing about the original X-COM was the crazy stories that just came out of gameplay... a friend got the Blaster Bomb, and on his first use of it, had his entire squad get way back out of the way before he targeted the door of an alien ship. Turns out the squad wasn't far enough back, and it killed them all! Hurray for save games :-)
Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
I love the original X-com and take it for a spin every few years. By far the greatest thing original X-com had was the sense of mystery and dread of the unknown on your first playthrough. You didn't know what lies ahead, you didn't know what technologies to research, and how to do what. New aliens were catching you by surprise all the time, and Chrysalids, god, they were so so scary. When I got to flying armor my guys never walked again, just because of these guys. I actually even liked the immediate sequel, because it added difficulty and stuff. If only it wasn't this last alien syndrome... The reboot was a letdown for me. Underground base-hive was gorgeous, but I lacked the freedom of roaming the globe and sending patrol aircraft in different directions, locating bases that I knew were somewhere out there... It felt like I'm railroaded on a fixed path, instead of slowly finding out the clues on my own. The second X-Com 2 was a step better for me, and I liked the feeling of being a scrappy resistance fighter, and all resource and time constraints made a lot more sense in that context. I actually managed to beat X-Com 2 in Ironman mode on Commander difficulty without losing any soldier, and THAT was a major feat, I tell you. Ironman adds a lot to the game, you can't savescum from a risky missed shot, and actually start to be really afraid for your guys.
- gibsonhouse 6y ago
  I would recommend looking into the game Xenonauts. it captures some of that flavour.
  - sergiosgc 6y ago
    Xenonauts is good, but Firaxis' Xcom 2 is better. The original atmosphere is very well reproduced, with more recent graphics and a decent storyline.
- PhaedrusV 6y ago
  Agree on all points. There's a total conversion mod for the original X-COM: UFO Defense that is amazing, and being actively worked on. New updates every month or so. Hundreds more hours in the campaign. Set a few hundred years after X-COM loses, and earth is a radiated wasteland when some intrepid mutant gals start to fight back against the "Star Lords". It's called xPiratez. Rated a soft "R" for gratuitous pixellated boobage.
IgorPartola 6y ago
I love this game. Growing up, it was along with Civilization the most played in my house. On one of our first successful play throughs we got this soldier called Maria Smith. She started out talented but by the end of the game was a certified badass. She was a sniper but with high morale and tons of action points. She was our favorite that decades later I still name one of my soldiers with the same moniker in her honor. The pure joy we got out of her ability to make seemingly impossible shots stayed with me. I should give this game another go as it’s been a few years. There is actually a fairly decent iOS clone that I played, but for the full effect you need a mechanical keyboard and a beige CRT, I think.
htrp 6y ago
XCom: UFO Defense -- 10% accuracy ... Critical Hit XCom Sequels -- 99% accuracy.... Miss
zenojevski 6y ago
I can't edit my post anymore. So here's a random recommendation to watch the greatest XCOM Let's Player of all time: Yeti https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhu1IU-H0hU22eTOcbWfVvmERsV8tz5DN https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhu1IU-H0hU22eTOcbWfV...
hypertexthero 6y ago
Excellent article! Never played the original X-COM and plan to do so soon. I played the third one, Apocalypse, obsessively and beat it in a couple of weeks one summer. It seems that I end up loving most any game that has a rotating Earth in the interface (the latest being Microsoft Flight Simulator). Strongest memories is the panic when seeing a headhugger appear close by, getting attached to the individual commandos, and enjoying the destructability of the multi-floor building environments using the various weapons.
oliveoil 6y ago
Was I the only one to ever hit that bug where on some missions you randomly found so much Elerium-115 so that you no longer had to worry about depleting it as a resource? That made the game suddenly lot easier to finish. Also, disagree that the "Terror from the Deep" was poor. It was more of the good stuff and much much harder.
kensai 6y ago
Don't know if this is still thoroughly updated, but this has been the best source on the franchise's news and mechanics. https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Main_Page https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Main_Page
Fifer82 6y ago
It is somewhat off-topic, people have already covered anything I could add about this gem. Something similar (as far as turned based game) which I enjoyed was Silent Storm. It didn't have the base building side but it had physics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Storm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Storm
johnatwork 6y ago
One of the top 5 games that I've ever played. I'm not a greatly skilled gamer, and this game is difficult but was somehow able to make it enjoyable. Enough discoveries and surprises to keep you pressing on, it did a lot of things well, from load outs to inventory managements, to keeping countries happy. I can't wait to have some free time to play it again.
cainxinth 6y ago
I laughed at the part about how on the first playthrough the game was inscrutable with a crazy steep learning curve. Many games were like that back then. Which is why there was also such a big market for guide books. I think I still have my dogeared copy of the Prima Guide to X-Com somewhere.
m3kw9 6y ago
Played it first time on iOS and is awesome
seattletech 6y ago
Playing this game late at night with headphones added to the mood.
dbg31415 6y ago
The History of XCOM - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxUVoWt2K78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxUVoWt2K78
iso8859-1 6y ago
How do I run this smoothly on Linux?
- adamnew123456 6y ago
  The series overall has a pretty good cross-platform story: - The original DOS versions run well on DOSBox from what I've heard, although I've never tried them personally. - There's also a re-implementation of the game engine in the form of OpenXcom [1], which supports UFO Defense and TFTD (there's a separate version for Apocalypse around somewhere). Requires the original assets but includes a lot of small changes over the base game that make it less annoying to play overall, in addition to not requiring DOSBox. - The Firaxis games both have native versions. I can't currently get stock XCOM 2 to run due to library link issues (the joys of running on an unstable distro), but both Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within and War of the Chosen run fairly well. https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Installing_(OpenXcom) https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Installing_(OpenXcom)
gabereiser 6y ago
12 year old me saw the box art at babbages and begged my mother to buy me the game. I didn't have a machine it could run on well. All I had at the time was a 486DX 66mhz IBM PC and I didn't care, lag and all, it was one of the most complex and satisfying gaming experiences. It's up there for me with Doom 1 (Ultimate Doom by the time I could afford to buy it). Quake. Ultima Online. Descent. SW: Tie Fighter. X-COM.
- wazoox 6y ago
  Man I've played X-Com for nights and nights on a 386SX16 with 2 MB RAM. The floppies where damaged for some reason, so some of the later levels (particularly on Mars) were heavily corrupted (missing maps parts with black holes, etc). The machine was so slow that the screen "hidden enemy move" sometimes lasted 10 minutes or more. Fun times.
  - gabereiser 6y ago
    Yesss! Leave it running while you went to school because you were too busy waiting for turns to save.
georgeecollins 6y ago
The thing that blows me away about X-Com is that it shipped with difficulty settings that initially didn't work. People didn't notice at first! The game has such a self correcting feedback loop that it seems hard if you are doing well and it eases off if you are doing badly.. naturally. It is an amazing and very complex game design.
logicalmonster 6y ago
The original XCOM had poor graphics for its era. But my god, the gameplay is still the most tense I’ve ever experienced.

449 points by jqcoffey 6y ago

kqr 6y ago

If you liked X-COM, I can recommend Frozen Synapse, which is similar in many ways and very different in others. The biggest difference is probably that after all players have planned their turns, they are executed simultaneously.

nottorp 6y ago
Frozen Synapse is a simplified clone of Laser Squad Nemesis, which was done by... you guessed, the Gollops. Sadly that game is no longer available. It was multiplayer only (it had some single player but it was an afterthought) and they've taken it down long ago.
- eru 6y ago
  I played Frozen Synapse a bit. I seem to remember there were some local multiplayer options? Play by email would work ok for this kind of game. (But I don't think that was ever supported. Laser Squad Nemesis might have supported play-by-email, I'm not sure?)
  - nottorp 6y ago
    LSN was play by email only. It probably made sense in 2002. They did add a web interface to get your new turns a few years later. Plus you could spend a day setting up your turn in a rated game against a good opponent, so who cared how the turns arrived. Frozen Synapse decided to go with a time limit for turns... same mistake as xcom 2.
    - eru 6y ago
      The limited number of turns in Frozen Synapse make more sense than in XCom 2. Mostly because Frozen Synapse is actually a multiplayer game. Also compare the 'turn limits' in Into the Breach that are very well done: you have to hold out for four turns in all missions.
      - nottorp 6y ago
        I'm complaining about the time limit to send your turn in in multiplayer. I'm afraid I never played single player Frozen Synapse. Laser Squad Nemesis (multiplayer, that game was never seriously single player) was so good that when I saw Frozen Synapse copied the simultaneous orders mechanic I jumped straight into the multiplayer and never looked back. However instead of having 90 day games like in LSN you had like... 10 minutes per match? Felt too much like Starcraft.
        eru 6y ago
        I seemed to remember that you can set your own time limits on private games? My memory is a bit hazy. I mostly played with a friend, and only a few times on random internet matches.
publicola1990 6y ago
Perhaps Darkest Dungeon is also closer to XCom, and even though entirely in 2d it manages to achieve the spatiality of combat in XCom.

mcbuilder 6y ago

My favorite game of all time is another one in the turn based tactical genre, Jagged Alliance 2. A game still under active fan development some 20+ years later with the excellent 1.13 mod.

defen 6y ago
Oh man I loved that game. It had so much personality...the characters and voices, the little web browser with PMC websites and gun stores, the email client, the sheer number of items, every little thing was so cool. I had no idea people were still working on it. Thanks for the reminder.
lapfi 6y ago
My all time favorite too. I still return to this game every few years. If you're a fan I suggest checking out this book: https://bossfightbooks.com/products/jagged-alliance-2-by-darius-kazemi https://bossfightbooks.com/products/jagged-alliance-2-by-dar...
ido 6y ago
If you loved JA & JA2 make sure to NOT play any of the sequels that came out after it.
leoc 6y ago
For those who haven't played it: Jagged Alliance 2 is the missing link between X-COM, Fallout and the most childish scriptwriting you've ever experienced.
isolli 6y ago
I never played the 1.13 mod (did not manage to make it work with my Steam install). But imagine: better AI, more refined movement points, multiplayer! Maybe once my son is old enough I'll play with him (hopefully it will still be available in another 10 years).
senectus1 6y ago
Oh wow.. JA2! loved the personalities in this game... I might have to break that one out again.. you say is has a big community dev going?

aidenn0 6y ago

I don't know if the author reads HN comments, but the story I heard about "Terror from the Deep" being so hard was because people were complaining that X-Com was too easy, due to an unfixed bug: Any time you loaded a save, the game reset to the easiest difficulty level. Not only would people often not play in one sitting, but many strategy gamers aren't above save-scumming either. Result, a large fraction of game hours on X-Com were on the easiest difficulty level.

lbeltrame 6y ago
As far as I remember, the Amiga version did not have that bug. In fact some missions were quite hard at regular difficulty levels. That changed once you had access to psionics and the blaster as weapon. It became a large shoot 'em up afterwards (probably not at higher difficulties).
- Tuna-Fish 6y ago
  IIRC there was still another bug, the first tier of armor (which was supposed to be basically a little bit better than paper) accidentally provided as much protection as the much more expensive power armor.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  In the US, nobody owned an Amiga in the 90s :P
TeMPOraL 6y ago
"Save-scumming", such an ugly name for speculative execution...
- eru 6y ago
  I would actually welcome the following variant of save-scumming: You can plan all you like, ie save-scum. But you can't keep it. You can only make forward progress that counts, when you first disable your save-scum ability for a bit. Of course, that only works for questions of probability, like hitting shots or not. It doesn't address that save-scumming also reveals information you are not supposed to have. There's a middle ground for X-COM, called bronze-man-mode (in contrast to iron-man-mode). In bronze-man-mode you don't get to save-scum inside of missions. You can at most reload the whole mission to get another randomly generated one. I used to play the original X-Com as as save-scummer when I was younger. I went back to replay a bit of the game via OpenXCom and stuck to a more 'mature' approach. The game was more fun that way.

NegativeLatency 6y ago

If you liked the original xcom you might also enjoy xenonauts which is a more faithful recreation than xcom enemy unknown. https://store.steampowered.com/app/223830/Xenonauts/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/223830/Xenonauts/

jonathanlydall 6y ago

One of my favourite games growing up. I tried replaying it about 10 years ago but it’s got serious quality of life problems with the mission aspect of the game. Particularly, it had no way to remember or save gear assignments between missions. So you would spend like 5 minutes at the start of every mission giving your guys the correct stuff for their stats. Every. Damn. Time. The other thing that bugged me on missions was no keyboard shortcuts, particularly for moving the view up and down levels. You had to use the mouse to click a UI icon which was quite tedious. Still fond memories, but a pity those aspects made it too tedious to replay for me. The newer XCOM game fixed those aspects and allowed you to jump right into the action.

n3k5 6y ago
> Particularly, it had no way to remember or save gear assignments between missions. OpenXcom has this, plus a lot of other improvements and bug-fixes. I'm no expert (played it and the original for a few hours each about a year ago) but my impression is that it manages to pull off nice QoL-improvements while staying faithful to the feel and gameplay of the original game.
- on_and_off 6y ago
  I really need to try open-xcom. I know that there are also some total conversion like Piratez XCOM. I tried to love the firaxis XCOMs. They kind of scratch the same itch and I appreciate not to have to manage bullets in the inventory but some of the simplified mechanics just don't work that well. Clusters of enemies in particular seems like very poor design to me. It has caused tons of issues in their 2 games, from encouraging turtling as a the main dominant strategy to forcing firaxis to add timers to try to force players out of the play style their game made dominant.

senectus1 6y ago

With the exception of the lateest one, I've loved all the x-com games dearly. So many hours spent recruiting newbies, training them up, building equipment, researching tech then hunting down and killing alien scum!

sgillen 6y ago
Do you mean Xcom2 or Chimera Squad?
- nottorp 6y ago
  Xcom 2 is a disaster due to the arbitrary time (or turn, for the nitpickers) limits in all missions. If you don't rush via the shortest path or if you do the unthinkable and explore the map a bit you'll run out of time and die. And if you install a mod that removes the turn limits it becomes way too easy because it's balanced for rushing blindly ahead and it's like taking candy from a baby if you have time to scout and position yourself. Chimera squad... what's chimera squad? Didn't look at anything after xcom 2. To continue whining, the current Firaxis ruined Civilization as well. They tried to 'improve' religion and ended up adding another tactical layer. You're fighting the military war and the religious war. But with the military war you can make peace now and then, or simply not attack. The religious war never ends. Which means that every single turn you have to take care of umpteenth religious units making the game full of pointless busywork.
  - user5994461 6y ago
    Chimera squad is the latest Xcom game. It's a bit simplified and you jump straight into position. It's nice to not have to spend 50 hours moving around but not everybody likes the change in gameplay. Do NOT buy it though, the game is buggy as fuck.
    - eru 6y ago
      Yes. If you want to have a quicker tactics game that's a tiny bit like some aspects of X-Com, then 'Into the Breach' is probably a better use of your time than Chimera Squad. Chimera Squad is an OK game, and good if you like the (rebooted) X-Com universe.

1915cb1f 6y ago

Open source re-implementation with bugfixes: https://openxcom.org/ https://openxcom.org/

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
Not just bug fixes, but a slew of optional gameplay enhancements and even mods if that's your bag.
bjelkeman-again 6y ago
Hugged to death. I’ll need to come back

Sami_Lehtinen 6y ago

You can also play it online in browser: https://epicport.com/en/xcom https://epicport.com/en/xcom

pjmlp 6y ago
Many thanks!

avmich 6y ago

Train Grisha Yakubik so his skills would overflow one-byte counter; he'd step very slowly, but hit alien two screens ahead in the eye before their first move.

jeffbee 6y ago

Great write-up. X-COM really grabs you just the way the article says. The characters are pets and it hurts when they die. I will never forget when my college roommate threw his keyboard across the room after his elite squad got wiped out in Terror from the Deep (which was really, really hard to win). The fact that nobody can die in Chimera Squad is why Chimera Squad is not a real X-COM game.

eru 6y ago
Yes. Chimera Squad is a spinoff game set in the (rebooted) X-Com universe. Nothing wrong with exploring different genres, though.

type_enthusiast 6y ago

I grew up here :P This was such a passtime for me that 20 years later I remember the randomly-generated names of some individual soldiers who came through for me and turned a battle around when there seemed to be no hope. Siegfried Krause, I applaud your sniper abilities to this day.

type_enthusiast 6y ago
It was also interesting from a design perspective; the various parts of the game were all separate executables and I never did figure out how they all interacted (though clearly some people did, as evidenced by the excellent XComUtil which has proved difficult to track down lately!)
- zlorch 6y ago
  IIRC the game just wrote a plain data file onto disk and the next executable read it up with all the needed info.
  - type_enthusiast 6y ago
    Well sure, when you put it that way it sounds simple! I was 12 or so, and I spent a few nights trying to figure out the "plain data file" before shrugging and going back to playing X-Com.
    - Delk 6y ago
      Well, reverse engineering binary data is hard and laborious, and probably incomprehensible to almost any 12-year-old (and the majority of adults). (I'm assuming they were binary. I really can't remember what they were.)
      - type_enthusiast 6y ago
        Gotta be honest, I installed the game tonight under DOSBox thinking I would give thirty-something, seasoned engineer me another crack at decoding the file format. But then, those UFOs kept landing and I mean, somebody had to do something about it. And then all of a sudden my kids were like "daddy where are you" and the file format (and UFOs) once again had to wait for another day...

hooande 6y ago

I loved, loved X-COM. It had an ability to capture imagination in a way that few turn based strategy games do. The randomly generated soldier names still loom large as heroes in my mind. I was affected when they were killed in action. "Bernard Dujardin", wherever you are, I salute you

systemvoltage 6y ago
I find this emotional attachment between a real human and a fictitious entity absolutely fascinating, unsettling, beautiful and creepy at the same time. This is pure fiction, generated by some C++ code written in Visual Studio and yet, we are attached to it like a real human. Same thing with fiction books. It’s just words being consumed by the brain but emotional impact is real. Then I question, isn’t all human to human interaction just data exchange through our “sensors” (sight, sound, touch, smell and taste)?
- eru 6y ago
  Slight nitpick: I am fairly sure the original X-COM was not written in C++ in Visual Studio. No clue about the actual language it was written in, probably C or assembly. C++ is unlikely but possible. But I am rather sure that the game was not written with Visual Studio. Of course, your point still stands. As an addition to go even further back in time, I would add stories that people just tell to each other. It's a great feature of humanity that we can communicate about situations that we weren't personally involved in. Emotional attachment is then just a general feature of how mammalian brains seem to work.
  - nottorp 6y ago
    If I remember well, it should have been Watcom C, like most DOS games that wanted to go beyond 640 kb. The two separate executables (it had one for the geoscape and one for the tactical battles) displayed the DOS4GW banner at startup if i remember well.
    - pjmlp 6y ago

simonw 6y ago

One of my favourite things about XCOM was the destructible scenery. The isometric building design (on the procedurally generated maps) was superb, and you could blast holes in it to make your own routes through the map. Likewise the design of the larger UFOs themselves was so exciting - not to mention the variety of scenery a UFO might land in. It was so far ahead of its time in that regard.

choeger 6y ago
Don't forget the damage dealt to UFOs when they were shot down. Sometimes there was but a single alien with what amounts to a few tiles of scrap left from the encounter with my vigilant fighters. Talking about immersion.
- madarco 6y ago
  And the day/night cycle! Sometimes I waited for the day to start a mission, even if this could means that the aliens could escape
rhn_mk1 6y ago
One of the fatal flaws that made the reboot X-COM worse than the original was the inability to control the environment. Shots could no longer be aimed at scenery, and stray shots that hit the walls anyway proved that said walls were made out of cardboard. Even a pistol round could break an undamaged wall! This made hiding behind corners much less useful: if you're suddenly flanked, you have a great risk of losing your cover entirely, no matter how strong the wall looked. Not being able to create own passages or drop floors from under aliens are just nasty consequences of that. The second flaw was that the enemy did not just seek you out, they always knew where you were, making it impossible to sneak up on them. I get the need to shorten the battles, but catching enemies unaware was my favorite tactic to survive despite technical disadvantage.
- eru 6y ago
  You can still catch enemies unaware. In fact, enemies in the reboots only become aware of you when you are within visible range of their pod (ie group). The pod system is at the heart of the reboots. High level play involves exploiting it to the hilt.

TimSchumann 6y ago

This and Master of Magic were many _many_ hours of my childhood. Also some of the first programs/files I opened up in a hex editor.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago
Me too. At the risk of ruining you next several weekends, there's Caster of Magic out there, a magnificent mod for MoM. [0] [1] [0]: http://seravy.x10.mx/CasterofMagic/CASTEROFMAGIC.HTML http://seravy.x10.mx/CasterofMagic/CASTEROFMAGIC.HTML [1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1250690/Master_of_Magic_Caster_of_Magic/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1250690/Master_of_Magic_C...

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

> It had no video demo playing in the front window of Babbages, This specific reference baffles me. Anyone cares to elaborate/clarify? (I guess when you grow up somewhere other than the US, there's a chance these things happen).

rriepe 6y ago
It's where you'd go to buy games and other retail-y computer stuff. Kinda like Steam, except it's a real place and it's in the mall.

skocznymroczny 6y ago

I loved the original X-Com, but I couldn't get into the new ones. My biggest issue with the original game is that as soon as one alien sees you, all aliens sees you starting to mindcontrol your entire team which easily spirals out of control. Luckily, modern reimplementations such as OpenXcom allow you to disable it and require line of sight checks before MC attempts.

jonathanlydall 6y ago
We got the Prima Games strategy guide which was superb in that explained every single mechanic of the game. After reading it my brother worked out how and then made a super bad ass psy team. The key understanding is that there is a base psy attribute for characters which can never change and then another one which can improve through experience. So your previously best characters probably land up having terrible base psy stat, so you need to abandon them ultimately unfortunately. So he made lots of psy labs to find the strong soldiers. Then started getting them to skill up psy skill on missions. Once they could mind control then it was to skill them up in other regards like accuracy and reactions. You would mind control aliens, have them drop their weapons then end your turn with them facing away from your guys ready to shoot them. During the aliens turn they would start walking and then get shot by the reacting “rookie” 3 blocks away. The rookies accuracy and reaction improved quickly. If I recall he managed to complete the final mission in like 3 turns per part by mind controlling the first alien he could see, then using that to find the next alien to mind control and so on.

pjmlp 6y ago

I loved this series all the way back to Rebelstar Raiders. Must have spent endless hours playing all Laser Squad versions on the Speccy and it was only natural to jump into X-COM. Although the ones that moved away from the Rebelstar Raiders/Laser Squad initial concept are not worthy to me.

Marazan 6y ago
Laser Squad is basically the perfect level for me. Lots of complexity and subtly in the battles but just one off scenarios, I had no desire for base building on long term character development.
joosters 6y ago
I grew up playing Rebelstar 2, and Chaos, his other amazing game... part of my early programming experience was making a map editor for R2 and making new monsters for Chaos!
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Chaos! Another one, including its successor that was more Laser Squad like, Wizards something.
  - joosters 6y ago
    I think that was Lords of Chaos? I got that game from a magazine cover tape, but wasn't that impressed (it didn't help that I had no manual for it!)
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      Yeah that was it.
nxpnsv 6y ago
My takeaway from the article is I got to get these running on an emu...

caf 6y ago

I still remember playing night time missions up late in a darkened room, hearing the soft padding of those alien footsteps, somewhere out beyond the limits of vision in the darkened fields...

burlesona 6y ago

Great article, and a very fair review of a wonderful game with very sharp edges. I will say, the best part of the Firaxis reboot of X-Com is that it perfectly captured the fun that I _remembered_ from the original game. It captured this so well that I remember thinking it was literally the same game with new graphics. Then I went back and replayed the original... and remembered how hard and clunky it actually was :) But still one of my all time favorites, along with another Microprose title of the same era, Master of Orion.

jraedisch 6y ago
I did not play the original Master of Orion, but absolutely loved the second part. I started focussing on science (namely Psilons) and only later developed a taste for trying out other strategies/races. I often played multiplayer with friends too, and really liked the laid back atmosphere enabled by turn based strategy.
- eru 6y ago
  Please go ahead and play the first Master of Orion. It's by far my favourite of the pair. (Make sure you get the latest community patches.) The genius of the first MoO was that it really paired down the tedious busy work. And the tech system works a charm, it's cleverly randomised in a way that's not really possible with the more prevalent DAG based tech trees.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    If you like the first MoO, take a look at Dominus Galaxia.
    - eru 6y ago
      Slider-based colony management! Looks like they are staying close to the original. Neat.
  - avisser 6y ago
    I had a soft spot for Master of Magic. I preferred it to MoM and MoM2.

kiksy 6y ago

A solid article. I'd disagree with the "single play through" and "pointless starting weapons" comments though. For me it was multiple play throughs learning about what worked and what didn't. This for me was actually a thing that kept me coming back. Trying out new tactics, base locations and equipment to see what worked. All the while trying to balance the budget and keep the squad alive long enough to level up. A truly great game. Played the newer versions on Xbox 360 and mobile, and whilst fun, they had removed far too many features to keep me engaged for more than a few hours. OpenXcom is a much better offering, especially on mobile.

madarco 6y ago
Totally agree! I played it endless times when I was young, and I was able to complete it (by destroying the mars base) only recently playing on dosbox! The recent reboot is just a tactical console game. It was fun for a while but I get bored quickly. Also X-Com Apocalypse is not on par with the original, but still quite enjoyable with the realtime combat mode.
- the_af 6y ago
  Apocalypse was the biggest disappointment in my (gaming) life :( Horrible graphics, different (but not good) gameplay, and worst of all it didn't "feel" like it was the same world of XCOM. All of this is subjective, of course.
freddie_mercury 6y ago
"for many or most of us, this is a strategy game to play through once rather than over and over again" What part of that do you disagree with? He didn't say that everybody only played it through a single time. You don't need to argue against a strawman.
- kiksy 6y ago
  Neither did I say "everybody played through it multiple times". I stated "for me".
6y ago

majke 6y ago

Ha! One of my preferred games. There is a fun anecdote coming from another of my fav games, Diablo 1: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/268507/20_years_later_David_Brevik_shares_the_story_of_making_Diablo.php https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/268507/20_years_later_Da... > “We were very excited, so we signed a contract to do Diablo,” remembers Brevik. The studio then had to figure out what, exactly, this turn-based isometric game it had been thinking about for so long would actually look like -- and how it would be angled and rendered on-screen. “This was not easy back then...I kind of took a screengrab of X-Com, and we just took that, and put it right into Diablo,” said Brevik. “So the actual tile-square basis -- the same shape and size -- is exactly the same in X-Com and Diablo.” So in a sense, says Brevik, the look and technology of Diablo is all based directly on a screenshot of X-Com. So, x-com heavily influenced Diablo. In retrospect it makes sense - X-com tile based world, and lightning was pretty unique.

Markoff 6y ago

One of the best strategies ever for me together with Sim City (2000) and Transport Tycoon, was much less of fan of Dune 2 or C&C or Commando, so this was pretty much only strategy with actual fight and not just construction, which could capture my interest supported with popular TV show X-Files at times.

dbg31415 6y ago

Best game ever made.

cgearhart 6y ago

I loved this game so much growing up, and this was a great article about it. It captured all the things I loved, and covered a lot of history I never knew. One thing that caught my eye was the author’s complaint about no in-game exposition or tutorials at the start of the game. It seems silly in 2020, but in 1994 it was common for games to come with a reasonably lengthy manual printed on dead trees that explained all those things—or else there were printed strategy guides and magazines that talked about clever tricks. I read a borrowed copy of that book cover to cover before I even had a computer to actually run the game on. I still have a copy in my garage. My first copy was pirated on 3.5” floppy disks from the school computer lab. Eventually I bought a copy to get the manual. Later on I bought a copy to get it on CD. Eventually I bought another copy to get the whole original collection on CD. And last year I played the reboots which got me nostalgic enough to buy the original and apocalypse on steam. Good times. :-)

el_oni 6y ago
I had X-COM:enemy unknown [ufo defense] for the PlayStation, the manual for that thing was huge. It had a tutorial in it that walked you through a mission as well as told you how all the buildings worked (even the ones unlocked later in the game like the psylab). I do miss the days where you'd get a physical manual. Nowadays you just get a slip of paper with an advertisement and a registration page. Saying that though, with live updates a lot of manuals would be out of date after a few years. I dont think the tome that is the world of warcraft manual is relevant to the modern game. Though maybe for classic.

zenojevski 6y ago

Even greater than UFO Defense, in my opinion, was its expansion - Terror From the Deep. It truly taught me that our oceans are so close, yet much farther than outer space can ever be. Looking at that lone blue globe in space always makes me feel so insignificant, so meaningless. Space is vast, but empty, and sterile. Down the abyss, not even light can shine to bless and purify. The greatest contributor to that is certainly its soundtrack. With its unnerving, relentless low horns; harps hitting on the same two or three notes; there's a feeling of utter despair, hopelessness. A sense of doom, as aquanauts armed with teeny darts and harpoons grunt through the deaths of their colleagues, outmatched by opponents so unfairly superior, in the harshest environment on Earth. They couldn't have done a better job. I have been working on a new "HD" soundtrack for TFTD that I plan to release as a mod for OpenXCOM (this article is great timing!). I am not finished yet, but you can listen to some of the tracks already (and download them if you wish): • Geoscape 1: https://clyp.it/b3wf24qt?token=1171341361084200df1e81a5699dda4c https://clyp.it/b3wf24qt?token=1171341361084200df1e81a5699dd... • Geoscape 2: https://clyp.it/4qog1dq1?token=91b0b871435a3beac898f96cec945946 https://clyp.it/4qog1dq1?token=91b0b871435a3beac898f96cec945... • Geoscape 3: https://clyp.it/cr2uakoj?token=f1e0cda592185ae0152d47bf70a9dc99 https://clyp.it/cr2uakoj?token=f1e0cda592185ae0152d47bf70a9d... • Geoscape 4: https://clyp.it/cf0c5xbx?token=4557e7bd10b693695f04085eeed9b6d0 https://clyp.it/cf0c5xbx?token=4557e7bd10b693695f04085eeed9b... • Geoscape 6: https://clyp.it/gyspu3ry?token=502115f5d9c7c0f0b5f844aa63ef69a6 https://clyp.it/gyspu3ry?token=502115f5d9c7c0f0b5f844aa63ef6... Or follow updates on the mod page: https://openxcom.mod.io/orchestra-from-the-deep https://openxcom.mod.io/orchestra-from-the-deep Enjoy, and let me know, shall you try them in OpenXCOM!

usrusr 6y ago
> The greatest contributor to that feeling is certainly the music. If you are ever startled by a mobile phone nearby ringing with the menacing gmbigmar.mid buildup, please say hello, it's probably mine. I found TFTD a bit too much work-like in some missions (finding that last panicked Gray on a freighter...), but they sure earned an entire spot in gaming history only for their audio.
- zenojevski 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

FiReaNG3L 6y ago

Didn't have the computer to run this at the time (not enough RAM!) but I was SO EXCITED that I opened the files with a text editor and read the bits of text that were sprinkled in the binary, and even that was so immersive and exciting (for 7 years old me).

AnthonBerg 6y ago
To describe my experiences in Dwarf Fortress, we'd only have to generalize and abstract this passage ever so slightly <3

spiritplumber 6y ago

https://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/XcomAcademy.XcomAcademy.html https://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/XcomAcademy.XcomAcademy.htm... https://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/category/blog-entries/the-xcom-saga https://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/category/... Here's some collaborative xcom fanfic.

rawbot 6y ago

Fans of XCOM should give Xenonauts a try. It's pretty close to the original, but the new penetration and building destruction mechanics make it really enjoyable in combat. If you are a big fan of the XCOM OST, I think you might enjoy the XCOM 2 Tactical Legacy Pack OST, which is a reimagining of the original's soundtrack. I played through XCOM 2: WotC with this and it was fantastic. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydXsA6zXiitzsl9JBCFsHGYPLeu_Bz8g https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydXsA6zXiitzsl9JBCFs... One of my favorites is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZv1brsTE_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZv1brsTE_A

clircle 6y ago
I don't think I've played a game as good as XCOM 2 since it came out.

neilprosser 6y ago

Definitely one of my favourite games growing up (along with Colonization). I'm reminded of one of my best gaming facepalms which occurred playing X-COM. We'd been playing the game for ages and had found it very difficult to kill all the aliens during the ground missions. We'd go round the whole map attempting to find the last remaining aliens before having to give up. It was only when one of us accidentally clicked inside the UFO that we realised we could actually go inside the UFO. Our mission success-rate improved somewhat after that 'discovery'.

TheAlchemist 6y ago
I will just say - you are not alone with that 'discovery'. And I also loved Colonization - I played like once a year or two until recently - it's really fantastic.
- m12k 6y ago
  I'm not sure what it is about Colonization, but the mood and atmosphere of it just hit the nail on the head for me, and kept me coming back again and again.
  - tomalpha 6y ago
    Completely agree. For me the upbeat music really made the atmosphere of the original Colonization, and the later remake (based on Civ 4?) with its more downbeat soundtrack was much less enjoyable.
    - TheAlchemist 6y ago
      Oh yes ! I've recently, by accident, found some of the tracks on Spotify: Old Joe Clark - Fiddle Fiddle Fiddle: https://open.spotify.com/track/7HgGcA99K6wvF2nBwTY8nm?si=f-AGowqNSeW5Ucvlq54RLg https://open.spotify.com/track/7HgGcA99K6wvF2nBwTY8nm?si=f-A... Music for a found harmonium - Patrick Street: https://open.spotify.com/track/5vKaYFrSdHcFYsSz9gaDQg?si=pv-qc8EuSj-U-uJ0TCAkjA https://open.spotify.com/track/5vKaYFrSdHcFYsSz9gaDQg?si=pv-... Here you go back to teenage years :D

spiritplumber 6y ago

A few years back I had the problem of how to apply the x-com model to, of all things, the Left Behind franchise. Turns out that the strategy/tactical layer separation works pretty well with large scale PNPRPGs, too! http://f3.to/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=LeftBeyond.QuestRules http://f3.to/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=LeftBeyond.QuestRules http://f3.to/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=LeftBeyond.Quest2Rules http://f3.to/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=LeftBeyond.Quest2Rules The gist of it is, it makes sense to decide a strategy interval (it was 1 year for the first quest, which had to span a century, and 1 month for the second, which had to span 8 years), and then "zoom in" on tactical actions at the end of the interval, with each being its own little dungeon instance. The tactical stuff would autoresolve if only nameless mooks were on scene, but would be roleplayed out if one or more of the heroes were there. One of the tasks that could be given to said mooks and heroes is "stand by" and react to another faction attacking out of turn; if nobody was on standby, defense ability was reduced. It was a pretty weird pair of games given that the enemy is supposed to be literally God, but the story came out well, and the players had fun.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Loved this: “ X-COM provides the merest glimpse of what it must feel like to be an actual commander in war: the overwhelming stress of having the lives of others hanging on your decisions, the guilty second-guessing that inevitably goes on when you lose someone. It has something that games all too often lack: a sense of consequences for your actions.” All a consequence of getting to name your soldiers. Humans have so much affection for something they can name...

chris_st 6y ago

So many great memories of that game! One thing they miss, in the intro about "plug into the success formula", is that there was a single-level demo on a floppy that came with one of the gaming magazines. The wacky thing about the demo was that you were given raw recruits with minimal weapons, and then put up against the most difficult aliens in the game! It was brutally difficult, even by X-COM standards. The other cool thing about the original X-COM was the crazy stories that just came out of gameplay... a friend got the Blaster Bomb, and on his first use of it, had his entire squad get way back out of the way before he targeted the door of an alien ship. Turns out the squad wasn't far enough back, and it killed them all! Hurray for save games :-)

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago

I love the original X-com and take it for a spin every few years. By far the greatest thing original X-com had was the sense of mystery and dread of the unknown on your first playthrough. You didn't know what lies ahead, you didn't know what technologies to research, and how to do what. New aliens were catching you by surprise all the time, and Chrysalids, god, they were so so scary. When I got to flying armor my guys never walked again, just because of these guys. I actually even liked the immediate sequel, because it added difficulty and stuff. If only it wasn't this last alien syndrome... The reboot was a letdown for me. Underground base-hive was gorgeous, but I lacked the freedom of roaming the globe and sending patrol aircraft in different directions, locating bases that I knew were somewhere out there... It felt like I'm railroaded on a fixed path, instead of slowly finding out the clues on my own. The second X-Com 2 was a step better for me, and I liked the feeling of being a scrappy resistance fighter, and all resource and time constraints made a lot more sense in that context. I actually managed to beat X-Com 2 in Ironman mode on Commander difficulty without losing any soldier, and THAT was a major feat, I tell you. Ironman adds a lot to the game, you can't savescum from a risky missed shot, and actually start to be really afraid for your guys.

gibsonhouse 6y ago
I would recommend looking into the game Xenonauts. it captures some of that flavour.
- sergiosgc 6y ago
  Xenonauts is good, but Firaxis' Xcom 2 is better. The original atmosphere is very well reproduced, with more recent graphics and a decent storyline.
PhaedrusV 6y ago
Agree on all points. There's a total conversion mod for the original X-COM: UFO Defense that is amazing, and being actively worked on. New updates every month or so. Hundreds more hours in the campaign. Set a few hundred years after X-COM loses, and earth is a radiated wasteland when some intrepid mutant gals start to fight back against the "Star Lords". It's called xPiratez. Rated a soft "R" for gratuitous pixellated boobage.

IgorPartola 6y ago

I love this game. Growing up, it was along with Civilization the most played in my house. On one of our first successful play throughs we got this soldier called Maria Smith. She started out talented but by the end of the game was a certified badass. She was a sniper but with high morale and tons of action points. She was our favorite that decades later I still name one of my soldiers with the same moniker in her honor. The pure joy we got out of her ability to make seemingly impossible shots stayed with me. I should give this game another go as it’s been a few years. There is actually a fairly decent iOS clone that I played, but for the full effect you need a mechanical keyboard and a beige CRT, I think.

htrp 6y ago

XCom: UFO Defense -- 10% accuracy ... Critical Hit XCom Sequels -- 99% accuracy.... Miss

zenojevski 6y ago

I can't edit my post anymore. So here's a random recommendation to watch the greatest XCOM Let's Player of all time: Yeti https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhu1IU-H0hU22eTOcbWfVvmERsV8tz5DN https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhu1IU-H0hU22eTOcbWfV...

hypertexthero 6y ago

Excellent article! Never played the original X-COM and plan to do so soon. I played the third one, Apocalypse, obsessively and beat it in a couple of weeks one summer. It seems that I end up loving most any game that has a rotating Earth in the interface (the latest being Microsoft Flight Simulator). Strongest memories is the panic when seeing a headhugger appear close by, getting attached to the individual commandos, and enjoying the destructability of the multi-floor building environments using the various weapons.

oliveoil 6y ago

Was I the only one to ever hit that bug where on some missions you randomly found so much Elerium-115 so that you no longer had to worry about depleting it as a resource? That made the game suddenly lot easier to finish. Also, disagree that the "Terror from the Deep" was poor. It was more of the good stuff and much much harder.

kensai 6y ago

Don't know if this is still thoroughly updated, but this has been the best source on the franchise's news and mechanics. https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Main_Page https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Main_Page

Fifer82 6y ago

It is somewhat off-topic, people have already covered anything I could add about this gem. Something similar (as far as turned based game) which I enjoyed was Silent Storm. It didn't have the base building side but it had physics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Storm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Storm

johnatwork 6y ago

One of the top 5 games that I've ever played. I'm not a greatly skilled gamer, and this game is difficult but was somehow able to make it enjoyable. Enough discoveries and surprises to keep you pressing on, it did a lot of things well, from load outs to inventory managements, to keeping countries happy. I can't wait to have some free time to play it again.

cainxinth 6y ago

I laughed at the part about how on the first playthrough the game was inscrutable with a crazy steep learning curve. Many games were like that back then. Which is why there was also such a big market for guide books. I think I still have my dogeared copy of the Prima Guide to X-Com somewhere.

m3kw9 6y ago

Played it first time on iOS and is awesome

seattletech 6y ago

Playing this game late at night with headphones added to the mood.

dbg31415 6y ago

The History of XCOM - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxUVoWt2K78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxUVoWt2K78

iso8859-1 6y ago

How do I run this smoothly on Linux?

adamnew123456 6y ago
The series overall has a pretty good cross-platform story: - The original DOS versions run well on DOSBox from what I've heard, although I've never tried them personally. - There's also a re-implementation of the game engine in the form of OpenXcom [1], which supports UFO Defense and TFTD (there's a separate version for Apocalypse around somewhere). Requires the original assets but includes a lot of small changes over the base game that make it less annoying to play overall, in addition to not requiring DOSBox. - The Firaxis games both have native versions. I can't currently get stock XCOM 2 to run due to library link issues (the joys of running on an unstable distro), but both Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within and War of the Chosen run fairly well. https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Installing_(OpenXcom) https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Installing_(OpenXcom)

gabereiser 6y ago

12 year old me saw the box art at babbages and begged my mother to buy me the game. I didn't have a machine it could run on well. All I had at the time was a 486DX 66mhz IBM PC and I didn't care, lag and all, it was one of the most complex and satisfying gaming experiences. It's up there for me with Doom 1 (Ultimate Doom by the time I could afford to buy it). Quake. Ultima Online. Descent. SW: Tie Fighter. X-COM.

wazoox 6y ago
Man I've played X-Com for nights and nights on a 386SX16 with 2 MB RAM. The floppies where damaged for some reason, so some of the later levels (particularly on Mars) were heavily corrupted (missing maps parts with black holes, etc). The machine was so slow that the screen "hidden enemy move" sometimes lasted 10 minutes or more. Fun times.
- gabereiser 6y ago
  Yesss! Leave it running while you went to school because you were too busy waiting for turns to save.

georgeecollins 6y ago

The thing that blows me away about X-Com is that it shipped with difficulty settings that initially didn't work. People didn't notice at first! The game has such a self correcting feedback loop that it seems hard if you are doing well and it eases off if you are doing badly.. naturally. It is an amazing and very complex game design.

logicalmonster 6y ago

The original XCOM had poor graphics for its era. But my god, the gameplay is still the most tense I’ve ever experienced.