Totally Sweet.

Back in the day, X-Com convinced me to upgrade the RAM on my 486DX so that I could play it. I really enjoyed that game, hopefully this game will be cool as well. :)

Now, if they would just release a version for OS X, my weekend would be complete. :)

If you're interested in playing multiplayer X-Com UFO Defense, using a remake of the original engine using the original graphics/sounds/animations, I suggest you check out UFO2000 (ufo2000.sf.net). It has a built in internet lobby type system where you can matchup against other players, you can customize your squad using most of the weapons from the original game, and you can fight on randomly generated maps from all the terrains of the original game, including the Xcom bases and Alien bases.

I never knew that the quake 2 engine could be used to make something that looks so great. This is the product Xcom 3 should have been :)

A short interview with one of the developers is available here [homelanfed.com].

This is only a technology demo, but it looks like it could turn out pretty cool.

I can't count the number of hours I wasted playing XCom 2: Terror from the Deep. That was one of those games that even the manual was interesting enough to read. I thought of trying to make my own open source implementation of the game many times, but never got around to it. I always felt it would be fun to play multiplayer as well, and they have added that to this game apparently. Well, I am off to get the game up and running. Don't count on hearing from me anytime soon.

First of I liked the real time element in X-com apocalypse so be warned.

The orignal UFO Enemy Unknown (only infidels know it as x-com) was a classic game. I played the demo to bits. You were in charge of a single base and a hand full of soldier, scientist and engineers. Your job. Stop the increasing alien incursions. Your crap started crap with crap equipment and no idea of who you faced. But as you gained experience in battle you retrieved both bodies and weapons and even live aliens who your scientist could research and whose technology your engineers could copy.

of course as your weapons increased so did the alien incursions so you were in a constant arms race.

The strategic element was mostly realtime (time stopped when making money decissions) but the combat was turnbased. The graphics were good for the day but will probably cause permenant damage to your eyes today.

More importantly was that you had real tactical capability. Alien sniping you from a window? Shoot a rocket through the wall behind and catch him in the cross fire. You could start fires and smoke them out. Brilliant.

UFO enemy from the deep put it all at the bottom of the sea. Essentially more of the same it was a bit disappointing.

X-com apocalypse (the infidels having won the naming war) added an optional real time element. Your soldiers carried out your order but also could take some action for themselves. No longer did you have to target and pull the trigger on each and every alien. Put the squad in good positions and just watch the alien attack being grinded down. Of course if you did it wrong your soldiers would be scrambling for cover while trying to defend their assigned positions. Even more brilliant.

Then....... nothing. Well there was x-com in space and x-com the fps but they were crap.

Fans had given up.

So it is no wonder the some fans wanted to make their own game. That is what the post is about. Nice work. Except. They are too late sort of. UFO Aftermath dumped the turnbased style but forgot to inherit the AI for your soldiers. This left you with soldiers who get totally confused when the enemy does something as cunning as walk behind a lightpole and then happily get slaughtered. It was the worst of both turn-based (your soldiers being idiots) and real-time (to much going on to keep track of).

But rescue was close by. Silent Storm is pure turnbased but added a shitload of extra features the most important totally destructable scenery in an excellent engine. Fans soon discovered that hidden features included the geoscope from the original UFO games making it only a matter of time before a mod will be done.

So is there room for this game? Well. It is the first to add multiplayer. If they get this to work, it ain't in the demo, then they have a reason for being. Without it they can't compete against S2.

Their graphics are barely acceptable. They lack a lot of options like crawling. The soldiers seem unable to see or target behind a small pillar.

Had it been released a year ago it would have been great. Now it might be great fun in multiplayer mode only.

Don't get me wrong. It is a fun game to play. Just if you played S2 then it just can't compete in single player mode.

Xenocide Project [xenocideproject.com]

Will horrible random name generating system be in this game? (For those who don't know, the original UFO Enemy Unknown featured a random name generating system. The problem with it was that first and last names were not seperated so you could have a character names James Jones or Adams Frank. Not only that they didn't seperate names by nationality so you'd have names like... well I'm sure you can think of some crazy combinations. I once played a game where I start off with 3 characters all having the same last name. Family relationship?)

I tried out the windows version of the demo. It sends you on a terror mission, which are my favorite kind of missions.

The mission was difficult, due to the fact that all my squaddies seemed to have terrible aim. I managed to take out two aliens, but the rest easily moved in and took out the rest of my team.

http://www.lasersquadnemesis.com/

This is the game that some of the original designers of X-Com now work on.

From that site: "Laser Squad Nemesis has something that X-Com sorely lacked - human opponents. You can play anybody, anywhere in the world as long as they have an internet connection.

But we have also improved on X-Com and created a unique and innovative, turn-based combat system, with the fine control of turn-based games and the exciting action of real-time strategy games. Rewind, pause or review your games using the video style controls. Use the 'test orders' function to fine tune your orders. View the results of each turn, and plan your next turn at your own pace."

I didn't manage to have much fun with it. I guess it lacks proper balancing. But technically, it is an impressive piece of work, so cheers.

Another remake of X-COM very worthy of mention is X-Force [xforce-online.de] (warning: it's all in German).

In case it slipped below someone's radar, there was another turn-based tactical game called Incubation a few years back. It also had balancing problems (the difficulty of the missions was quite uneven all throughout) which is a shame for a commercial game, but it was brilliant and very enjoyable otherwise. And it did without the whole strategical part of the game, which to me is a plus. Maybe someone will do another remake of that some day.