Unofficial X-Com Inspired Remake Gets Demo 30
Sacrusha writes "The developers of UFO: Alien Invasion finally released a technical demo for both Windows and Linux, using a modified Quake 2 engine to feature turn-based tactical combat against alien forces on three different maps, in both single and multiplayer modes! UFO: AI is going to be a totally free, fan-made game and is heavily inspired by Microprose's X-Com series - the developers are looking for your input on the product."
Multiplayer X-Com (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks Sweet (Score:3, Interesting)
This is awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice but too late for the single player mode (Score:5, Interesting)
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.