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X-COM

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Re: X-COM

#61

Post by giantDinosaur »

nottorp wrote: post #46
sgillen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean Xcom2 or Chimera Squad?

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 a…

There aren't timers for every mission in XCOM 2.

Re: X-COM

#62

Post by rhn_mk1 »

eru wrote: post #59
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 you…

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.

If I remember correctly, they gained awareness unconditionally, so they always or almost always had the opportunity to take the first shot.

Re: X-COM

#63

Post by eru »

systemvoltage wrote: post #39
hooande wrote: post #15

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

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 hu…

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.

Re: X-COM

#64

Post by el_oni »

cgearhart wrote: post #56

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…

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.

Re: X-COM

#65

Post by uzakov »

eru wrote: post #55
kiksy wrote: post #35

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 t…

If you want to play the classic X-COM today, make sure to grab the latest community patches. I really liked the old X-COM games and had anticipated that I would not like the reboot very much. However, while I wouldn't want to miss the originals for the reboot, the reboots are done very solidly and in most instances I even find myself agreeing with the streamlining the new authors chose. If you want a tactical squad-l…

Wasteland 3 is another great tactical game, that I personally enjoyed playing. It has the Fallout 2 feel, that is hard to describe

Re: X-COM

#66

Post by eru »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #23
aidenn0 wrote: post #11

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 hou…

"Save-scumming", such an ugly name for speculative execution ...

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.

Re: X-COM

#67

Post by ido »

mcbuilder wrote: post #10

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.

If you loved JA & JA2 make sure to NOT play any of the sequels that came out after it.

Re: X-COM

#68

Post by eru »

jeffbee wrote: post #8

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.

Yes. Chimera Squad is a spinoff game set in the (rebooted) X-Com universe.

Nothing wrong with exploring different genres, though.

Re: X-COM

#69

Post by eru »

nottorp wrote: post #41
kqr wrote: post #9

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.

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.

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?)

Re: X-COM

#70

Post by usrusr »

zenojevski wrote: post #60

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 ce…

> 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.

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