X-COM: UFO Defense

Hell yes. You will be surprised how well it's loved on these boards.



See?

I prefer it's sequel, X-Com: Terror From the Deep, though.

Chryssalids suck. That is all.

!

I play this game on a daily basis. No game has ever sucked me in like this one. And Terror from the Deep sucked! =)

By the way... you can get the full versions of the games HERE and HERE

I'd pay a ridiculous amount of money for a good sequel to X-Com. I remember spending many late nights trying to find the last sectoid by leveling entire farming communities with alien grenades and blaster launchers. Eleven years since I first played it and I still periodically play it all the way through.

At least they have the decency to wait a few months. The early terror missions against sectoids and cyberdisks... trying to take out the "explode-when-they-die" disks in crowded cities with rifles and autoguns? *shudder*

Another tough spot in the game comes if you don't have plasma weapons researched before the Mutons make their first appearance. I vividly recall a base invasion where I put 6 laser rifle shots into a Muton's back from point blank range only to have him turn around and one-shot my self-named character.

Nothing but love for this game. I still think Xcom and Star Control 2 are the best PC games ever made. Me and my old roomates used to have long involved discussions about strategies. He was a big proponent of explosives, I used to laugh myself silly when one of his agents who was holding a primed proximity grenade would get cut down and drop the grenade, which usually blew up any friendlies close by or trapped them in place. I never even bought high explosives. He equipped every one of his troops with a mad bomber party pak.

Subsequent versions haven't really moved me like the first one did, though TFTD came close. Did anyone ever play Xcom on the Playstation?

Great game! I still have a CD of it and play it once in a while... I would name all of my characters, since the defaul names seemed almost indistinguishable. I'd have soldiers named "Panic Boys" just soldiers that would run away at the first alien -- they would be my cannon fodder while my "named" agents would hold the line(the ones with the better stats, so they could like, kill the aliens). I'd always cry a little when I lost a named one and hold a little 30 second ceremony and contemplate reloading the game or moving foward with a "Darkseed" the second character(that was my alt way back).

I dug the missions when they would attack my base. That was the best... however, not so much when my 'named' soldiers were MIA. Damn... I gotta load that up when I get home.

When I first played, I never used them. Once I threw that first high explosive on the roof of a farmhouse and the whole place went up like a tinderbox, though, I was sold. Besides, it's just more fun to blow shit up.

Those Mutons are annoying, but the Chryssalids get so much damn movement, and it's a double-whammy on terror missions with them converting civilians. It got to the point where if they were even in the same building, I'd just torch the building and worry about the -250 later. At least that let me move on to other places.

And nothing is better than the hovertank with the guided alien explosive bombs. Nothing.

I never left a man behind.

Man, you guys are bringing back a lot of good memories about this game. I remember I didn't like any of the audio in the game, so I would listen to my own stuff instead. To this day, if I hear one of those old songs, I think, "Heh. Oh yeah, X-Com." I think one of my favorites was raiding the huge 5 level mothership when it landed or got shot down.

I didn't either, but when they invaded the base, if your soldiers were on a mission you didn't get to use them.. I remember after a few scrapes I was stuck with just my named guys on a mission and my 'panic's' left at the base... that was BRUTAL! -- Learned my lesson after that, I kept an elite crew at my base to protect it.

My favorite part was when you advanced to get the flying device? to go up a level and blow up a side of a building to just walk in it, this way those alien bastiches were down the hall waiting for me to come up and I'd walk in the custom back door toss a grenade around a corner and listen for the screams

Base Under Attack

X-Com would easily be my favourite game of all time, if not for Fallout. Hard to say if one is better than the other. I do recall being frustrated by X-Com at first, but i was so engrossed in setting up my base and naming my characters i maintained, and thought hard about my attack strategies as a result (i was only 11 or 12 when i got a hold of this thing). Soon i had my sweatervest clad (or whatever) soldiers covering each other, flanking the enemy, setting up fire points, all that gravy strategery. I loved the promotion system and the way your squad would run away screaming if Capt. Dangerous got taken down (i couldnt stand that, man, would have to reload).

This game also has one of the greatest progessions ever. Just when your getting tired of creeping around the infinite number of barnyards in the worlds, the Aliens would attack Rio de Janerio. When city combat started getting monotous (well, not really, i would never get tired of taking out aliens by blowing up gas stations) they would hit your main base. After fighting the alien menace through desert wastelands and city capitols, i was rollin.

>MAJOR SPOILER<

When you finally jack all their technology and take the fight to them, all the disparate elements of the game [from research to combat to base construction to keeping the bitch ass governments of the world happy] came together in such a badass way that it just blew everything else on the market away.

>end<
And it really hasnt been done the same since. I guess you could replace aliens with terrorists and call it Rainbow Six, but there's no active world hopping, alien base snoopin, tech stealing element to it that's so crucial to what makes UFO Defense work. In short, if you've never played this game, find it and engage. You wont be disappointed (unless you suck).

Terror missions? More like blow everything up missions. I made "The Demolition Man" look like he played with firecrackers.

to this day I see brand new TV featuring the same samples as UFO:EU

edit: usually its some kind of door opening effect

Anybody with a bravery score of 10 or 20 in my unit was immediately shown the door. I don't care how much I just paid you. If you get panicked or berzerked during an assault or god forbid... a terror mission you are not worth it. I always pictured it going something like this as soon as they stepped off the transport:

Greeter: Name?

Recruit: Dmitry Yuskevich (all my guys seemed to be russian or french)

Greeter: BOO!

Recruit: EEK!

Greeter: *crosses a name off his clipboard and points at the exit sign*

I also rated my troops on marksmanship, strength, and throwing ability. On those 4 categories I would put a acronym into their names that would determine how I armed them come mission time. Marksmen get the best weapons and extra ammo. Heavies get the heavy weapons. Granadiers get extra grenades. Rank determined access to armor when it was tight.

Oh man, so many good memories. This thread instantly made me want to reinstall the game immediately.

By the way, has anyone played Laser Squad Nemesis? It's from the creators of X-Com.

This is perhaps getting a little too detailed, but how did people equip their soldiers for the Cydonia mission?

After I got enough $$$, I equipped each base with half a dozen tanks - first w/bazookas, and then the hover/laser tanks.

The only thing better than X-COM? Multiplayer X-COM!

To be honest I didn't like this game.

I loved the sqaud based combat, but I didn't care for this idea that I have to do everything. I mean you have to make gun to sell them off because the world doesn't want to fund the only operation that would save their ass. It just got momontomis (see I'm making words up because of the money issue)

I should mention I am looking forward to a GBA game that looks alot like X-Com.

I wasted a whole week skipping university classes finishing this game! Nothing beat that first crash site investigation for tension and adrenaline rushing.

Terror From The Deep wasn't terrible. The sea-themed weapons were not great, but the upgrades to the basic X-Com engine were most welcome. I always hoped they would come out with an updated version of the game now that so many good turn-based games have come and gone.

What was the name of that other turn-based game that was around at the same time where you were leading a squad of mercenaries in some crazy banana republic? I think Nick was a huge fan of that one but for the life of me I can't remember the name.

Jagged Alliance.

This takes me back. It's truly a great game. I think it's amazing how so many players felt so close to their soldiers even though there were no cutscenes or backgrounds for them.

I hope you guys are ready for this then.

http://www.namco.com/games/rebelstar/

Yep thats the one I was trying to remember earlier. And as long as the game doesn't have me trying to make guns and sell them to fund my troops I will be happy.

I used to play the shit out of this game. I would beat the game using only 4 soldiers. Its tough at first, but the rewards are obvious. Snap shot across 5 screens? No problem. Grenaded? Walk it off. There were too many damn aliens after a while, though, so I had empty bases all over that just shot down aliens and left the wreckage. Manufacturing laser rifles was kind of a pain in the ass, but once you had enough engineers you were set for the rest of the game.

Jagged Alliance was sweet, too. I liked the climbing and stealth elements. Nothing is cooler than sneaking up on someone, knocking them out, and then slitting their throat. The gun selection was NICE.

Man... Jagged Alliance, X-Com, Fallout, HOMM, Incubation. I miss turn based tactical combat.

Wasn't there a third game in the series - Apocalypse? I seem to recall it was set in a city with the final missions involving raids on the alien planet. The only one of the three that I completed.

But anyway - loved a bit of Xcom back in the day. I had the squad named after the Aliens marines - with the lesser (and expedible) characters named after the lame ones. Lost me a lot of Spunkmeyers and Dietrichs during the campaign...

Yes, I have. Purchased a copy about a year ago. Good game.

Yes, you can grab it HERE

You can also get all of the other games HERE and HERE

I really liked Apocalypse, the graphics got better and even more things were destructible. i remember putting a satchel charge down and the ceiling crashed down as well. They also have a real time mode...and its crazy...the environment looks like the lobby scene of the matrix when you're done.

Also you can buy vehicles and attack buildings for no reason. lol. They show more damage than any game today.

WOW that is almost litigiously identical to X-Com, even for a genre rip-off. Right down to the interface and the grays. Not that I'm complaining!

Wish it were coming out for the DS, though, the stylus would definitely sweeten the UI.