The X-COM Topic

Edit history:

kesvalk: 2012-01-18 11:34:58 am

2012-01-18 11:32:45 am

Indie Lover

i would like more TPSes... and isometric view games...

i think i would like a metroid in isometric view... and a kirby that don't play like a game of golf...

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-01-18 03:04:47 pm

2012-01-18 03:04:34 pm

Quote from tomatobob:

Quote from Prime Hunter:

Pretty much. I think it was you and Tate with Ark on the terror mission and you got shot in the back by reaction fire after missing a Floater (with Autoshot from a Laser Rifle no less!) that was 4 tiles in front of you right after getting off the ramp.

Yessssssss. Even better if it was friendly reaction fire. Going down in true X-COM fashion is an honor, sir!

Nope it was another Floater off to the other side of the Skyranger. Think all three of us went down to enemy reaction fire in the end, now that I think about it. Haven't really had any friendly fire kill someone yet although I've come close.

For instance, Opium nearly took you and Paraxade (?) out the mission before with a rocket launcher after she tried to blow up the wing of the Skyranger while aiming at a Sectoid that had already dropped two of our guys. (Kesvalk being one of them) Caught me completely by surprise because she fired and then it immediately exploded and I feared the worst. Strangely, none of you took any damage whatsoever so I guess it was technically up on the third level where it wouldn't hit you guys on the ground or her on the ramp. (Sectoid was on the ground so she was going the complete opposite direction)

Also, what's up with making the Chryssalid absolutely huge compared to the rest in that picture? (Love that baby Snakeman for some reason. It's just so out of place next to all of the monsters nearby.)

And personally, while pretty much the entire X-COM fanbase seems to have looked at the FPS and wrote it off immediately I'm still giving it the benefit of the doubt and will give it a shot when it is released. Could still be fun even if it's not much like the other games in the series, although that might be the fact that I enjoy the types of games it has been compared to. Still glad they're focusing on the TBS one instead though because that has even more pressure on it to succeed in the eyes of the fans.

[quote="tomatobob"][quote="Prime Hunter"]Pretty much. I think it was you and Tate with Ark on the terror mission and you got shot in the back by reaction fire after missing a Floater (with Autoshot from a Laser Rifle no less!) that was 4 tiles in front of you right after getting off the ramp.[/quote]
Yessssssss. Even better if it was friendly reaction fire. Going down in true X-COM fashion is an honor, sir![/quote]
Nope it was another Floater off to the other side of the Skyranger. Think all three of us went down to enemy reaction fire in the end, now that I think about it. Haven't really had any friendly fire kill someone yet although I've come close.

For instance, Opium nearly took you and Paraxade (?) out the mission before with a rocket launcher after she tried to blow up the wing of the Skyranger while aiming at a Sectoid that had already dropped two of our guys. (Kesvalk being one of them) Caught me completely by surprise because she fired and then it immediately exploded and I feared the worst. Strangely, none of you took any damage whatsoever so I guess it was technically up on the third level where it wouldn't hit you guys on the ground or her on the ramp. (Sectoid was on the ground so she was going the complete opposite direction)

Also, what's up with making the Chryssalid absolutely huge compared to the rest in that picture? (Love that baby Snakeman for some reason. It's just so out of place next to all of the monsters nearby.)

And personally, while pretty much the entire X-COM fanbase seems to have looked at the FPS and wrote it off immediately I'm still giving it the benefit of the doubt and will give it a shot when it is released. Could still be fun even if it's not much like the other games in the series, although that might be the fact that I enjoy the types of games it has been compared to. Still glad they're focusing on the TBS one instead though because that has even more pressure on it to succeed in the eyes of the fans.

kesvalk

2012-01-18 03:38:19 pm

Indie Lover

the guys are even dressed as X-com rookies...

Prime Hunter

2012-01-18 03:39:42 pm

Hah, that seems so appropriate after reading through a Let's Play of X-COM last night/this morning where the guy was torching the countryside with explosives every chance he got.

kesvalk

Edit history:

kesvalk: 2012-01-18 03:51:52 pm

kesvalk: 2012-01-18 03:44:24 pm

2012-01-18 03:44:04 pm

Indie Lover

this is aways appropriate when talking about x-com, everyone that plays it, one or day, inevitably, will do that.

and the first two will miss while the 3rd will shoot at his feet, killing everyone near them...

also, about the crissy in the image, this is named fear, when ppl fear something, they make it bigger, this is why evil spirits, god, and almost all aliens are very tall...

tomatobob

2012-01-18 08:49:30 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

If you haven't loaded up an Auto Cannon with incendiary rounds and just lit up a city during a night time terror mission you've never really played X-COM. Flares are for babies.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-01-18 09:47:06 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-01-18 09:25:51 pm

2012-01-18 09:25:01 pm

I've seen people do that but I don't think I've ever done it myself. Probably should though since it's quite an effective strategy.

Speaking of which, got a chance at revenge against the Floaters in another night terror mission. Ark finally fell (7th mission!) stepping of the ramp while trying to get a better angle on the Floater that ended up killing him, leaving Quietus as the sole surviving member of the original eight. But this mission proved how important Medi-Kits and Personal Armor can be since it ended up saving a few lives and I was able to revive several guys that were getting hit by Stun Bombs.

But the star of the show this time was Toozin and his whopping 5 kills, 3 with a single rocket as two Floaters and a Reaper were encroaching on the Skyranger from the left. I swear my pilots love putting me down in alien central during terror missions these days because I keep getting surrounded as soon as the first guy steps out.

Edit: Dah, wish I could've saved Kejardon after reviewing the video. He racked up 4 kills himself but then was cut down by a Floater firing across the road that he and Toozin had been trying to get out into the open.

I've seen people do that but I don't think I've ever done it myself. Probably should though since it's quite an effective strategy.

Speaking of which, got a chance at revenge against the Floaters in another night terror mission. Ark finally fell (7th mission!) stepping of the ramp while trying to get a better angle on the Floater that ended up killing him, leaving Quietus as the sole surviving member of the original eight. But this mission proved how important Medi-Kits and Personal Armor can be since it ended up saving a few lives and I was able to revive several guys that were getting hit by Stun Bombs.

But the star of the show this time was Toozin and his whopping 5 kills, 3 with a single rocket as two Floaters and a Reaper were encroaching on the Skyranger from the left. I swear my pilots love putting me down in alien central during terror missions these days because I keep getting surrounded as soon as the first guy steps out.

Edit: Dah, wish I could've saved Kejardon after reviewing the video. He racked up 4 kills himself but then was cut down by a Floater firing across the road that he and Toozin had been trying to get out into the open.

tomatobob

2012-01-19 02:10:10 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Ha finally actually finished a game of X-COM! Captain Shigeru Iwahara, veteran of 25 missions with a surprisingly small 11 kills to his name, who took a heavy plasma bolt to the chest going up the elevator to the Brain and killed and Ethereal in return marched right up to The Brain equipped with Personal Armor and a Laser Rifle and killed it in one shot. A true War Hero.

I just had the save sitting there with a couple days to go until the Avenger was finished and decided fuck it, as soon as that thing's done I'm loading everything I've got onto that sonofabitch and going for it. Looking at the mission totals for my soldiers, Iwahara was one of my first dudes highest total I saw was 28 so I either recruited him later or he got hit once or twice before. He only had ~75 Psi Strength so I didn't give him any equipment priority, I actually sent him up the lift first because he was one about as close to cannon fodder as I had left, but when he survived the shot he took I decided this guy had earned the chance at ending it all by surviving as long as he had while being so utterly average.

Also felt like for my first win I should avoid cheesing it with Blaster Bombs, unless I absolutely had to. First squad to make to the end was going to go out in a blaze of glory or not at all. Only ~six soldiers died and all in the first stage of Cydonia, only one Blaster Bomb launched, feels good man.

Ha finally actually finished a game of X-COM! Captain Shigeru Iwahara, veteran of 25 missions with a surprisingly small 11 kills to his name, who took a heavy plasma bolt to the chest going up the elevator to the Brain and killed and Ethereal in return marched right up to The Brain equipped with Personal Armor and a Laser Rifle and killed it in one shot. A true War Hero.

I just had the save sitting there with a couple days to go until the Avenger was finished and decided fuck it, as soon as that thing's done I'm loading everything I've got onto that sonofabitch and going for it. Looking at the mission totals for my soldiers, Iwahara was one of my first dudes highest total I saw was 28 so I either recruited him later or he got hit once or twice before. He only had ~75 Psi Strength so I didn't give him any equipment priority, I actually sent him up the lift first because he was one about as close to cannon fodder as I had left, but when he survived the shot he took I decided this guy had earned the chance at ending it all by surviving as long as he had while being so utterly average.

Also felt like for my first win I should avoid cheesing it with Blaster Bombs, unless I absolutely had to. First squad to make to the end was going to go out in a blaze of glory or not at all. Only ~six soldiers died and all in the first stage of Cydonia, only one Blaster Bomb launched, feels good man.

Prime Hunter

2012-01-19 04:31:34 am

Awesome, and congrats for not only finishing the game properly, but having a guy survive for that long and end up being the one to take down the brain. Even when I was playing Beginner I almost never had people survive for very long and I think only one or two of my guys has ever made it past 15-20 missions, or at least since I started recording everything.

There should have been at least 3-4 Ethereals up there with the brain. How'd you take out the others so that it was that final one for your Captain? It's almost always a death trap without psi or blaster bombs if you just send people blindly up the lift.

Poision Envy

2012-01-19 06:15:49 am

Club 27 Goals

I'm not sure if I should play this game, I'm afraid I'll get too attached to my soldiers on the battlefield and I won't be able to withstand any of them dieing.

but really though, are any of the handheld versions decent? I wouldn't mind emulating the GBA one or something on my PSP, or if they have made one for the DS.

Prime Hunter

2012-01-19 06:36:43 am

Well, there's technically not anything stopping you from reloading if someone you really like dies, but it does take away most of the challenge of the game if you do that. When I was younger I'd do that all the time (or just revive them between missions using an editor program we used to have for the game when my family played the DOS version way back) but these days I take deaths alongside the victories. Sure, it sucks when you lose somebody who has been awesome, but after a while you learn to roll with it since you know nobody is safe. The fact that there is a strong death toll and that your troops are expendable to some degree gets ingrained in you when you play X-COM long enough.

I've never played any of the X-COM like handheld games before, but one of the developers of UFO Defense did work on Rebelstar: Tactical Command, which according to wikipedia came out for GBA in 2005 and had decent reviews. Might be worth a look. Actually wasn't that the one that was brought up during our discussions recently?

Well, there's technically not anything stopping you from reloading if someone you really like dies, but it does take away most of the challenge of the game if you do that. When I was younger I'd do that all the time (or just revive them between missions using an editor program we used to have for the game when my family played the DOS version way back) but these days I take deaths alongside the victories. Sure, it sucks when you lose somebody who has been awesome, but after a while you learn to roll with it since you know nobody is safe. The fact that there is a strong death toll and that your troops are expendable to some degree gets ingrained in you when you play X-COM long enough.

I've never played any of the X-COM like handheld games before, but one of the developers of UFO Defense did work on Rebelstar: Tactical Command, which according to wikipedia came out for GBA in 2005 and had decent reviews. Might be worth a look. Actually wasn't that the one that was brought up during our discussions recently?

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-01-19 06:42:40 am

2012-01-19 06:42:22 am

Reading the bit on wikipedia makes me curious as to how the combat works. There's none of the Geoscape features (base building, research, etc.) and your guys gain XP and level up according to what it says, with random stat boosts and a player chosen focus in a weapon type or secondary ability like healing or stealth.

Now I'm wondering about this since I somehow missed it when it came out. Guess I can see if Gamefly has it in their inventory and add it to my list.

tomatobob

2012-01-19 06:46:34 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from Poision Envy:

I'm not sure if I should play this game, I'm afraid I'll get too attached to my soldiers on the battlefield and I won't be able to withstand any of them dieing.

A quick way to eliminate any attachment to the soldiers is to take their names away. What I do is let them keep their names but also assign a letter grade and identify my troops only by the letter at the end of their name unless one hangs around and I see their name enough times to recognize them. Keeping them alive becomes an added twist to battles.

But their lives come at the cost of a lot of rookies, some fans look at piles of rookie corpses as badges of honor. I don't really, but then as far as I'm concerned they are a C, D, F or just a blank space. The important thing to remember in X-COM is that unlike Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics there's nothing you can do about death. It's more like a Starcraft or Advance Wars where everything is expendable and half the job is deciding who is less expendable. That they have names at all is only to properly recognize bad assery. There's a Medi-Kit you can research and manufature, but most often it'll be used to revive stunned soldiers, sometimes you'll get to use one in time to stop someone from bleeding out. Sometimes.

X-COM is one of the few tactical games where I don't really care about casualties. It conditions you very quickly to expect them and learn to manage them instead of eliminate them.

Quote from Prime Hunter:

How'd you take out the others so that it was that final one for your Captain? It's almost always a death trap without psi or blaster bombs if you just send people blindly up the lift.

Basic summary of the last run:

Three people get into the hallway to the lifts, Iwahara a Colonel who I think was named Zander(~24 missions!) and some rookie scrub I brought along because he had good Psi Strength. He's left to watch the door for Chryssalids or any other nasties that might come up behind. maybe he gets a reaction shot and a kill or maybe he's shot and killed instantly, either way I figure better him than one of the other two. I then realize I'd rather not send an officer up first but it's too late to do anything about that.

Iwahara goes up the lift, gets shot by an Ethereal that was staring straight at it.

I scramble for my 3 guys with Psi amps and after the first two completely fail to mind control the shooter, I decided to take my chances at killing him with Iwahara and hoping he can make it down the lift before I end my turn.

He wings the target and then kills the Ethereal right next to the one that fired, but triggers no reaction from that original shooter. And I give Psi another shot with Zander, who I kinda forgot had a Psi Amp, and manage to MC the guy on the third attempt, use him to shoot the other Ethereal (I need a short hand for them, Sectoids got "Sammy".) and discover a fourth staring straight at the other lift and off him too. Then I have him throw his Heavy Plasma on top of one of the corpses. End turn.

Aliens do nothing of consequence, and I'm real thankful the Sectopod I spotted earlier never turned up again.

Iwahara moves up and unloads and auto shot and a snap shot into The Brain, removing the whole right half. I'm not sure if that did it, having never done this before, so Zander comes up shoots the Ethereal and tosses her weapon to Iwahara since the laser took a couple sots to kill the back right quarter of The Brain. End turn, ending plays. I stare at the screen for a bit processing the fact that I just finished an X-COM game, then come brag about it here.

Iwahara's Run will live on forever in my dumb video game lore.

[quote="Poision Envy"]I'm not sure if I should play this game, I'm afraid I'll get too attached to my soldiers on the battlefield and I won't be able to withstand any of them dieing.[/quote]
A quick way to eliminate any attachment to the soldiers is to take their names away. What I do is let them keep their names but also assign a letter grade and identify my troops only by the letter at the end of their name unless one hangs around and I see their name enough times to recognize them. Keeping them alive becomes an added twist to battles.

But their lives come at the cost of a lot of rookies, some fans look at piles of rookie corpses as badges of honor. I don't really, but then as far as I'm concerned they are a C, D, F or just a blank space. The important thing to remember in X-COM is that unlike Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics there's nothing you can do about death. It's more like a Starcraft or Advance Wars where everything is expendable and half the job is deciding who is [i]less[/i] expendable. That they have names at all is only to properly recognize bad assery. There's a Medi-Kit you can research and manufature, but most often it'll be used to revive stunned soldiers, sometimes you'll get to use one in time to stop someone from bleeding out. Sometimes.

X-COM is one of the few tactical games where I don't really care about casualties. It conditions you very quickly to expect them and learn to manage them instead of eliminate them.

[quote="Prime Hunter"]How'd you take out the others so that it was that final one for your Captain? It's almost always a death trap without psi or blaster bombs if you just send people blindly up the lift.[/quote]
Basic summary of the last run:

Three people get into the hallway to the lifts, Iwahara a Colonel who I think was named Zander(~24 missions!) and some rookie scrub I brought along because he had good Psi Strength. He's left to watch the door for Chryssalids or any other nasties that might come up behind. maybe he gets a reaction shot and a kill or maybe he's shot and killed instantly, either way I figure better him than one of the other two. I then realize I'd rather not send an officer up first but it's too late to do anything about that.

Iwahara goes up the lift, gets shot by an Ethereal that was staring straight at it.

I scramble for my 3 guys with Psi amps and after the first two completely fail to mind control the shooter, I decided to take my chances at killing him with Iwahara and hoping he can make it down the lift before I end my turn.

He wings the target and then kills the Ethereal right next to the one that fired, but triggers no reaction from that original shooter. And I give Psi another shot with Zander, who I kinda forgot had a Psi Amp, and manage to MC the guy on the third attempt, use him to shoot the other Ethereal (I need a short hand for them, Sectoids got "Sammy".) and discover a fourth staring straight at the other lift and off him too. Then I have him throw his Heavy Plasma on top of one of the corpses. End turn.

Aliens do nothing of consequence, and I'm real thankful the Sectopod I spotted earlier never turned up again.

Iwahara moves up and unloads and auto shot and a snap shot into The Brain, removing the whole right half. I'm not sure if that did it, having never done this before, so Zander comes up shoots the Ethereal and tosses her weapon to Iwahara since the laser took a couple sots to kill the back right quarter of The Brain. End turn, ending plays. I stare at the screen for a bit processing the fact that I just finished an X-COM game, then come brag about it here.

Iwahara's Run will live on forever in my dumb video game lore.

Prime Hunter

2012-01-19 06:53:28 am

Ah ok, so Psi did come into play a little at the end there. Because while it is possible to simply storm the upper level without Psi or Bombs backing you up it's pretty tough. Either way I'm pretty sure you just have to take out 2-3 parts of the brain before it's dead, not the whole thing. I like to do as much damage as I can anyway though at the end because it seems fitting.

Sammies... forgot you were the one who showed me that LP with the multiplayer matches until just now. Love that base assault video.

tomatobob

2012-01-19 06:55:23 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from Prime Hunter:

Reading the bit on wikipedia makes me curious as to how the combat works. There's none of the Geoscape features (base building, research, etc.) and your guys gain XP and level up according to what it says, with random stat boosts and a player chosen focus in a weapon type or secondary ability like healing or stealth.

It works somewhat like X-COM, or it did as far as I got. You have Time Units, though they may have called them something else, and you have snap, aimed, auto, etc shot options, you move guys one at a time and can get shot by aliens on you turn. You don't get automatic reaction shots though, you have to set up "Overwatch" and choose the kind of shot you want to use if a target crosses a unit's line of sight.

I don't think death is permanent, you can heal HP, characters are plot relevant not recruits, you only get to deploy like six, and it moves from battle to battle like a Fire Emblem game. Ot's Pretty much a cross between X-COM, Final Fantasy Tactics/Tactics Ogre, and Fire Emblem. I never got very far, it kinda kicked my ass.

[quote="Prime Hunter"]Reading the bit on wikipedia makes me curious as to how the combat works. There's none of the Geoscape features (base building, research, etc.) and your guys gain XP and level up according to what it says, with random stat boosts and a player chosen focus in a weapon type or secondary ability like healing or stealth.[/quote]
It works somewhat like X-COM, or it did as far as I got. You have Time Units, though they may have called them something else, and you have snap, aimed, auto, etc shot options, you move guys one at a time and can get shot by aliens on you turn. You don't get automatic reaction shots though, you have to set up "Overwatch" and choose the kind of shot you want to use if a target crosses a unit's line of sight.

I don't think death is permanent, you can heal HP, characters are plot relevant not recruits, you only get to deploy like six, and it moves from battle to battle like a Fire Emblem game. Ot's Pretty much a cross between X-COM, Final Fantasy Tactics/Tactics Ogre, and Fire Emblem. I never got very far, it kinda kicked my ass.

Poision Envy

2012-01-19 06:56:59 am

Club 27 Goals

Quote from Prime Hunter:

Now I'm wondering about this since I somehow missed it when it came out. Guess I can see if Gamefly has it in their inventory and add it to my list.

dude gamefly wouldn't have it, this shits mega-old yo.

and yeah Tbob I've always had a problem in FFT/A and FE with people dieing. but I guess xcom isn't really a story type game anyway, so I'd only really grow to like one person over another if I know how awesome they are.

Poision Envy

2012-01-19 06:57:35 am

Club 27 Goals

oh wait, they made it for the PS1? weird

Prime Hunter

2012-01-19 07:00:18 am

Yeah I just read a more in depth review and saw most of what you just said. Still might check it out one day just because.

Gamefly got me Pikmin 1 before and has had some of the older Kirby GBA/DS games on it so I wouldn't be surprised if it was there. It might be pretty rare and have a low chance of showing up but I'm still going to check for it anyway.

tomatobob

2012-01-19 07:00:52 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Yeah there's a PS1 version, apparently it worked ok.

Quote from Prime Hunter:

Ah ok, so Psi did come into play a little at the end there. Because while it is possible to simply storm the upper level without Psi or Bombs backing you up it's pretty tough.

Yeah, I probably could have pulled it off without Psi, but I kinda wanted that one for Iwahara at that point. If you stand up to a Heavy Plasma with just Personal Armor you've earned some kind of reward. It occurred to me later that I could have made use of the grenades I'd brought along, both guys down there had at least one they could have thrown.

Quote from Prime Hunter:

Sammies... forgot you were the one who showed me that LP with the multiplayer matches until just now. Love that base assault video.

Oh yeah, I did do that didn't I?

Poision Envy

2012-01-19 07:03:55 am

Club 27 Goals

so tbob and the rest of you xcom guys, how do you play it? legit discs or what?

Prime Hunter

2012-01-19 07:04:02 am

Yep, and I'm glad you did because the matches are pretty funny/interesting for the most part. I was actually looking through it again recently because of the discussion we've been having.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-01-19 07:06:53 am

2012-01-19 07:05:28 am

These days I play it through Steam. Got all 5 X-COM games (UFO, TFTD, Apocalypse, Interceptor, Enforcer) for 15 bucks a few years back. Think you can get just UFO for 5.

Used to play it on an old computer we still have hooked up in our basement that has DOS and Windows 3.1 on it. (Good for a bunch of those early 90s games) Stopped doing that once I found the Steam version though.

Poision Envy

2012-01-19 07:06:19 am

Club 27 Goals

and UFO defense is the best one, right?

tomatobob

2012-01-19 07:06:42 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Very yes.

Quote from Poision Envy:

and yeah Tbob I've always had a problem in FFT/A and FE with people dieing. but I guess xcom isn't really a story type game anyway, so I'd only really grow to like one person over another if I know how awesome they are.

With X-COM it kind of becomes a situation where the guys that survive become the sort of bad ass hero types that make up your team in Fire Emblem, everyone else is there to make sure you don't lose one of them. It just that in X-COM you probably will lose them at some point but you can make another pretty easily if you're careful! You have and endless supply of Seths!

tomatobob

2012-01-19 07:09:01 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from Poision Envy:

so tbob and the rest of you xcom guys, how do you play it? legit discs or what?

I have this weird DOSBox thing I downloaded a long time ago that has it and Terror From the Deep all set up so I don't have to actually do any DOS shenanigans to run it. Steam is probably the way to go, though. Not like it costs much.

Oh and don't play Terror from the Deep. Just don't.