X-COM: Classic Thread

The final battle (actually, battles) in Apocalypse is a doozy. If you want to know the details, I suggest you look at this. You will have to research each building before you can destroy it (Sorry, you can't bomb the buildings to the ground, you will have to go inside and destroy them from within). You will be going in and out of the alien dimension many times. It's not easy, but at least the final stage(s) of this game is not a rip-off of Cydonia or T'leth.

I also have to say that I make use of Save Scumming a lot. I used it more than once in UFO Defense and Apocalypse. I just could not stand the idea of losing even one of my soldiers.

I wasn't fond of of the last battle in Apocalypse mainly because of how broken the game was at that point. With the huge arsenal of weapons you could get, and the incredibly powerful endgame armor, it was more of a slow slog for me than an exciting race to the finish, unlike UFO Defense and TFTD. It was cool thematically, just boring gameplay-wise. I liked Apocalypse, but I feel that it was hurt by the inclusion of the RTS aspect.

I've had some experiance with RTS, so I think I would have an easy time with Apocalypse.

As for UFO, ASIA IS NOW MINE!!!

However, I had to take some provinces by force, and with my economy in chaos, it'll take a while to pay off the damages to my reputation.

At least the Psionics still like me.

From what I've noticed, XCOM seems to be a mix of several genres. I don't think that's a bad thing. I mean, if the genres being used are the ones you like, that would help the game appeal to a lot of people, and not just one group. Then again, it can lead to problems when the genres the game uses happen to the ones you don't like.

It's a mix of real time and turn based strategy. The real time part is on the Geosphere, where you control your bases and send out interceptors and transports to retrieve UF Os. The turn based strategy, of course, comes in when you send in your troops to deal with the aliens.

I was bored. Decided I should bump.

Well, I've decided to give up on UFO: Aftershock. The economy kept bugging out and it was starting to get annoying. It was as if the game forgot that all of the provinces under my control never existed except for my main base at Stuttgart. And then, it went on to calculate the upkeep total without the rest of my income, resulting in my resource reserves dropping like a rock tied to an anvil made from depleted uranium. And because the game forgot about my other bases, it made me unable to conduct research on most topics because the labs I needed were built in other bases.

So I'm back on Enemy Unknown and TFTD...

The last few missions have been total clusterfraks. I had sent a team to recover an Abductor, and only two out of TEN survived because the goddamn Floaters kept dropping them with crits. TFTD has been going even worse. I haven't been able to get a secure foothold before the Aliens started throwing Lobstermen at me,

If you ask me, XCOM is a franchise that looked like it had a great future ahead of it, but...it didn't happen.

Nevertheless, there is a nice Wikipedia on the franchise here. I believe that XCOM Genesis and XCOM Alliance deserve some mentions. Sure, they got cancelled, but they could have kept the franchise going if they had been completed.

What about Interceptor, Email Games, Alliance, and Enforcer? I know those are spin-off games, but do they count as part of XCOM classic stuff?

Interceptor was godawful. There was absolutely no reason to play it with the glut of fantastic space sims on the market. The entire game consisted of 4-on-4 fighter skirmishes, max, repeated for the whole campaign, with sometimes a space station or bigger ship in the middle of the battlefield.

Enforcer, honestly, wasn't entirely terrible. It's an okay arcade shooter, but the X-Com franchise tag was entirely unnecessary, and it is pretty forgettable.

What's more, Interceptor was full of Game Breaking Glitches that could make the game virtually unwinnable. If you ask me, you would be better off playing Descent: Freespace instead.

I found out something that might shock you. There is this one guy who was doing a speed run of UFO Defense and he beat it in 62:21. That is one hour, two minutes, and twenty-one seconds! He has a several clips of this speed run set up on You Tube, which you can come and see right here!

How the hell did he manage that? Blind luck?

How the HELL did he do THAT?!

The Youtube video will probably show you. :|

Well...I'm not really one for Skill Videos, since there's probably as many of those on You Tube as there are YouTube Poop vids.

Been trying to get back to X-Com again, but since my soldiers in UFO: Aftershock were men of steel, it's a real culture shock for my squad to know death.

Seriously, that one time where one Floater Abductor killed eight of my soldiers and put one in medical? I was shocked and appalled by my troops' incompetance.

I did learn a lesson. If there is more than one alien in a small room, NADE THE CRAP OUT OF THEM! Well, unless if there is a Power Source in the room in question. In that case, take cover and wait for backup.

edited 23rd Sep '11 5:24:23 AM by DemoralizedAnt

Well, certainly the speed run shown on You Tube did have it's fair share of blind luck. A big important trick to remember about a speed run is that you should do the bare minimum to win a game, and only that.

For example, the guy went to a Floater base, stunned a Floater Soldier, Leader, and Commander, put them in his agent's backpacks went back to the Access Lifts and hit Abort. He did this simply by using Stun Rods on every Floater he came across and checking the bodies. Good thing for him that the aliens he needed to capture were not too far from the starting points. He needs to research the Soldier, the Leader, and the Commander in that order, so he can get the needed information to go to Cydonia on Mars.

Another example is that he shot down practically the first UFO that popped up, and it, fortunately, had all the needed components intact. He researched UFO Power Source, Elerium-115, UFO Navigation, and Alien Alloys to get the Avenger, which he built as fast as he could. Not to mention that he researched Laser Weapons, Laser Pistol, and Laser Rifle, and made sure to arm his troops with Laser Rifles.

Finally, the Access Lift he needed to get to in Upper Cydonia was right next to the Avenger, and he got all his agents into the pyramid and hit Abort. He shot down two Sectoids in the process and suffered no Mind-Controls. Luckily for him, aliens can only Mind-Control his agents if they can see him. Also, the big Brain Chamber turned out to be right next to one of the starting points in Lower Cydonia. Sure, it was no picnic getting into that room, but he blew the Alien Brain to oblivion in the end.

Get this...he played this speed run on the hardest difficulty (he had to put in the patch that fixes the difficulty bug)! It sure makes us gamers who get beaten by this game on much easier difficulties look like losers in comparison!

Okay...that's just...amazing...

Something just came to mind. You all know that 2K Marin is reviving X-Com as an FPS (sort of). Well, if I'm not mistaken, they were already beaten to the punch. A long time ago, I had stumbled upon a webpage that was about an X-Com mod for Half-Life. I'm not sure if it was ever finished, though.

Wait, if the mod was not finished, does that really count as beating someone or something to the punch?

It sure is fun how there are 9 UFO types in UFO Defense. The Small Scout, Medium Scout, Large Scout, Abductor, Harvester, Supply Ship, Terror Ship, and Battleship. Their names pretty much tell you what their function is. The scout UF Os are not that hard to take down. You can try to take on the other UF Os if you want, but without Plasma Beams, the odds will be mostly against you. Of course, the Battleship is in it's own class. You will apparently need a fleet of ships armed with Plasma Beams and Fusion Ball Launchers to shoot down a Battleship. In other words, to come loaded for bear.

I'm willing to betcha that the guy who beat UFO Defense in 1 hour plus probably wouldn't be able to beat Terror From The Deep that fast. If he did, then he either cheated or he is the Chuck Norris of video games!

One thing I find interesting about XCOM is the way the games handle you losing. Instead of giving you a simple Game Over screen, it goes the extra step and gives you a It's a Wonderful Failure cutscene. Some of the games have more than one version, believe it or not!

• UFO Defense: PC version and Playstation version.
• Terror From The Deep: Playstation Cutscene and PC pictures with text.
• Apocalypse: Cutscene.
• Interceptor: Cutscene.

I personally think the PC versions of UFO Defense and Terror From The Deep are better. What do you think?

edited 25th Sep '11 7:36:37 AM by TiggersAreGreat

Actually, I rather enjoy the Playstation version of the original X-COM Game Over.

Not so much Terror From The Deep, though. Doesn't show too much. Ship rises, blows up a city. But for the original, showing the government forced to sign a treaty, and then shot anyways, is quite foreboding.

Played some TFTD again. Beat the alien colony in that losing game I mentioned many posts back. THIS TIME, I had only minimal losses!

I think I WOULD have survived that month if it weren't for an Aquatoid Escort Ship that, amazingly, decimated my whole squad...

I guess that's what you'd call a "Karma Sub"...or something. Just makes me think of the Karma Charger.

That's just nasty. I mean, I took a look at this page. Let's see, you have the Survey Ship, Escort, Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser, Hunter, Fleet Supply Cruiser, Battleship, and Dreadnought. The Escort is, from what I'm reading, supposed to be one of the easier ships to handle. I would be irritated if I got crushed in a mission in which the aliens have clearly not shown the full extent of their abilities.

And it was crewed by Aquatoids. AQUATOIDS! The Redshirts of the Alien Army!

From what I'm reading on the Aquatoids, they have low health, and you can kill them with just about anything. However, the Aquatoid Technicians, Navigators, and Commanders have Molecular Control (Mind Control) abilities, and the Commanders are very powerful with it.

With that said, I'm curious. Did the Aquatoids use Molecular Control on your agents? What weapons were they using? What weapons were you using?

Last I checked, only Leaders and Commanders had M.C. None of them used it. Small subs usually don't have high rank units, so yeah.

I had Sonic weapons and Plastic Aqua Armor, plus a Coelacanth/Gas Cannon Tank. They had Sonic Rifles and Cannons. Half of my squad and the tank was wasted by two Sonic Pulsers, the rest was just bad luck.

Well, it could have been worse. It could have been ten to twenty Lobstermen and Tentaculats. Yeah, I bet you would need to come loaded for bear on that one!

It seems that the general advice given for Terror From The Deep is to make heavy use of grenades and explosives. Well, it would probably help in taking down large groups of aliens.