Do any of you guys remember this game? The original? With Sectoids and Floaters and Mutons? (Oh my!) Well, I recently started playing it again… I’m currently working on blaster bombs, and already have flying suits and heavy plasma rifles.
I still remember my favorite “tactics”…
Using a blaster to rip a hole open in the top of a UFO, followed by more bombs or a grenade, and then sending my squaddies with flying suits in.
Using Psi weapons and marching all the aliens around in formation. (And maybe one just happens to drop a live grenade.)
Does anybody else have fond memories of sending your commander stepping around a corner, only to jump out of your chair when he gets shot at or finds himself standing next to a Chrysalid?
Is anybody else playing classic games lately?
(I also pulled out Buzz Aldrin’s Race Into Space…)
I seem to love the classic games more than a lot of the fancier new ones.
I have a color GameBoy that I don’t think has ever had anything but Tetris in it. In my nifty high-tech Playstation 2 right now I have “Namco Museum”, a collection of vintage 1983 games (my favorite: Dig-Dug), and if you and your friends ever are stuck in the house on a rainy day there’s nothing better than a vintage 1982 Atari 2600 with a “Combat” cartrage in it and a box of cheap wine.
X-Com totally rocked. I have the third installment lying around here somewhere and still haven’t played it though. It would not run on the integrated video card in my PC. I got a new video card a couple weeks ago though. Guess what I’m going to do! Thanks for the reminder. Woohoo !
I am the Dig-Dug master. The movie theater here just got a new version of Dig-Dug (part of an arcade game with dig-dug, pacman, and some racing game), and i cannot resist it’s siren song. At least that game is still only a quarter! (as opposed to the $1.00 for the star wars games)
Now if you excuse me, i gotta drop the rock on some pokeys and frygars to gets me the carrot for high score…
One great thing about classic computer games is that over time they become available on smaller and smaller platforms. I used to have a version of Joust on my HP48 calculator (until that calculator got stolen ) I played that all the time…
I am completely in LOVE with my M.A.M.E. emulator progra, that lets me play classic arcade games on my PC.
What really amazes me is that a lot of pretty ancient games are more playable than some of the crap that comes out these days. One of my favorites is the old “Lunar Lander” from 1979. My wristwatch could probably run that game by now, but it’s simple, playable, addictive, and quite challenging.
God I loved that game. They really needed to make some psy-proof aliens, though. I remember that by the time I reached the last mission of the game that my guys didn’t have to fire a single shot to pass the mission. (Them mind-contolled, blaster-bomb-carrying aliens, on the other hand…)
Never got too far into X-Com: Armageddon, though. The aliens were kinda dorky looking. That and the fact that I lost it combined for a short-lived love affair. (Story of my life. :rolleyes: )
But, damn, that was a good game. That and the original Populous.
Just beat Dragon Warrior 1 last night. RPGs these days are too easy. When I was growing up, you didn’t have any of this “no random encounter” stuff. And you didn’t save on the world map, no sirree! You had to get to a castle and talk to the king to save. Fighting monsters the whole way! And then, when you got there, sometimes the king wouldn’t let you save anyway, out of spite!
… you know, now that I think about it, it doesn’t sound that good, does it? I grew up on Dragon Warrior. But it seems like no one in America likes it but me. So maybe it has a weak plot and bad graphics. It has slimes, darn it!
XCom rocks! I wish they’d make a newer version of it with the same gameplay but 1) beautiful graphics and 2) more than 2 music tracks. (And no, XCOM:Terror from the Deep didn’t count.)
Unfortunately, the “remade” games we get these days either 1) turn everything into a “Quake” clone, or 2) just plain suck.
My wife makes fun of me for plaing old games, but I ignore her.
[hijack] Classic game lovers, what newer games do you think are “good” based on the sort of things we love about old games? The only one I can think of off-hand is Final Fantasy 7, but that’s not that new anymore…[/hijack]
What, you mean you didn’t like the “we’re still using spear guns (or whatever water-based weapon) on dry land” aspect? Or did you find yourself screaming “we’re fighting on land, where’s my heavy plasma!” over and over? Yeah, crappy game, that.
To be honest, I’m not sure what I loved about the old games, but of the newish games that I love as much as X-Com, there’s Worms (also kind of oldish, excepting its newer incarnations), Starcraft, Final Fantasy Tactics, and the Madden football games.
Funny… I was just going to start a new game of X-com here.
I think that most of the fun happens at the beginning when you’ve got dick for weapons and a squad of rookies.
I too use the tactic of blowing the top off UFO’s and then sending my troops in.
Can’t write anymore… gonna get that game going before I hit the sack.
The oldest game I still play on a regular basis is Doom… and I downloaded the Legacy Upgrade that vastly improves gameplay (it allows you to JUMP! Wow!)
That said, however, I love to load up an old Emulator and play the original Zelda, Final Fantasy, or - yes! - even Dragon Warrior!
X-Com was one of the games, far as I’m concerned. Shame about all the sequels.
Good tactics for long-range survival:
As often as possible, do not shoot the UFOs down–put the interceptor on do-not-engage-but-follow, minimize its window and get the Skyranger targetting it. Do this in the proper sequence, and the troops’ll land when the UFO itself does. You gain more alien technology per mission and, more importantly, a steady supply of E-115 if you can do it consistently. (When you just knock them out of the sky, they tend to lose power supplies, which means no elerium, which is lifeblood itself in late game).
Hire excess troops, and until you get a psi-lab, practice truly ruthless natural selection. Soldiers who ever fall under alien psychic control, kill them immediately (or fire them once back at base, either way). The ones who just are prone to panic, though, I tend to keep a couple around, rename to PsiBait, and arm only with stun rods. Use them to scout ahead, flush out the enemy, open up doors first, etc. The aliens always seem to turn their evil mind powers on the weak-willed first, so carry them as sacrificial lambs.
A whole bunch of engineers cranking out certain items (motion detectors are good at the beginning) will keep you profitable and operating well in the black even when half the nations in the world have long since been infiltrated and pulled all funding. With this in mind, I don’t care at all about civillians on terror site missions. If there’s any left alive at the end of the sweep, that’s fine, but the squad isn’t going to put itself in danger for them.
When things are really going my way at the end of the game, I like to do a mission or two with everyone just loaded down with as many blaster bombs as they can carry, and simply level the entire map.
The original designers of X-Com were working on a project called Dreamland Chronicles, which sounded to be shaping up to be the true spiritual successor to the original game. Last I’d heard though, the project got canceled, which saddens me greatly. Still, the original runs quite well even on my third computer in its lifetime (thank god it’s turn-based, and time doesn’t advance while you’re in base screen, because the geoscape just flies by now).
A classic I’m playing right now is “The Colossal Cave Adventure”. I’ve got it ported to my Palm III running the Palm Frotz emulator and it runs great. I’m about 2/3 way through it now. All of the classic text adventures rocked.
I found that the geoscape moved too fast on my Pentium II 266, so I’ve been using Moslo (a little DOS utility to slow your computer down). Now I can rotate the globe without it spinning wildly out of control. And I actually have time to intercept the alien ships.
I would hope that the Windows versions have some sort of speed control built in.
What I liked about “old” games is that the game plan would develop consistently and intelligently over the course of a game. XCOM, for example, featured a change in strategy and scope as you developed new technologies and the alien invasion picked up the pace (Starcraft is similar). Classic RPGs like Zelda or Final Fantasy had slews of power-ups/items that kept the game freshm and challenged you until the end.
[FFT]And Final Fantasy Tactics (my FAVORITE game): excellent story, music, complicated and engaging gameplay, pretty graphics. When the hell are they going to reprint that game so I don’t have to pay $80 on ebay for it? [/FFT]
“new” games spend most money/time on graphics and bells and whistles, with the result being that games are 1) shorter, generally, and 2) more repetitive.
Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor, where did you get the Win98 versions? At an actual IRL store or downloaded? A search at microprose returned nothing about Xcom. I must have them! It’s the stupid integrated sound card,esssolo1,that won’t let me play apocolypse and now I’m totally itching for some bug hunting.
Windows 98 compatible version? Not requiring moslo, and no problems with modern sound or video cards?! AND ONLY $10 FOR ALL THREE?!
I have a goal in life. Previously, it was to get married, raise a family, and die a happy man. Now, it is to get X-Com working on my 933Mhz machine without a) messing with MoSlo b) struggling with archaic sound drivers c) wanting to shoot myself in the head.
And a few comments on Drastic’s strategies…
The natural selection for psi-resistent soldiers is a MUST. Very few things are more frustrating than your Commander being sent on a mission for morale issues, and having him get shot with heavy plasma on auto fire in the back from a rookie with no psi defense. (It’s also somewhat depressing when you finally get a Psi-Lab, and check the stats on your existing troops. Several times I’ve sniffled sadly as I retired experienced soldiers who were just incapable of fending off a psi-attack.
Engineers cranking out certain items for cash is a great idea. You’re paying them per day, so you want some return on your investment. However, most items will still result in a net loss of cash (but better than letting them sit idle). Pound for pound, though (er, man-hour per man-hour), your best bet is … FUSION BALL LAUNCHER! Build 'em and sell 'em. They don’t take Elerium to build, they sell for about a quarter-million apiece (IIRC - it’s been five+ years since I’ve played) and they’ve got the best profit-to-time ratio of any product in the game.
Frustration with aliens can easily be remedied by sending in a full squad. Two people armed with blaster bomb launchers, and another dozen or so as ammo carriers. Tearing a UFO apart, ripping holes in all the walls, shattering the ceiling, etc, is very theraputic. (Note: this also works for terror missions when a civilian is hit by a Chrysalid, who then attacks and kills your best soldier. Scorch the entire town.)
) I played that all the time…
I grew up on Dragon Warrior. But it seems like no one in America likes it but me.