X-com Apocalypse

[michal]

Hello,

What do you think about this game? Clearly, it isn't as popular as x-com 1&2 - for example no one is trying to remake it.

In my opinion, it was pretty nice game, it had nice features (equipping aircrafts with shields, engines, etc). Also factions was interesting idea.

[luciderous]

The game was so-so. Yes, it had many improvements, like polished character stats (+medals, etc), better R&D whatever. But the problem is - it did lose the "magic" of the previous two installments altogether. It is hard to distinguish what to blame in particular - the lack of globe, or distasteful art style, or maybe the aliens that were just too "alien" to my liking in their representation and thus uninspiring - I don't know. Perhaps all those little failures together piled up to what we received as a result.
Anyway, the aforementioned "wow" magic was missing. And that was a good lesson for all "improve-that" devs - don't try to fix what ain't broken. Actually, the only two spiritual X-COM sequels I can almost tolerate today are UFO:Afterlight and UFO:Extraterrestrials. Both with their own pitfalls of course, but that is completely another story.

[SupSuper]

X-Com Apocalypse is interesting and does have a bunch of nice features like the improved battlescape and faction relations and closer cityscape view, but a lot of those things just made it harder for you (pretty easy to get anyone pissed at you) and the bland pre-rendered art style went a long way into making the game lose its charm and feel a lot more boring.

Also I haven't seen anyone try to remake X-Com 2 either so I think fans are just purists.

[pmprog]

The thing that also affected how much I played it was the immense difficulty.

I remember the first mission, coming across a multiworm, after killing it, and instantly under attack from 4 hyperworms, I was pretty stuffed. At least in your first XCOM (1&2) missions you only had 1 or 2 aliens to deal with.

[luciderous]

Also I haven't seen anyone try to remake X-Com 2 either so I think fans are just purists.

BTW, I loved X-COM 2 a lot better than the first part - it was more balanced (no infinite laser weapons), more polished and the overall atmosphere was a lot more creepy. Thus I really hope that in time OpenXCOM will make it possible to play TFTD as well - the engine should be mostly the same anyway. Well, I keep my fingers crossed 

[SupSuper]

Also I haven't seen anyone try to remake X-Com 2 either so I think fans are just purists.

BTW, I loved X-COM 2 a lot better than the first part - it was more balanced (no infinite laser weapons), more polished and the overall atmosphere was a lot more creepy. Thus I really hope that in time OpenXCOM will make it possible to play TFTD as well - the engine should be mostly the same anyway. Well, I keep my fingers crossed  

I already mentioned this elsewhere, but X-COM 1 and 2 are virtually the same so supporting both eventually shouldn't be too hard (also I imagine it'd be a lot more popular without bugs and being able to tweak the extreme difficulty).

[pmprog]

Clearly, it isn't as popular as x-com 1&2 - for example no one is trying to remake it.

You know, that sounds like a challenge. If I've not thought of my next project after finishing Cyborg Cop. I might look into this!

[hsbckb]

My crazy idea is to remake XCOM 3 and make it similar to XCOM 1. The game will have geoscape of the Earth or Mars.
We can tell different stories at the same period of the third game in the same universe.

[battlesquid]

The thing that also affected how much I played it was the immense difficulty.

I remember the first mission, coming across a multiworm, after killing it, and instantly under attack from 4 hyperworms, I was pretty stuffed. At least in your first XCOM (1&2) missions you only had 1 or 2 aliens to deal with.

I feel that's the same "uh-oh" first impression you'd get from zombies/drones in xcom 1/2. The hyperworms are very hard the first few games, then you learn keep some agent with explosives and enough TUs close by at all times in tactical missions. I usually set up groups of three or so in that game, whereas in xcom 1/2 i usually went with groups of two.

[battlesquid]

My crazy idea is to remake XCOM 3 and make it similar to XCOM 1. The game will have geoscape of the Earth or Mars.
We can tell different stories at the same period of the third game in the same universe.

That sounds very fun! The plan for OpenXcom could be to implement XCOM in sequence 1,2,3. Of course, XCOM3 would have to be totally different from what it is today. Here's some of the challenges

• In XCOM3 there's a cityscape (as opposed to geoscape). The last city on the planet actually, as the rest is wasteland
• What about new features like factions, medals, personified scientists?

There are more challenges I'm sure, but I haven't been playing XCOM3 for a while.

Heres some thoughts of how XCOM3 can be compromised into OpenXcom XCOM1/2 style of game:

• Use the geoscape globe, but make large wastelands cover most of the globe. Allow building new bases only in the habitable zones?
• Factions, medals, personified scientists, etc could be added to OpenXcom and "simply" be unused features in XCOM1/2. But I imagine this could become a nest of bugs

Like I said in my crazy-idea-post earlier, I'd like to see XCOM3 features incorporated too. But I think we'll have to be patient. It could be mostly data-changes (like new research tree, etc). Graphics can be produced, but takes a lot of time to get decent set of good quality sprites (eg. every unit has to be made in 5 facings; front, back, side and diagonal front/back). Not to mention the "boring stuff" like walls, roofs, floors, etc.

Anyway, there's so much graphics that would have to be produced in order to do it, so it's IMHO somewhat unlikely this will happen in a long time, if ever...

[battlesquid]

BTW, I loved X-COM 2 a lot better than the first part - it was more balanced (no infinite laser weapons), more polished and the overall atmosphere was a lot more creepy. Thus I really hope that in time OpenXCOM will make it possible to play TFTD as well - the engine should be mostly the same anyway. Well, I keep my fingers crossed  

Yeah, like you could have guessed from my avatar I think TFTD rocks so I hope so too! Would be nice to play a bug free TFTD. I still have to go between the game and utilities to repair bugs sometimes, and admit I frequent this page https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=TRTBAG

[pmprog]

I've been giving it a quick run-through again. Here's a few things I think made the game awkward:

• You have to research then build the bio-module before you can capture any aliens (alive or dead) or alien tech for research. Depending on your staffing, this can make for a slow start. Especially if you're  doing hiring and firing
• Brainsuckers! These are introduced far too early in the game IMO. Especially annoying when they are launched from an Anthropod.
• Maps are not necessarily much larger (though are generally about 8 blocks high, but only contain about 3 floors) but their enclosed nature significantly increases the searching time as you enter and exit rooms. I guess this is hard to argue though, what with alien sightings being in buildings
• Tactical Speed - In UFO/TFTD, you can alter the animation speeds; In Apoc, you are stuck with what they give you, and it's quite slow, even when you set your men to running
• Time controls on Cityscape - The speeds here seem to be 0.5sec, 1sec, 2sec, 5sec, 2hours (embellished a little). Could have done with a better spread (0.5s, 1s, 1m, 30m, 1h, 2h)
• Recon in buildings - If you want to recon a building without an alert being raised (ie, you saw a UFO deposit aliens there), you have to send a vehicle to land at the site, then click the building, select your men and click the go button (can't remember what it's called). I think you should be able to set this feature off from anywhere, and the vehicle can travel

That last one might be a bit nit-picky, but I couldn't remember how you did it and didn't have the manual to hand.

Speed is definately an issue though IMO (generally in relation to tactical mode). I think this combined with the more intense searching makes the game feel long winded.

If I were doing a remake, I'd set (or at least have an option) to prevent brainsuckers from hatching the same turn they were launched.

Heres some thoughts of how XCOM3 can be compromised into OpenXcom XCOM1/2 style of game:

• Use the geoscape globe, but make large wastelands cover most of the globe. Allow building new bases only in the habitable zones?

The only way I could see of pulling that one off, is making it a two-tier geoscape.

Tier 1: Globe - Same as UFO/TFTD; All megacities (or whatever they were called) show as the base markers from UFO/TFTD. Clicking on one goes to Tier 2.
Tier 2: Cityscape - Same as Apoc. When launching vehicles, you see them ala Apoc, once they reach the border of the city they technically transfer to the Tier 1 map

Each tier has a their own set of time controls (T1: 5m, 30m, 1h, 1d, T2: 0.5s, 5s, 10s, 1m, 5m). This gives you the fine level of control when battling UFOs in cityscape, but allows you to pull back when nothing much but research is going on.

You could also generate a "cityscape" of the wilderness should you send craft to intercept UFOs in the Globe view.

I wish I didn't have so many projects I wanted to work on, I could actually do one of them 

[battlesquid]

I too wish a week would have 14 days so I could have time to live my life on 7 of them, and sped 7 to do all kinds of programming projects of my dreams...

Yeah, one of the main grievances of this game is the lengthy searches. Though I'm playing TFTD now and frankly the searching can be quite exhausting in certain missions there too. Like the shipping route attacks for instance.

I agree that gameplay options are good, like in JA2 where you can set some options like "realistic/tons of weapons" and so on.

[hellblade]

This is a must-reply-posts for any x-com fan in my opinion,  

The game was great fun actually.  You just have to forget about X-Com1&2.

You can enjoy the game by ...
1. Ignore fighting missions against aliens because they were boring and the graphics are terrible
2. Ignore the terrible turn-based combat and play real-time instead

So if you want to enjoy it, just kill humans parties instead.  Whether it's massive geoscape wars or massive battlescape firefights.

The most-fun way to play the game for me was ...
1. Carpet bombing from above
V-line of flying soldiers dropping grenades & incendiaries down every square they pass.   Creates spectacular visuals.
2. Have a Crawling row, crouching row, and standing row of soldiers
Each equipped with autocannons (incendiary/explosive) ammos in one hand and machine gun in the other.
Turn soldiers to auto-shots so they miss most of the time.
3.  Let the fire!!!

Trust me, it creates stunning visuals and plenty of adrenaline.

BTW, the computer starting having carpet bombers of their own after a while - proof that it's evolutionary AI DOES exit.

[alienjon]

I think Apoc lost some appeal because it was hard to relate to.  In the first two we were fighting on Earth in the 'present' and near future.  The overarching story wasn't all that strong though, IMO, so when Apoc came into the picture and the whole planet is essentially unlivable I think it's a hard concept to jump to after doing planet-wide protection.  I think I would have rather (or maybe expected) the series to go into more of a: "when humans develop the ability to travel to distant solar systems the come across the origins of the Cydonia aliens and engage them from that vantage point."  X-Com 3 was almost a hokey concoction of Mad Max meets Sim City.