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Good X-COM/JA2/7.62/UFO Aftershock-likes?
Sorenson
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I just finished off a round of Apocalypse after remembering that I had a game in progress from about six months ago, and now I've got a craving for more anti-alien-invasion tactical and strategic combat, though I'm not looking for just any old anti-alien-invasion tactical and strategic combat game. When I think "X-COM", there are a few things that strike me as absolutly essential and central to their nature:
A) Extensive research and development capabilities: to me, few things match the levels of joy I feel whenever I break through the scientific barriers of my enemies and of our own imagination, and the only thing better is having factories churning out weapons of awesome destruction and tools to give me that vital edge over the alien invaders. Deep and detailed research trees and the ability to produce and utilize a wide variety of useful and devestating items of friend and foe alike are definetily what I would consider part of the X-COM spirit.
Wide-ranging scope of conflict: Fighting the enemy on the ground is all well and good, but being able to blow them out of the sky before they can even touch down is better. From dinky little scouts and probes to huge, lumbering, death-ray-spewing battleships and destroyers, an invading alien force will have an extrordinary array of craft to lay siege and conduct their nefarious operations with, and so must those who stand between earth and her assailants. While admitably not too many games include both squad and vehicle-based combat and all the intricacies involved in such, having both would certainely be nice.
C) Equal-opprotunity rape: One thing that's been both a boon and a bane to the X-COM genre is the ability for the balance of power to shift horrifically in in either direction, and indeed in the beginnings that balance usually lies a good deal towards the "alien" end of the spectrum; even when you start catching up, at least a few times over the course of the game the enemy will whip out some new unit or device that completily changes the course of the war, though if you're able to hold out and scrape by you'll eventually be able to both balance out the enemy's advance and then pay them back in full with a few ludicrously-powerful tricks of your own. Powergaming in this genre is quite grand, even if it's being done by your enemy.
Although there's ONE additional thing that I require of any titles suggested by you fine folk:
D) Real-Time: I can understand that some folks are quite fond-to-fanatical of the old-school turn-based system from the originals, but while I miss many of the staples of X-COM and its child games, three-hours combat missions that only end after finding an alien locked in a bathroom ain't one of them. The times have changed and with it technology, and folks want their games with variable speeds that they can control with shit happening all at once.
Stuff I already know about or have:
Abomination: The Nemesis Project (It's...interesting, I'll say that, though I lost my drive to play it a while ago)
UFO: Aftermath/Aftershock/Afterlight (Mediocre but base-setting/One of my favorite PC games/A step down from Aftershock and was all right until I hit a game-stopping bug)
UFO: Extraterrestrials (asides from the real-time caveat, I gave this a whirl a good while ago and just didn't like the taste it left me with)
So, anything recent or radar-underflying to sate my hunger for alien invading genocide and defense/liberation of terra-firma?
EDIT: OK, I'm getting the message loud and clear that on the manner of an X-COM-like game I'm fucked. Doesn't help with the itch, though. I'll check out Jagged Alliance 2 like some of you've been suggesting, but I'm still lookin' for other suggestions - what about squad-based games where you build yourself an arsenal out of the booty taken from your enemies, starting off with a ragtag team of mercenaries or whatever until you're matching army units and the like? Bonus points if there's some kind of mercantile system and if it doesn't pigeonhole you into a set series of missions, like the interesting-but-apparently-horrifically-buggy 7.62 I saw being put through an SA LP - and I'm still hopin' for realtime!
A) Extensive research and development capabilities: to me, few things match the levels of joy I feel whenever I break through the scientific barriers of my enemies and of our own imagination, and the only thing better is having factories churning out weapons of awesome destruction and tools to give me that vital edge over the alien invaders. Deep and detailed research trees and the ability to produce and utilize a wide variety of useful and devestating items of friend and foe alike are definetily what I would consider part of the X-COM spirit.
Wide-ranging scope of conflict: Fighting the enemy on the ground is all well and good, but being able to blow them out of the sky before they can even touch down is better. From dinky little scouts and probes to huge, lumbering, death-ray-spewing battleships and destroyers, an invading alien force will have an extrordinary array of craft to lay siege and conduct their nefarious operations with, and so must those who stand between earth and her assailants. While admitably not too many games include both squad and vehicle-based combat and all the intricacies involved in such, having both would certainely be nice.C) Equal-opprotunity rape: One thing that's been both a boon and a bane to the X-COM genre is the ability for the balance of power to shift horrifically in in either direction, and indeed in the beginnings that balance usually lies a good deal towards the "alien" end of the spectrum; even when you start catching up, at least a few times over the course of the game the enemy will whip out some new unit or device that completily changes the course of the war, though if you're able to hold out and scrape by you'll eventually be able to both balance out the enemy's advance and then pay them back in full with a few ludicrously-powerful tricks of your own. Powergaming in this genre is quite grand, even if it's being done by your enemy.
Although there's ONE additional thing that I require of any titles suggested by you fine folk:
D) Real-Time: I can understand that some folks are quite fond-to-fanatical of the old-school turn-based system from the originals, but while I miss many of the staples of X-COM and its child games, three-hours combat missions that only end after finding an alien locked in a bathroom ain't one of them. The times have changed and with it technology, and folks want their games with variable speeds that they can control with shit happening all at once.
Stuff I already know about or have:
Abomination: The Nemesis Project (It's...interesting, I'll say that, though I lost my drive to play it a while ago)
UFO: Aftermath/Aftershock/Afterlight (Mediocre but base-setting/One of my favorite PC games/A step down from Aftershock and was all right until I hit a game-stopping bug)
UFO: Extraterrestrials (asides from the real-time caveat, I gave this a whirl a good while ago and just didn't like the taste it left me with)
So, anything recent or radar-underflying to sate my hunger for alien invading genocide and defense/liberation of terra-firma?
EDIT: OK, I'm getting the message loud and clear that on the manner of an X-COM-like game I'm fucked. Doesn't help with the itch, though. I'll check out Jagged Alliance 2 like some of you've been suggesting, but I'm still lookin' for other suggestions - what about squad-based games where you build yourself an arsenal out of the booty taken from your enemies, starting off with a ragtag team of mercenaries or whatever until you're matching army units and the like? Bonus points if there's some kind of mercantile system and if it doesn't pigeonhole you into a set series of missions, like the interesting-but-apparently-horrifically-buggy 7.62 I saw being put through an SA LP - and I'm still hopin' for realtime!
Sorenson on
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Really, that whole niche was largely only ever the realm of the X-com games. Other games have different aspects of it, but I can't think of any that match all of them but with just a different setting.
JA2 is turn-based while in contact with enemies. Missions are in real-time movement before you encounter enemies, and any time you've gone X turns without any visual contact or hearing an enemy nearby. It's really a nice balance that cuts way down on overall mission length.
Yeah but you still have the aforementioned problem of sometimes hunting down the last dude on the map who's hiding in a broom closet or something. It doesn't take as long though.
Plus there's no real research or new units. It's mainly you upgrading your squad's skills and finding (and buying in) new equipment. There's a meta-game in that you can manage multiple squads (hiring, firing, training) and you're also doing things like capturing and defending towns and strategic points, and training militia's. But there's no events like researching a new technology and putting it into action to devastate the enemy, or having the enemy come at you with a completely new unit and strategy. For the most part the change in gameplay is the changing difficulty and AI of the human adversaries you face. I'm not sure that's what he's after.
And God help you if you leave the Drassen mine event on (it is on default). Sweet mercy.
Here's an awesome lets play of JA2, 1.13.
http://www.letsplayarchive.com/
Is that the
event you're talking about? Actually if there were more game changing events like that (that one really forces a change in tactics whilst it's on), JA2 sounds more and more like it'd be ideal for him.
Also, I never played the fan-patch, so I can't really say anything about that. I enjoyed the game a tonne as it was, but I didn't really want to make it harder.
When the event is disabled, the mine still gets attacked, but by groups of around 15 or so.
Project Xenocide
and
UFO: Alien Invasion
Granted they've been under development for years and are still under development (UFO:AI is very playable though), but they're the closest to XCOM that you'll get with "modern" games.
It is the most evil event. I left it on and did a test, started the game with the shop fully open and a few million dollars. I had 2 full squads of mercs and had covered the map edges in mines. I wasted several hours just laying the mines. Set up my guys with sniper rifles and heavy machine guns backed with mortars and a quick reaction squad with assault rifles/smgs. All in the best armor I could buy and loaded down with ammo and hand grenades. And I trained up as much militia as I could before they attacked.
Two hours later I had killed at least 50 elites and 20 redshirts. The militia had died within 3 turns, inflicting maybe one loss. Mines seemed to be rather ineffective. One machine gunner killed a good twenty enemies (burning through a good 500 bullets) before a cheeky elite pulled out an RPG and (literally) incinerated him.
My snipers were running out of ammunition, most guys were wounded, a few were face down in a cloud of mustard gas, my quick reaction squad had gotten pinned near the mine office and decimated, my mortar men were out of shells and helping patch up the wounded.
And they were still coming.
I was going to say that!
Anyway, it has a demo so you have no excuse to not try it!
After the X-com series they went on to develop Nemesis, which is like a play by e-mail tactical game.
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UFO: AI is pretty good, if a bit unfinished. What kills it for me is the lack of destructible terrain. X-COM had that in 1993, and its integral to the tactical gameplay. Its a problem with the engine they've chosen, so it's not going to get fixed either. Its a shame, because its really better than anything else we have at the moment.
Also it's not really what the OP is looking for because it is purely an online head to head game with no carryover between matches. In fact, looking over the OPs criteria it fails to meet A, B, C or D.
It is however, a fantastic game that is strategically rich.
Oh, it also requires a fee to play, which is pretty bogus.
Few things are more awesome than having enough ordnance to bring down entire houses. You see, this neatly solves the problem of that last guy hiding in a closet somewhere. What, we know he's in there? He could get an interrupt when you open the door?
Yes I think we may have a solution to that problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42j_czj27nE
Then come back and figure out the other suggestions.
p.s. Not at all attempting to hijack the thread! Just looking for a quick response or two.
X-Com: UFO Defense
why the OP just doesn't play that makes me wonder :P
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I have seen the demo of X-COM and really like it. I was wondering to play exactly like that. I will try to keep it as soon as possible. I think it will really interesting and mind testing game. I will have to keep at medium level for some time.
Isn't X-Com: UFO Defense Gold free on Fileplanet? I remembering getting it from there before.
Like has been mentioned before it is completely baffling how these X-com clones do not take all the features from X-Com. X-Com really is the sum of it's parts and to remove one of those parts make the whole thing feel sub par.
It has R&D, "destructible" terrain (buildings only), it's in real-time, and I guess it works great in Dosbox.
Also I'm nth-ing JA2 v1.13. . . it's especially great when you eventually get your hands on mortars. . . hauling the enemies' asses by alternating HE with mustard gas shells feels good man.
Whatever came of that?
Well I meant more that the graphics were dated and the game itself would be pretty hard to find anywhere, let alone run.
With how highly Xcom is held in esteem by a lot of gamers, you'd think companies would be a little more enthusiastic about making more games like it.
Yeah, it's like the game is already there. All they have to do is slap some new graphics and a bit of polish on it and they already have tons of customers.
But yeah, start off with the original X-COM, then if you liked what you got go and pick up Apocalypse: some people swear by Terror From The Deep but others think it's a shitty Madden'd reskin with bullshit fake difficulty, and Interceptor goes all Wing Commander and from what I understand has minimal base management and research stuff. Enforcer does not exist.
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I think you can appreciate it a lot more if you just accept it for what it is: a neat expansion designed to bump up the challenge for people who had tired of the original and give the theme an interesting new twist. It's pretty cool from that angle.
But then, I'm biased. The PS1 edition of TFtD was what brought me into X-COM in the first place.
Of course, I boost gunshot damage by 55% and explosion damage by 100% to make it more realistic.
Seriously.
Shit, you could probably do it as a Unreal/Source mod, charge $50, and I'd still buy it twice.
Heh, I'll periodically load up my JA2 1.13 save and just teleport my guys into the main city for some firefighting.
TL;DR: I'm a cheap whore who will buy any SRPG.