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I love X-com but suck balls at it
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Now Jagged Alliance (and JA2) - I was actually able to get someplace with those games. if you got your accuracy and other stats high enough, you almost always could get the first shot (and kill with it). also, treated spectra shields = nigh invulnerable. Automatic weapons fire at point blank range usually just knocked my guys unconscious =p
Really though, if these games were more sandbox/RPGish, they would be perfect. I hate the timer aspect - the fact that, if you don't keep up, you're going to lose... I would love to be able to farm low-end aliens/mercs until my team was buff enough to move on with the game... but the game doesn't stand still long enough for you to do that
I always had a rough time with JA2. It just felt so... overwhelming. It's a great game to be sure, but I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to go through it completely. There's just so much to do and keep track of!
I wish that there was a way to set up a line of territory like in JA, so that you could have militia fight off incoming enemies before they reach the towns where your mercs might be recuperating. Actually, that's mainly because if I choose to simulate the battle, my valuable mercs take WAY too much damage, but if I choose to actually play it out, with my mercs hiding in cover, it takes way too long.
One of the things I like about X-Com is that it is very sandboxy and has RPG elements without being "RPGish"... in particular, "JRPGish". Time moves on and if you don't move with it, too bad. The fact that injured people have to spend time in the hospital means that squeaking out a win is really very momentary; you have to deal with how you're going to handle the next mission, or even weeks of missions, without a bunch of your top guys. I love how it chooses to have these elements of simulation that other games choose not to. And I love how there isn't a generic experience point/level up system.
I don't hate RPGs, but many of the things that make X-Com great to me are simply the things it does that other games do not.
I didn't have any luck. And for some reason I can't get it to work with DosBox either
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
In other words, Fallout Tactics/XCom Apocalypse?
My dream X-Com game:
1. 3-D graphics so I can move the camera around as I please.
2. The ability to SAVE AND LOAD GAMES FROM THE BATTLESCAPE for crying out loud.
3. The Soldiers screen lets me select a standard loadout for my soldiers that they always carry into battle and replenish from stores when they return.
4. A little more control over Reaction movement: I don't just want to be able to take a snap shot at the guy who threw an alien grenade at me, I want to pick up that grenade and throw it back.
5. The ability to order civilians, "Follow me AWAY from the alien monsters and OUT of the line of fire of my guys and INTO the Skyranger where you will be safe and can have tea and crumpets with the pilot."
6. The ability to take scientists and engineers into battle and tell them to do stuff like, "You know that Alien Artefact we just found? Make it work once. I know you'll have to jury-rig it to hell so we won't be able to use it again, and you'll need to take a couple of turns to do it, but damned if I don't want to make that football launcher work after I've seen what it can do."
Stuff like that.
What really sold me on the whole rpg-ish thing was back in the first one, where I had Hurl and... I cant remember. Some Russion guy. Anyways, I knew they didnt like each other but I figured it was just some BS text the threw in... nope. Goto sleep one day (in game) and the next morning, Hurl is gone... and no where to be found.
Its that whole charecter interaction that does it for me, whether its Hurl and his nemesis, or like in the second one when Lynx and Raven are always fighting, or Magic and Ice are always just talking to each other.
God I love this game.
A Stun Rod to the back of the head helps with this problem. :P
Tea and crumpets would make them decidedly less pissed off when they awake.
It's for their own good.
Plus, stocking tea and crumpets in the lander means taking up space that could have been used for more grenades.. . .
It took me far too long to figure out you're talking about Jagged Alliance here. Fuck, now I have to reinstall that, too.
Also Ive wanted better cover systems and suppressive fire, but then i think about how easily the enviroment is destroyed and realize why suppress an enemy behind a wall when i can just blow that wall and shoot them?
Yeah, re-reading I was pretty fucking vague. I had to run off to find my JA2 SE Disc, so my attention to detail was pretty lacking.
Another thing I love about JA2? Making my own character who is ambidexterities and stealthy. Duel silenced pistols, here I come.
I think it might have something to do with the interface being a little more manageable and the ability to raid other corporations at will. The idea of a privately funded armed force that raids the slums for drugs and guns just appeals to me.
Also, that running bomb alien was a bitch!
I always kept hoping for the xenocide project to actually get something done. I loved their weapons artwork and the geoscape looked great. They just never really finished.
I like to use the tanks to guard all of my non-skyranger bases, since they don't have an upkeep cost. They can get stuck inside rooms with the doors too small for them to fit though...
Don't you have to have at least one human guard so as not to lose the base without a fight?
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Hmm that sounds right, I always have a few there anyway now that I think about it. The tanks come in real handy though when your "never been in battle before" Rookies get hit hard with a base assault.
I once watched a friend of mine fight off an invasion of Ethereals and Sectopods with a squad of Laser Tanks and a couple of terrified rookies with stun rods and hand grenades. It was epic. He wound up having to shoot up his base to widen the doors, though
Yeah, I suppose I should've been a little more precise, too.
When I said "RPG", I used it intending the implication of all the taints that it is commonly associated with in gaming.
Really, the thing to drive at is not just "RPG", but simulation, whether they be RPG elements or whatever. Every RPG has characters. Not every RPG has characters that are ostensibly under your control ditching or disobeying your orders or even trying to kill each other because they feel like it.
Jagged Alliance and X-Com do it in ways that other games just don't, and the depth that they've put into there really puts these games a cut above.
What you do is throw them into the skyranger, with a pair of guys with stun rods blocking the exit.
What? You fellas that just woke up want to run screaming into the night? No. Zap. *throw limp person back deeper in the skyranger*
It's totally impractical but it's hilarious.
Bringing stun launchers just for the sake of stunning civilians is fun, too.
It's just that when they go down and a bomb goes off nearby and they die that it's not so cool... for them, anyway.
So, do we need an LP of this game? I'm considering it.
That's brilliant. From now on, my rookies will be trained in strength and throwing accuracy by stunning civilians and tossing them back and forth, then stuffing these unconscious bystanders in their backpacks for good luck.
It's not cool when you're auto-shooting a Snakeman, down it, and one of the extra shots kills a civilian that you can't even see.
THE LAST TWO ALIENS in the whole damn mission are both brain saucers who are both camping in very tiny fucking rooms.
I've only got 4 stun batons between my guys. These fucking brain saucers can take up to 4 hits to kill. I've tried everything up to kamakazi'ing them with primed grenades and getting off as many stun baton hits as possible.
They still fucking live. And it's up there on the high stories so I can't march my cealocanth up there and do business...
I have no idea how I'm going to fucking win this.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
1) prime as many grenades and such as possible
2) salute the brave young victim^h^h^h^h^h^h rookie.
3) have him run screaming up into the tiny fucking room with a stun rod
4) watch him die.
5) watch the explosions
6) ???
7) PROFIT!
Alternatively, I think that eventually the game is programmed so that aliens will stop camping and go on the attack around turn 20. I know that's true for X-Com 1, I'm not sure about TFTD. This might be good or bad, considering that they are, after all, FUCKING BIODRONES
I was hoping someone would volunteer for it. I don't think anyone wants to see my 'haven't played in 4-5 years' noobish ways.
Yeah, the problem is that there's TWO of them. I guess I can try the grenade stacking strategy, but shit.
Biodrones are tremendous assholes. It's odd because sometimes I'm able to one-shot them, and other times.. wtf 4 hits.
My biggest complaint is they have so many fucking time units and their reaction shots are basically unstoppable... arg.
Also, their AI can sense if I'm outside the door they are in. They come right up to the door and POOF. Dead soldiers.
I reloaded about 12 times trying to get just those two... hulahglaga
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
You assume I'll be better
I have some ideas though, like letting people sign up as scientists and engineers as well as soldiers.
Edit: Possible deal breaking technical problems, though. Using the Collector's edition, I got it to launch but some of the colors were messed up. Played with the compatibility settings and got it working - this is only background. I play a bit and get my first mission, land the skyranger, it boots up fine, tank rolls down the ramp, boom, crash to desktop. Anyone familiar with this error and have a solution?
Doesn't happen every time, I ran a terror mission and it worked fine, even though my first guy off the skyranger got shot.
If you do decide to go through with it, I'd be willing to commentate.
Two Battleships landing right outside my base
A FUCKING ALIEN BASE a couple hundred miles away from my main HQ
A base attack on my base full of newbies who had to basically take up stun rods and grenades to defend the base from Sectoids, stealing what weapons they could out of the cold dead corpses of the alien enemy
I'm not sure X-Com would be the best game for video LP since it's slow paced, but maybe commentary would fill the empty spaces.
Maybe I'll do a screenshot update and a video update and take votes on which is preferred. Assuming I get past the technical hurdles, atleast.
I'd be willing to do one.
The problem with X-Com LP though is that there's a high chance that the entire campaign ends up failing.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Base invasions can be good if you are careful. Free corpses and free tech to sell and if you overstock on aquanauts and gear, it's the best numbers advantage you will ever have.
What DOES suck is that you actually found the alien base, because you lose points for every month that thing stays alive.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
As far as co-commentating goes, you can either use something like Teamviewer or you could record the gameplay alone and commentate to a synchronized viewing of it later on.
The latter is much easier, but then I can't give you advice (read: make fun of you after the fact and laugh mercilessly whenever something goes wrong).
I've never even come close to losing a campaign in the original X-Com at least, is it really that hard? I don't cheat by reloading if a mission goes bad either.
Then again, I survived winter in Dwarf Fortress on my first try, so maybe it's just me.
I'll experiment with the DOS version and team viewer I guess.
Edit: On the off chance someone wants to give it a test tonight I'm in the second chat channel on the PA vent server.
Edit2: Yay, it works. Atleast so far.
I seem to have that problem mostly when I've saved and reloaded.
Times how many missions? That seems like a ridiculously long Let's Play to me.