X-COM, XCOM and their derivatives - Including: Xenonauts, Phoenix Point, and assorted tactical turn-based alien shoot-a-thons

[JongleJingle]

Any of y'all hear of an awesome but sadly cancelled game called XCOM: Alliance?

Basically, if you ever wished for an XCOM game in the style of the early Rainbow Six games but with a nice XCOM flourish to it, Alliance was gonna be your game. It would be set a little whiles after TFTD, and had a massive colony ship get lost in deep space. They would then have to fight off the remnant alien forces from the first game, along with some new faces they brought along with them (Cyborg Chryssalids!). Along with that, they team up with a friendly alien species called the Ascidians, and try to fight off the Invaders new plan to defeat earth.

You would have access to all kinds of ramshod but effective guns, including alien ones(!). Armor was pretty much the same as with EU, but speed and strength bonuses as well for the stronger armors (So yes, all your guys could run around in power armor with chainguns). The Aliens got a buff too, with some new friends on their side and nasty new powers as well. Psionics were still in, and got some cool upgrades as well. So yes, everybody in your little 4 man team could be a psychic power armor clad super soldier with a chaingun. Bitchin', huh?

The levels were split between raiding alien ships, going boots on the ground in alien worlds, and finally raiding a massive alien space station with the help of the Ascidians. The game would have multiple endings depending on how you did that final mission/did certain missions. In general the levels would have that classic XCOM atmosphere of sheer terror and badassery, never knowing what could be lurking beyond your eyesight.

The squad commanding system was basically SWAT 4's but a little more primitive (This was running on the first Unreal Engine BTW). You could have your team mates do all sorts of actions, and even without your input they would joke, tell stories and more when things got quiet. AND YES, in combat it's possible for them to freak out from the stress of it all and cause a disaster to happen. YES, your guys could be mind controlled. YOU YOURSELF could be mind controlled. The whole game was gonna feel like a mixture of Aliens and Rainbow Six, with a dollop of XCOM lore and terror to go with.

Sadly, all this cool stuff (Including a dismemberment system(!)) was sent to the shadow realm by the Great Satan Hasbro, who decided to split the team because they didn't understand how video game developers worked. The game could have even come out if certain things had happened even after that, but it was not to be. Now all that remains is a playable one level alpha that is sorta fun to play (Is a bitch to run properly though), news articles and the full design document for the game detailing what would have happened.

You can check out one of the developers website on the matter, it'll detail the whole shebang and below that are the design docs for the game. It always pains me to think about this game because it sounded REALLY cool and could have brought the XCOM series to a new height, but corporate fuckery sent that possible future away. Maybe some day Firaxis will try another shot at something like Alliance in the future... Just don't make it like the Bureau. Nobody liked the Bureau.

 

[A_Callow_Youth]

Speaking of old-school X-Com, does anyone have a list of recommended mods for it?

I only ever played UFO Defense in its original form (warts and old), so I never really looked into its modding scene.


I never actually realised what a big deal with brainsuckers was until I tried playing it fully in turn based. Holy shit the game really transformed from something akin to a John Woo action movie to a horrifying TFTD sequel. Never even got to poppers before I just switched back fully to real time.

Check out OpenXcom. It's a source port that fixes just about all of the old bugs. There's also a fork called OpenXcomExtended, which serves as the primary platform for mods.

 

[L50LasPak]

Speaking of old-school X-Com, does anyone have a list of recommended mods for it?

I only ever played UFO Defense in its original form (warts and old), so I never really looked into its modding scene.

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/board,16.0.html OpenXcom isn't the only game in town but right now its probably the biggest hub of activity. Highlights are XPiratez, The XCOM Files, Warhammer 40k, The Great War of the Worlds, their own Long War and something called the Multimod I haven't read up on fully. Scrolling through forums is kind of a pain though. There's a defunct mod portal that's a bit more user friendly but they had some kind of trouble with viruses, though I never experienced that issue myself.

I just wish there was a modern XCOM game without the brain damage.

I keep plugging XPiratez in the LP thread but it really is the definitive new XCOM experience right now. Its pretty much a tossup between XPiratez and XCOM Files right now since those two are the largest and most ambitious mods. XPiratez does play up the gimmick of having sexy outfits but there's nothing stopping you from just equipping your troops with sensible armor and outfits (once you've researched them, you literally start out as retarded cavemen savages). I haven't gotten the hang of the game's gimmick missions yet but nearly all of the missions in the game have 0 despawn penalty so you can skip them once you get sick of them.

I think the moment I decided I loved the mod was when my group of six pirates stormed out of their stolen minivan in full pirate gear with muskets and one plasma pistol to attack a crackhouse. My lead pirate got charged by a hooker with a shiv and immediately cold-clocked her. The melee system was still new to me, admittedly. It only gets crazier from there.

If you prefer a more serious experience I reccomend you go with The XCOM Files instead. i'm less familar with it so I can't sperg out over it, perhaps @HumanHive can cover me here, but its just as large and ambitious as XPiratez is.

I tried the original after getting them all in a bundle, but they were just a bit too dated and I didn't have the nostalgia to get past that. I absolutely love the concept.

I beg anyone interested in the original UFO Defense to download OpenXcom or OpenXcom EX. I have played the DOS version to completion and you couldn't pay me to go back to it now that OpenXcom exists. Even if you use none of the fancy gimmicks like night vision and a better UI, it still loads and runs so much better than the DOS version. Plus it has support for a wider variety of resolutions, all the way up to 2000x4000 and other insane shit. I just keep mine at 640 because it lowers the file size of the screenshots I'm taking.

 

[TerribleIdeas™]

I own 9 XCOM games, and I think I still have physical media copies of a couple of them, and the only thing that needs to be said is Chimera Squad was mediocre as fuck, not an XCOM game, but entertaining, for all that... and The Bureau needs to be eternally forgotten.

 

[HumanHive]

To explain XCOM Files briefly:

• The game starts in 1997, two years before the alien invasion in 1999
• XCOM doesn’t exist, you’re just a predecessor organization investigating a few global cults and some strange animal reports; desperate for resources and funding.
• The weapons arsenal is vast, ranging from glocks to outdated WW2 weapons to modern rifles to future tech. Also wide range of melee weapons.
• You can recruit military dogs, very useful for tracking down hidden opponents and biting their asses to death.
• New types of missions, such as “kidnap and interrogate civilians who witnessed a UFO landing” to “infiltrate a secret cult meeting at a beach/ski resort”.
  
  Now, when it comes to spoilers... I won’t tell, but let’s just say theres more than just the aliens operating out of Mars to deal with. Way more. It’s a vast game.

 

[Twitter Hate Mob]

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/board,16.0.html OpenXcom isn't the only game in town but right now its probably the biggest hub of activity. Highlights are XPiratez, The XCOM Files, Warhammer 40k, The Great War of the Worlds, their own Long War and something called the Multimod I haven't read up on fully. Scrolling through forums is kind of a pain though. There's a defunct mod portal that's a bit more user friendly but they had some kind of trouble with viruses, though I never experienced that issue myself.

How does the 40k mod stack up against Chaos Gate, which was basically an X-Com clone which was actually pretty good (and had a brilliantly fitting soundtrack of Latin chanting nonsense)

 

[Judge Dredd]

So, what's the difference between X-Com and XCOM?

The hyphen.

I assume XCOM 2 is not better in that regard and therefore it's not very high on my game-TODO-list.

I recommend playing on easy because too many units have instant wipe RNG.

eg. Early on you fight guys with stun batons. On normal+ they run out of the fog, and ko a guy in one hit. This causes everyone to panic, losing their turn, allowing him to stun another on the next turn, causing panic. Repeat until the mission is over.

On easy, because RNG isn't weighted against you, it's not a problem because they might miss, they might not stun, the squad might not panic.

That or I'm just a scrub and shouldn't play these games.

XPiratez

I looked it up based on you recommending it during the lets play, and was surprised to see it's skimpy anime pirates running around topless.


Time for my powerlevel rant when it comes to UFO vs. EU, and why I prefer nuXcom over the old.

UFO falls alongside those nostalgic classics like Deus Ex and Thief where any criticism is written off, and any modern games are shit on for no reason other than to defend the honour of 30 year old games.

I could never get into UFO because of the clunky UI and never getting a chance to figure out what I was doing wrong. My team would step out of the dropship and get sniped from the fog over and over. I know that's the meme, but as I new player, getting screwed over by RNG over and over and over and over while I try to figure out a clunky interface? No thanks.

One of the reasons I prefer EU/EW is they get rid of all the redundant crap. Assigning guys ammo for their weapons isn't a strategic choice, it's busywork. Managing multiple bases? Same thing. EU tried to make each choice important, which I liked. I also liked the smaller squad sizes. Heresy, I know, but I prefer knowing what a few guys are doing instead of spending half my time herding idiots. It has some flaws. The lack of multiple UFOs, the limited number of maps, etc.

Xcom 2 has the most play time for me because of one feature. Character pool. Basically. you create custom characters like a wrestling game or The Sims, and during a campaign they can appear randomly in whatever roles you assign. It takes the "get your friends and favourite characters killed" and spreads it over the entire campaign.

Spoiler: The derivatives

I had fun with UFO:AI, a 3D open source remake I played back in the day. I wonder if I should go back and replay it? I wanted to try Xenonaughts, but it stuck too close the UFO for me to move away from EU. I might grab it on sale, or just wait for the sequel.

I enjoyed UFO Afterlight, but the combat was clunky and a bug stopped me from finishing the game. The premise of being a colony ship to Mars with no possibility of back up put me off at first, but after playing it I think it makes more sense than trying to defend the globe. It also explains the plot holes Xcom struggles with like why don't the aliens send in the big guns sooner. You're fighting small fry that stumble across your buildings, and only start getting mad once you're terraforming efforts start causing problems. They are also pre-occupied with another war you don't find out about until later. And because the base is about 6 people and others need to time to defrost, it makes sense why you have to manually assign people to make ammo and individually pack your soldiers lunch box. There aren't enough idle hands, and every day spent making ammo is a day they aren't building radar arrays or terraforming machines.

Omerta: City of Gangsters was bad and I wouldn't recommend it.

I have Phantom Doctrine. Never played it. I have Mechanicus. Never played it. I've not played Empire of Sin and don't own it.

I don't know if Valkyria Chonicles counts. It was good when it came out on PS3 years ago. I've not played the sequels. I do own Valkyria Chronicles 4 though.

I played Rebel Star for about 5 minutes on emulator years ago. I did play that Ghost Recon game Julian Gallop made for 3DS. It's okay, but I got bored close to the end.

If you can't tell, I loved nuXcom and wanted more, but everything went on the "play it later" pile that I never got back to.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Since the derivatives were mentioned, has anyone else played Abomination: The Nemesis Project? That one was a jankfest and a half, but I still had fun with how ridiculously silly it was. I was way into Apocalypse at the time, and Abomination's real-time combat felt right at home back then.

 

[JongleJingle]

Since the derivatives were mentioned, has anyone else played Abomination: The Nemesis Project? That one was a jankfest and a half, but I still had fun with how ridiculously silly it was. I was way into Apocalypse at the time, and Abomination's real-time combat felt right at home back then.

I just searched this up, and I DIG the aesthetics of this. Is the game itself any good?

 

[Corn Flakes]

I just searched this up, and I DIG the aesthetics of this. Is the game itself any good?

Unfortunately, it's kind of crap. I found it entertaining back in the day, and I would recommend it, but I would warn against taking it seriously at all. I don't even know if it runs on modern systems.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I really want to get into XCOM, but I have next to zero experience with strategy games in general so I end up getting overwhelmed by the mechanics. There's so much micromanagement it makes my head spin. Plus my inexperience leads to me making stupid decisions during actual gameplay. I remember playing my first non-scripted level in nuCOM and completely fucking it up.

I think next time I give it a try I'm gonna play on Easy.

 

[AmpleApricots]

I remember playing the original (called "Enemy Unknown" and not "Defense" in my parts, think I still have the floppy disks) and having for some reason some races just never show up in my game. Ethereals come to mind, but I think I remember a very weird game I once had where things started off with Floaters and Sectoids never showed up. Might've been a fever dream tho. This could get you into trouble as you'd lack important research later. A friend of mine played this game so much he could beat it blind on highest difficulty. Never could get into the second one, it just didn't feel right, like a lazy palette swap. I really liked Apocalypse although it got sort of shit on because of all the stuff that was cut out of it for release. A pro tip for apocalypse is observing where the UFOs beam down the aliens and directly send your troops to investigate that building, it'll be a big fight as there will be lots of aliens but if you win you can literally stop the invasion force and have complete quiet until the next attack.

The enemy AI was supposed to learn from your playstyle as you play along and save it's learnings into a specific file and I remember the manual even mentioned which file to copy to share with friends or "backup the AI". I don't think that ever worked or did anything.

I never played the new ones. You know, been there, done that. It might just be my age but for some games, I find complicated 3D graphics actually distracting and prefer simpler but efficient graphics. Throw all the 3D shit and effects you can at me in some game like GTA, but a tactical/strategy game? Simple 2D isometric/top-down graphics please.

Anyone remember that god awful "Wing Commander-clone" game? X-Com: Interceptor? What were they even thinking?

 

[TheRatcatcher]

So far I have XCOM 2 with all the dlc and I plan on going through it vanilla.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I really want to get into XCOM, but I have next to zero experience with strategy games in general so I end up getting overwhelmed by the mechanics. There's so much micromanagement it makes my head spin. Plus my inexperience leads to me making stupid decisions during actual gameplay. I remember playing my first non-scripted level in nuCOM and completely fucking it up.

I think next time I give it a try I'm gonna play on Easy.

The advice, even if you play on Easy, is to live with mistakes. I don't mean playing iron man. If you have a full wipe, by all means reload a save, but if you lose a guy or a nation leave, tough it out. It's not a game that requires a perfect run, and you're almost always short of resources to do what you want. It's all about hard trade offs, and what you need vs what you want.

 

[Considered HARMful]

Since the derivatives were mentioned, has anyone else played Abomination: The Nemesis Project? That one was a jankfest and a half, but I still had fun with how ridiculously silly it was. I was way into Apocalypse at the time, and Abomination's real-time combat felt right at home back then.

Played it a lot, even finished the extended campaign. I liked the lovecraftian lore and aesthetics, especially the monsters were top notch, complete with very "ew" descriptions of their dissections. The mission when you stop fighting the human cultists and encounter the monsters for the first time is introduced masterfully. At that moment, your squad is mostly still green and underequiped, you barely stand your ground against cultists and then you get punched in the gut with a wholly different and very deadly menace.

I liked the ammo management and the need to scavenge the battlefield for equipment and ammo.

What was meh in the game: I didn't really care much about the special powers of Nemesis Project members, maybe aside from the healing. I just didn't use them at all.

Also, in my opinion, the bizarre organic growths on the battlefield should be introduced in the game gradually, as the infestation progresses in the city. So for the first week there would be no growth, civilians staying in their homes or walking normally on the street etc. Second week: first outgrowths emanating from sewers and suburban gardens, some damage to homes and cars (bullet holes, explosion damage) due to fighting and madness and so on.

I might have an ISO file of the game on some old HDD if anyone wants it.

 

[Activelo]

the only thing that needs to be said is Chimera Squad was mediocre as fuck, not an XCOM game, but entertaining

I would like to point out that Chimera Squad had the balls to canonize viper brothels.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

I am the only person in the world that played The Bureau

AMA

 

[TerribleIdeas™]

Are you the most autistic person on KF?

 

[A_Callow_Youth]

I looked it up based on you recommending it during the lets play, and was surprised to see it's skimpy anime pirates running around topless.

Yeah, Piratez' aesthetic presents a pretty high barrier to entry, but it really is so much more than Tits: the Mod. Yes, running around half- (or fully-)naked is a thing you can have your troops do, but that doesn't make it a good idea outside of a very few and very specific situations. The thing that makes Piratez so special is the way it scales: you start with six girls in a stolen car, and by the end you're firing off tactical nukes for suppressing fire as your troops disembark. It's one of the richest tactical experiences out there, but first you have to take the leap of faith that the guy telling you about it isn't just trying to get you to play a porn mod.

I could never get into UFO because of the clunky UI and never getting a chance to figure out what I was doing wrong. My team would step out of the dropship and get sniped from the fog over and over. I know that's the meme, but as I new player, getting screwed over by RNG over and over and over and over while I try to figure out a clunky interface? No thanks.

You've actually just hit on what I consider to be one of the most fascinating elements of game design as well as something that fandoms regularly fail to pick up on: the bullshit element. In short, military-themed games tend to exist on a spectrum that I'm going to call Competitive to Simulation. Extreme competitive gamers rankle at anything that seems out of their direct ability to influence, while extreme simulationists argue that the notion of "shit happens" is an integral part of conveying the concept of war. You mentioned mistakes talking to Duncan, but the thing is that a lot of the time in OldCom, it's not a mistake: people are going to die through no fault of your own. That's war, and that's X-Com, baby. NuCom leans much more heavily towards the competitive angle, cutting out much of the bullshit factor, and that in turn is the cause of the massive divide you see in the community between the two eras.

For actual practical advice, though: get OpenXcom, because it provides a few things that help with the UI, and spend the first turn throwing a smoke grenade down the Skyranger ramp: it will both provide concealment as you disembark, and the aliens won't have full TUs because they've been moving around on their turn, resulting in less reaction fire.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Piratez' aesthetic presents a pretty high barrier to entry, but it really is so much more than Tits: the Mod.

I didn't mean it as a criticism. If anything, it's a selling point. I was just surprised because tactical game communities, and old PC game communities, are usually quite prudish, so seeing both communities embrace Xpirates is a surprise.

You mentioned mistakes talking to Duncan, but the thing is that a lot of the time in OldCom, it's not a mistake: people are going to die through no fault of your own. That's war, and that's X-Com, baby.

Yes, but-

There are problems with arguing about simulation over gameplay. I know this sounds obvious, but people only like realism when it suits them. Would a soldier go into the field without ammo and never mention it to anyone? Would an unarmed dropship land in the middle of a group of hostiles when they could land just down the street and have the men walk? (Like how EU does it.) Why can't you call in air support? Why can't you look out the window of the dropship to get general layout of the land while on approach? Is suppression in the game? Melee combat? All these things should be options in a simulation.

But I'm not arguing for that stuff to be in the game. I bring it up because of all the flaws and abstraction, I think an option to not get destroyed first turn of the first combat would be nice. It's like how Fallout 2 starts off with that temple dungeon everybody hates.

I stick to newer games. Not just Enemy Unknown, but UFO:AI and UFO Afterlight. At least in those games I have the chance to figure out what the buttons do before my men get massacred. Maybe I should read the manual if I ever do play UFO again. Maybe it was just bad luck or younger me was an idiot.

Oddly enough, the lets play of Xpirates I watched, the early game has you fighting 4 delivery guys armed with sticks, and another mission was recusing a character from a giant cockroach.