Let's Play: X-COM - UFO Defense

MEMO

TO: Commander-in-Chief, UN Peacekeeping Division Extraterrestrial Combat Unit [CINCXCOM]

FROM: UNINTCOM-SPC

Commander:

BACKGROUND

Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have started appearing with disturbing regularity in the night skies. Reports of violent human abductions and horrific experimentation had struck terror into the hearts of millions. Mass public hysteria has only served to expose Earth's impotence against a vastly superior technology.



On December 11, 1998, representatives from the world's most powerful counties gathered secretly in Geneva. After much debate, they decision was made to establish a covert independent body to combat, investigate, and defeat the alien threat. The organization would be equipped with the world's finest pilots, soldiers, scientists, and engineers, working together as one multi-national force.

This organization was named the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit.



OBJECTIVES

Your mission is to:

(1) Prevent the further loss of life resulting from alien incursion;
(2) Determine the source of the alien threat; and
(3) Eliminate it with all possible speed.

ORDERS

You have been granted a starting budget of $6,000,000.00, with funding input spread over twenty UN member countries. You will receive further funds monthly depending on your performance, although be advised that due to the incredibly polarized nature of the UN’s debate on this matter – and the fact that we “neglected” to tell any country that’s not on the list about these problems for fear they’ll let North Korea in on the secret and screw us all – future funding is incredibly volatile, and will be cut off if your performance is poor for two consecutive months.

We have placed a 10-soldier UN combat platoon at your disposal. Good deal for us – you’re going to have to pay their $20,000 / month salary, and they're all rookies so they're pretty much useless to us in Somalia anyway. Similarly, we tracked down 10 science geeks who’ve been watching too much X-Files and offered them $30,000 per month to figure out any alien technology you recovered. They’ll be assisted by 10 engineers, who can build anything the geeks ask them to if they have plans. They only cost you $25,000 per month, which is a bargain compared to that bunch of MIT refugees in your lab.

You will have access to standard UN weapons suppliers, and we have arranged reasonable rates for all of our standard equipment. We will be willing to buy back used equipment at reasonable prices, and if you find something REALLY deadly we’ll pay top dollar for it as long as you don’t tell the Lybians why their intelligence headquarters turned into a glowing green crater shortly thereafter.

In order to further save on expenses, you have agreed to lease two (2) Interceptor fighters from UN stores, as well as one (1) Skyranger transport plane. Additional units will be made available for lease upon your request.

We have also set up discreet contacts with a construction company to build additions to your base as well as additional intercept, combat or research bases around the world. They have generously agreed to build a bare-bones base for your use in a location of your choosing. Try to keep it in the U.S.; they contribute most of your operating budget, and if they’re happy, we’re happy.

As per our agreement, you will file monthly status reports with my office. And don’t think about running off with the money: even though we chose you for your entrepreneurial skills, this is a long way from selling MREs to Bedouin tribes in exchange for oil exploration rights.

Yes, we know about that one.

You’ll need that type of ingenuity to pull this off. And if you don’t… well, I hope you don’t mind living under Admiral Ackbar for the rest of your life.

Best of luck, son. Don’t screw this up.

SIGNED: /s/

UNINTCOM-SPC: MORGAN, M. (COL)
PITBSE, STATISL, NY

For the Beginning of Eddie's LP CLICK HERE

Ooohh, classy.

Oh yes, this is going to be awesome! I'm really looking forward to what you produce Sven!

Ha ha, ZING!

I've never heard of this game ever. Good luck with it!

I beat this a long time ago on the third difficulty setting (Veteran, right?), but never tried Superhuman. What difficulty will you be playing?

I came here for the X-COM, and now I have no idea what just happened.

I'm waiting for someone to figure out the joke of who the memo's from.

Tomorrow will be a not-in-character description of the game, in case anyone wants to play along but is understandably intimidated by a game that's basically two and a half very complex games mixed up in a blender, all interdependent on one another.

Optional background reading (SPOILARZ!):

Series - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Com

Game - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO:_Enemy_Unknown

IGN's ranking of it as the best PC game ever made: http://pc.ign.com/articles/772/772285p3.html

GameSpot's Greatest Games of All Time entry:
http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/fea...ames/p-15.html

Veteran, as I want to make sure I win the damn game (I may even drop it down one level to ensure the memos have enough material). Given the random nature of the game, it's too easy for me to go three months without seeing a UFO and have to start over. No one wants that.

I've been itching to play this on Gametap for a while now, but without a good manual, it is tough to figure out how to do things, let alone what. Even older PC games were so complex (or at least used everything on the keyboard).

Def. would need some help on this one.

You can always just spped up time can't you? I never remember having to wait long for UFO's to appear if anything I always seemed to have too few interceptors and transports... Nothing like leaving a combat mission going right into another one, always fun to fight with half or no ammo against snakemen and chrysalids... I mean re-load a saved game as you can't win that!

That's the case most of the time, but I've occasionally been screwed by having no UFOs show up. The game is REALLY random about that, and it's all too easy to have all your funding yanked without warning.

Dammit, you are making me want to play this game really badly, but I just don't have the 50 hours that it would take. Heck, I'd settle for a replay of Jagged Alliance 2, but that's quite a time hog in and of itself.

Holy crap. X-Com is a wonderful game. One of my top 5 of all time, I think. I'm always up for replaying it, and I love the idea of memos detailing your progress through the game. I've never done a Let's Play thread, but I'm definitely in for this one.

I never played XCOM on any of the higher difficulties. The two month thing must be a difficulty condition?

I'm pretty sure the X-Com manual is up at Home of the Underdogs. It's a huge tome, but that's how I learned to play (well, that and random clicking). There is a decent in-game Encyclopedia (nowhere near as good as the Civ one) but it doesn't quite go enough into game mechanics.

Anyway, it's hard to screw yourself over too much on the easiest difficulty, so I recommend playing around as the game is awesome. I should resume my game I started on GameTap (although having played the game several times, I'm more tempted to give Apocalypse a shot since i've never played it).

Good timing?

Apocolypse is hideous in all ways shapes and forms. From the grpahics to the UI, the game remains opaque and inscrutable, which translates into pain for the player. I've tried more times than I can count to get into this game only to turn away in disgust. It's just disgusting how terrible this game is.

That I've heard in years, though I don't want to get my hopes up just to have them dashed again

That's what triggered it... but I expect it'll be a squad-based FPS rather than a "real" X-Com game. One was in production at some point in the late 90s using the Unreal Engine (I think it was supposed to be called "Enforcer"), but it got canceled after Apocalypse and Interceptor combined to ruin the series.

Don't worry, I'm going to take this VERY slow. For example, here's Sven's Guide to X-Com unit stats, v. 1.0:

Let’s try to start off with a section that sounds enough like console RPGs to make the transition easier for anyone here playing for the first time. Keeping these principles in mind will also help you out if and when you want to try, say, Fallout, but I’ll let that LP thread handle that discussion. Here’s a character profile from the game I’m currently in:



Now, an explanation of the categories:

TUs = time units

[S: How much time a soldier takes to perform a given action. In X-Com’s case, certain actions are fixed – a step on flat terrain will ALWAYS take 4TUs – while certain actions are expressed as a percentage of your overall TU total. So, for example, I’ll only be able to take a maximum of three rapid fire shots with a rifle no matter if I have 60 TUs (they’d be 20 TUs each) or 120 TUs (they’d be 40TUs each). TUs, therefore, are most valuable if you’re going to be doing a lot of walking, which means that a high TU is appropriate for a scout unit. TUs will also come in handy for a TU-fixed task later in the game, but unfortunately there’s no way to predict which of my soldiers is going to be good at that task right now.]

Ene = energy/stamina

[S: In order to perform most actions, you also need energy to do it. However, this is largely devoted to physical tasks – which means that even if a soldier has no energy, they can still fire. Very important distinction.]

Hea = health

[S: C’mon, this is an RPG-heavy forum, you don’t need me to explain this to you, do you? The higher this score, the more likely it is that I’ll survive being wounded. Of course, the best approach to being wounded is to not have it happen at all, but initially that’s not going to be possible.]

Bra = bravery

[S: This one’s less of a console-RPG thing and more common on PCs. Let’s face it: I’m about to go into some fucked-up shit. If a soldier freaked out when he was dissecting a frog in 10th grade, I want to know about it sooner rather than later.]

Rea = reaction

[S: My personal favourite stat in the game. X-Com’s battles are turn-based: EG, I move all my soldiers, then my opponent has a chance to move all of his. But while he’s moving, if I have a soldier with a high enough reaction time they can fire back. Taking this into account is essentially the whole game – I want to minimize the chance of a reaction shot on the part of the CPU, and put my soldiers into positions where they will be able to make reaction shots.]

Fir = firing accuracy

[S: For all the other stats, this is where I weed out my rookies. Although I don’t have a choice initially, I tend to set the cut-off at 55 the second I get a chance. For starters, this makes me more accurate than any enemy I’ll encounter during the course of the game.]

Thr = throwing accuracy

[S: Hands-down, the most useless stat of all time. You know the saying “close only counts in horsehoes and hand grenades?”]

Str = strength

[S: Basically, how much crap can I lug around. The higher this is, the more likely I’ll be able to send a soldier in looking like Jesse Ventura in Predator. My play style doesn’t rely on this too much, but it admittedly comes in handy.]

Next is a discussion of early weapons and base facilities, as well as Col. Morgan (no one's figured out who he is yet?) telling you how to choose a base. Then a more traditional Let's Play section, as there's no way I can write a memo detailing how to get started with the game without taking 20 pages.

Note that while I know how to (somewhat - X-Com is, again, RANDOM) manipulate most of these stats, I'm not going to overtly do it since Brick didn't during his FF1 playthrough and I want to keep in line with the spirit of that run.



Also, note the above - I tend to change the name of the solider to reflect the areas they're good in. I don't really let soldiers specialise early in the game as they're so vulnerable, but it's good to remember some of these areas for later in the game and this is great shorthand.

True, but putting it in Europe hits about the same total dollar value worth of nations.

Hmm... I'd heard it was mediocre. Your sentiments on it mirror my sentiments on Terror from the Deep (trying countless times to get into it while turning away in disgust). Still, I'd like to give it a shot. If nothing else, the Let's Play of it in the something awful forums made it look okay.

I am so excited for this. You couldn't even begin to imagine. It's a shame I lose so many soldiers on the first mission though. At least I'll get to watch someone who knows what they're doing though!

Really looking forward to this. Great memo, Sven.

Um.. this is going to drive me nuts, but its Defense. Sorry to nitpick.

I think Apocalypse is okay. Fugly as hell due to the vintage 1997 pre-rendered graphics, but the gameplay is solid. Brainsuckers have a tendency to ambush you in turn-based mode, though, while they're completely harmless if you play in real time.

Ach! Guilty as charged. The American law school grad in me occasionally manifests itself in poor ways.

Especially stupid as I JUST inserted the screenshot with the real title. Maybe Parish can edit it?

(Nah, it's a PC-related thread, he's ignoring it.)

I'll be posting briefings on weapons, equipment and base facilities later in the week, thanks to a site that has meticulously screencapped the ENTIRE UFOapaedia (I'm going to crash it, I'm sure). And it turns out that my method of using my cell phone camera to take screenshots produces very nice results (X-com's low resolution is a saving grace) - I'll be sticking with that from now on, although I may need advice on a site that I can use for linking to thumbnails of the full-sized images.

But for now, a bit of an expansion on the base discussion hinted at earlier:

================================================== =====

TO: Commander-in-Chief, UN Peacekeeping Division Extraterrestrial Combat Unit [CINCXCOM]

FROM: UNINTCOM-SPC



Per your request, I have obtained a price list for all sites where we can construct our base. Note that this is just the cost for the land and… relocation… of any nearby civilians. This price list will be consistent for all future bases, however after your initial base even the access lift will be $300,000.

Africa, South 550,000 South Africa
Africa, North 650,000 Nigeria, Egypt
Atlantic, North 500,000 Greenland
America, North 800,000 USA, Canada
America, South 600,000 Brazil
Antartica 900,000
Arctic 950,000
Asia, Central 500,000 Western China
Asia, South East 750,000 Japan, Eastern China
Australasia 750,000 Australia
Europe 1,000,000 Eastern Commonwealth, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, parts of North Africa
Pacific 600,000 Hawaiian islands
Siberia 800,000 Western Commonwealth, India

My recommendation is to place the base in one of two areas:

(1) North America: Good god, boy, have you SEEN how much money our government is chipping into this little exercise? You might as well be Team America, because with about 1/6th of your budget coming from one source (… and the Canadians chipping in a hundred grand just so that they can lord it over us…) it’s best to secure yourself here. It’s also fairly cheap for an urban area, as we don’t have to worry about those annoying EU labour regulations. Heck, we don’t even have to check green cards, we’re the U f’n N! Build the damn thing in Michigan and move on to more important things.

(2) Very, very North Africa: Okay, see how above the “Europe” zone extends into Northern Algeria? Well, put your base right on the southern edge of that zone. That’ll give us coverage over Italy, Spain, parts of Germany, France and maybe even the UK once we’re done upgrading the radar. But because of UN zoning regulations, we’ll save $350,000 on the deal because it’s classified as “North Africa.”

A point that you may want to consider in making your final decision: have you figured out what you’re going to do if you shoot one of these alien ships DOWN? I mean, if it hits solid ground, you’re golden. If it hits water… well, we don’t have the permits for that, let alone the technology to fight a pitched battle ten miles deep. Although, now that you mention it, [CLASSIFIED INFORMATION STRICKEN FROM RECORD OF MEMORANDUM – INSUFFICIENT SECURITY CLEARANCE].

So, yeah, that’ll take a few years. Until then, pick your base in an area with lots of land around it so that you'll be able to salvage a crash and let us know. I need to ship out your personnel and file your weapons briefing.

SIGNED: /s/

UNINTCOM-SPC
PITBSE, STATISL, NY

================================================== =====

[S: for the purposes of this game, I’m going to put the base in the middle of Michigan. I’m actually a fan of the North Africa strategy - my second base will go there ASAP - but the game always seems strangely vindictive when you do that.]

[You're going to get the results of my SECOND playthrough - as predicted, last night's ended with only two UFO sightings between March and June, both of which were ships that my Interceptors would've been slaughtered by. On the other hand, it did let me figure out just how I'm going to write these (lots of handwritten notes, as it turns out, seem to be the best way to avoid an alt+tab-related crash).]

I am ridiculously excited for this. I've never taken part in a Let's Play thread, but X-Com is too hot to ignore.
I dig on the Terror from the Deep reference in the latest memo! If things go well here, maybe we can do a TftD thread later on? I still have the strategy guide for that game around here somewhere, so I could contribute some stats.
For UFOD, I'm just going by what I remember from my most recent playthrough. Which isn't much, now that I think about it.
America is fine with me, but if you want to do the Africa base, I'm fine with that. For whatever reason, either the first or second terror attack is ALWAYS Paris. I guess the aliens aren't fans of the French.

You know that you could just edit the first post of the thread and change the thread title by yourself, don't you?

To be on topic, X-Com is awesome, especially the ambient music/effects in the background. I was genuinely scared the time I first played this diamond.
Too sad you can't incorporate background music into a thread ;-)

Dammit, my long-dormant love for PC strategy games finally awoke and drove me to download the Win95 rerelease of XCom...which, as it turns out, doesn't work under Vista. Meh. Now it seems like my only choice would be to grab the DOS version and try to run it under DOSBox, but I can't seem to find it. Is it considered abandonware too? If so, can someone kindly point me to it? If not, well, crap.

This is a port of XCOM that a group did to run on Pocket PCs, good thing though is that you cna also just run it windowed in XP. I haven't played much of it but for those who are interested you can check it out:

http://www.smksoftware.ru/pufo.shtml

Home of the Underdogs has X-Com Gold up in their archives, complete with an executable patched version that allows it to run under Windows (that's how I'm running it).

But you have to do a title search for "UFO". They're funny like that.

If there's one thing you're going to notice, it's that I'm generally quite lassiez-faire when it comes to terror attacks, especially in the early sections of the game. The game seems to delight in setting things up such that you can't get out of the Skyranger without having your team shot before taking two steps, especially if there's some of the bigger aliens around. Terror missions - especially at night, as you can't do the "hover for six hours above a mission" trick to get daylight like you can with recoveries - are excellent ways of having half your squad killed for little or no score return.

Another point in favour of the U.S.: having any one of the countries in Europe revoke funding isn't a fatal blow. Having Washington do so inevitably is.

By "X-Com Gold", are you referring to "X-COM: UFO Defense Collector's Edition"? That's what I found when I searched for UFO, but it's the same as the one I had before. Note that I'm running Vista, not XP, so I can get the game to start (I hear the music), but there are no visuals.

I tried this out - don't know if it will work on my Vista PC, but I was able to install it on my work laptop running XP.

Oh God, what have I done?