X-Com on Steam
I’d missed the news originally, but the X-Com series of games have been added to Steam by the new owners of the franchise, 2K Games. As an added bargain, last weekend they were on sale making them only £2.99 for the complete set of UFO, Terror from the Deep, Apocalypse, Interceptor and Enforcer.
For those that have never played these games, its a classic strategy series that sees you running the organisation (X-Com) and responsible for defending Earth from the invading alien hoardes. This management takes place across two main game-modes. The first, the Geoscape, is a management window, where you recruit troops, buy equipment, research alien technologies, build new bases, and launch interception missions against the UFOs.
The second game mode is when you launch a ground assault against alien bases, and grounded UFOs. Here the game switches to an isometric squad-based strategy game, typically turn-based, where you take direct control of your troops and clear the area of invading aliens, or attempt to capture them.
Now I already owned most of these, but Apocalypse has been pretty stubborn about running on anything after Windows 2000. So for £2.99 I figured it was more than worth it to have XP-friendly versions of these games.
Having now installed UFO and Apocalypse, I was amused to see that they’re running ontop of a pre-setup version of DOSBox. I hadn’t expected that, but its nice to see it being used to make these older games available to the mass-market once again, and it strikes me that there’s no reason this couldn’t also be done with other old games.
I must admit, its great fun playing Apocalypse again after all these years. I know a lot of people don’t rate it as highly as the earlier games, but for me I always found it fun. I’ve always quite enjoyed the (new to this game) realtime combat when it gets particularly mental and the troops start laying waste to whatever building they’re in.
However I’m surprised by UFO and Terror From the Deep running ontop of DOSBox. This is because I also bought the X-Com Collector’s Edition pack a (good) few years back. The interesting thing about this release (which contained the first four games, and Email X-Com), was that they’d ported UFO and Terror to DirectX, so they run natively on Windows XP with no problems whatsoever. I’d have thought these versions would’ve been the better ones for 2K Games to use, especially since I noticed that the Steam version of UFO isn’t entirely happy with my widescreen monitor, and the top and bottom of the window disappears off-screen, a problem that doesn’t exist on the DirectX port.
However, if you can’t get ahold of the Collector’s Edition (and in complete fairness, these games aren’t easy to buy any more), its still great to have the option to buy them on Steam, and for the price they’re an absolute bargain (£2.99 each I believe) as these are the kinds of game that will suck you in, and before you know it, you’ve just completed a 4 hour stretch.
Here’s hoping they sell well, and 2K Games decide to expand their Steam catalogue to include other DOS-based games.
Comments
Comment from Alan
Time January 20, 2009 at 13:12
Worryingly you’ve just described most of my tactics 
Comment from Ken
Time January 20, 2009 at 13:29
That explains a lot 
1) Cyberdiscs – get 2 or marines, lob 2 or 3 grenades on top of it and run.
2) Ranged fire for the second and run otherwise your marines will start saying “brainnzzzzzz”
3) Don’t tackle the larger UFOs until you design one of the hybrid craft that run on elerium 115
I played this a lot can you tell?
Comment from Alan
Time January 20, 2009 at 13:38
In fairness, if I’ve got a rocket tank handy, or some hi-ex ammo then those usually take out the Cyberdiscs in short order. Although I do often get caught out by them, and I’ve never really learned to use grenades properly, which is a mistake as there’d be a lot of advantages and I do keep running into situations where I get slaughtered and then think “I really should’ve just chucked a grenade in there”
The larger UFO’s thing is definitely handy though. I did keep assuming that I just needed a better missle launcher or tactics with my existing interceptors. I hate letting the large UFOs go unchallenged though 
My problem is always that I played quite a bit, but never got the hang of some of the tactics. I always seem to struggle to get up to a decent tech level as the game gets on, and finding smaller UFOs to attack gets harder.
And is the personal armour really worth it? It largely seems to just be a moral boost for my guys, as they got one-shotted just the same
Comment from Alan
Time January 20, 2009 at 13:40
Oooo. I’ll have to have a good nosey around that wiki
Did you ever read the big strategy guides that came with one of the pre-Apocalypse boxsets of UFO and Terror From The Deep? Those were great books.
Comment from Ken
Time January 20, 2009 at 13:44
I have the TFTD strategy guide.
At the start of the game you _need_ an alien containment thingy that keeps them alive. You shouold aim to bring loads of live aliens back (and a few dead ones) as it gets you moving up the ladder fast.
You need to pick and choose what to fight at the start. It’s impossible to fight everything. Once you have enough stolen ammo & guns you can fight harder missions.
Comment from Alan
Time January 20, 2009 at 13:53
Yeah, I think my “kill ‘em all” tactics at the beginning are what get me into trouble sometimes, and I probably need to learn when to just do a runner (preferably after picking up a few alien guns).
I do need to see about increasing my research facilities early on as well. A larger scientific team would probably let me blitz through the research for the plasma weapons early on, although I’m never sure if its worth researching the laser weapons first. Do you know if doing them first gives you a leg up on the plasma research, or is better just firing on to get the good guns?
Comment from Pie Man 70
Time January 20, 2009 at 14:10
TFTD is way harder, just lots of little things that make life harder.
Cyberdisks, never really bothered me, rocket tanks usually did for them.
Chrysalids, keep guys away from them, be it try and clear teh area with tanks first or, more fun, flying armour.
You can take down bigger ships, up to harvester and sometimes transport or terror ship with the interceptor, twin plasma cannons and send 2-3 planes at the UFO, keep them at standoff until all your planes are in range, then cautious attack. the ship needs to turn its weapons to you and one hit will nearly destory your interceptor, obviously every plane hit take out of the fight but you can usually keep the pressure on until the UFO is downed. Its risky, but Risk is our buisiness.
My advice, you can’t put a price on psychic abilities. a powerful Psy guy on your squad can add 2-3 aliens to your ranks as disposable soldiers. Its great later on to hold a chrysalid to a firing squad.
Comment from Ken
Time January 20, 2009 at 14:20
I bow to your geekiness…..
Comment from Pie Man 70
Time January 20, 2009 at 15:13
I played a Van load of X-Com and read the strategy guides to death,
I may well pick up the steam versions. But I think it would definitely end my marriage
Comment from Ken
Time January 20, 2009 at 16:14
Ah it may end your marriage but you would still have opportunity fire!
Comment from Pie Man 70
Time January 21, 2009 at 8:38
Only if I remembered to reserve my time units.
Comment from Ken
Time January 21, 2009 at 9:18
I broke and got it from Steam…
Comment from Alan
Time January 21, 2009 at 9:44
And I spent most of last night being slaughtered by Sectoids. Suffice to say if aliens invade and I’m in charge, we’re screwed
Comment from Pie Man 70
Time January 21, 2009 at 11:47
See, I wonder if I’ve still got my mojo. And indeed if I’ll still have my prejudice of placing my base in central Europe, yes America can be invaded but no-one takes over Luxembourg
Comment from Alan
Time January 21, 2009 at 11:56
In fairness a base in Central Europe makes a lot of sense as it means you’re covering a lot of your funding nations. I’ve started doing the same.
Comment from Ken
Time January 21, 2009 at 12:13
If we don’t care about Luxembourg what makes you think the aliens do?
Comment from Alan
Time January 21, 2009 at 12:53
Don’t you see, that makes it the perfect hiding place
Comment from Pie Man 70
Time January 21, 2009 at 13:40
Yeah, That’s just what they want you to think. The cry of Alien invaders is often “Luxembourg is Ours, Now What”
Comment from Pie Man 70
Time January 21, 2009 at 13:41
Of course in an ideal situation my base woudl be under a TV studio in England and on the Moon, preferably staffed by purple haired women.
Comment from Ken
Time January 21, 2009 at 14:02
Purple haired women? Now that’s a fetish I’ve never heard about…
Comment from Alan
Time January 21, 2009 at 14:08
Its just a normal side-affect of any woman going to the moon. We know because Gerry Anderson told us so
Comment from Ken
Time January 21, 2009 at 14:12
But didn’t Gerry Anderson also tell us that Kate Kestrel was a pop singer? Credibility plumets at that point…
Comment from Pie Man 70
Time January 21, 2009 at 14:42
I will not hear anotehr word against Gerry Anderson, Kate Kestrel was ahead of her time. History will prove me right on this one.
Comment from Ken
Time January 21, 2009 at 15:14
If by ahead of her time you mean garishly painted kindling then I agree with you.
Comment from Pie Man 70
Time January 22, 2009 at 8:17
Bah, youa re all philistines
Comment from Pie Man 70
Time January 22, 2009 at 8:20
I’ve just had a thought, The steam version runs through DosBox, I have Dosbox, ergo I could dig out my old version and run it through dosbox?
Comment from Alan
Time January 23, 2009 at 7:35
Pretty much, yeah. From memory the only advantage the Steam version gives you is that any configuration is taken care of for you.
Comment from Ken
Time January 20, 2009 at 12:52
XCom words of wisdom:
Never decide to shoot it out one on one with a Terror site Cyberdisc.
Shaking hands with a Chryssalid is a no-no.
Sending a plane up against anything larger than a medium sized UFO is a bad idea