X-Com

[DrSpike]

Agreed.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by El_Cid
The origonal is the best. Its one of the all time great computer games.

Yeah, it has just the right blend of things. A touch of "real time" gaming here, some RPG there, and finally a hefty dose of tactical gaming.

Unfortunately Terror from the Deep is more of the same, except with an insane difficulty factor and tons of bugs. Apocalypse was all right, but it went into the wrong direction IMO. Instead of having a couple of bases/colonies on other planets in the solar system everything got squashed into a city.

[El_Cid]

I could have enjoyed 'Terror from the Deep' if they hadn't made the graphics worse than the origonal - that was a weird one and thankfully most game sequels dont try to copy it.
'Apocolypse' - some really liked it, but it lost much of the great feeling of the series, it felt very different.....and again even though it was higher res than the previous games - i still think it looked worse than the origonal Xcom.

If only 'Microprose' would rise from the ashes and re-do these great games - or better carry on with the series......ah nice dreams

[Urban Ranger]

Doesn't Firaxis have the rights to the series?

[Vince278]

Still playing from the Collector's Ed. CD.

Has anyone heard anything on the various fan based attempts? Any playable/worth playing?

I'd like to see whoever has the license to do a remake combining the best of Xcom 1-3 with some new items/techs.

While I'm making wishes, a source code release of the original game would be nice.

[Urban Ranger]

A couple of things I wish they could add:

1. An expanded research tree, esp. an indepedent earth tech progression, perhaps based on recovering alien tech. Say, more advanced lasers.

2. Different routes to an ending. Right now all you could do is to fly to Mars and slug it out. However it doesn't make sense that you cannot run an attrition campaign, though, seeing that the aliens' resources are far more limited than yours.

I also would love an expansion where, after you defeated the alien menace, you get to move to their own planet and knock them back, once and for all.

[mrmielke]

if you want to help make a fan-based X-Com remake, head over to www.projectxenocide.com - the page may not look great, but if you join the project and look at the internal forums, you see a lot of activity.

[DrSpike]

There always is to start with. So few of these projects ever seem to go anywhere in the end.

[Vince278]

Project Earth looked promising for many years but slowly went nowhere and collapsed.
Sic semper ceteri.

[Urban Ranger]

That's why FOSS is great (well, at least in this respect). When a project collapses the work is not lost. So, when another project starts up they can make use of the existing code, or they may even restart the old project.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Doesn't Firaxis have the rights to the series?

Yeah...it was confirmed in various interviews including a video interview at Gamespot.

[Urban Ranger]

Good. That means there's at least some hope that there will be a remake of UFO: Enemy Unknown (i.e. XCOM)

[Apocalypse]

The evidence pointed them to mainly having an interest around the time of Pirates. They had licensed the NetImmerse engine, which had been used for Dreamland (from some of the makers of the original X-Com, got cancelled though).

I made a post in newsgroups back in the day and it got referenced in a few interviews with Firaxians shortly afterwards...

There has been much speculation about the next game from Firaxis,
especially now that we know they have licensed the highly acclaimed
NetImmerse engine. Since that information discovered the titles like
SMAC 2, Pirates! 2, and Colonization 2 have all come up. The problem
with those titles is that they typically aren’t what the
NetImmerse engine is used for. That engine has been used in games
like Freedom Force and Morrowind, games with RPG elements.

Now, there has only been one game that Firaxis has been rumored to be
producing that would fit that description. A few months ago, there
were reports that Firaxis acquired the X-COM license. I, like many
others, believed these reports to be false. Firaxis even officially
denied it. Since I don't have any "spies" at Firaxis (anymore at
least) the existence couldn't be confirmed. I basically just forgot
about it...until the news of the NetImmerse engine was released.

I decided to do a little investigating. Soon after I began, I
recieved hard confirmation that Firaxis did not acquire the X-COM
license. Still, I decided to investigate further. I found the truth
about the whole situation. Someone who works for Mythos gave further
confirmation that Firaxis does not have the X-COM license. He did
this in a way no one else did. Apparently Firaxis did try to buy the
license. Mythos (or some other company) is currently or will be
working on another X-COM title though, so Firaxis didn't not get that
license. So, you are probably thinking we are back to square one -
far from it.

Sid likes to make demos and prototypes of various ideas before they go
to full development of a game. In theory, he would have already had
written some code for this X-COM game before they decided to buy the
license. Sid has been known for scrapping ideas if he doesn’t
like them, so this further supports that Firaxis had some X-COM game
in the works. I believe that Firaxis did not decide to just scrap
this idea though. Firaxis probably would not have enough time between
the announcement that they tried to buy the rights and the
announcement that they would use a 3D engine to make a whole new
title.

The idea for the X-COM game was that it would be like a cross between
X-COM and Settlers. This would make it significantly different from
the previous X-COM games, though still keeping in the spirit. That
way it wouldn’t be too hard just to call it something else.
This is why I believe that the rumored game from months ago was not
scrapped and is going to be the next game Firaxis releases after PTW.

More news came in yesterday. Jeff Morris said this yesterday in a
chat when a Greek terrorist asked him about this latest speculation:
"{Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS} Markg: We're working on a japanese dating
simulator (thanks Tim Train)." Jeff could have just been joking, but
he still didn't deny it outright. I don't blame him for not
confirming or denying it if this game does exist because of a possible
NDA.

There was also an interview with Jeff Briggs:
"Fallowing on the success of Civ 3, what's next for Firaxis?

JB: You know I can’t be too forthcoming here… :-), But I
can say that we are working on a multi-player version of Civ III that
is really fun and solves many of the problems that turn-based MP games
have traditionally suffered. After that… well Sid is always
working to bring new concepts to the computer -- we have many
prototypes vying for completion. And we may look at bringing some new
life to some older titles we developed years ago."

Well we know that at least one prototype (probably the game I'm
talking about) has been choosen because of NetImmerse. "some older
titles we developed years ago" could very well include X-COM, since
Microprose worked on that game.

[Sandman]

The idea for the X-COM game was that it would be like a cross between X-COM and Settlers.

Unh?

[DrSpike]

Yeah, not quite sure how that would work.