Yesterday I was bombastically bragging how my many years of gaming experience would easily enable me to subdue this old sci-fi gaming antiquity, and I launched the game with high hopes of easy battles against inferior computer enemies.
Approximately 45 minutes later I found myself alt+F4'ing out of the game with a sense of deep despair that would make an emo goth seem cheerful.
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| A fresh game of X-COM ready to be conquered! |
There is no doubt that the last 17 years since X-COM's release has seen great leaps and bounds in terms of easing players into a game and helping them get a feeling for what the hell is going on.
I think the death of the big paper manual has probably helped with this, as back in 1994 you would still find a nice little book for you to read through, whenever you bought any game more complicated than Space Invaders.
However, without a manual (or the patience to read one, even if I could find a PDF document online somwhere) I threw myself headfirst into the game and hoped to figure it out as I went along.
Mistake number one came after around 20 seconds of having selected difficulty level and started the game.
When you begin X-COM you are immediately presented with a globe view of the world and told to select the location of your first base.
Of course, this now being a post-Google Earth world, I of course immediately clicked the globe and tried to drag it to move it around.
This immediately prompted the dialog box "Please enter the name of your base".
Ah... So I guess that placing your base in the middle of the Sahara is probably not a good idea, so I guess I'll press the escape key and undo?
Nope, the escape key does nothing. So less than a minute into X-COM I immediately had to abandon my game and restart...
Not a good beginning!
After a quick restart and a more sensible base location (I think?! The game does not give you any idea about, where would be a good place for your base or why), I had an operational base located in England.
A quick click on the "base" button allowed me to view this little splendor of xenos fighting awesome.
Which brought me to my next moment of "ummmmm, so now what?".
I understand that I have a base and I can build new stuff, buy gear and soldiers and start researching tech.
But where is a good place to spend my money?
Do I need to build some more living quarters? A new hangar? More men? More weapons?
Help me, X-COM gaming gods!
After having started some research (you can't ever go wrong with lasers, can you? Can you!?) I began waiting for my first UFO sighting.
I soon got a notification that a UFO was on the ground in Denmark. Time to defend the homeland!
My loaded troop ship landed without incident and set about moving out and searching for the nefarious aliens, certain that they would be no match for my awesome soldiers.
A couple of turns into the mission, one of my men passed close by a window, which resulted in him promptly being cut down by a bolt of plasma to the face before I could react.
Not being phased by this setback I set a course for the UFO craft itself.
I was careful that my guys should have enough action points to spend to actually take a shot at any aliens inside, so I let them wait an extra turn.
The next turn I happily sent in my blonde point man, who scouted a small grey alien immediately inside the craft.
Taking aim, he carefully planted a rifle shot straight to the face of this little grey visitor. Who then promptly turned around and shot a bolt of plasma into his face.
Dead soldier number two...
So time for his fellow alien fighter to enter the craft and save the day!
This pony tail sporting fellow opens the door and stares into the face of my grey nemesis.
Who immediately shoots a bolt of plasma into his face.
Dead soldier number three.
At this point I take the hint that this is not going very well at all and I will need to rethink my approach, and calmly press Alt+F4 (extremely calm. That's my story and I'm sticking to it).
So... On with the thinking cap and I will revisit the world of X-COM soon!
...Anyone have any good X-COM tips?!
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Manual via Steam: http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/7760/x-com%20ufo%20defense%20manual.pdf?t=1302140381 Link may or may not work, I have no idea what I'm doing. It is 133 pages long. It contains the tutorials. Welcome to 1994.
ReplyDeleteAlso of note: http://www.amazon.com/X-COM-UFO-Defense-Official-Strategy/dp/1559587644 the Prima guide. 384 pages, shipping weight: 1.2 pounds.
ReplyDeleteI remember sitting down one morning, firing up the third difficulty level, whatever it was called, and playing this from start to finish without reloading in a single seven hour sitting. Younger-me was a very strange little chap...
As I recall, in one of the most kill-me-now-I-can't-stand-this-anymore design decisions in the history of gaming, your soldiers' weapon loadouts are not saved in between missions, meaning that you have to manually reorganise EVERYONE'S weapons EVERY. SINGLE. MISSION.
I recommend renaming your soldiers from their standard names to things like "Sniper 1" and "Rocket Launcher Guy" (Hint: Rocket Launcher Guy needs to be very strong indeed) because you're going to be needing to give them relevant loadouts (as previously mentioned) EVERY. SINGLE. MISSION.
Sane people, it's worth noting, generally just gave everyone the same loadout and three grenades each, thus completely avoiding such idiocy, as the game's manner of handing out default equipment did actually work quite well. Maybe take nearly everyone with a gun, and one dude with a rocket launcher. That won't be as much bother to manage.
OH! Grenades! Grenade timers are dumb. IIRC, and you will want to create a savegame and test this, grenade timers do not start counting until you throw them, so to have them explode on the turn they're thrown, set them to 0.
This is important as lunatic grenade spam is an essential part of the noob's early game, before your dudes have any body armour (you will note that standard "armour" in X-Com is a pair of overalls).
Correct lunatic grenade spam protocols for X-Com are:
1) Everyone has a pistol.
2) Everyone has at least four grenades.
3) Your guys wander around in threes.
4) Upon seeing an enemy, one dude arms his grenade. HE DOES NOT THROW THE GRENADE.
5) The two other guys throw a grenade each at the enemy.
6) The other guy now throws his grenade, which explodes, setting off the other two grenades.
7) Three grenades going off in the alien's face tends to stop him from filling all three dudes with plasma the next turn.
Please note, this tactic should only be used with the standard piss-weak terran grenades. It SHOULD NOT be used with alien grenades. Alien grenades should only be thrown by very strong people, very far away.
Also, there's a research substance called "Alien Alloys" which you might decide to hold off researching because the loot makes it look like it's for spaceship construction. It IS for spaceship construction, but researching it also unlocks armour research. You will probably need some of that, so research it right after you've finished researching the laser rifle and the medkit.
I can't remember any other things. There are a lot of other things to remember, I remember that much. You will die a lot. Then a lot more. Then some more.
It's probably best to follow a standard policy of "Save like a paranoiac". IIRC, in my early days, before I entered my long-lost zenlike state of X-Com mastery, my savegame pattern was to fill slots 9 and 10 with Geoscape saves, then have save slots 1-8 with a savegame for every single tactical turn. Some days it would be saving the game after every time I fired a weapon and hit something. If I didn't hit something, I reloaded the save.
X-Com is a brutal, brutal game. You will die a lot.
Thanks so much for the link to the manual, and the great tips!
ReplyDeleteIt is both frustrating and fascinating to dive back into the gave design of 1994. It is so different from what you would expect to find in a game these days!
That grenade spamming tactic sounds like fun. I will give that a try on my next attempt ;)
Thanks again!