UFO: Enemy Unknown, remake by Firaxis

[SJSerio]

OK... so, the game comes out in a few short days. When the game was first announced, I was perhaps a bit more active here... both very excited and very skeptical. I loved hearing that Firaxis was handling the remake as I had always thought should be the case. Even despite the fact that I was hoping to be working at Firaxis and on the team (if not leading it). Well, that is neither here nor there. Jake Solomon got the honors and one thing that I can say is that he truly shows his excitement for the project with every interview, gameplay video, and appearance.

Of course, I was also disappointed. I have been skeptical of several of the changes that were announced which I felt were rather puzzling and taking away from the experience of the original that I loved. Certainly NOT the least was the announcement of the reduction in squad size. Part of my tactic in the original was too break up my team into several smaller ones and scour the maps for the enemy. Well, now, I can't do that. Another point I was not too happy with was the 1 base. Satelite arguments aside, it just takes away from my preferred method of playing.

That all said, I am still very excited for this game. I already pre-ordered the XBOX version, and I plan to get the PC version down the line (for the enhanced customization and modability that comes with the PC versions of games). I cannot wait for Tuesday night when I fire it up and send my squad out. Also, having watched some of the multi-player play throughs, I am really excited about that mode. While I am sure that I am going to fire up the main game first, I can't decide whether I will try out the multiplayer within the first couple of days, or wait until I get through a play-through of the single player mode first.

In any case, what has really irked me over the past few weeks is all of the negativity here on these boards. I have seen post after post of people claiming that the game is "dumbed-down" or killed by mass marketing. Really, people? First off, Firaxis is a business... and the sad fact is if the game does not have mass appeal, that could affect future iterations and sequels, as well as the company themselves. I WANT little Timmy who only plays Halo and Mass Effect to broaden his horizons and become excited for this game... this genre. Only then, will the games that I love survive the industry. I just never understood the arguments against a game having mass appeal. To me, it is a selfish demand and only leads to games like this not being made in the future. Get over it!

As far as "dumbed-down", I have seen absolutely NO evidence to this. Simplified controls and interface is NOT dumbing-down. If anybody can look at the original and tell me that the interface and controls were top-notch and perfect, they are only fooling themselves. While I love the original... it had many flaws. For anybody that claims that the game is dumbed-down... I challenge you to play the game. Take screen captures of your progress through the game and post them here so that we can see just how "dumbed-down" the game is!

Along with the "dumbed-down" argument comes the console argument. Both PC games and console games have there merits and flaws. While I am certain that the computer I have will run the game fine (it certainly runs the demo fine), I have always hated getting PC games only to find that the Video Card I have can't run the game (even though by the numbers, it should be able to). But, as I mentioned earlier, the PC has the advantage of customization and modability. This will likely be the first game that I get across platforms. Afterall, it will be nice to be able to lie back in my bed with my controller while I destroy me some Sectoids.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw my point out there. Sure, there are things about it that I am not AS happy about... but most of those are pretty minute. I am really looking forward to Tuesday. I can certainly use the stress relief right now. What a better way to releive stress than to take out a group of Sectoids or MC a floater to blow himself up. To those of you who want to cry about the end of the world because "Firaxis sold out" or it is "dumbed down"... get over it. You are NOT going to convince me otherwise and it is obvious that you are only trying to convince yourselves.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I've preordered it and am preloading it!

Keep in mind, I never actually played the full versions of the original X-Com games. I had the shareware disk back in the day. In 2012 they're far to hard too play on DosBox (Scrolling is busted.) So anyhow, I know the basics about what X-Com is and how it works, and I found the demo good ( if we assume the final game is less linear, anyhow. )

So assuming the release version is like a complete and nonlinear version of the demo I'm pretty stoked.

 

[PhilBowles]

I've preordered it and am preloading it!

Keep in mind, I never actually played the full versions of the original X-Com games. I had the shareware disk back in the day. In 2012 they're far to hard too play on DosBox (Scrolling is busted.) So anyhow, I know the basics about what X-Com is and how it works, and I found the demo good ( if we assume the final game is less linear, anyhow. )

They're available through Steam, and have been updated so that they're playable on modern machines - UFO runs fine that way.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Ayup, I can confirm that. So, if you want to warm up for X-COM, go and get UFO. It's still a great game.

 

[Disgustipated]

To me, my favorite part of the game wasn't the combat missions. Although I did enjoy them, and they are a big part of the game. I just liked managing my bases, researching stuff, manufacturing stuff etc.

Yes I will wait until reviews of the final game, but from what it looks like (correct me if I'm wrong), the game seems to focus on the combat missions quite a bit. Is there even much base management to do anymore?

I love the original, but as I said, the combat missions were too much. I always did them because I needed the money from recovered gear. But sometimes I didn't like them interrupting me when I was only like 1 day away from a research breakthrough.

 

[ImperialGuard]

I've preordered it and am preloading it!

Glad I saw this tidbit about preloading (didn't know you could do that )


Here I was thinking I would stay up until midnight on Monday, to kickoff my download, go to bed, and start playing in the morning (taking the day off work !)

Now I can preload, wait till midnight AND START PLAYING

 

[AlpsStranger]

Glad I saw this tidbit about preloading (didn't know you could do that )


Here I was thinking I would stay up until midnight on Monday, to kickoff my download, go to bed, and start playing in the morning (taking the day off work !)

Now I can preload, wait till midnight AND START PLAYING

Nah man, I'm going to be revenge probing Sectoids the second that timer goes off.

EDIT: Grabbed the original just cuz I could.

 

[Rubin]

The original X-COM: UFO Defense is a deceiving game. When I first played and completed the game in 1994 or early 1995, I enjoyed it immensely. For almost two decades I've been treasuring those fond memories of intense excitement. All the things you could do--and do them your way!

After playing the remake demo, I made a decision to do a playthrough of the original again. Just to get a good impression of the original before the remake release. I picked the casual Veteran difficulty, and proceeded to do two things that I definitely did not do 17-18 years ago:

• No save/reload abuse
• Fix the "difficulty bug"*

Any experienced gamer knows that abusing a save/load feature can completely ruin a game. For the original X-COM the difference is huge. But if you add the bug fix, so that the game won't default to Beginner difficulty no matter what difficulty you've chosen, you're in for a whole new experience!

X-COM soldiers die. The best way to have soldiers survive is to keep them out and away from combat. There is no point in all the nice soldier stats, and no point in raising them, because the soldiers die. And they die fast. The armors in the game don't help at all, because the alien firepower is really, really strong. Not even counting alien psionic attacks! This makes the soldier rank system completely counter-intuitive: Your best performing soldiers get a promotion, but you need to keep high ranking soldiers alive, because if they die your entire squad panics and then everyone dies. A high rank effectively means "stay away from combat". This makes little sense.

For almost every single mission, you need to bring as many soldiers as possible. That's not necessarily a bad design, but when you face hundreds of missions, the micro management becomes a real chore. Now, if your soldiers would become progressively stronger with each mission, it wouldn't be so bad, but soldiers rarely last more than 2-3 missions. So it's pointless.

I'm really excited to see how the remake is going to handle this. It makes a little more sense to have less soldiers in a squad. And if the new XCOM soldiers have at least a reasonable way of dealing with the alien firepower, then maybe the soldier ranks and progression may make sense, and fixing the RPG'ish elements of the game.

*I don't know if the Steam version of the original is patched to fix the bug. I patched it manually, just to be sure I wasn't wasting time on Beginner difficulty.

 

[AlpsStranger]

How do I fix the difficulty bug anyhow?

Wasn't aware of it.

 

[Rubin]

How do I fix the difficulty bug anyhow?

Wasn't aware of it.

You need to download XcomUtil 9.7 from BladeFireLight's X-COM site.

If you get the zip version, extract the archive into ...Steam\steamapps\common\XCom UFO Defense\XCOM and run XcuSetup.bat. You'll get to choose the "patches" you want to apply; I only chose the difficulty bug fix.

I don't know if it's required, but I also ran SteamSetup.bat from the XcomUtil folder.

You can read more about the bug and XComUtil here and here.

Edit: Oh, and this is for the DOS version. I know Steam includes the Windows9x/XP version, which has the bug fixed, but I cannot get it to run on Windows 7.

 

[PhilBowles]

The original X-COM: UFO Defense is a deceiving game. When I first played and completed the game in 1994 or early 1995, I enjoyed it immensely. For almost two decades I've been treasuring those fond memories of intense excitement. All the things you could do--and do them your way!

After playing the remake demo, I made a decision to do a playthrough of the original again. Just to get a good impression of the original before the remake release. I picked the casual Veteran difficulty, and proceeded to do two things that I definitely did not do 17-18 years ago:

• No save/reload abuse
• Fix the "difficulty bug"*

Any experienced gamer knows that abusing a save/load feature can completely ruin a game. For the original X-COM the difference is huge. But if you add the bug fix, so that the game won't default to Beginner difficulty no matter what difficulty you've chosen, you're in for a whole new experience!

X-COM soldiers die. The best way to have soldiers survive is to keep them out and away from combat. There is no point in all the nice soldier stats, and no point in raising them, because the soldiers die. And they die fast. The armors in the game don't help at all, because the alien firepower is really, really strong. Not even counting alien psionic attacks! This makes the soldier rank system completely counter-intuitive: Your best performing soldiers get a promotion, but you need to keep high ranking soldiers alive, because if they die your entire squad panics and then everyone dies. A high rank effectively means "stay away from combat". This makes little sense.

For almost every single mission, you need to bring as many soldiers as possible. That's not necessarily a bad design, but when you face hundreds of missions, the micro management becomes a real chore. Now, if your soldiers would become progressively stronger with each mission, it wouldn't be so bad, but soldiers rarely last more than 2-3 missions. So it's pointless.

I'm really excited to see how the remake is going to handle this. It makes a little more sense to have less soldiers in a squad. And if the new XCOM soldiers have at least a reasonable way of dealing with the alien firepower, then maybe the soldier ranks and progression may make sense, and fixing the RPG'ish elements of the game.

*I don't know if the Steam version of the original is patched to fix the bug. I patched it manually, just to be sure I wasn't wasting time on Beginner difficulty.

I've still on my first playthrough in the Steam version (on "Experienced", I think), so I'm not sure if the difficulty bug (which I wasn't even aware of with the original - was it just in the US version by any chance? If so it won't affect the Steam version - despite the sale name, it loads as "UFO: Enemy Unknown", suggesting it's the British original) is still there. So far it plays as I remember - armour certainly makes a difference, and a soldier with personal armour will rarely be one-shotted and will survive alien grenades. Certainly I can't keep my soldiers alive forever, but then that was always the case.

 

[Rubin]

I've still on my first playthrough in the Steam version (on "Experienced", I think), so I'm not sure if the difficulty bug (which I wasn't even aware of with the original - was it just in the US version by any chance? If so it won't affect the Steam version - despite the sale name, it loads as "UFO: Enemy Unknown", suggesting it's the British original) is still there. So far it plays as I remember - armour certainly makes a difference, and a soldier with personal armour will rarely be one-shotted and will survive alien grenades. Certainly I can't keep my soldiers alive forever, but then that was always the case.

As I wrote, I don't know if the Steam version is patched. I know I've read on the Steam forum, that they were unable to patch the game and suggested 3rd party modifications... but nothing conclusive.

In one of the links in my previous post, there's a way to check if your game has the bug: There's a file called IGLOB.DAT (or several files in different save locations). This file has to be 64 bytes if you check its properties. If it's 60 bytes, then you've got the bug, and are playing on Beginner difficulty. But again, I don't know, just relaying the information I've read. And I've been rather confused about the DOS version as well due to the US name and UK version, or whatever happened...

In my Veteran playthrough, personal armour makes almost no difference--I rarely survive a single hit. A grenade is certain death. Power armour and flying armour grant a chance to survive one or more hits, but my soldiers still risk dying in one hit. Blaster bombs are 100% certain death no matter the armor.

My point about not abusing the save/load feature and fixing the difficulty bug is that it doesn't play as I remembered. The game is brutal and merciless, but that doesn't mean it's impossible (or even difficult) to complete. I recall having hero units with very good stats, which I find is a nice reward for my efforts, and I had a sense of genuine progress for my soldiers. Now they are just cannot fodder, and I brute force my way through the missions, replacing losses once the missions are done. Sure, I can fail terribly at playing the game--however, these are my experiences. And of course, my recollection of events a couple of decades ago may be horribly flawed

Despite the broken features, the original X-COM is still a great game, but if the developers at Firaxis have had experiences similar to mine, I definitely understand some of the changes to the remake. In particular the squad size and the soldier progression. While the original didn't advocate fixed classes, the "designate this soldier to be a heavy weapons guy" did not work--simply because the soldiers die before they can make any significant progress to fit the role properly. Firaxis implements fixed classes, and even if we complain because it is not in the spirit of the original, it's probably better than the mechanics the original left us with.

 

[Arakhor]

At the time, I never knew that UFO: Enemy Unknown had the minimum difficulty bug, so of course I always played on minimum difficulty. I was still utterly crap at the game.

 

[PhilBowles]

Despite the broken features, the original X-COM is still a great game, but if the developers at Firaxis have had experiences similar to mine, I definitely understand some of the changes to the remake. In particular the squad size and the soldier progression. While the original didn't advocate fixed classes, the "designate this soldier to be a heavy weapons guy" did not work--simply because the soldiers die before they can make any significant progress to fit the role properly. Firaxis implements fixed classes, and even if we complain because it is not in the spirit of the original, it's probably better than the mechanics the original left us with.

The squad size doesn't bother me - I always liked to use a single 4-6 man 'fire team' with everyone else as reinforcements; my experience was that that probably reduced casualties, since the more people you had in the field the more likely you were that one would find him or herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. There wasn't much benefit to sweeping the map simultaneously with several teams, since the aliens (as noted in an earlier post) were often rather sedentary.

If this game is as lethal as the old one, the same issue with levelling and specialising soldiers will surely arise - it's just a case that you won't get the useful upgrades instead of the stamina/TU boost you needed for heavy weapons in the original. It looks from the demo as though the only thing a rookie gets is the class-specific weapon and basic ability. And the heavy doesn't even start with a heavy weapon in any meaningful sense, that I can tell - no area effect, not noticeably more powerful, and he only gets his rocket ability as a squaddie upgrade.

I'm not sure in any case that weapon-based classes would be my preferred way to go. Stat-based progression could specialise your characters along certain lines, but it was up to you whether you took advantage of your best shooter's 90 firepower to use him as a long-range sniper, as a heavy who offset his weapons' inaccuracy, as a pistolier who maximised the benefits of accuracy with a high rate of fire, or whatever.

And, from what you say, you are in any case trying the first game on difficulty 3 or 4 for the first time (having been stuck with one difficulty level previously) - so it being harder to get and keep higher-level soldiers could simply just be the game working as intended.

 

[Rubin]

The squad size doesn't bother me - I always liked to use a single 4-6 man 'fire team' with everyone else as reinforcements; my experience was that that probably reduced casualties, since the more people you had in the field the more likely you were that one would find him or herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. There wasn't much benefit to sweeping the map simultaneously with several teams, since the aliens (as noted in an earlier post) were often rather sedentary.

I find that several teams within a single mission is a recipe for failure. The only time I "split up" is when I need to cover my back or need to flank the aliens. But without sufficient numbers, any mission is a one-way ticket. Indeed, I prefer a 4-6 man team opposed to the 12-14 man teams I've been doing, but 6 soldiers in the original is very, very risky. It's entirely possible to have 2 squad members killed before you even get a chance to leave your craft. And with 15+ aliens left in a single mission... just a little bit of bad luck, and your entire squad is dead.

If this game is as lethal as the old one, the same issue with levelling and specialising soldiers will surely arise - it's just a case that you won't get the useful upgrades instead of the stamina/TU boost you needed for heavy weapons in the original. It looks from the demo as though the only thing a rookie gets is the class-specific weapon and basic ability. And the heavy doesn't even start with a heavy weapon in any meaningful sense, that I can tell - no area effect, not noticeably more powerful, and he only gets his rocket ability as a squaddie upgrade.

Yes, of course! I don't fancy the new way of having the game choosing classes or upgrades for me, but the original gives me only an imaginary choice--that is, no choice at all. What I'm hoping is that the remake at least gives us a chance of having our soldiers survive. If it doesn't then who cares about classes and weapons!?! Is it any better? No. Is it worse? Not really.

I'm not sure in any case that weapon-based classes would be my preferred way to go. Stat-based progression could specialise your characters along certain lines, but it was up to you whether you took advantage of your best shooter's 90 firepower to use him as a long-range sniper, as a heavy who offset his weapons' inaccuracy, as a pistolier who maximised the benefits of accuracy with a high rate of fire, or whatever.

Again, I agree on the preference. But what I've been trying to point out is that this is not even an option in the original. Specialization is pointless, because your soldiers die.

And, from what you say, you are in any case trying the first game on difficulty 3 or 4 for the first time (having been stuck with one difficulty level previously) - so it being harder to get and keep higher-level soldiers could simply just be the game working as intended.

I believe it's difficulty 3, and you are correct that this is my very first time playing on a difficulty higher than 1 Well, it's my second game currently. My point is that it's not really any harder. It's still easy to get the 3 important research options unlocked in order to do the final mission. Money is not a problem. Weaponry is not a problem. Armor is not a problem. I can deal with base attacks and terror missions. I can deal with alien bases. It's not that I struggle to "win" the game; it's the fact that it's so merciless. Working as intended? I don't know. Why having all the nice soldier stats when they are basically redundant? Why having soldiers improve, when they get so easily killed?

I've been trying to re-evaluate my X-COM experiences, because I know I am addicted to the series. I am very excited about the remake, but if I get disappointed, I want to get disappointed for the right reasons. I'm still hoping Firaxis nails it, and I'll only know for sure after I've played the game.

PhilBowles, you are probably a more skilled X-COM player than I am, so if we're still in disagreement about the original X-COM (not the remake), please feel free to PM me.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

OK... so, the game comes out in a few short days. When the game was first announced, I was perhaps a bit more active here... both very excited and very skeptical. I loved hearing that Firaxis was handling the remake as I had always thought should be the case. Even despite the fact that I was hoping to be working at Firaxis and on the team (if not leading it). Well, that is neither here nor there. Jake Solomon got the honors and one thing that I can say is that he truly shows his excitement for the project with every interview, gameplay video, and appearance.

Of course, I was also disappointed. I have been skeptical of several of the changes that were announced which I felt were rather puzzling and taking away from the experience of the original that I loved. Certainly NOT the least was the announcement of the reduction in squad size. Part of my tactic in the original was too break up my team into several smaller ones and scour the maps for the enemy. Well, now, I can't do that. Another point I was not too happy with was the 1 base. Satelite arguments aside, it just takes away from my preferred method of playing.

That all said, I am still very excited for this game. I already pre-ordered the XBOX version, and I plan to get the PC version down the line (for the enhanced customization and modability that comes with the PC versions of games). I cannot wait for Tuesday night when I fire it up and send my squad out. Also, having watched some of the multi-player play throughs, I am really excited about that mode. While I am sure that I am going to fire up the main game first, I can't decide whether I will try out the multiplayer within the first couple of days, or wait until I get through a play-through of the single player mode first.

In any case, what has really irked me over the past few weeks is all of the negativity here on these boards. I have seen post after post of people claiming that the game is "dumbed-down" or killed by mass marketing. Really, people? First off, Firaxis is a business... and the sad fact is if the game does not have mass appeal, that could affect future iterations and sequels, as well as the company themselves. I WANT little Timmy who only plays Halo and Mass Effect to broaden his horizons and become excited for this game... this genre. Only then, will the games that I love survive the industry. I just never understood the arguments against a game having mass appeal. To me, it is a selfish demand and only leads to games like this not being made in the future. Get over it!

As far as "dumbed-down", I have seen absolutely NO evidence to this. Simplified controls and interface is NOT dumbing-down. If anybody can look at the original and tell me that the interface and controls were top-notch and perfect, they are only fooling themselves. While I love the original... it had many flaws. For anybody that claims that the game is dumbed-down... I challenge you to play the game. Take screen captures of your progress through the game and post them here so that we can see just how "dumbed-down" the game is!

Along with the "dumbed-down" argument comes the console argument. Both PC games and console games have there merits and flaws. While I am certain that the computer I have will run the game fine (it certainly runs the demo fine), I have always hated getting PC games only to find that the Video Card I have can't run the game (even though by the numbers, it should be able to). But, as I mentioned earlier, the PC has the advantage of customization and modability. This will likely be the first game that I get across platforms. Afterall, it will be nice to be able to lie back in my bed with my controller while I destroy me some Sectoids.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw my point out there. Sure, there are things about it that I am not AS happy about... but most of those are pretty minute. I am really looking forward to Tuesday. I can certainly use the stress relief right now. What a better way to releive stress than to take out a group of Sectoids or MC a floater to blow himself up. To those of you who want to cry about the end of the world because "Firaxis sold out" or it is "dumbed down"... get over it. You are NOT going to convince me otherwise and it is obvious that you are only trying to convince yourselves.

I agree with this 99.62 percent. Everything but the implication that liking Mass Effect is a negative trait that one should grow out of.\
XCOM is gonna interrupt my renegade run!

 

[SJSerio]

I find that several teams within a single mission is a recipe for failure. The only time I "split up" is when I need to cover my back or need to flank the aliens. But without sufficient numbers, any mission is a one-way ticket. Indeed, I prefer a 4-6 man team opposed to the 12-14 man teams I've been doing, but 6 soldiers in the original is very, very risky. It's entirely possible to have 2 squad members killed before you even get a chance to leave your craft. And with 15+ aliens left in a single mission... just a little bit of bad luck, and your entire squad is dead.

In regards to squad size... the thing is, how each of us handled our squads was a matter of personal preference. For me, having 10 - 12 members that I could divide into smaller teams of 3-4 was detrimental. As to that, I would usually have a tank, a Heavy and an auto-cannon. The tank would be my primary scout, the heavys would hold back near the sky ranger, or seek good ground (due to their limited movement), while the rest of my squad would split up into their groups and scour the map. With night missions, this was even more detrimental as visibility was limited and I learned early on the importance of searching every nook and cranny.

Still, in the end, it was a matter of personal preference.

Yes, of course! I don't fancy the new way of having the game choosing classes or upgrades for me, but the original gives me only an imaginary choice--that is, no choice at all. What I'm hoping is that the remake at least gives us a chance of having our soldiers survive. If it doesn't then who cares about classes and weapons!?! Is it any better? No. Is it worse? Not really.

Actually, for me, I don't really mind the class sytem. Afterall, in the original, I often "assigned" classes to my soldiers anyway. Particularly with the "Heavy's". I'd look at the strongest soldiers and assign them the Rocket Launcher or the Auto-cannon. That was detrimental as giving those to weaker soldiers often limited moves to one or two tiles. I don't mind that this is more automatic, though I'm not too sure about the classes being "surprises".

Again, I agree on the preference. But what I've been trying to point out is that this is not even an option in the original. Specialization is pointless, because your soldiers die.

Not so pointless. While they have been touting permadeath... I don't think it means that every mission you are going to lose 80% of your squad (... well, unless you absolutely suck at the game). I am sure there will be a few soldiers who make long runs. It is even an achievement.

I agree with this 99.62 percent. Everything but the implication that liking Mass Effect is a negative trait that one should grow out of.\
XCOM is gonna interrupt my renegade run!

I should point out that by no way did I intend to imply that people liking Halo or Mass Effect was negative. What I was referring to was the people who ONLY play those games and turn their nose up at games like XCOM or Civilization. I guess one way to look at it is that games like Halo and Mass Effect or COD are the Beef/Chicken/Pork of the meal, while games like Civilization and XCOM are the Veggies. For me, while there are few real veggies that I like, in the gaming terms, I eat a complete and balanced diet. Most gamers tend to push "veggies" to the side. But I fall into the class of gamer that cleans our plate of all the gaming goodness. Personally, the gaming vegitarians are just as bad as the gaming meat lovers. They are cutting out a big part of the meal because they think that the "meat" holds no value for them, even though it can be just as vital.

OK... I think I am done now... and a little hungry now.

 

[Disgustipated]

You need to download XcomUtil 9.7 from BladeFireLight's X-COM site.

If you get the zip version, extract the archive into ...Steam\steamapps\common\XCom UFO Defense\XCOM and run XcuSetup.bat. You'll get to choose the "patches" you want to apply; I only chose the difficulty bug fix.

I don't know if it's required, but I also ran SteamSetup.bat from the XcomUtil folder.

You can read more about the bug and XComUtil here and here.

Edit: Oh, and this is for the DOS version. I know Steam includes the Windows9x/XP version, which has the bug fixed, but I cannot get it to run on Windows 7.

My steam version of X-com runs perfect on Windows 7. It's a great way to play the game (it's not too fast like if I tried to play my Dos version).

 

[AlpsStranger]

You need to download XcomUtil 9.7 from BladeFireLight's X-COM site.

If you get the zip version, extract the archive into ...Steam\steamapps\common\XCom UFO Defense\XCOM and run XcuSetup.bat. You'll get to choose the "patches" you want to apply; I only chose the difficulty bug fix.

I don't know if it's required, but I also ran SteamSetup.bat from the XcomUtil folder.

You can read more about the bug and XComUtil here and here.

Edit: Oh, and this is for the DOS version. I know Steam includes the Windows9x/XP version, which has the bug fixed, but I cannot get it to run on Windows 7.

Thanks for this. I've tweaked the DosBox settings in the Steam release and run X-Com Util. I've been playing quite a bit since you made this post but I forgot to thank you

Really fun, but obviously a little bit of a bad UI by 2012 standards.

Anyhow, ~30 hours to go!

 

[PhilBowles]

Yes, of course! I don't fancy the new way of having the game choosing classes or upgrades for me, but the original gives me only an imaginary choice--that is, no choice at all. What I'm hoping is that the remake at least gives us a chance of having our soldiers survive. If it doesn't then who cares about classes and weapons!?! Is it any better? No. Is it worse? Not really.

In the stat system, the stats of even rookies varied drastically - there was a lot more initial choice than just 4 options. Having only played the new demo once, I don't know whether starting stats vary as well as classes in the new one, but as there are only a couple of stats and you can't vary your weapon loadout depending on how accurate your guy is, it seems likely to be more limiting.

In my current game I have several veterans I've kept alive - my best was on 10 missions and 20 kills, which had quite drastically changed his stats before he went missing in action because he was under Ethereal control when I won his last mission. My best soldier (though not the one with the most kills) has lasted more missions and has improved his stats fairly well, though it's still the case that the ones with the best starting stats tend to remain the better soldiers.

Again, I agree on the preference. But what I've been trying to point out is that this is not even an option in the original. Specialization is pointless, because your soldiers die.

All that means is that you're choosing between 45 accuracy vs. 65 etc. rather than 60 vs. 90 etc. - if your soldiers are going to die early anyway, you get more of a real choice with the stat system than the levelling one.

I'll grant the choice was somewhat limited - the only attributes I really paid a lot of attention to were accuracy, health, and secondarily bravery, time units and stamina (and of course psi power once I identified that) - but they were choices.

In contrast I struggle to see early in the game how well-differentiated the different classes will be in XCOM. It seems that gun range is still unlimited, so the sniper's weapon isn't noticeably different from a rifle or a shotgun. Without the ability to fire at multiple targets, nor is the machine gun. Certainly when playing the demo - unrepresentative as it may be - I didn't register any difference between the primary weapons of my squad members.

I believe it's difficulty 3, and you are correct that this is my very first time playing on a difficulty higher than 1 Well, it's my second game currently. My point is that it's not really any harder. It's still easy to get the 3 important research options unlocked in order to do the final mission. Money is not a problem. Weaponry is not a problem. Armor is not a problem. I can deal with base attacks and terror missions. I can deal with alien bases. It's not that I struggle to "win" the game; it's the fact that it's so merciless. Working as intended? I don't know. Why having all the nice soldier stats when they are basically redundant? Why having soldiers improve, when they get so easily killed?

Well, making you replace soldiers and kit and reducing your ability to run UFO missions is really the only way the game design can make the game harder. This was a game designed with a '90s mentality -like the Civ titles of that era, like Master of Orion, like early Total War etc. it wasn't designed around being hard to actually win the game (unless all your bases were successfully invaded or you ran out of money altogether, it's not really possible to lose the game), but about presenting more of a challenge en route.

On reflection though, I think the strategic element was too forgiving - you gained too much money from selling easily-obtainable or producable alien artefacts, and it wasn't long before your standing with different council members became nearly irrelevant since council funding was a minority of your income. I've now decided that the new mechanic of destroying alien weapons as the aliens die is probably a necessary way to limit that resource.

Really fun, but obviously a little bit of a bad UI by 2012 standards.

There are certainly annoying elements - no camera controls (and no automatic scrolling of the Geoscape), no ability to check soldier stats while selecting them for a mission or equipping them, no way of equipping soldiers and retaining their gear loadouts and all the rest - but while ungainly the icon bar works reasonably well, and I actually prefer a couple of elements - moving levels up and down, and the alien spotted notifications - to those in the demo.

No idea when I'll try the new game - I'll wait for a sale, but beyond that I don't have the space on my machine for a 20 GB game.