Together Retro: X-COM: UFO Defense

[noiseredux]

fast, believe it or not I've never played Advanced Wars! I am a tactics fan though. Turn based, not real time.

[DerekG52]

So I just gave xcom a whirl, and boy did I get my ass kicked in the land battles. I tried doing the buddy pairing system, and 1 guy was always shot and killed the second I spotted an alien, and the next guy would usually die from not being able to kill him during his turn.

[fastbilly1]

I like the first Advance Wars the most, I think the system works really well with only a dozen options - though I never played the second and it is just the first with a couple of tweaks. Once the system expands to three dozen units and dual COs it gets unwieldy. They are all solid games though. The first one came out on September 11th 2001, I almost skipped class to go pick it up (I worked at a Software ETC back then).

[Ivo]

I remember finishing X-Com (on the CD32) without losing a single soldier. Of course that required a bit of re-doing missions (IIRC you can't save mid-mission).

You just need to be very, very careful when entering doors (particularly into UFOs). Also, the tanks (available from the start) are excellent as they can take one or two shots. I basically always used the "save time units for shot" things to give a chance of ambush the aliens.

When you get the remote controlled missiles (they are amazing) I used to love opening a hole in the biggest UFOs so I could enter from the top, the explosion was powerful enough to open at least a 1 square hole in an intact UFO (that's how I managed to capture one of the highest-ranking aliens alive).

This game is epic

Ivo.

[MrPopo]

When you get the remote controlled missiles (they are amazing) I used to love opening a hole in the biggest UFOs so I could enter from the top, the explosion was powerful enough to open at least a 1 square hole in an intact UFO (that's how I managed to capture one of the highest-ranking aliens alive).

This game is epic

Ivo.

Blaster Bombs! That's how I beat the last level. I used the rest of my soldiers as scouts, found the HQ area, and started firing Blaster Bombs into it.

[nutbar]

This game is so painful... here in my 6th complete re-start of the game I finally have personal armor and laser rifles for my team. I finally beat a terror zone, too!

[MrPopo]

Terror Zones are a pain in the ass at the start of the game. When you get armor and laser weapons they become a little better. Once you research Heavy Plasma (which is a lightweight heavy weapon that should be the standard weapon by mid/end game) and the Powered Armor they become even easier.

[enderfall]

For all the X-COM rookies like me, you might want to visit this site for some tips, etc.:

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=X-COM

[Ivo]

Depending on circumstances, you may want to keep using Laser weapons rather than Plasma ones up to the end - the Plasma ones suck up a lot of ammo.

The problem is if you even shoot only once with a given soldier, for the next mission the ammo clip will need to be replaced as if it was all used up! And then each ammo clip is one unit of Element-115, which is not that easy to acquire (I remember only getting significant quantities when you grab WHOLE UFOs, which is rather tricky to pull off).

Ivo.

[MrPopo]

Depending on circumstances, you may want to keep using Laser weapons rather than Plasma ones up to the end - the Plasma ones suck up a lot of ammo.

The problem is if you even shoot only once with a given soldier, for the next mission the ammo clip will need to be replaced as if it was all used up! And then each ammo clip is one unit of Element-115, which is not that easy to acquire (I remember only getting significant quantities when you grab WHOLE UFOs, which is rather tricky to pull off).

Ivo.

True, there's that bug. You can circumvent it by unloading the clip before the end of the mission. And after a while the aliens pretty much exclusively use Heavy Plasma, so ammo becomes pretty plentiful. If you're having to manufacture clips you're doing it wrong.

That said, I do usually keep a few Laser Rifles on hand as backup for my heavy weapons soldiers. It's nice to not have to carry around ammo when they're already loaded with the large ammo from the HWs.