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ElkinFencer10 wrote:There are five difficulties in the game (and some of the mods tweak settings that make the game a little more approachable), and while the game still shows its age with the mechanics in a lot of ways, it's a very approachable game if you play it on the first or second difficulty and go into it with a little bit of patience.

So cool you enjoyed it so much!
I'm glad I could be an inspiration for something you so enjoyed
I will make one comment though, that I don't think I ever mentioned in the Slack. Beginner difficulty (the first one) is a very significant difficulty decrease from the second difficulty, more so than the spike between even the second and fifth difficulties. This is all down to one major thing that changes between the firing accuracy and armor of the aliens.

On all other difficulties, the stats for those either stay the same between them (as with armor) or goes up by about 6%, and these multipliers are just applied to that specific alien's base stats. On the first difficulty setting, Firing Accuracy and Armor are both 50% for aliens, while on the second difficulty they are both 100%. I'm not sure if that's true for the sequel Terror from the Deep, but those games share so much code past the graphics that I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. I know it's at least the case for the original X-COM: UFO Defense/UFO: Enemy Unknown/X-COM: Enemy Unknown (the last one there being the title of the PS1 port of the first X-COM, which Popo has assured me is god-awful ).

looking at that pic it appears that an RB XCOM squad decided not to draft me.

noiseredux wrote:looking at that pic it appears that an RB XCOM squad decided not to draft me.

You actually were on the team and a pretty damn good stat soldier, but you were on the other base's team. Those were fairly early game screenshots before I built the second base.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:X-COM: UFO Defense (or UFO: Enemy Unknown if you're in PALand) is definitely a game that shows its age, but if you have the patience to figure out the archaic menus and rough-around-the-edges presentation, there's an extremely fun and addicting game underneath. It's not a game for everyone, and its age makes it a lot less approachable than the more modern XCOM games, but if you like sci-fi and/or strategy games, I absolutely recommend it.

Nice job beating that one Elkin, I'm impressed. Good luck with Terror from the Deep. "Terror" is right.

Exhuminator wrote:

ElkinFencer10 wrote:X-COM: UFO Defense (or UFO: Enemy Unknown if you're in PALand) is definitely a game that shows its age, but if you have the patience to figure out the archaic menus and rough-around-the-edges presentation, there's an extremely fun and addicting game underneath. It's not a game for everyone, and its age makes it a lot less approachable than the more modern XCOM games, but if you like sci-fi and/or strategy games, I absolutely recommend it.

Nice job beating that one Elkin, I'm impressed. Good luck with Terror from the Deep. "Terror" is right.

Well, I did play on super bitch mode, but yeah, even so, there were some tough fucking missions. Everyone says that Terror from the Deep is balls hard. I'm scared.

I have that game. Have you ever seen me make a "Games Beaten" post about it? No, you haven't.

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse and Shantae: Half Genie Hero, both for PS4. And both with 100% of all the items.

It seems like each Shantae game is even better than the one before it, while still maintaining its classic "Monster World"-style Metroidvania-lite gameplay.

Really really REALLY wanna see a new Shantae game, hopefully with a full-realized Metroidian style of gameplay.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:Everyone says that Terror from the Deep is balls hard. I'm scared.

I don't think it's as hard as Jagged Alliance 2 or Fallout Tactics, but it's still no joke. You can late game screw yourself if you crawl up the wrong research tree (lock yourself out of vital kit). I think the original UFO games are cool, but I'm not a fan of their interfaces. If you want to play something in the same vein (as in a Julian Gollop jam), but with a better interface, give this a try:

Exhuminator wrote:

ElkinFencer10 wrote:Everyone says that Terror from the Deep is balls hard. I'm scared.

I don't think it's as hard as Jagged Alliance 2 or Fallout Tactics, but it's still no joke. You can late game screw yourself if you crawl up the wrong research tree (lock yourself out of vital kit).

That's why you should use at bare minimum XComUtil to fix the TFTD research bug.

Once again I begin my journey to document and review the games I've beaten in a year. I always tail off towards the end of the year, but maybe this one will be different!

Virginia - XB1


Virginia is a FPS, mystery game and is effectively in the new-ish style of "walking simulator". Please note that I don't consider that label to be negative, but it does have that certain style, so I thought it best to mention up front. In the game you play an FBI agent, who is investigating the disappearance of a young man and as you investigate you get lost in this world and the characters.


The story is "told" though a series of vignettes and in such a way where sometimes you don't always know how they're connected, but a lot of it comes together as you play along. I say "told" in quotes, because there is no spoken dialogue, all the story is told visually either by what plays out in scenes and some brief reading. Quick scene transitions also give it a certain feel. It definitely has the feeling of Thirty Flights of Loving (a game I highly recommend) by Brendan Chung. Music also plays a huge part in this game, with movement from light, quick music, to grand-scale concert hall pieces, that bring the tension up and maximize everything about the staging and set of the game.

I left the game feeling like I completely knew these characters and was a little in awe of what I felt during the 2 hours or so of the game. If this sounds like a game for you, then it is one of the best of those types. Enjoy!