It's gone all quiet...

[blufive]

UFO Aftermath is just as addictive, just as time-consuming, and just as difficult as the game it was inspired by (X-Com: UFO Defence, AKA UFO: Enemy Unknown)

More detailed comments may be forthcoming once I stop playing it quite so much.

Comments

[serpentstar.livejournal.com]

Have you played Laser Squad Nemesis (http://www.lasersquadnemesis.com) also inspired by X-Com et al? I've been playing that rather too much too...

[blufive.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to, but no, I haven't.

I believe LSN is a far more direct descendant of the first (and best, IMO) X-Com game, being written by the Gollop Brothers (who were programming and design leads on XCOM:UFO) whereas UFO:AM is a third-party copy[1] homage.

[1]I'm being cruel. While UFO:AM is a fairly obvious re-make of XCOM:UFO, it's a far better re-make than, say, XCOM: Terror From The Deep (which wasn't a sequel, it was the same game with new sprites, only much harder)

(Oh, how embarrassing: I fumbled the HTML on the first comment, and me a professional webby-person. darn. apologies for the repeat to those who get to see it before I delete my goof)

[serpentstar.livejournal.com]

Let me know if you want me to send you an LSN battle to play with me -- I'm a subscriber, so you don't need to subscribe yourself.

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

I forget how I got to your journal, but I can't resist commenting on the wonderful XCOM games!

Terror From The Deep was, as you say, much, much more difficult - all of those labyrinthine cruise ship missions, and the near-impossible alien undersea base missions...

The missions were a lot bigger (and I think it ran a little slower, because of the increased size - on my 'puter, at least).

(I seem to recall getting to the middle bit of one of them, eventually, but don't remember completing the mission - or if I did, my team was in such a mess that when the aliens then decided to attack my base, I stood no chance I was so depleted...)

The first was far more playable, I think, because things didn't get difficult quite so quickly...

I haven't played either of them for ages.

I have, however, just discovered something equally distracting: an emulator for the BBC Micro and Stryker's Run...

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

It looks very good in the screenshots - how good a system does it require in single-player, and what sort of connection do you need for decent online play? I have a 1.8 Ghz P4 with 512 RAM and a reasonably good graphics card...

[blufive.livejournal.com]

Based on what the FAQ says, you're more than adequately equipped, hardware-wise.

For online play, everything I can see says it's play by e-mail - so unless the datafiles it's emailing around are stupidly large, it should be playable on just about any connection (though I won't make any promises about IP by carrier pigeon)

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

Wonderful. I don't think I've ever seen that before...

And yes, a FAQ - cheers.

I'm currently getting used to Laser Squad - it's close enough to the old X-Com to be familiar, but with lots of lovely, tactical innovations (I'm pretty sure there wasn't 'Opportunity Fire' in the old one; or the facility to 'hold' your trooper in the middle of a march...).