OpenXcom 1.0
openxcom.org
openxcom.org
That said, in the remake, the AI is inexplicably "boxed" up. That is, the AI doesn't move until you stumble upon them...and so if you're patient and methodical, it's not terribly hard to win most fights, scratch-free. That ruined the tension that the original game had...The About page for Open-XCOM says the AI is improved...I'd love to see a writeup on what was changed.
I was pretty satisfied with how they addressed that issue in Enemy Within. There are optional objectives that give you bonus resources if you reach them before they expire after a number of turns.
But yes, in Enemy Unknown, I gave up on my Classic runthrough after I realized that I could win easily if I just advanced slowly enough.
So, naturally, I deploy 12 squaddies, leapfrog and encircle the crashed craft on a farm in broad daylight (never, ever, at night, ever), and proceed to fill it full of detpacks. Perfect, flawless run. I'm feeling cocky.
Next mission, terror mission, and within three turns I've lost like half my team to friendly fire (unfortunate incident with an incendiary rocket), a quarter to enemy fire, and the last few guys are either panicking or getting crushed in a pincer between alien tank units (cyberdiscs) and heavy infantry.
And that's when I realized that pretty much no modern games are as hard and unforgiving as that old DOS wonder. You start the game with a bunch of folks in T-shirts and M16s, and by the end you are literally space marines whose mere presence sends elite enemy units scurrying in terror--and more importantly, the game made you earn it, every step of the way.
EDIT:
Their Github!
Couldn't resist:
http://4chanmemeandmotivational.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/...
At the easy difficulty modes (most new players) the curve is completely backwards. It stars out brutally difficult and becomes easier as you gain access to heavy plasma weapons.
If a total wipe of your early team was a forgiving event compared to late-game losses, that could be excused as setting tone, but it's not like that - players just save-scummed until the mission worked. That's not good gameplay.
I mean, the game's merits easily overshadowed its flaws, but the reverse-difficulty is a serious flaw.
Once you realized "Hey, we're totally outgunned...we just need to flood the aliens until we get better gear", things changed. Missions became more about resource management: what is the bare minimum I can field to wipe these guys, what can I build and manufacture that has the highest profit margin, etc.?
Terror missions, for example, early on devolved into "Set fire to everything, because we need the light, and shoot the civilians, because they could be used to feed the Chrysalids and make more Chrysalids."
The enemies in the game stayed largely the same difficulty, but your equipment got better and better and tactics switched as you were able to field more expensive units--and unless you ran a really tight resource game, you treated those expensive units much differently.
The thing that made the game feel unique was exactly that: the reverse-difficulty. If you started kicking ass, and then things got harder, it'd be annoying--instead, you had some early success, discovered just how outclassed you were, and after a few restarts learned how to fight a technologically-superior enemy until you had achieved force parity.
I'd say FTL and Super Hexagon are good examples of punishing modern games. I think this sort of difficulty curve is coming back into fashion with gamers.
What changed all this was kickstarter. All the games that developers still wanted to make, but couldn't find funding for because they weren't "modern" suddenly had a new method for publishing. FTL is a great example of that- it was an early kickstarter success and I doubt it would have been as good if it were published by, say, Ubisoft. What will be interesting is if we see a resurgence of hard games, just like the resurgence of point-and-click adventure games after Doublefine showed that people will still pay money for them.
It cost £10 or so, and I never regretted a single penny of it. If you loved this game, I really recommend getting XCom on the iPad.
PS: This is not meant to take away from what these guys are doing... but watching that ancient creaky interface after being treated to the modern touch interface in the iPad game was somewhat painful. Here's a video:
And I seconded the praise of the ipad games. I've played quite a lot of TBS games over the years, and the XCOM remake has to be the best experience I've ever got. Both in term of game play, controlling and the overall experience (a good balance between challenge and immersion - it isn't too hard that it would frustrate you, nor too easy that it feels like a grind).
XCom on iPad is pretty good though. I love touch interfaces for turn based games.
Wikipedia claims that the difficulty didn't reset until after the first Battlescape mission, which might explain things.
Aha! http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Known_Bugs#Difficul...
It was only on the DOS version, the windows version did not have the bug; perhaps you played the windows version?
There is an build-in mod to reduce the chance to hit a target based on range. Since this doesn't solve the issue, the melee aliens become even more dangerous. And from all games around, Xcom do have the nastiest melee alien ever.
- Range based accuracy removed - UFO Extender accuracy added.
But yes, I am enjoying it and it is in the spirit of the original x-com.
the only downside I have noticed so far is that I seem to be seeing the same maps a lot (although with X-Com chopper and UFO location randomised)