UFO Extraterrestrials is very close to the original XCOM with updated graphics.
The graphics are not quite up to today's standards, but they are better than original graphics. The audio is pretty good.
Reviews on this are mixed, I've read one bad and one very good one.
The bad one seems to mainly because they didn't take the opportunity to "add their own stuff", which I think would have been dangerous since they are trying to cater to XCOM fans.
The opening movie is ok graphics wise, but the voice acting is very bad. You might as well say there is no "acting". But, I certainly wouldn't let the opening sequence stop me from buying it.
I got it for $20 at EB Games, though Walmart had it for $40, and I believe it was at Future Shop that I saw it at $30. (all Canadian prices)
They have added some more things like an "advanced med kit" and a pretty cool looking ED-209 vehicle.
I have just started playing it but I am mostly pleased to far.
The biggest problem I have encountered so far is it wouldn't install on Vista, which other people have also had problems with. The solutions I have found for this so far have not worked for me, or were not an option.
I have still been playing the original 2 XCOM's. But, this may be the replacement for the first one. Fighting underwater was still an interesting twist.
Hey Stonesword, have you considered posting reviews for the games you play? That review would be very helpful for me had I been searching for reviews of the game prior to buying. (I always research before buying.)
OH SHIT! I looked this game up and the old ass one for comp? My dad used to play it when I was little! HOLY CRAP!
that screen shot is from the second XCOM game - Terror From the Deep.
to Detra:
I do, but probably not as often as I should. I like to read what users have to say before I buy myself. I will post more about this game as I go through it.
Here is a quote from a "walk through" I read after buying this one:
From UFO: Extraterrestrials: FAQ/Walkthrough by Shanrak (Shanrak at gmail dot com)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Differences Between UFO ET and X-Com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ah yes, the question that will most commonly be asked is: is this game related to UFO Defense? Well the short answer would be no. This game has no legal relation with a copyrighted game that is owned by a different publisher. The long answer though, is that the developers of this game obviously ripped off a lot of concepts from the original game, slapped on some additional stuff and updated the graphics and tried to sell it to you for 40 bucks. Any old hand at the original awesome game known as X-Com UFO Defense will see striking similarities between the two, and will also notice some major differences as well. The following is just a short list of some of the major differences.
1. Soldiers will no longer die, since this game takes place in a more 'advanced' time period, technology allows the revival of dead soldiers and the complete regeneration of them from small portions of cells. However, they have a chance to permanently lose some attribute points, strange huh?
2. Your primary base is the only base capable of housing soldiers as well as R&D unless you choose to mod the game. Secondary bases are there only to house more fighters and provide detection, so no more creation of research bases or workshop/storage bases. Oh, and also storage seems to be unlimited and take up no space as near as I can tell.
3. No more recruiting soldiers. In this game, you'll have a limited amount of soldiers and you'll get a few new soldiers on a regular basis. Since soldiers never completely die unless you kill them intentionally by sending them on a mission and letting the craft blow up, you won't need that many more. This means that you are no longer able to recruit 200 soldiers, pick out the ones with the highest stats, send those through psi training, and then picking only the ones with high psi stats for your army.
4. More technology, there is a ton more technology and vehicles/equipment available for research.
5. Its possible to actually take back infiltrated countries now by locating and invading the alien base in that country.
6. Aliens do not take advantage of the terrain nearly as much such as hiding in barns, shooting from rooftops. Most of the time they just stay in the open or clutter in their UFO.
7. No more psi attacks for humans. While aliens can still do terror attacks among other things, humans no longer have the ability to control aliens and visa versa, and the psi attribute is completely eliminated from soldiers.
8. Where's the flaming wreckage? UFOs that was shot down do not show any signs of damage nor will you find dead aliens.
UPDATE: Good news to all UFO Defense fans! There is a mod out there made by bman that fixes many of these differences to make the game feel more like UFO Defense. See section 7 for details.
This mod adds in many of the old UFO Defense properties such as dying soldiers, damaged UFOs, hire/fire soldiers, etc.
NOTE: The author does not condone the hacking of your game and/or save file as this can causes crashes and corrupted save files. If this happens to you, do not come to me for help in fixing it so MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP EVERYTHING.
Side note: I really like assigning attribute points to soldiers as they go up levels.
I didn't use my best camera because it doesn't create videos in a format that photobucket likes.
They came out a bit dark, but I just wanted to show what the animation was like. I might be dark because I was on a "snow" mission, the camera might have been compensating too much, but it was neat that people make footprints in the snow. Armored vehicles make track on each level that I have seen so far.
Let me know if you think they are terrible, I will try to make a better one.
Also, I had trouble posting videos before, the site kept messing up the link after I clicked submit, so I may have to edit this to get it right....
The first video shows movement and selecting the crouching position. I found out that you can only pick up stuff off the ground if you are crouching.
The game is going well, I'm pretty happy about the things they simplified.
Haven't noticed any bugs.
It's nice that you can be in the middle of shooting down a UFO and start a mission without it crashing (This was an unresolved bug with XCOM and XCOM 2 as well, I believe)
It's sort of tough trying to get a new rookie have most of the kills so he can catch up.
and I found this amusing... One of the missions was on a golf course. Sorry for the poor quality, I should have used a tripod.
I was on a terror mission and went into the Police station.
I couldnčt help trying out the practice range (who knows maybe there was an Easter egg) Anyways, no Easter egg and somehow I put a hole in the wall behind the target.
For those that aren't XCOM fans or have never played it, UFO Extraterrestrials is a combined RTS/TBS game.
The Real time portion is limited, but it's an interesting mix.
In real time you send out ships to shoot down alien craft, then in the turned based segment you explore the "wreckage", or in other missions you just explore shooting aliens as you go. (Which isn't really wreckage in this game without the mod. Shot down UFO's don't look like they were shot down.
I feel like I got it for a good price at $20 (EB Games). Even without seeing the game I was tempted by the Future Shop price of $30.
It didn't bother me that I could only have soldiers/manufacturing/research at one base.
I really liked being able to assign points to the soldiers as they went up levels, and that you could see them getting experience points.
The technology you had to research was adequate (by that, I mean I wasn't annoyed by it. There was more of it then in XCOM.) I liked that you didn't have to research weapons and their clip serparately. I didn't have a problem with clips for LASER weapons, I just thought of them as batteries.
I also didn't have a problem with holding two big weapons, one in each hand. You see it in the movies all the time.
Needing to build components for the final spaceship was interesting, though someone else already posed the question:
"why do you have to learn to build an space ship? You already got to this different planet from Earth."
I played the game on "easy" and I still thought it was challenging. There are some pretty deadly alien units in the game.
The replay ability seems to be there.
I am playing the game at least one more time, and then I may try "bman's mod". It is suppose to make the game even more "XCOM"-like and gives you a lot of control over different settings.
This will probably replace the the original XCOM game for me.
Though the graphics are not "state of the art", it was a refreshing change from the original EGA graphics in XCOM.
I say probably because I still liked the differences in "Terror from the Deep", so the differences in the original XCOM may have me going back to it at some point.
The unit movement seemed a bit touchy, and I still occasionally try to click on a new unit and end up moving the last unit.
The TBS 3D layers isn't as functional as XCOM. If you are at an elevator, you can't shoot between levels, though the aliens will try anyways.
You need the patch for this game, and even then there are a couple of bugs left, but not enough to cause too much annoyance, just try to save the game occasionally.
I'd give this game an 8 out of 10 for XCOM fans. For myself, it's probably a 9.
If you don't like turn based strategy games, this game is not for you.
