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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

X-com And Your Imagination


gufu

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Let's get this straight and simple:X-com is an old turn based strategy game... but would you expirienced fun without thinking of scenes (Crysalis riping through you're soldier with easy, mutons laughing(oh reallY?) as civilians fall on the floor partially melted), overexegarading sounds(Ok maybe not that), and imagining punishing you're PSI-weakling...

 

Quiestion: How Much do you use you're imagination when you play X-com?(I know I do...)

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The atmosphere in X-Com is so simple that a lot of the excitement comes from your very own imagination. I hate to say it but a lot of new games just do not do this for me. Well, I suppose System Shock II did this a bit - but only because of the randomly generated zombies, although they kind of lost their edge once I cottoned on to the fact that they were being randomly generated and not just missed or crawling around in the piping and vents. But even that required a bit of imagination.

 

One reason why this old game has kept a small but devoted following.

 

 

- NKF

 

P. S: By the way, I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to exercise my moderator status and rename the title of the thread slightly. This is just for my own practice, and because my inner punctuation-nazi is champing at the bit! I'm just fixing the contraction for you are and the possessive your. Nothing to worry about. Easily confused.

Edited by NKF
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You mean like this?

 

Sgt. Carl Hudson had been bossing the new French rookie, Louis Revenue, around throughout the last couple of small UFO raids.

 

"C'mon, rookie, stay on me."

"You go in first, rookie."

"ROOKIE! ILLUMINATION! NOW!"

 

Revenue graduated to Squaddie just in time for their first Abductor raid. When their fire team breached the UFO, Sgt. Hudson started going crazy. He panicked for a while and started firing on his own men. Luckily, he was using an auto-cannon, and their armor was impervious. Revenue and a couple of others proceeded into the UFO and killed the sectoid leader with standard assault rifles. Revenue was promoted to Sergeant.

 

Sgt. Hudson showed a lot more respect for Sgt. Revenue after that. Hudson realized he would be using weaker weaponry than Revenue, and would be at best an auxiliary element of the squad now. Revenue would go on to become an anti-psionic stormtrooper, allowed to use a laser or plasma weapon in the most important missions.

 

Hudson was somewhat vindicated on a later abductor raid. He was carrying a standard assault rifle when, as expected, he was mind controlled by the enemy. He regained his senses while standing right next to the sectoid leader, who he immediately shot in the head. Hudson had effectively infiltrated and assassinated the enemy through their own psionic control. With the psionic threat neutralized, he was able to participate fully in the clearing of the area around the UFO.

 

etc.

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I think KNF nailied it right on tht head. newer games have sutch advanced graphics they leave little to the imagination. They just dont grab you.

 

Xcom let's you slow down and think. the big advantage of turn based games over Real time. Each unit has the full inteligence of a human behind his every action. In Real Time Stratigy games you have to rely on the AI because you can be everywhere at once. and all it takes to win is geting your grunt rush in befor the oponent. Last time I tried to 'grunt rush' a medium scout I lost all my men as they ran in the door.

 

I am often taking this "thinking" time byond just planing my moves. I like to get into the heads of my units. What goes on in the Triton on the way to a landing site? How do my men feel watching the bikiny clad chick geting chunked by a Sonic Blaster. What hapens to the alines after intarigation, and the related question, How does a Lobster man taste with butter?

 

Perhaps I'm taking it to an unhealty level. :Brickwall:

 

-Blade FireLight

Edited by BladeFireLight
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  • 1 year later...
I do use my imagination pretty extensively. As anyone who knows me as a player knows, I name my agents after my friends and (capable) family members. In missions, I often perceive those agents as my real-life friends and family, and so I experience a great deal of dramatic tension as missions unfold, especially in the early stages. I imagine that the agents on the screen sense the same social and personal bonds among them as their real-life counterparts do. I have friends and family in different cities, so XCOM is really a way for me to get my social network together for one big reunion. It's unfortunate we have to take breaks from our reunion to go repel an alien invasion, but hey - what're ya' gonna do?
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  • 4 weeks later...

Imagination is essential in such old games imo.

 

On the one hand, you have elite troops that can't shoot straight over minute distances, but on the other hand, I've just had a trooper take a dozen shots in his direction from a panicked floater (all missing), just to calmy kneel and pop a shot between his eyes mid-charge.

Imagination adds to the flavour. It's nice to be able to imagine the look on the guys face as that happens.

 

Or the look on their face as they duck behind a flimsy bit of wall as the cover either side is shot to pieces.

 

Or when they execute a wounded and unarmed grey with a pistol shot to the head.

 

Etc

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I imagine that the bases are fully manned. The soldiers, engineers and scientists get the really big salaries (they do the hardest work), but I reckon they are guys who man the radar, repair and pilot the craft, stand guard in the alien containment etc. The salaries come out of base maintenance. They are all enlisted support soldiers on standard army pay. When the base is assaulted, they are evacuated along with the techies.
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  • 3 weeks later...

I often take a few moments to imagine how a scene would be translated on film.

 

One of my common tactics is for a breaching team to surround a door; with some guys preparing Smoke Grenades and possibly a Proximity Grenade. In my head I can see all of them with AC or HP pointed at the door. The less experienced guys have a combination of excitement and anxiety on their faces. Their stance and grip a little bit tenser than necessary. Veterans are calmly waiting for the sound of the door slide so they can start depressing the trigger and get a huge advantage on the attacker. Often if its a ground recovery team with just one officer(usually a Sargeant), the Sargeant is calmly reminding everyone to listen for the sound and not wait for the door to move. It opens quickly and usually the aliens are already prepared to shoot out.

Then comes the breach, when the person with the smoke grenade doesn't go in so much as open the door. They usually have to take a step or two then throw the grenade at a wall. Then they pop back out and wait while the fuse goes. As soon as the smoke pops, the next two breacher bust through and get to the other side where they have cover. It is a tense couple seconds and the aliens occasionally get the drop on them. However the overwhelming forceful entry of the rest of the team usually reduces casualties to 0-2. Then they use aggressive around the cover movements. Rookies tend to use vocals more then they should.

 

Also while playing I will fill in the cross-chatter a lot. Some of my troopers have developed personalties over time.

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  • 3 months later...

Answer is obvious: Of course I use my imagination!

 

I imagine the looks of each soldier, I imagine how they feel, I imagine how it would look in a film, how would I be if they were performing a plan I had outlined to them before landing, I imagine how it would go in real time, I imagine how they would carry negotiations for funding and for selling.

 

Except maybe during nigth terror missions with chryssalids, then I may be the one panicking

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  • 4 months later...

Quite a bit. I try to imagine what it would be like for the soldier as I control him, of my officers ordering around the rookies and squaddies.

 

I tried naming my soldiers after RL friends and family........but then I would grow attached to them and if anyone died I absolutely had to reload.......so then I went back to the default names with a twist here and there, made it easier to accept the loss. :(

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  • 2 weeks later...

Adding your imagination to the game totally makes it your own. Who honestly doesn't think of their agents as actual people? I like to imagine what happened to them to get them drafted into the Xcom program, what sort of thing they did beforehand, what they talk about on the ship, that sort of thing.

 

The fact the games leave so many blanks add to its awesomeness, it means you can make up all the bits inbetween. How old are the soldiers? Do they get on, have parties, have fights?

 

It's also cool to reimagine that wicked snipe from across the level on that bastad lobsterman, so instead of a simple aim-shoot-kill it's a full on dive with a heroic facial expression style thing. Or is that just me? LOL

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  • 4 weeks later...

Not only do I use my imagination, I also play "logically".

 

For example, in UFO Defense my first base goes in the US because, to me, that's where the world participants would decide it should go. Similar to the UN HQ being in NY.

 

Also, I never seek to get psi early, because i would not logically know about psi attacks until one is performed. Or at the very least, you might begin to suspect when you find your first mind probe. Even so, how would one "know" that interrogation would lead to a psi lab? Some things are discovered "accidentally".

 

I do not seek to rush out to get a Navigator, because I would have no idea that would lead to a HWD.

 

And so on. :)

Edited by Scrogdog
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Not only do I use my imagination, I also play "logically".

 

For example, in UFO Defense my first base goes in the US because, to me, that's where the world participants would decide it should go. Similar to the UN HQ being in NY.

 

Also, I never seek to get psi early, because i would not logically know about psi attacks until one is performed. Or at the very least, you might begin to suspect when you find your first mind probe. Even so, how would one "know" that interrogation would lead to a psi lab? Some things are discovered "accidentally".

 

I do not seek to rush out to get a Navigator, because I would have no idea that would lead to a HWD.

 

And so on. :)

I play a lot like this nowadays, though I still get that HWD by stunning every single alien in a UFO recovery and interrogating all of them

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