My First X-com Experience

[xeonblast]

pretty much i discovered x-com in 1996/97 on the first playstation console.the game came out on playstation and i didnt know anything about it but bought it for about 19.99 back then. i put it in and well since i was about 12 almost 13 at the time i thought it was a pretty scary game . never did i play it at night alone cuz man that was just to much for me back then,but i remember just how much fun it was and wish i could get a ps and the game for ps again and play it.Btw in the PS version there seems to be this movie at the end if u fail that isnt in the computer game version. it shows the sectiods standing before our government then they kill all our leaders pretty cool auctually. :happybanana:

[Mariondeputy]

Yeah the playstation version has some really cool cut scenes. The one your talking about was by far the best. There holding a gun to the president's head and making him sign a contract. After he signs the sectoid shoots him in the head and the last scene is the president's blood dripping down the contract.

[c4t]

yup yup, good times. i always got freaked at the end of the month if i failed. also, the pc version left out some scenes in the intro video, its differnt, i can tell. anyway, when i was in like 3rd grade i got it. my friend and i had no freaking idea what we were doing. seriously, all we knew how to do was lose. and i never played it at night either, so freaking scary. i still get scared when i walk around a corner and get shot. anyway, i still can beleive i did this. it was a sectoid mission and i had a stun rod in hand and i just walked up to a sectoid and stunned him, the funny thing was that this was like the beginning of teh mission. there were other aliens around, and so the guy carring the alien was vip. i had body sheilds around him that actually got shot and died. i lost 3 guys tying to get the vip back, he didnt get touched but the others died. hah, so i aborted with teh alien in hand and guess what? you already know dont you? you have a bit of esp dont you? no you dont you just assume, yeah i didnt have an alien containment. so the bastard died. was probly only a sectoid soldier though, now im 14 and im pwning it up in beginner mode. WOOOOT

[Freelanc3r]

well my first experience was when we got it in like 1994. i used to watch my brother play and he was really good at the tactical part - far better than me still - even though he stopped playing it like 7 years ago

 

anyways, so when i played it in 1994 ( i would have been 10) i used to play with the sound off. i would get fully creeped out by just the aliens moving around, the screams, the plasma shots and all

 

heck i still get a bit creeped out now days. i play with music goin

[hippyjon]

my first experience of xcom was watching my mate playing tftd and being bored out of my skull (he took like 20mins to set up every mission and reloaded all the time) this was like 5-7 years ago... once i actually played the game i saw what all the fuss was about

 

in my first xcom1 battle, i lost ALL of my dudes on the first turn to reaction shots from invisible aliens camping outside the plane... i stuck with tftd after that experience :o (untill a cupla weeks ago)

[Guest drewid]

Yeah the playstation version has some really cool cut scenes. The one your talking about was by far the best. There holding a gun to the president's head and making him sign a contract. After he signs the sectoid shoots him in the head and the last scene is the president's blood dripping down the contract.

the original version of that movie was slightly more gory.

[mikker]

my first time, was for playstation too.

 

I cheated ( ), to get my men to have unlimited TUs, and when all my men ran out of energy, i had to abort....i simply hadnt seen the "end turn" button!

[c4t]

L O L, well that cant be as bad as trying to run up to aliens with stun rods , now that i remember it it was like a relay race, i would have my guys run up to the alien and when the guy with the rod lost it (died) i would have the next guy pick it up. this method did not work well. it didnt work well at all.

[j'ordos]

I can't really remember my first XCom Xperience , but I still remember the first time I met the Chryssalids :crying:

 

I had a base with 4 or 5 soldiers (rookies) in it, with some outdated stuff, as suddenly there's this screen: "xcom base under attack!" (I never had a base raid till 'then). So, I prepare for combat, and when my turn begins I notice two troopers are on the upper level of the barracks, and decide to bring the others over too, and make my 'last stand' there. I made the others run for it but unfortunately only one of them survives, so I had 3 guys left. I hide them behind some bunks and let them fire at every snakeman trying to climb the stairs. Much to my surprise this actually works very well, and soon there are several dead snakemen, against one of my man killed.

That's the point I suddenly see some black shape running up the stairs, and with a lot of luck I manage to take it down. Time to worry about this new creature there was not, though, for immediately a second one pops up, withstands everything I fire at it and chews up one of my men like bubblegum. Then comes a surprise: my chewed-up dude has gone hostile!! :o Damn, one guy left, better throw a grenade at those two... Surprise number two, an even better one: there's now two of the black thingies :crying:

Next turn: all human lives lost...

Edited July 8, 2003 by j'ordos

[Cpl. Facehugger]

My first game I tried beginner, shot down some sectoid scouts, and genrally kicked alien butt, but next month (February) the first ship is see is a large ship, although I didn't realize it at the time, that ship was a terror ship filled to capacity with snakemen and chryssalids. So I shot it down with 3 interceptors w/avalanches. Then I send my guys, who just recieved laser weapons to secure the crash site, first thing I see when I land is a black shape, almost gleaming in the morning sun, I tell my laser tank to shoot it, the tank fires and hits, creature is still standing. Tank fires again, creature lets out a hideous scream and dies. Then I had my tank and 3 others fan out and clear the surrounding area, or so I thought. Once my platoon was about to enter the ufo, something horrible happened,Coming up my ship's ramp was a chryssalid, before I could do anything it had molested 2 of my men, then once the zombies had killed off my skyranger's crew, another chryssalid came out of the door my platoon was about to enter, infected my 3 guys, then just stood there while the zombies killed my tank. Game over man! Game over!

 

I leraned a valuable lesson that mission, always post a guard on the transport's ramp!

[JWH]

I first started playing xcom around 2000/01. I can't remember much but what stands out is the sinking, devastated feeling i got when after the first two months my funding was terminated and i recognised that i had doomed the inhabitants of earth to a fate worse than death.

 

It was a pretty bad feeling.

 

Also i remember when I first encontered mutons. I kept shooting the big green and it wouldn't fall! Then i hit it with a rocket and it was still standing!!!. That was pretty frustrating.

Edited July 25, 2003 by JWH

[Greudin]

Bonjour,

 

This is my first post tadaa.

I discovered UFO X-Com around june 1995 on a 486sx 25 MHz.

 

I reinstalled it several times.

[Grizzledvet]

Wow. I vaguely remember my first experience with Xcom. I somehow got a copy of the demo version back in late 93, as i recall. This was just a single battle at a terror site if I remember properly. I don't even remember how I got the demo any more, but I remember staying up until the wee hours of the morning, clicking away on my old 386 trying to get through the battle without losing a man. Kinda tough since there was no armor and regular rifles only. Still had a blast, though, and when the game finally came out and I got the dough together, I purchased and played the heck out of it. I still have my floppies, though they have corrupted and I can't install from them any more.

[[stewart]]

Crikey that was like 10 years and hundreds of games ago. I remember some guy showing it to me and he told me to buy Avalanches; that's all I remember.

[Zomboy]

I remember playing the demo too, but that was a while after the first version was out. Never actually got that one, but when I saw TFTD on the shelf for cheap I picked it up and played it some, was frustrating how hard it was without a guide

Later on I played Apoc, then got the gold version of the original from PC Gamer and have been playing it a lot since.

[Crimson]

Dunno what year it was , but i remember renting the game for my old playstation, i stayed up all night playing it then went out and brought it about a week later, i had it for 2 days when i showed my cousin, he asked if he could borrow it for like 2 days....anyway about a week and a half later i go to his house to get it back to find him playing a terror mission, but trying to avoid the aliens until he could kill all the civilians and then make it back to the sky ranger and abort......i always was a bit worried about him...

[Jasconius]

My first X-Com experience was back when I was in 1996, my step dad had terror from the deep.

 

Played it a few time, got my butt kicked, just got back into it recently. Now that I am back into TFTD, teh gameplay style is so much more demanding that i get frustrated when i play the orignal and lose.

 

I still get my butt kicked but not as early as i used to

[Cmdr. Luke]

My Dad got it when it released in 1994, and I watched him play it for hours. I would push off sleep, food, and homework just to watch one more terror mission. Then finally I got to play and I did sooooo much better than my Dad. X-Com is grand!

[slavafetisov]

Got it at release for PC. Heard store employees talking about it as one of the coolest games that will probably get passed over by the mass market... so I bought it right there.

 

I remember the first mission I went on. Shot down a small UFO somewhere over Canada. I sent my squad to the crash site in the middle of the night, of course, having little grasp of the unique difficulties of night missions.

 

I have the good sense to reserve some TUs as my troops moved up a ridge, and of course I take plasma fire from the darkness beyond where I can see. I send in the point men as fast as they can to get some line of sight on whoever was shooting at me, and out of the darkness appears a fat little sectoid.

 

I just remember that being so cool... the sectoid standing there, all bug-eyed.

 

Luckily, I didn't lose any of my rookies that first time out... but I stupidly kept doing night missions after that (being unsure of how long a crash site would persist), but I had enough sense to carry those re-usable flares afterwards.

[Trevelyan]

GJ... starting to play is the easy part, stopping is what i find to be the hardest

[SupSuper]

first time i played x-com was tftd for dos which i found in a cd with various old dos games. only later did i found ufo on the same cd.

ah, the memories of good old times... memories of stupid old mistakes...

[Xenuear]

Hmmmm..... I remeber It was Around 94' And i went Over To My Friends House And He Was Watching his Dad Play It And It Looked So Cool So We Started Playing It And Got Hooked..... I Still Remeber The First Time I Saw A Sectoid And Went "AHH KILL IT MAN ! KILL IT" And When My Friend Tried To shoot It It Shot Back Like 6 Times killing 3 People Huddle Together.....

 

 

*ren and stimpy song* MEEMMMORIESSSS

[[dipstick]]

I couldn't tell you exactly WHEN I started playing it. It was a copy, and it was on my trusty Amiga 1200. The game is installed on its hard drive, all 20/40(can't remember which)mb of it. I used to be so idiotic on it. I remember (and still have maybe one old OLD savegame out of the 5 slots) getting reasonably far - not getting very far on research, although I thought I was. I never got any new ships, and trundled along quite nicely until all of a sudden several large/very large ships appear all at once around my base. Not a chance with maybe 3/4 interceptors with avalanches. I remember opening one save game and looking at my base, and I had had to SELL my SKYRANGER to get money. Now, that was an UNBELIVABLY STUPID thing to do. But hey I must have been only around 6-8 or so. I appeared to do basic strategies like 'immeadiately buy avalanches and tanks' but I never seemed to get any decent stuff. I never got past heavy plasma/laser I don't think, and I don't remember meeting the etherals or mutons. I doubt I was that good; I also kept restarting once I got to the 'WAY too many ships' stage. Aaaaahhh. Good times were had by all though.

[SupSuper]

i don't remember when, but i know it was TFTD in a cd full of old dos games. only found UFO on the same cd some weeks later.

[[Blehm 98]]

read my signature

[Hexeon]

My first time was with TFTD. The game has scary music. Anyway my first game involved my subs shooting down some smalls alien subs, I learned that DUP torpedoes were the best. HAHA. Except I didn't know that I was suppose to recover sunk alien subs, and only went to missions when a terror site or an artifact site happened.

 

I didn't know the research tree or how the game worked really, but I remember my first mission, I went in an alien artifact site with guys fully equipped with heavy gauss, which weigh all the seamen down so they could barely move (this is their first mission cause I didn't know I was suppose to recover sunk subs). I made some shots, threw some grenades and couple of my guys died. Then I thought, oh no! I can't let the aliens research my high-tech weapons! So I risked more guys and got my beautiful Gauss cannons back to the sub Triton-1 and aborted the mission. I got negative score and a bit pissed that the aliens resisted shots from my high-tech weapons that took my 10 scientists and 10 technicians many months to develop.

 

Then I saw my friend sending his Triton to a sunk sub in Geoscape when I was at his home, it was like a light bulb popping up above my head. I went home and started playing and all that alien tech confused me so I put all my scientists on a project called Zrbite, and they finished the research in like a month, and it didn't even do anything for me, it sucked big time.

 

Eventually I found a source for money -- making medi kits. All of a sudden I had extra cash, but then I found out that sub gauss cannon earned major bucks, so I switched to that later. Then a lot later into the game, I started checking with a calculator to see which item were the most profittable. HAHA Guess what? I was already making the most profitable item in the game, and medi-kit was the 2nd most profitable. Talking about wasted calculation. (PWT Cannons were even more profitable, but it used Zrbite & Aqua Plastic).

 

Anyway, after I discovered how to make money with selling sub gauss cannons, the game became a lot easier and I started playing on Superhuman mode only to not be able to finish the game cause I couldn't research the last sub. I played it for a long time before giving that game up. Then I started a 2nd game, this time I was able to research the new item, a new ship called Leviathan, but this time I couldn't research the M.C. disruptor, which helped me a lot in my previous game, so I had to start a new game. With these two games though I figured out how the research in the game can be messed up, and only researched live aliens when I have 2 of a kind. So third try, I beat the game on Superhuman level. Of course by then I had figure out how the research tree worked exactly, and it was no longer necessary to keep 2 of every kind before researching in my subsequent games.

 

After couple more superhuman games, I started playing ironman -- no reload at all. Lost couple games due to negative scores two months in a row. Then another game I lost the base. 4th game I lasted quite a while, having developed and adapted good strategies for playing with no reload, until enough nations defected and I lost the game (I found out that you don't have to have all of them defected to lose the game that time). Then 5th game I won. Then one of my friends gave me the first X-COM game, UFO Defense. I was surprised to see that they were basically the same, except for a few differences. And I was also surprised at how easy it was.

 

First game I played on UFO defense was an ironman Superhuman game, won, finished. I like TFTD a little better because it was my first X-COM game, and I thought the graphics was a lot more colorful than UFO Defense, although UFO Defense's technology & storyline really made more sense than TFTD. (Come on now, subs that can travel at thousands of miles per hour UNDER WATER? That's a bit ridiculous, considering the best subs we have now can only do maybe 30 mph, even nuclear powered ones). In fact, it is pretty hard for a jet to fly that fast in the air (fighter jets can only reach those speeds with afterburners, which cannot last long), let alone something that travels in water.

[Robo Dojo 58]

There's a nifty supercavitating technology being researched. It turns the water in front of the sub into micro air bubbles, so the sub is technically going through air, really fast. I think it's being put to use in torpedoes, or rocket powered torpedoes, to let them go much faster.

[[Blehm 98]]

Gauss pistols are the most efficiant money makers, 8k to 20k. They don't make the most, but they have the most cost-to-sell ratio

[Hexeon]

cost-to-sell ratio don't matter though, it's the profit to technician time ratio that matters, the bigger the better. I don't remember all the calculations now but I know sub gauss cannons are the best and medi-kits are about 2nd best. That's why I used to complete medi-kit research first, but I don't do that anymore. Now I just go straight for gauss rifles and then sub gauss cannon. Sub gauss cannons are good craft weapons too, comparable with the Ajax torpedo launcher. Shorter range but more damage. I do make a few gauss pistols before gauss rifle is researched, that way I can sell the gauss pistols and earn a little bit profit and my starting 10 technicians won't sit idle all that time before gauss rifles are researched. Once I get the gauss rifles I just sell all the other starting guns and use only gauss rifles, they are like, lighter, faster and more accurate gas cannons with a larger magazine size and auto-shoot. I sell the torpedo launcher too cause that only works under water. After gauss technology I usually go for the magnetic navigation, that way I can research transmission resolver afterwards and have a transmission resolver built really early in the game, like around mid March.

[triller]

First post as a member. I'm pleased to see that there are still fans out there of this venerable old favorite.

My first was the US PC release (1994?). When my old 486-33 died I was sure that a goodly number of my favorite games would never be played again.

Lately, I've been playing MoO3, an evolved version of the original Master of Orion (also a MicroProse title, IIRC). LOOOOoooong learning curve, but a worthy TBS game.

This spring, I reread "The Mote in God's Eye" by Niven & Pournelle, and if you've read it, you can understand my sudden desire to slag a bunch of Mutons with Blaster Bombs.

I managed to load and install XCom on my new machine from the original floppies, download "Throttle" to slow the CPU, and I'm playing my first game in many years. Can't get the sound to work, but perhaps there's a thread here with a solution for me.

I look forward to reading your views and strategies, and will hopefully have something worthy to contribute from time to time.

Triller.

[SemperFido]

Got xcom as a xmas pressy back in 1993/94 (it ran on a 386/40mhz). I asked for it after reading a review of it in CGW. From memory it had to be ordered, it wasn't the sort of game people could pick up from the shelves. Beside CIV it was the only game where i lost track of time and found myself playing "just one more mission" at 3am... All that I specifically remember was being very good at blowing my men up with grenade throws gone wrong...

[floater medic]

first time i played was when i was very young and my dad bought it when it first came out for amiga

 

i was ok until chrissalids and harvesters and bigger

 

the music really freaked me out

and the plasma shots

bazum bazum bazum "please dont be dead please dont be dead"

[Mustang]

I used to play it with my uncle when I was REALLY little.

"Why is the people behind trees?"

"Because they need cover from the Prox grenades."

Then my uncle realizes the semi-bad pathfinding and instead of the soldier going two steps down to go in the forest she walked around and went STRAIGHT THROUGH the prox grenades and killed everyone

When I learned to read I never bought prox grenades

 

Edit: My Post Count went up!

Edited June 20, 2004 by Mustang

[[Blehm 98]]

I never use prox grenades. I remember my dad told me how good the origional xcom was, and when i found it for download, i started playing it. xcom is such a good game

[basagulero3d]

yeah, i cant remember when i played scom apoc, but i got the demo from a magazine, we didnt have internet access then and i didnt know much about gaming communities like so, but this site is awesome, but yeah..i played the demo xcom ufo, and it really kicked donkey...then a few years down the track i got xcom apocalypse, coz i couldnt find a copy of xcom ufu unkown, the apoc version sucks it didnt have the same feel from what i remembered.

 

but my woman-friend likes xcom ufo and xcom2, she gets scared when playing it at night and she yells when an alien shoots my men =) its so annoying

 

and she sucks at it, and gets pissed off, but yeah i suck at it too, i keep playing it at beginner level, but most of my people die so i like to start a new game everytime, and when its going good it crashes =) lololol

 

but yeah:first mission on demo went like this.

 

first men goes down the ramp and sees a snakeman, he fires at the snakemen misses, and the snamemen chance fires back and kills my men.

 

then i get all my men out and a chrysalid comes from the side and turns my men into a zombie with thatweird screeching noise, then i shoot the zombie when my last TU and the zombie hatches and kills all my men, then i play again and again =)

Edited July 13, 2004 by basagulero3d

[Hoser]

I remember my first. I picked up the game for rent at the local store, and played it the minute I got home on our super speedy 486 DX-66. () I wasn't understanding it all at first, but when I got the hang of it, it rocked.

 

It was easy at first, Sectoids and Floaters can't stand lead poisoning. I figured this would get easier as the men raised their stats.

 

And that first terror mission, where my men get off the Skyranger, it's night, and there's snakes everywhere. I finish the ones nearest me easily, but on their turn, I see a strange alien come through the fire burning on my north. It stands in the fire! I spend my whole turn shooting at it, it takes it all, then rushes my man, turning two into zombies.....and the whole mission is scrubbed as zombies rule the city

 

I was in love from that day forward.

[Paladin]

Hehe...

"Chrissalid night" as first terror mission... :crying:

The best part of the game: fear of the unknown...

 

The first time I tried XCOM, I had a landed medium scout at night, and here I see a cute little grey alien standing in a wheat field, almost hidden... I was "how cute!!"

But then he shot 2 of my mens and I was like :uzzi: :alientalk:

And the anticipation, customisation and thrill of the shrilling music got me hooked for life...

[The Master Maniac]

Many, many years ago, my fanatic love for X-Com began with the words "hey, hey, look--you have to play this game!" My friend brought me over to her house to show me this new little computer game she'd gotten a few hours before, and I was totally hooked. It just built from there. The rest is history.

 

I still remember the time when Sectoids were the coolest, most evil-looking bad guys ever (their eyes, man, look at their eyes!), and thoughts of armored Chrysallids brought forth rather creative nightmares. Yes, X-Com is just one of those classic games--and one of the most lasting experiences you'll have, not to mention the most impressionable.

 

Moments? Hmm, my first real "oh my God!" moment came in the form of a Snakeman UFO raid. The way the game played with shadows and line of sight was amazing back in the day. What started out as a seemingly normal "kill all the helpless Floaters" mission quickly caught me off guard. The moment a Snakeman slithered through the shadows just in front of my squad, I literally gasped. Even years later, those guys still manage to shake me sometimes...usually because of their zombie-spawning terror counterparts. *shudder*

[Snakeman]

My first exposure to X-COM was its demo just prior to the game's release in '94. From what I remember the demo was a terror site with Snakemen and Chryzzies. In retrospect, probably the best type of demo to have shown off that game. I wore out that demo pretty good

[Paladin]

Hmmm, yep, they sure had a way to scare people off with a demo

[waywreth]

Yep I recall my first time. My squad all set with it's rifles, cautiously taking aimed shots and kneeling and saving my TUs for reaction shots, I won the first few with ease.

 

Soon I had the mighty personal armor along with laser rifles (infinate AMMO!) and a terror site developed.

 

By the third turn I'd managed to lose about 3/4 of my force to a mix of heavy plasma bursts and zombification. It was ugly... and I was hooked.

 

My all time favorite moment was a soldier who I used as the door kicker (aka rookie) and managed to take 9 rounds of heavy plasma to the t-shirt, and mow down the aliens in the room. He later became the commander! Classic.

[The Master Maniac]

9 rounds of heavy plasma into the standard Kevlar? Uh, that's pretty amazing, considering the fact that plasma weapons do about 4-5 times the damage to humans (thanks to our squishy selves), and a direct hit to an unprotected soldier usually results in instant death. But such things do happen. Unpredictability rocks!

[Snakeman]

Heh, I imagined just then that old Scottish guy in Mel Gibson's Braveheart that kept getting some part of him mauled in each major battle and still surviving. That was a tough bastard

[GDD]

erm unless i aint said, a demo of enemy unknown

[Paladin]

Yeah, godily blessed rookies are

[The Master Maniac]

Heh, I imagined just then that old Scottish guy in Mel Gibson's Braveheart that kept getting some part of him mauled in each major battle and still surviving.  That was a tough bastard

 

:: It must be a Scottish thing.

 

Yeah, godily blessed rookies are.

 

Heh, if you saw my rookie casualty figures, you'd lose all faith.

 

As for the demo, I didn't know there was such a thing. Was it prerelease or what?

Edited September 21, 2004 by The Master Maniac

[Snakeman]

As for the demo, I didn't know there was such a thing. Was it prerelease or what?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think it came in one of those computer magazines with a few other demos. Back then I'd been playing quite a lot of those from computer magazines before discovering how poor alot of them wound up being buggy or whatnot. Surfing around I'd seen a couple X-COM Defense demos posted, but I've no clue if its the same one I'd done.

[The Master Maniac]

Hmm. I do know that PC Gamer had the CE version of X-Com bundled with one of its mags, but that's the only time I've really even heard the game mentioned in mass media.

[Snakeman]

This demo I'm fairly sure was for DOS, and very pre-CE. Scope around some of the links in the link section of the xcomufo site, one of them I believe may have it, as it does mention something about it not being compatible with DOSbox or something (well, made me think it was the DOS one anyway).

 

If you get it working and find that your men are wearing T-Shirts, armed with pistols, rifles, HC AC and a rocket launcher facing off against Snakemen and Chryzzies in a terror environment with civies, then I reckon its the same ;D Such a great demo that was, so many possibilities with the enemy not quite in the same locations every time.

[The Master Maniac]

Pistols and rifles versus Snakemen and "the bad, evil things?" Isn't the idea to make people want to play the game, not to be scared off by it?