Hooray for olden games! The entire X-COM collection is now on Valve’s digidownloadwebtertainment store. Terror From The Deep’s been there for yonks, but we finally get the first game, Enemy Unknown/UFO Defence. Which is possibly my most beloved game of all time, and I proudly take personal responsibility for getting it into the top 10 of PC Gamer UK’s Top 100 list for the last two years running. If you’re a real retro fetishist, you might also want lesser third game Apocalypse (which I’ve never actually played. Now’s the chance, I guess). If you’re a crazy person, you’ll want rubbish FPS Enforcer and slightly less rubbish action flight sim Interceptor. It’s $5 per game or $15 for the lot.
If you run Vista, you won’t want any of them (I think – am double-checking). No doubt ways and means to get ‘em running do/will exist, but right now it seems there’s no official support. [Sad face].
Update – got word back from Valve – all of ‘em except Interceptor should run fine on Vista, apparently. Woo! I know what I’ll be spending the weekend doing, then.
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@Iain:
A DS version of UFO would indeed be amazing. In the meantime, Rebelstar: Tactical Command on the GBA was pretty good.
XCOM: Apocalypse is pretty good actually, imagine all the features from the first two games, in exactly the same engine, running at a (slightly) higher resolution, with more tech available. Thats all it is, but frankly, it wasn’t broke, so why fix it? :-)
“I mean, seriously how many gaming hours will anyone get out of this type of game these days…”
I should have said, “anyone who has not played them before”, ie. ‘younger’ people.
I mean, imagine ‘young’ people:
They see these games on steam, think, “Oh I’ve heard of this one, and its ‘only’ 5 bucks” – ‘click’ – then they play it for maybe a few hours, after which they load up a ‘proper’ game like tf2 for which they payed three times as much.
My argument is not pro ‘nicking’ the game off hotu, or other such sites, but I belive that (in a perfect world with flowers and a sweet smells everywhere) old games should after so many years be considered ‘abandonware’, and should be downloadable from our global memorylane for free by anyone who wants to relive those fond old memories.
Games normaly become abandonware once you can no longer purchase them, but thanks to valve’s efforts in this case, I bet some lawyers might beg to differ.
@ Tom
Just to answer your question, I can honestly say that as a young person I got an absolute ton of hours out of this. After being pushed by a friend to download UFO Defense off of the Underdogs last December I eventually gave in. I wasn’t expecting anything much out of it, but hey, it was free(ish). So I load it up, balk at the interface and graphics and struggle a bit, but finally I got it and pretty soon after that I began to understand why everyone raves over it so much. I played it for the rest of the holidays, only stopping during a messy computer crash.
Anyway, what I’m getting at is that I don’t know that it’s particularly fair to claim that anyone coming in clean to a game doesn’t and shouldn’t care because it’s over an arbitrary age. We don’t claim it of novels and films which, admittedly, don’t have to overcome the age-you-quick things intrinsic to gaming like interface and graphics, but beyond that a game can have fabulous, worthwhile mechanics whether it’s 5 years old or 15.
Yes, abandonware games are a wonder, but that doesn’t preclude it from being a wonder sold commercially, even after its time. I’m all too happy to pay the entry fee, even without finely aged nostalgia.
What I meant was, they shouldn’t care to pay money for these games, no matter how ‘little’ the amount may be.
I’m not THAT old myself, and I can very well understand ‘young’ people enjoying older games, especially excellent ones like these, and I would encourage ‘young and old’ people to play the golden gems of the past, just so that they can get an idea of what ‘gaming’ used to be like, compared to today’s world.
I just think that asking money for games that pass a certain age should be considered a crime, punishable by a kick in the groin.
I’m very sorry if I was so unclear about it!
should people pay money for old movies and old records? old folks home? old rope?
It’s all a bit moot for me. I can just dig out my old disks/CDs and use DosBox.
It’s a good thing for people who have never played XCom and would like to. it makes it very easy.
It’s not *quite* the complete set, since X-COM Email is missing. ;)
Great deal, anyway. And personally I love Apocalypse – I got a much better sense of a world being steadily infiltrated and infested with aliens from it. Also, you could shoot missiles into the Cult of Sirius garages and bring their whole tower crashing down. Teehee!
@hydra9:
I’ve got Rebelstar: Tactical Command – It’s nice enough, but the anime styling and the angsty storyline grated on me after a while. Plus it’s missing the base management, research and the geoscape. They were just as much an enjoyable part of X-Com as the tactical missions, for me.
A proper DS conversion of Enemy Unknown would be awesome, though. Someone seriously needs to pester the Gollops on an hourly basis until they sit down and do it.
That is a good thing. Games from yesterday to be enjoyed today.
Why is it not possible to combine the mechanics of yesterday with the eyecandy of today?
Me myself and mine eye would love to have Close Combat with gfx of Company of Heroes for example. The Close Combat series is the best realtime war tactics game ever. #5 Normandy being the greatest of them all.
Not enough freaks in the world.
This is bad, real bad… I just couldn’t resist… spent the whole night paramilitarizing… even if it looks a little funny fullscreened on the huge widescreen… Someday I need to make a remake of this – using google earth and really try to capture its exceptional… atmosphere *fg*
Okay, this is pretty absorbing. And now all id’s games are half off. This is a very bad time to be unemployed.
For what it’s worth, movies use technology too, and age more or less gracefully depending on how reliant they are on technical wow-factor for their appeal.
As for why charge for old games? Dude. Look at it as a server fee, if you must. Bandwidth isn’t free. And it’s not like $15 for five games is an outrageous price, especially for games of this caliber. (Well, the main X-Com titles, at least.)
Young people aren’t all ADD-riddled oafs, you know. I know a bunch of 6th formers who will quite happily play an old game I’ve recommended, or that they come across on HOTU or wherever. I’m sure some of them would pay a few quid to own them properly.
Besides which, even if ‘young’ people didn’t play them, so what? Are people only allowed to sell things that young people will buy in droves now, or something?
I see your point about it being a little off to charge as much for games so old, though. But the X-COM games are still unusually popular and quite hard to get in a reliable fashion (and to get working). It’s a bit of a git, but I don’t really blame them.
Another vote for Apocalypse being awesome. I liked how you had to be careful with your big weapons, but only because when you got tired of doing so you could load up on incendiaries and explosives and go and raid the Cult of Orion. Kaboom!
I really loved UFO: Enemy Unknown but never got the chance to play the rest. Bought and downloaded, thank you!
I also have to say that i like Cenega’s UFO series as well… though the first is the best (IMO) in terms of how the game plays the latter two are ‘more true’ in game mechanics to the original UFO series.
Apocalypse FTW! Best xcom game of the lot – now, if they only released it for PSP, the circle would be complete!
i am a little miffed at the steam drm meaning a can’t dump the game on a usb and taking in into uni with me. Not a deal breaker. But it reminds me that you are treating the customer like a criminal. I’ll wait til gog or impulse gets them.
LOL at people loving the Apocalypse.
It was rather ridiculous, really, especially the real-time mode. I would name it “for the lazy in mind and body”. The whole one “tactic” in real-time mode was making your soldiers into a single line, crouching, and waiting – since in real-time AI was pretty much deactivated and aliens simply ran your way from the start. I wont mention that adding such useless mode also taxed AI in turn-based mode.
UFO: Afterxxx games did away with turn-based altogether, and voila – there are no tactics in there at all, just huddle your units together at all times and go around shooting stuff. Just shows how degraded the industry has become without turn-based gaming, *sigh*
Oh, and those organic aliens are the worst, really. Where are my technocratic plasma-wielding grays of old B-movies ?!
I agree that the fact that they came looking for you even when outnumbered was a shame, and lost the feel of rooting them out rather than assaulting a nest (ideally they should act as they do only when they have an advantage, and otherwise hide and ambush, but it’s a small price to pay for a great game, and there are times when you have to hunt down some dangerous stragglers). But that doesn’t mean there was no AI, man, just that the AI was more aggressive. They flank and use cover and retreat and ambush pretty well, and did you ever try throwing a spare clip at an alien? Half the time they’ll think it’s a grenade and run for cover, giving you a free shot. And the cultists were better at using smoke grenades than I’ve ever been.
And besides, the AI in the first two games wasn’t exactly great, was it? They had one approach:
(1) Sit still in your corner and take potshots at anyone who comes near.
(2) Send the odd scout out.
It’s hardly blinding stuff. The AI in Apoc was arguably more advanced in fact – just that individual aliens were usually less of a threat and they relied more on massed attacks, so their movements came across as less impressive.
I also agree that turn-based games are neglected, but let’s face it, strategy games at large are neglected. And to suggest that the industry’s crapness is due to the lack of turn-based games is frankly laughably simple-minded, as is the suggestion that tactical play is impossible without it.
What was wrong with the organic aliens, then? Or, why should they use the same aliens as in the last two games, when (a) those species have been wiped out and (b) that would be cheap repetition and get them qutie rightly slammed for rehashing.
Sorry, but the ultra-hard multiworm’s death resulting in a swarm of fast, vicious nasties was better in concept and practice than anything in the first game save for the chryssalids. And in what other game have you felt threatened by a puddle?
A lack of tactics will often come from crappy AI, bad level design and and a lack of choices to make rather than turn-based vs. real-time. If the AI charges straight at you, a turn-based game doesn’t become any more strategic. If one location doesn’t differ from another, there’s no decision to make whether you have to wait for your turn or not.
The usualy problem of real-time and lack of strategy is when reflexes play too much of a role when it comes to victory. It’s when doing a ton of good maneuvers often beats a handful of excellent ones. (But there’s nothing wrong with being able to excel in that kind of game.)
Organic aliens are also a B-movie staple, so I don’t know what’s your problem there. And, they fit the theme of an infestation quite well. It’s a pity that they weren’t able to implement the corruption (brainsuckers!) part at all thanks to the omniscient infiltration line graph.
This is what I was on about, just in case no one cares…
Did anyone else notice that it shows Xcom UFO Defense having multiplayer including co-op?
I’m sure the original game didn’t and I would bet that the Steam version doesn’t either but it is kinda misleading if you aren’t familiar with the games.
Did anyone else notice that it shows Xcom UFO Defense having multiplayer including co-op?
I’m sure the original game didn’t and I would bet that the Steam version doesn’t either but it is kinda misleading if you aren’t familiar with the games.
Terror from the Deep works with Vista now! Hooray!
I have tried to contact STEAM so many times (easily twenty) since they added the Vista patch to TFTD… the game runs like shite… and in all my attempts to get help, the STEAM folks have been nothing but Douche Nozzles. They couldn’t care less. Keep this in mind if you purchase anything from them.
This day was a great day, a triumphant day, a day I shall remember as the day I jumped and bashed my head on the bit of low ceiling at my PC desk. The 5 quid was well worth buying Xcom….such a good game.