| Product: |
X-Files (PC) |
| Date: |
06/11/01 (106 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: A Challenge, Lasts ages
Disadvantages: Not many, It is old, But so what
......on X-Com: Terror frm the Deep. Sorry for the utterly pants title, but after 445 I'm finding it so hard to be original.
Some of my friends just happened to go to Uni a few weeks before me, and initial reports from them was that they had lots of free time which they needed to fill. They'd turned to playing large amounts of computer games, so in anticipation of this I brought along a few of my favourite games to Uni with me. Little did I realise that they were doing courses with around 7 hours of lectures a week, whereas I have 23 plus a fair bit of work to do, so as it turns out having the temptation of playing computer games (or writing Dooyoo ops for that matter) is more of a hindrance when it comes to getting my work done.
Anyway, back to the point, this computer game. First up it's old, or rather it's ancient. I played if first on the Playstation, but by that time it had already been around for a long time on the PC. Heralding from the by-gone era of 1995 don't expect super effects, graphics or sound. Infact this game never did look amazing, preferring to go for functionality over looks. Then again, if you're the type of person who only wants great graphics then you'd probably not be playing this game anyway! X-Com: Terror From The Deep is a very strategical game, played out in two main arenas. More on that later though, first up some more about the game...
X-Com is almost a brand name in the world of computer games, not a massively popular one at that, but certainly reasonably well known amongst certain circles of gamers! They're all based on earths struggle against alien invaders, with this game being the second in the series. In the original game, X-Com: UFO, set soon in the future, the Earth is invaded by aliens who have awoken on Mars. It turns out that these aliens used to be the original inhabitants of the earth. As you can maybe guess, the Earth is victorious and the aliens are defeated. The
X-Com agency was set up to deal with that alien invasion, but after successfully defending Earth it was slowly forgotten about as time passed. Little did the Earth know that during the alien invasion a signal had been sent to Earth which set about the process of awakening dormant aliens deep under Earth's seas. Over 30 years the re-animation process has been completed, and the aliens are ready to attack, launching attacks from their underground bases. Enter X-Com, equipped with new underwater gear to deal with the alien threat.
As I said before, the game is split up in to two main sections. The first part is called the Geoscope, and is basically an overview of the planet Earth. From here you control the affairs of X-Com, and must ensure that you protect the world as best you can from the alien forces. You start off by building one base, but as time moves on you must build more to provide protection to the whole planet. You're funding comes from World Governments, so if you fail to protect the planet funding will be cut. As well as housing personnel, bases also contain sub pens from which you can launch submarines to combat the alien ships. Using submarines you can send aquanauts to fight the aliens, either at the site of an alien attack, a downed alien craft or even an alien base. Once your aquanauts reach the alien site a mission begins, and the game changes to the second section.
If the first part of the game could be described as management, then the second bit would have to strategical combat. The only downside is that the combat is turn based rather than real time, meaning that you have your turn, and then the computer (the aliens) takes its turn. Each aquanaut has a certain number of time units, with each action (such as moving, shooting) taking a certain number of units. I know it doesn't sound particularly good, but let me tell you it is. It isn't as fast paced as a game like Red Alert, but it's definitely more tactica
l, as you must use every advantage available to you to defeat the often-overwhelming alien presence.
At the beginning of the game your equipment is far worse than the aliens, but as you progress you can research alien technology you find and manufacture it for yourself, resulting in more powerful weapons, armour and submarines. This is done with the aid of technicians, and scientists, who must be hired along with the aquanauts, but remember you have to pay them each month, which in turn depends on how much money you receive from governments, which in turn depends on how well you're doing...and so on.
The game is fairly complex when you get in to it, but also quite easy to pick up. The goals change as you progress through the game, and each new piece of research yields more insight in to the motive behind the alien invasion. And you get some pretty cool weapons too!!
I may have said before not to expect too much from the games music and graphics, but as it turns out the music is really rather good. It won't make use of your shiny SoundBlaster Live, but it is atmospheric and matches the feeling of the game, especially the fight sections which are often very tense and even slightly scary, as you send your best aquanaut around a corner praying that there's not an alien waiting to waste you! Graphics are poor if I'm being honest, but certainly functional and you can always see what's going on.
The game provides an immense challenge; indeed I spent a good few months playing through the Playstation version only to lose my memory card save game! It is a tricky game, especially if you up the skill level; although this obviously provides some reply value should you manage to finish the game!
Spec wise I really am unsure of what you need to run this, although any Pentium class PC should be fine. The problem with this type of game is that it may be too old to run on new PC's, although fortunately this one
runs pretty well in Windows 98 SE (which I use). The only slightly annoying problem comes from the fact that the mouse pointer pauses for an instant every now and then when running through Windows, but is fine in true DOS mode. It's annoying to begin with, but you get used to it and running through Windows saves the hassle of having to go in to true DOS mode to run the game.
Dare I say that this game may be too old to buy? Well the chances are that it is, although it is freely available on most abandonware websites, which although technically illegal I wouldn't worry too much, the chances of anything happening to you are less that the chances of getting a good meal in my halls of residence.
In my view this is as classic a game as the original Civilisation 2 (which is my highest recommendation possible) so what can I say.......go get it now!
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crispy - 13/11/01 Oh, and there's XCom Enforcer, but that looks pants. Some sort of robot blast-em-up. |
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