#x com ufo defense

[doolallymagpie]

my psionics tables for XCOM-in-7TV carry an extremely slight chance of, on failing to use a psionic power, exploding

entirely because it’s the kind of thing that’d happen in the 90s XCOM wargame that doesn’t exist

[playstationpark]

Aliens Are Here 'X-COM: UFO Defense' PlayStation

[dduane]

After knowingly being a fan of your Star Trek work since the 90s, and having pushed Young Wizards on as many folks as I can for the last (how long have I been on here?) dozen years or so, and having bought the full download pack just before UK sales went on hiatus due to taxes, I have finally, finally started reading SYWTBAW. I'm instantly in love. The character introductions are perfect. The system explanations are natural, fitting with what the characters know themselves. I'm so happy! But that's an aside, a happy bonus...

I have been a fan of the X-Com/UFO game series since I first discovered it, which was when they brought the game to the Playstation in '95? Wow, that game was wild. I would go visit my friend and play with him, working on tactics for missions for hours on end, then come home and boot up my own system and run more missions on my own. I had multiple memory cards so I could save while engaging the enemy and also keep a save safely back at base if things went pearshaped. When I finally entered the PC-owners market in 97, it was one of the first games I installed there and I still have a copy on every computer I've owned since, and play regularly. I have the official strategy guide, and (the point of this message) I have the tie-in novel that you wrote! Finding that was a lucky thing, I've never seen or heard of another copy. I love what you did with the story, how it ties in well to the mechanics and spirit of the game without remaining constrained to the specifics of the game engine's limitations due to programming requirements.

When it came to writing about games, and writing for games such as Wing Commander, did you (do you still) play (m)any of them to learn more about the systems and lore?

Firstly: thanks for the nice words about my work. :) Much appreciated.

In answer to the question you wound up with: I'm not gaming actively at the moment... there's too much other stuff going on locally that requires my attention. But when I've been asked to participate in a game-based project, I absolutely spend as much time playing it as possible before I get down to work. I'll never be able to spend as much time on it as any given game's major enthusiasts would. But I do my homework, and make sure I have the data I need to handle the story issues and to drive a decent plot.

When I was working on Privateer 2: The Darkening, this wasn't so much of a problem, because I came in as cold as anyone else: nobody outside EA had played the game before. :) That said, I hadn't been hired for my expertise as a gamer, but as a screenwriter. I did spend a lot of time with the game designers and engineers, watching how gameplay was supposed to go and working out how I could best reinforce that rhythm in the way the scenes I was writing played out. It was a really enjoyable collaboration, as the engineers were as fascinated with what I was doing as I was with what they were up to. If there was a downside to the experience, it was having to be more or less a prisoner in Slough for six weeks while the writing and rewriting happened. But this kind of thing is an occupational hazard, best taken as gracefully as possible. (Though that wasn't hard in retrospect, especially considering the cast who wound up speaking the lines I'd written. Clive Owen, Brian Blessed, Mary Tamm, David Warner, John Hurt, Mathilda May, David McCallum, Jürgen Prochnow,... my God, what a lineup.)

X-Com: UFO Defense, though, I'd known for a long time and had played quite a bit: so when asked to pitch, I more or less came in hot with a bunch of issues that I felt needed more attention than they'd had in the actual game. I was delighted to get more or less carte blanche to handle them, and to create a bunch of edgily professional characters to run around destroying the bad guys. It was also, frankly, a ton of fun to use the narrative to blow up or drop alien spacecraft on things that (in real life) were annoying me in that timeframe. For example, in the culmination of one battle I dropped a big alien ship through the beautiful Renaissance Revival roof of the main rail station in Zurich because I was cranky about some slippery floor tile they'd installed downstairs in a refurbishment of the ShopVille shopping center. (I mean, seriously, people track huge amounts of snow and slush in down there when they come off the escalators from street level: why would you not put nonslip tile on that floor? It's deeply irresponsible. So they had it coming.) :)

...Anyway, it was really enjoyable having a chance to play around with what I imagined Earth's geopolitics to be doing under gameplay conditions, while also enacting a more than usually complex game scenario in prose. I don't know if or when I'll be doing that kind of work next, but writing the X-Com: UFO Defense novel definitely left a good taste in my mouth.

Thanks for asking!

(ETA: and here are those tiles. ...The cubical affair in front is an art installation: an illuminated "fountain". It was originally made of wires or strands of plastic cable, down which drops of glycerine, or something like it, slowly slid. But they seem to have swapped that out for water. And, oh look, there's video!)

[thecountofs]

XCOM: We Were Never Alone (Comic)

'Interception'

[jolikmc-thoughts]

It's finally happening, boys. And it only took Elon's team, what? Two years? Bravo, Musk. Bravo. 👏😒

[wonncageart]

oh...oh no... D:

[mysteamgrids]

X-COM: UFO Defense

[never-obsolete]

X-COM: UFO Defense (1994)

[modded-xcom2-aar]

About this blog

In 2008, Something Awful forums user GuavaMoment created a screenshot Let's Play of X-COM: UFO Defense. Let's Plays were still a very new phenomena, they were still a very experimental concept.

A notable aspect of the Let's Play was the collaborative approach it took to it's writing. Forum users could not only submit their usernames for the LP's cannon fodder soldiers, but they could could write their characters by writing in-character posts and documents from the character's perspective.

The LP was archived and can be read here. (Just a little warning: these were written in 2008 on an internet forum famous for its edgelord comedy, so there may be upsetting content.)

As a teenager, I found this approach to writing very interesting, and it made me a lifelong fan of the XCOM series (rather conveniently, the release of Enemy Unknown was just a few years away).

As a fan of XCOM 2: War of The Chosen and modding, this idea has been kicking around in my head for a while now.

A key aspect of this is that I am accepting user-submitted characters and posts. Feel free to submit a character and I will add them to the pool.

In addition to here, this will be crossposted to cohost, if you understandably prefer that website. This tumblr will be the main feed, as it's more convenient for mass-posting images and allowing user submissions.

[humor-y-videojuegos]

X-COM: UFO Defense 🏢 MicroProse Software, Inc., Mythos Games 📅 1994 🖥 Amiga, Amiga CD32, DOS, PS1, Windows #videogames

[datcloudboi]

List of Video Games Turning 30 Years Old in 2024

Aggressors of Dark Kombat (what if Mortal Kombat was made by the KoF devs?)

Alone in the Dark 2

Art of Fighting 2

Beneath a Steel Sky (a highly influential point and click adventure game from the same team that would go on to make Broken Sword)

Blackthorne (a 2D platformer made by Blizzard)

Breath of Fire (the 1st one)

Bubsy 2

Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales

Bust-a-Move (known as "Puzzle Bobble" in Japan)

Castlevania: Bloodlines

Contra: Hard Corps (the first game in the series to have multiple endings)

Cosmology of Kyoto

The Death and Return of Superman (a side scrolling beat 'em up made by Blizzard)

Demon's Crest

Donkey Kong (the Game boy version of the arcade original)

Donkey Kong Country

Doom II: Hell on Earth

Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls (as opposed to a beat ‘em up like the other four games were, this one was a fighting game)

Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom

Dynamite Headdy

Earthworm Jim (with music from Tommy Tallarico. His mother is very proud.)

Ecco: The Tides of Time

The Elder Scrolls Arena (the very 1st one)

Final Fantasy VI

Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem (the 3rd one)

Ghoul Patrol (the sequel to "Zombies Ate My Neighbors")

Heretic

The Horde (a hybrid action/strategy game made by Toys for Bob, who are known nowadays for making Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time)

Illusion of Gaia

Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures

Killer Instinct

The King of Fighters '94

King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride

Live a Live (the original version, which went unreleased in North America. We wouldn’t get this game until the HD-2D remake 28 years later)

Majin Tensei (a strategy spin-off of the greater Shin Megami Tensei franchise)

Marathon (one of the earliest games made by Bungie)

Mega Man 6

Mega Man Soccer

Mega Man V (on the Game Boy)

Mega Man X

Mortal Kombat II

The Need for Speed (the very 1st one)

Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (as an empath, seeing Pac-Man in pain makes me feel sick)

Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure

Pocky & Rocky 2

Policenauts (a visual novel and one of the earlier works from Hideo Kojima)

Rise of the Robots (often considered one of the worst fighting games ever made)

Robotrek

Samurai Shodown II

Shadowrun (the Sega Genesis version)

Shaq Fu (also often considered one of the worst fighting games ever made)

Shin Megami Tensei II (which, to this day, has never been officially released outside of Japan)

Shin Megami Tensei If... (also never officially released outside of Japan)

Shining Force II

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (just in time for the third movie)

Sparkster

Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage

Star Wars: TIE Fighter

Streets of Rage 3

Super Adventure Island II

Super Metroid

Super Punch-Out!!

Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (this release saw the first playable appearances of T. Hawk, Fei Long, Dee Jay, and Cammy)

Super Street Fighter II Turbo (saw the series’ first secret character, Akuma)

System Shock (a remake came out very recently. It's quite good!)

Ultima VIII: Pagan

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (the very 1st one)

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3

X-COM: UFO Defense (the 1st game in the series)

Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II (one of the last first-party releases for the NES)

Zool 2

[doolallymagpie]

…canonwelding the Tzun to the Sectoids and the Colonists actually makes sense

[calder]

Notably, the first X-COM game, X-COM: UFO Defense, began its development as Laser Squad II

yaaaaaay

im starting an xcom blog @lasersquad because im slowly getting weird about it

[gmlocg]

596.) X-COM: UFO Defense (UFO: Enemy Unknown)

Release: December 31st, 1993 | GGF: RPG, Turn-Based Combat, Turn-Based Strategy | Developer(s): Mythos Games Ltd. | Publisher(s): MicroProse Software, Inc., MediaQuest, Sold Out Sales & Marketing Ltd., Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., 2K Games, Inc. | Platform(s): DOS (1993), Amiga (1994), Amiga CD32 (1994), PlayStation (1995), Windows (2007)

[ishouldbuyasword]

I love crunchy turn based games, but they're so taxing on me. i can only play for a little while before i have to like take a walk to clear my head. I really like the new x-com games and I've been playing warhammer 40k battlesector and really enjoying it but i wish i could play more than one or occasionally two missions before i feel my brain turning off.

I've tried a couple times to get into xcom ufo defense but trying to puzzle out that game's ui and mechanics at the same time has been too much for my dumb stoner potato head

[harrelltut]

Eye QUANTUM HARRELL UFO TECH SKY [HUTS] MILITARY Department of Defense [DOD] Communication [D.C.] PATENT ARCHITECTURE [PA] of SIRIUS BLACKANUNNAQI.tech PENTAGON BUDGETS @ 1921 QUANTUM 2023 HARRELL 2024 T-Mobile 2025 Apple & IBM [A.i.] LLC of ATLANTIS [L.A.] 5000 

WELCOME BACK HOME IMMORTAL [HIM] U.S. MILITARY KING SOLOMON-MICHAEL HARRELL, JR.™

i.b.monk [ibm] mode [i’m] tech [IT] steelecartel.com @ quantum harrell tech llc

i.b.mystic [ibm] michael [i'm] of TUTI [iTUT®]... since i.b.eyetutankhamun.com @ 1921 QUANTUM 2023 HARRELL 2024 T-Mobile 2025 Apple & IBM [A.i.] LLC of ATLANTIS [L.A.] 5000 

Eye 1st OLMEC Kingdom [OK] WITNESS KING SOLOMON-MICHAEL HARRELL, Jr the III of Inner Earth's [Qi's] GOLDEN 9 Ether Shamballah & Aghaarta

eye 1968genx.tech military industrial [mi = michael] scientific elite from 1698

I.B.1698 MILITARY [IBM] INDUSTRIAL SCIENTIFIC ELITE from 1968 ATLANTIS5000.com

EYE CLANDESTINE 1968 BLACK WALL STREET TECHNOCRAT @ 1921 QUANTUM 2023 HARRELL 2024 TECH 2025 SKY DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE [DOD]

EYE ANCIENT OCCULT TECH PENTAGON LIBRARY AGENCY [L.A.] of QUANTMHARRELLUFO.tech PATENTS

is that a... SIRIUS BLACKANUNNAQI.tech UFO?!?!?!

QUANTUM HARRELL TECH UNDERGROUND PENTAGON [UP] BUILDING RIVER ENTRANCE

QUANTUM HARRELL TECH UNDERGROUND PENTAGON [UP] RIVER [Ur] SOCIETY [U.S.]

QUANTUMHARRELLUFO.tech UNDERGROUND SKY [U.S.] EMPIRE of ATLANTIS5000.com [uSEA]

NIBIRU HERE @ 9ethernibiru.tech!!!

is that i.b.1698 michael's [ibm's] 1968 gen x quantumharrellufo.tech compu_tah [ptah] device worth moor than the 2023/2024 pentagon's black occult anunnaqi [boa] sky budget of $144,000 trillion?!?!?!

us 144,000 anunnagi [usa] been here long b4 you

is that i.b.1698 michael's [ibm's] 2nd 1968 gen x quantumharrellufo.tech compu_tah [ptah] device worth moor than the 2024/2025 pentagon's black occult anunnaqi [boa] sky budget of $144,000 trillion?!?!?!

we 144,000 extraterrestrial [we] aluhum sky annnaqi elite @ the quantum harrell ufo tech [hut] pentagon

shhh... eye [shy] quantmharrell.tech sky military compu_tah [ptah] engineer of trillion [e.t.] dollar pentagon technology patent budgets

how many times do eye have to remind you?!?!?!... WE @ THE PENTAGON!!!

© 1968-2024 QUANTUM HARRELL TECH LLC All Pentagon DotCom defense.gov Department Domain Rights Reserved.