Guest Article: UFO:Extraterrestrials Do Over
Bryan Brown (of Tungsten Bathtub) wrote the very first "guest post" on Tales of the Rampant Coyote a couple of years ago. He took pity on me this week with my 12-hour workdays at the "day job," and wrote this article for me to save me some precious time to work on Frayed Knights. I really should thank him, except now I really, really want to play this game, and I know I don't have the time! In this article, Bryan describes some of the mods now available for the indie strategy game, the X-Com - inspired UFO: Extraterrestrials. In particular, he discusses several of the mods make the game even more like its classic inspiration.
UFO: Extraterrestrials is turn-based squad-level tactics game very similar to the historic XCOM: UFO Defense or XCOM: Terror from the Deep games. It basically pits a small government funded group of scientists, technicians and soldiers against an onslaught of alien invaders.The game consists of two phases a global strategic phase where you manage bases, research, production of specialized equipment and inventories, as well as a tactical phase where a squad of your soldiers attempts to achieve tactical victories like salvaging UFO technology, capturing aliens or saving civilians.
The game as released was fairly well done – and I liked it. Partially because it was one of the better XCOM-like games to come along in years and years and years and partially because they did a good job putting their own spin on it. They created a new world, Esperanza, and a whole new hierarchy of aliens to lead the attack. I resented some of their design choices that greatly simplified the strategic phase but overall the game is well done and it has remained on my hard drive ever since being released.
XCOM Memories
I remember playing XCOM to the point that I’d turn corners in real life and have a momentary flash of a little red number down in the corner of my eye and for just a moment I’d wonder where the alien was. The game play was well paced as they slowly introduced new aliens and technologies and each mission left you hungering for the next. There were many nights when I told myself at 10:00 PM that just one more mission and I’d quit and then next looked at the clock at 1:00 AM wondering where the time went.
With game play like that it’s no surprise that XCOM is one of those games that attracted a small but dedicated following. Over the years since the games release it has been discussed and considered and replayed by those that loved it. The game has become legend in the history of computer gaming and the original XCOM: UFO Defense is even available in the public domain now from sites like The Underdogs.
A UFO: ET Makeover
This core group of followers quickly discovered that UFO:ET was user modifiable and mods for the game were released within days of the game being released. Many of the mods were designed to introduce elements from the original XCOM that were missing in UFO:ET.
For example, UFO:ET released with no ability to hire and fire soldiers as needed. Instead they were parceled out to you one a month. Modders quickly changed the game to allow you to not only hire as many soldiers as you needed but to select which soldiers you wanted from a pool of 100 candidates. Other modders added line of sight indicators missing from the game to help determine more effective shots. Still more modified the game to have the games built in day night cycles have a greater effect on tactical combat just like the original XCOM did. One modder added hot keys for common movements which was later incorporated in an official patch released by Chaos Concept, the studio that released the game.
Over time the modders produced hundreds of mods and multiple versions of the same mods as they refined and tweaked the game. I no longer play the game as released and I have no desire to go back to that. I play with a super-mod collection called BMANS Ease of Use Patch. It includes all of the game mods that I really wanted to see in the original release as well as quite a few I had never thought of packaged into one easy to install add-on. This mod re-introduces classic aliens. It modifies the UFOpedia entries to explain the presence of these aliens and creates new technologies and strategies that are required to combat them. Almost every modification can be enabled or disabled or configured using menus that are modded right into the UFO:ET game making using the mods a breeze.
It’s an amazing feat of combining old with new and making new jump through different hoops to completely change the game experience. I find the increased complexities and challenges of playing to be a much more satisfying experience than the un-modified game was.
Modifying a released game is probably sticky ground to be on. We’ve seen games re-rated because of user created mods and the recent threat of Manhunt 2 being re-rated for the same reason. Fortunately, most companies tend to turn a blind eye to the user mod communities. I think that is wise since it becomes free advertising for the product – but I can see how an overzealous company may want to restrict user modding in an effort to protect their IP.
In the case of UFO:ET the user mods have taken a good game and significantly improved it. If you bypassed this game on its initial release it might be time to reconsider your decision.
(Vaguely) related wannabe geek lit:
* Game Moment #3: X-Com
* My ALMOST Most Important Games List
* Guest Gaming Moment: Falcon 4.0
* Quick Strategy Games
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Labels: strategy games
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:13 AM (Permalink)
