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X-COM creator Julian Gollop discusses his most important games (2019)

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77 points Michelangelo11 | 3 comments | 04 Sep 25 19:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.567s | source
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YeGoblynQueenne ◴[07 Sep 25 10:28 UTC] No.45156982[source]▶
I've never played the original X-COM, though I played the two Firaxis games to death. I have 132.2 hours on X-COM: Enemy Unkown (the Firaxis game) and 327.5 hours on XCOM2, both of which seem like an undercount (especially the first one).

I thought I had the original game in my GOG account but it turns out I only have a clone (Xenonauts). I haven't played it at all and I bet I wouldn't have played the original XCOM either if it was in my GOG account.

The reason? I'm sad to admit that but it's the graphics. I can sometimes play older games, e.g. arcade games from the '80s or '90s, but I really struggle with most older graphics games. That makes me sad because there are some real gems that are now older than 20-30 years and I'd really like to be able to enjoy them, but I can't.

There's a time to play, and a time to admire graphics, I guess. Oh Ecclesiastes, you were so right.

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1. ileonichwiesz ◴[07 Sep 25 11:06 UTC] No.45157145[source]▶
It’s important to separate graphics and UX here - I don’t mind if the soldiers and the aliens are blobs of pixels, or even just coloured squares, but the UI of the original UFO/XCOM games is pretty much incomprehensible to a modern player.
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2. ido ◴[07 Sep 25 11:09 UTC] No.45157157[source]▶
The contemporary Jagged Alliance, while it has a handful of baffling UI (that was already the case when it was new), is still imo much easier to get into than the original X-com while having nicer looking graphics.
3. mock-possum ◴[08 Sep 25 14:39 UTC] No.45168890[source]▶
Yeah I got a copy of the original XCOM as a kid and could not make heads or tails of it - after playing the modern releases, I figured hey, I’m a seasoned adult gamer™ now, maybe I should go back and check it out…

Unfortunately I’m also a software dev, and an interface snob, and the UI/UX for the old games sucks. They had access to the exact same mouse+keyboad back then as we do now, but the standards for controlling a Turn Based Tactics game just weren’t established yet, and interfaces ranged from ignorant to amateurish to experimental to actively user-hostile - and I don’t know which one to characterize old XCOM as, but I don’t have any patience for it nowadays.

It’s such a shame that old games with good gameplay are effectively hidden behind bad UX. Rereleases like the recent Tomb Raider that practically preserve the original experience, but fix the UI issues (the tank controls of the original, in this case) are a blessing.