Xcom fans who own a GBA

[Fishlore]

I just bought a new game yesterday called rebelstar:tactical command for the GBA. It was made by the Xcom team. It shares a lot of Xcom features and plays very much like Xcom. It was only 20 dollars so I figured what the hell.

It doesn't have the base building, buying supplies and ufo intercept portion though. It's mainly just the missions, but the rpg aspect is more profound with skill upgrades, a decent story, etc. I didn't really like the controls at first, but quickly learned to live with them.

The graphics are really nice for a GBA game. Sound is decent. The destructable terrain is there in it's full glory. Unfortunately all of the buildings are only one story though. It's one of those games I sat down to play for a few minutes, looked up and it was about four hours later.

All in all I feel it was a well spent 20 dollars and would recommend it to anyone with a GBA that liked Xcom as much as I did.

 

[MrWhite]

wow i thought i was the only xcom fan left...

well, if it doesnt have the base building, the fun fun research and ufo interceptions, im not too interested...

oh xcom.. .will you ever return for a sequel?

But my one quesiton is... what is it about?

Nothing will give me the chills i got when i heard that there was a terror attack in moscow and when i get there, the damn place is pitchdark, only to have one guy step of the ship and BAM, down he goes.

Oh snap, go to hell you disc... alien thing! (im bad with remembering names)

 

[Fishlore]

We need to form some sort of Xcom support group or something. It's funny that a game that ran on a 386 computer was the most effective at implementing deformable terrain just about to this day. It is dissapointing that the basebuilding and intercepting isn't there. I was under the impression that there would still be limited research in this one, but not nearly as in depth as Xcom of course.

This game actually has a decent story. The Arelians (sp?) abduct people and put an implant in their brain. They track everyone and when the people reach 30 years old they're adbucted for good, never to be seen again. You begin as a recruit who lost his parents and start meeting other people with interesting backstories all joining together to fight the threat. The Arelians "employ" other alien races to keep the peace and make sure the humans don't get out of line. They allude to a bigger story that evolves throughout the game among the alien races and the humans.

I think I'm on mission 9 or so. Still kinda tutorial-ish although not much of that anymore. My squad is slowly growing in numbers and the missions are getting tougher. I really like the skill point rpg like system they have.

I loved the terror attacks that you mentioned. They allude to those in this game, but I haven't seen one yet. It's still very early in the game. I haven't seen nighttime yet either, but again they're alluding to it. I seriously feel like I'm playing an Xcom game, the developers don't hide the fact that they are "the xcom guys" making a new game.

I have such a fond memory of throwing one of those high explosive packs near one of those disc aliens that was near a "gas station" in the original xcom. The HE explosion, the secondary explosion from the disc and of course all of the gas tanks going up leveled half the map and about ten civilians.

 

[MrWhite]

We need to form some sort of Xcom support group or something. It's funny that a game that ran on a 386 computer was the most effective at implementing deformable terrain just about to this day. It is dissapointing that the basebuilding and intercepting isn't there. I was under the impression that there would still be limited research in this one, but not nearly as in depth as Xcom of course.

This game actually has a decent story. The Arelians (sp?) abduct people and put an implant in their brain. They track everyone and when the people reach 30 years old they're adbucted for good, never to be seen again. You begin as a recruit who lost his parents and start meeting other people with interesting backstories all joining together to fight the threat. The Arelians "employ" other alien races to keep the peace and make sure the humans don't get out of line. They allude to a bigger story that evolves throughout the game among the alien races and the humans.

I think I'm on mission 9 or so. Still kinda tutorial-ish although not much of that anymore. My squad is slowly growing in numbers and the missions are getting tougher. I really like the skill point rpg like system they have.

I loved the terror attacks that you mentioned. They allude to those in this game, but I haven't seen one yet. It's still very early in the game. I haven't seen nighttime yet either, but again they're alluding to it. I seriously feel like I'm playing an Xcom game, the developers don't hide the fact that they are "the xcom guys" making a new game.

I have such a fond memory of throwing one of those high explosive packs near one of those disc aliens that was near a "gas station" in the original xcom. The HE explosion, the secondary explosion from the disc and of course all of the gas tanks going up leveled half the map and about ten civilians.

Ah yes, I especially loved the latter parts of the game when you'd research mars and find out where they lived and went there to kick some ass... those were the good ol' days. Ever play any of the others? 2 being underwater freaked me out.

Anyway... Xcom is dead, we'll just have to accept that... though its so sad

This game doesnt sound like it has the same appeal to me... moo

 

[Angry Lawyer]

The Spectrum version of Rebelstar, released in '86, was a castle of awesome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebelstar

You kids with your newfangled graphics. Bah.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Gargantou]

We need to form some sort of Xcom support group or something. It's funny that a game that ran on a 386 computer was the most effective at implementing deformable terrain just about to this day.

I'm a huge X-Com fan and after seeing geoscape images from a pretty great recent TBS called "Silent Storm"(With great deformable terrain+physics engine) I'm getting my hopes up for a X-Com "remake" on that engine.
I just quickly played through the first few missions over at a friend's place, to see if it was worth getting, and imo it wasn't, one of the major funs for me was the open-endedness of the X-Com games.
So instead I started a new campaign in X-Com Apocalypse today.

 

[Fishlore]

Ah yes, I especially loved the latter parts of the game when you'd research mars and find out where they lived and went there to kick some ass... those were the good ol' days. Ever play any of the others? 2 being underwater freaked me out.

Anyway... Xcom is dead, we'll just have to accept that... though its so sad

This game doesnt sound like it has the same appeal to me... moo

I enjoyed part 2 as well. Not quite as much as the original, but I still liked it quite a bit. I've never played apocolypse though.

Thanks for the link Angry Lawyer. Interesting read. I never played the original Rebelstar.

I'm a huge X-Com fan and after seeing geoscape images from a pretty great recent TBS called "Silent Storm"(With great deformable terrain+physics engine) I'm getting my hopes up for a X-Com "remake" on that engine.
I just quickly played through the first few missions over at a friend's place, to see if it was worth getting, and imo it wasn't, one of the major funs for me was the open-endedness of the X-Com games.
So instead I started a new campaign in X-Com Apocalypse today.

I was following an open source Xcom remake, but can't find info about it anywhere. I haven't checked out silent storm. The GBA version definitely isn't open ended, but I've found it's curing my jonesing for Xcom relatively well.

 

[spookymooky]

How old is the original? If old, as this thread suggests, is there a freeware version?

 

[Angry Lawyer]

How old is the original? If old, as this thread suggests, is there a freeware version?

It's about 20 years old. I'm pretty sure that the Gollops released it free somewhere.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Fishlore]

Yeah it's an old game. MSDOS based game in fact. I think it's from the early ninties. 1992-1994 maybe. I haven't been able to find a freeware version, if you do let me know.

To run it on current PCs I have to run a program that slows my processor down over 95% just to get it to play normally. I can't get the sound to work either. You have to turn off v-sync on your video card, etc, etc, etc.

Probably my most favorite game ever.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Yeah it's an old game. MSDOS based game in fact. I think it's from the early ninties. 1992-1994 maybe. I haven't been able to find a freeware version, if you do let me know.

To run it on current PCs I have to run a program that slows my processor down over 95% just to get it to play normally. I can't get the sound to work either. You have to turn off v-sync on your video card, etc, etc, etc.

Probably my most favorite game ever.

The original Rebelstar game predates PCs. It was treleased on the Spectrum, back when gaming was really, really hard.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Ennui]

i wubs xcom. one of the first games i ever played, when i was little.

 

[NikolaX]

My best game ever. Legend! and Fallout !
I played Xcom terror from the deep first, and got suck in it. i played first xcom later
I loved the underwater felling and atmosphere, i played it for a year, didn't want to rush it! And the felling after missions to find what your team salvaged from alien tech , ahhh .....
no game had the same effect on me. now are just fast paced fps online, meh.

 

[duffers20]

I remember playing xcom on a neighbours pc ages ago when I was pretty young. Didn't know what I was doing with it though. Also played wolfenstien and commander keen on that pc too! Oh the memories...

 

[Gargantou]

TFTD felt lame as a sequel, seeing as it pretty much was a rehash of the original just with a new setting.
That's why I liked Apocalypse more, it was a real sequel, new gameplay, new setting(Inside a single city with great fun vehicle combat).
I can remember the sadness when a walking bridge collapsed onto my entire team in Apocalypse, all of'em where high in ranks..
The pain...

I do believe X-Com Apocalypse is abandonware now but I'm not fully sure, HOTU has it atleast, albeit I do know HOTU is far fromn fully legal.

 

[Fishlore]

Apocolypse was developed for Windows and not Dos right? I think I have that disc laying around somewhere, I'll have to give it a go. Do you have to do anything special to get it to run on current computers?

 

[Gargantou]

No, it was developed for DOS, not Windows.
And in the X-Com Collection/Collector's Edition Apocalypse was the only one that wasn't adapted to run on Windows.

 

[Fishlore]

No, it was developed for DOS, not Windows.
And in the X-Com Collection/Collector's Edition Apocalypse was the only one that wasn't adapted to run on Windows.

LOL, figures. How do you run it? I might have to dust off the old 386.

 

[Gargantou]

You can run it on XP using the method described here.
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=4468&highlight=apocalypse

 

[Fishlore]

You can run it on XP using the method described here.
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=4468&highlight=apocalypse

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

 

[Fliko]

Anyway... Xcom is dead, we'll just have to accept that... though its so sad

*Cough* Yeah, its dead.
Clicky

 

[Gargantou]

UFO Aftermath sucked ass compared to X-Com, so I'm not gonna get my hopes up.