Zombie's Ultimate X-COM Collection

[Bomb Bloke]

It's easy for me; I collect things it data form.

[Zombie]

@NKF: Time to install more shelves then. I have a picture in my head from the "40 Year Old Virgin" movie where Steve Carell's entire apartment had shelves running around it for his collection.

 

So I received my second Interceptor poster today and it arrived in much better condition. Not mint by any means, but close enough. I also was surprised to see that my recent purchase from the UK (Apocalypse in the white box which is 3rd on the list here) arrived. Gotta love those sealed boxes so I'm not opening this one up, I have a second used copy arriving shortly for testing purposes.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Some of you may be following this thread, so I'll try to keep you updated on my progress. Quite a bit has happened since early July in terms of my collection. I am rapidly nearing completion in the TFTD section. I have all the different versions listed at MobyGames, except the DOS American version on CD-ROM. Well, I have the disc, just not the box yet. At least that version isn't too hard to find. I got lucky and was able to obtain both the diskette and CD-ROM German editions of TFTD from an eBay seller. Those are rather hard to come by, and I was dreading trying to locate them. It's interesting to note that the box and it's contents are all in German - including the warranty card and handbook. That's awesome! Received the European versions (diskette and CD-ROM) just the other day as well.

 

The Apocalypse area is basically covered too. I have all the versions listed at Moby, and even managed to find the "total" German "red-box" version. It should be here shortly, but overseas shipping is spotty at best. Still, a week isn't bad. I also found another version which isn't listed at Moby so that made me happy. Will keep you updated on this.

 

Interceptor? Yup, there have been some new additions there. You guessed it: I obtained the "total" German edition from a nice eBayer from Leipzig. I even found the German/English version. Don't know what that Netherlands box looks like, but I have a game CD which is exactly the same. The only version left is the American one. Who knew that would be so difficult? Honestly, there are a couple copies floating around, but the price is too rich, especially for an unpopular game. So much for the law of supply and demand.

 

As for the original game in the series, UFO is going to take a little longer to get a hold of everything. See, I think that all the Amiga versions came out in both German and English. I only have a single English A1200 version right now. Bummer. On a more positive note, I finally have the English version on CD-ROM. I also purchased a version I haven't seen anywhere yet. It's not in a big box, but was distributed by Telstar Fun & Games. Cool cover, IMHO which is the primary reason why I bought it.

 

Anyway, as you can see, there has been some good progress made. I'll try and get some pictures up sometime soon. I have to wait a little bit to allow the straggler items to arrive from the long overseas journey.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

I also purchased a version I haven't seen anywhere yet. It's not in a big box, but was distributed by Telstar Fun & Games. Cool cover, IMHO which is the primary reason why I bought it.

Here, I just made a few scans so you guys could see it:

 

Sorry about that last one, discs are really hard to scan if they are shiny. At least it gives you an idea though.

 

So, have any of you in Europe ever seen this version before?

 

- Zombie

[Azrael Strife]

Nice!

I wonder if that green Alien was planned for X-Com or just a random monster for the cover.

[Bomb Bloke]

I haven't seen it anywhere other then on the cover/manual. My bet is it's just some "cover art" the publisher whipped up.

[Zombie]

Yeah. And that's kind of unfortunate really. I mean, it looks a lot scarier than some of the other terrorists in the game. The Reaper is kind of a joke with it's fur, low speed and lack of intelligence. And the pink floating jellybean? Don't even get me started.

 

That alien might have actually turned out to be a pre-tentaculat if it were integrated into the game.

 

- Zombie

[Knan]

Saw that monster in the UK adverts, I think. But never seen that box. Nice find!

[Pete]

Here's my collection, just because I had a digital camera handy (apologies for the crap photos, but I was rushing as the battery was dying):

 

UFO - Basically the version that hit the shelves after the original was released. Powerplus is basically a Microprose brand that seemd to have been implemented to just shift games at buget prices, and in the UK you'd have shelves full of these boxes as Microprose were publishing so many bloody games at the time. Literally you'd have three shelves two metres wide each packed in with various PowerPlus titles on deals like 3 for

[Zombie]

Thanks for taking some pics of your games, Pete! Much appreciated. It's always fun to see someone else's collection.

 

Seems like I have most of the stuff you do. The UFO Powerplus version is coming in the mail and should arrive shortly. So should the X-COM Collection, but I have no idea if the auction came with a box or not - it was bundled with the UFO Powerplus. Oh well, guess I'll find out soon enough. Obviously, I'm never going to get my hands on signed versions of any of the X-COM games unless somebody is selling them. And I'm not even going to bother asking you about selling your signed Enforcer copy as it probably holds a ton of sentimental value alone. It would for me.

 

Speaking of Enforcer, I should have the German version arriving soon. Actually, make that two German versions: a normal one and another which came bundled with Edge of Chaos Independence War 2. You either gotta love those German versions or hate them, and I love them!

 

Just today I received a copy of the Official UK Playstation Magazine dated March 1996, Issue 4. Included is a CD which has Demos of Warhawk (I used to play the demo of this religiously before I even had a real game on the PSX), Twisted Metal and the intro from Defcon 5 and a preview video of X-COM: Enemy Unknown. Obviously, the disc is PAL so I can't play it on my non-modded PSX, but I think I can extract the STR video sequence with an application. There is a nice writeup of it on pg 97 so I took a scan of that for you guys to look at:

 

 

There is also a funny advertisement for Assault Rigs (another demo I couldn't get enough of) with some pretty women washing a pink tank (yes, you heard me: pink), and a PrePlay of Gunship 2000 (another Microprose game which advertises X-COM within the game on a billboard). I was also surprised how many times X-COM was mentioned throughout the issue. The Letters/Feedback is literally peppered with talk of this game. Guess this really shows that X-COM was a very popular game.

 

- Zombie

[Pete]

If you manage to convert the promo that that article mentions to a useable format, email it over to me and I'll try and convert it into something useable on the site.

[Knan]

Found X-COM Enforcer today by accident. For 1 Euro, it was too good to pass up.

 

Cover's the one on Wikipedia.

[Azrael Strife]

Too expensive for that game.

[Knan]

Heh. I know. But I expect to be entertained by its awfulness.

[Zombie]

Expect to be disappointed? Nah, it isn't that bad. And for 1 EUR you can't go wrong.

 

So I received my German "red-box" copy of Apocalypse in the mail the other day. It's brand new! Not a scratch on it. Best of all: it's completely in German. *Zombie drools* And now I'm the proud owner of the Italian "red-box" Apocalypse too! I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere but it appears to be similar to the German version in that it is completely in Italian. Neat! Will let you guys know when I receive it.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Just got the Italian version today. Besides the obvious difference (everything is in Italian), the box itself is a little smaller than the normal "big box" size. It also fits together differently. In other boxes, you have either

• A top and a bottom cover in heavy cardboard which are printed, or
  
• A top and bottom cover in thin black cardboard which slips into a sleeve which is printed.
  

This Italian version reminds me of a pizza box where it's one piece with a tab that fits into a slot in the base. That's an interesting deviation in packaging. Also, the manual, technical supplement and rookies guide are a lot smaller than the box. They are basically miniaturized and are just a bit bigger than a jewel case.

 

Speaking of Apocalypse, I obtained a Powerplus version of the game over the weekend. It should be arriving soon. This basically completes my Apocalypse section! Not sure about this, but if the game has English, French, German and Italian language support, that would mean that there might be a French version of Apoc out there. Will look for it, but I haven't seen any French X-COM games out there.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

For a while now I have been looking for the CD32 version of the game (Enemy Unknown). Every once and a while I'd see one for sale, but it was only for the CD - not the box or the manual, etc. And the price was usually steep as well. The other day I was making my rounds and finally ran across a complete copy. Even better, I purchased it. Wasn't too expensive either considering that the box is extremely hard to come by. Another one bites the dust!

 

Speaking of tough to find items, most every Ebay auction claims that the PSX versions are rare. I don't believe this for one second simply because there's a huge supply of them being sold. Yeah, there's the law of supply and demand to take into consideration (those games are not being produced anymore so there is a limited quantity which drives up price) but the quantity always seems to be plenty along with a high turnover ratio of ownership. So the game isn't hard to find at all. Here's my question: is there a production log of some sort for Playstation games somewhere on the net? I'd be interested to see how many copies are actually floating around.

 

- Zombie

[Knan]

Congrats on the CD32 version!

[Zombie]

Thanks.

 

I'm going to have a real problem with the Amiga 500 version though. Haven't seen it once in over 8 months of looking. Maybe I'll get lucky one of these days.

 

- Zombie

[Knan]

And just to give you more to look out for:

 

"This game was re-released on the cover disk of Amiga Format magazine, issue 109, CD no. 25, April 1998."

 

... that one should be easy to find *cough*.

[Zombie]

You probably won't believe this, but I did run across it on eBay recently. I was unable to purchase it though. Still looking for it of course along with the magazine issue.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Ok, so you guys can get a glimpse of my collection so far I managed to do some scanning of just the UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown titles today and uploaded them to a site page. You can only find (and access) it here as I didn't add the page to the site menu listing yet. Still need to scan and add the Playstation versions too. And the page isn't formatted either (it's easier doing that after all the scans are added). But at least you can see some of it so far. Yeah, I know, there's a lot of versions missing but it's all I have right now and it takes time to sleuth them all down. Enjoy.

 

Edit: Scanned and added all the Playstation versions and also the low budget titles. That's everything I have for this game (at least for the time being).

 

- Zombie

[Bomb Bloke]

Could swear my old CD-version box was different to those ones. I decided to dig it out and scan it, but it appears I threw it away. Still have the manual though.

[Knan]

Heh. I like the sectoid with fangs.

 

No japanese version yet, I take it?

And where's the CD32 version? Not arrived in your hands yet?

[Zombie]

No japanese version yet, I take it?

Unfortunately not. Like I said a while back, my knowledge of the Japanese language is nil and English speaking sellers offering this title do not exist (at least not in the last 8-10 months). I'm going to need help acquiring this one unless I get lucky.

 

And where's the CD32 version? Not arrived in your hands yet?

Patience my dear friend, it's still en route. Shipping overseas takes a while. When it shows up I'll be sure to scan it and upload the pics.

 

- Zombie