16 replies to this topic

[thecyke]

I posted a whine hereabouts a while ago asking for game recommendations as it was ridiculous that i`m still playing apocalypse so much. after many a good suggestion, I bought some games on ebay, some in shops etc.

I ended up re-winning Jagged Alliance 2 - if you are an x-com fan you WILL really enjoy this game. I promise you. I abso-fugging-lutely promise you that you will love it.

Other than that, I`ve flirted with;
Wolfenstein (return to)
sudden strike
quake 3
max payne
sacrifice
giants citizen kabuto
emperor dune
soldier of fortune 2
deus ex
and not been overly excited by them.

So, basically I have really tried to get into other games. But none have the hook of Apoc for me. Sigh.

So, I`m thinking its time to play apoc again. Having beaten it on the top level (on my last game I had 3 bases wiped out by battleships, huge personnel losses, but played on and got more reward and satisfaction) i`m looking for suggestions on how to keep it interesting. Despite almost never having played it on turn based mode (i refuse to do so for some reason) that still doesnt appeal.

Are there any editors that might make things HARDER? Are the new weapons packs any good? How can I keep Apoc fresh???

[NKF]

To make the game more challenging, my usual advice is to start using less soldiers than you normally use. Or you could try and go as far as playing solo android missions, which tend to be very tricky, but not necessarily impossible. Most of the time you'll end up with one very fatigued robot running away from a mob while waiting for its weapons to recharge. Important missions like base defense and assaulting the critical type-3 UFO should be done with the full ensemble.

I haven't had much of a chance to replay Apocalypse lately (been occupied with Thief: TDP and Battlezone II), but one of the things I'd like to try is to play entire missions with hand-to-hand weapons (i.e. plasma swords) and limiting ranged weapons to the stun grapples and grenades. I just want to see what sort of strategies that can be learnt from this.

Of course, if you just want to make the game harder, well there's always Apocutil. If I'm not mistaken, you can use it to raise the difficulty level up a few notches.

- NKF

[ooda]

Cyke, I guess it's pointless to ask, but have you tried Laser Squad Nemesis?

Also, I've recently been playing alot of old games that are just made to make you laugh. One of my favorites is Freddy Pharkas. Though I have to admit, there aren't really any games which I could see at the moment which would keep me hooked for years. Hmm, maybe LSN: Earth  

[DragonHawk]

Go Apoc.  

You could always try it with only Earth based tech, or whatever the UFO masters do...  Or have you already done that?

[Helox]

I play counterstrike as my primary game and some Apoc action in the late hours when all dutch CS servers are empty.

[thecyke]

I`m not keen to play a "gimmick" game eg using only hand to hand as I`m assuming it would get quite old quite quickly..

Squad size, well I was shocked to read on this board of people taking like 30 guys to a mission, I`ve never really gone over 12 even on the final missions. Never needed more. And I`ve certainly had as few as 3 or 4 during the stages of the game where they have palsma guns and shields and my guys haven`t.

Has anyone used ApocUtil?

[NKF]

Heh, of course it will. After all, there are only two hand-to-hand weapons in the game (technically, they aren't really hand-to-hand weapons, just very short ranged guns), so it would get boring. But you don't need to base the entire campaign around using hand-to-hand weapons -- you could always try it during the occasional non-critical mission like when you go cleaning up the aliens that strayed away from a terror site.  

Still, you have to admit, you'd have to approach the battle in a very different manner than you normally would when equipped with toxiguns and devestator cannons.

- NKF

[thecyke]

Heh, for sure. If i had no weapons I`d be throwing rocks or using super strong language rather than charging at them with any bladed weapon, no matter how high tech.

ApocUtil ...anyone any experiences with????

[NKF]

Though  I never really spent much time with Apocutil, I think the documentation might shed some light:

http://members.aol.c...il/apocutil.txt


As for using melee weapons in combat: Rather than just talk about it, I gave my own suggestion a shot.

Wow. Three weeks into the game with stun grapples, and one stolen (ahem) power sword. Learnt some rather interesting tricks too. Also realised that if the alien hasn't seen you, it won't know you're there, so you can sneak up on them. Had a bit of fun tailing an anthropod about the bleachers in the grav-ball stadium before it turned around and spotted me.

Things are going surprisingly well now, but I forsee that I'm going to be in a bit of hot water if Marsec doesn't increase its output of swords, since the grapples are going to be useless against personal disrupter shields, and there's never enough stun grenades to go around...

- NKF

update: Despite the increased difficulty of having to get in close to your enemies and being humbled into reloading after losing the entire squad one too many times, I have already reached a point where I dominate the skies in the alien dimension. The alien's cannot get into Mega Primus anymore, so I had to scrounge my first sample of the personal cloaking device off of the cultists.

[Ki-tat Chung]

grapples can't go through sheilds!? well, you learn something new everyday...

[The Demi-Godly One]

Grappels don't go through shields, but they do about 1 damage to them.

[Bomb Bloke]

In order to get more playbility out of Apoc, you must first find the Carlos one. He used to have a habit of posting massive huge lists of weapons specs on the forum, which if you implemented them in the game, would make it a whole lot harder...

[The Demi-Godly One]

What, just by making human weapons worse?

[John_Clark]

Make the human weapons worse?  Could you imagine the M4K worse than it already is?

Agent: A Brainsucker! *empties M4K magazine at alien*
Brainsucker is hit by one round, does 1 damage[I]
Brainsucker: *jumps on agent's head, sucks brains*
Agent: *turns around, reloads M4K, empties magazine at nearest agent*
Agent is hit by two rounds, no damage occurs[I]

I think I will stick with those plasma pistols I found from the cult.

[sephiroth]

Try usin an hexeditor and start with less money

[Hellraiser]

Have you tried the game Soldiers of Anarchy? once you get the patch in It is a pretty good game.

[Ki-tat Chung]

hrm...in the future, please try not to reserect post too old...well, i guess this isn't too old, but anyways...

WELCOME HELLRAISER! well, in many ways, apoc is harder and easier than UFO/TFTD. thats because it is almost an enturely different game. the engine is different, and just about the only thing similar is the battlescape and (maybe) base management. somethings just can't be implemented (as in what cyke called "gigs") from UFO...well, i guess battlescape can be to a certain extent...go to scott jones site. he has heaps of scenarios for UFO. you can try them out in apoc if you like...