69 replies to this topic

[Zarkov]

I really like Ufo:ET so far. It does a fair job of capturing the excitement I felt as a kid when playing UFO:EU.

The good:
The graphics are great. Not from a technological point of view but from a design aspect.
I really like the way the weapons, armor, aliens and vehicles are designed. It gives me a real 80’s feeling. Sleek, 2d-ish.

Music: I also really like the game music, it’s fairly simple eerie stuff. But it does get the job done when your scouting by your self.

Gameplay: The destructible terrain, coupled with the different weapons systems works pretty good.  It opens a lot of tactical situations.

The bad:
Sound: All sounds except music are fairly lackluster, laser and gun shots are fairly flat and aliens never really scream out as they fold into a pile.

Animations: Animations are quite limited, When ever something gets shot it just sort of falls over on the spot. Also walking, shooting and crouching animations are simplistic at best,

UI: No keyboard shortcuts, This is a big annoyance for me, every action requires multiple clicks to perform. Crouch= select soldier, hover 3 seconds on soldier, select crouch. Take a shot= select soldier, click weapont, click alien, select shot type.

I’m giving the game an 8/10, mostly because it creates a great gaming atmosphere, unlike many of the more technologically impressive recent games.
It’s like the feeling you get when you view the Homeworld intro.

[Praetoris]

I don't enjoy coming out as a whining kind of guy , usually I'm even overenthusiastic about games like this, but this time I just can't hold it:

Zarkov:
"The graphics are great. Not from a technological point of view but from a design aspect."
- I don't agree at all on this - the graphics aren't good in my opinion ... no whater what kind of aspect. Take me for it - I design stuff for a living and some of these designs are downright laughable. They do succeed fairly well with most of the aliens though (although I haven't seen too many of them yet).
Sad thing is that I've seen a couple of the concepts from this game and I don't think the in-game assets give them justice.

"Music: I also really like the game music, it's fairly simple eerie stuff. But it does get the job done when your scouting by your self."
- To me it sounds like they copied the music from X-Com right off and added some similar tunes to it. Not much of an accomplishment in my opinion, but what worked back then still works now . Can I give credit to them for not breaking it?

"Gameplay: The destructible terrain, coupled with the different weapons systems works pretty good.  It opens a lot of tactical situations."
- Nothing new from X-Com either. It's still nice though, although it looks quite awcard when a shot from your average rifle rips a solid wall apart in a second.

"The bad:
Sound: All sounds except music are fairly lackluster, laser and gun shots are fairly flat and aliens never really scream out as they fold into a pile.

Animations: Animations are quite limited, When ever something gets shot it just sort of falls over on the spot. Also walking, shooting and crouching animations are simplistic at best,

UI: No keyboard shortcuts, This is a big annoyance for me, every action requires multiple clicks to perform. Crouch= select soldier, hover 3 seconds on soldier, select crouch. Take a shot= select soldier, click weapont, click alien, select shot type."
- Agreed

"I'm giving the game an 8/10"
- I'd given it a 4/10, mainly because it's value as a tribute.

(god, I feel like a pessimist - just can't help it)

[Space Voyager]

Ok, I know a serious review shouldn't mention X-COM too much, but in a forum not much is forbidden. So could somebody plese "review" ET from with a comparison; what is better and what is worse from X-COM?

[Liandriel]

Space Voyager, on 7th May 2007, 4:37pm, said:

Ok, I know a serious review shouldn't mention X-COM too much, but in a forum not much is forbidden. So could somebody plese "review" ET from with a comparison; what is better and what is worse from X-COM?

ET vs XCOM

PROs
-=- I think ET's AI is stronger.  Enemies in tactical combat seem to use the best attack for the situation and do not always just sit around in their ship watching the Galactic News (though that does occasionally happen).  Aliens are not always in the most remote building with a book, either - they are looking for the humans looking for them.
-=- I like the real-time of strategic spaceship fights.  Always was difficult to get reinforcments for those battleship size UFOs.
-=- Not having to buy ammo for your interceptors.  You still pay for it, but dont have to have the ammo on hand.
-=- Unlimited storage.  No storeroom per se, so you just have room.
-=- In the short time I have played, difficulty increases constatly.  First fight the rookies can hit an alien one time for it to die, by May/June it may take multiple rifle shots.
-=- Experience counts.  No free rank advances for showing up, and you can pick what skills to specialize in.
-=- Aliens can take over areas, but you can take them back.  Reportedly you can "free" an area from alien occupation- though I cannot yet confirm that.
-=- One barracks is enough for the whole army.
-=- Cannot sell laser pistols (or anything for that matter) for a 900% profit - guess you really do have to protect the planet to make money.

SIMILARITIES
-=- Still have to down ships to do tactical combat.  I havent seen any landed ones.
-=- Heard rumors of terror missions, but havent experienced one yet.
-=- Beginning storyline sounds familliar to XCOM, but only time will tell.
-=- Research & Development remains similar - kill mob, dissect him, learn to use plastics (or how to counter his psionics).
-=- Bases remain similar.  Instead of the ubiquitous elevator, you have energy controls, but its basically the same.
-=- Just like in XCOM, a rifle can bring down the whole building if you work at it hard enough.  Course I havent tried to see if the 2nd floor will fall down in ET yet - we all know that buildings in XCOM didnt ever actually fall to the ground.

CONS
-=- If you TORE UP a spaceship in XCOM, there would be dead aliens, doesnt seem to affect it in ET.  Guess they all know where their space suits are.
-=- Graphics engine could be upgraded.  Definately not 4-color or 8-bit graphics, but nowhere near Doom3 either.  Mulitipositional changes should be shown (ie if someone is kneeling have dont have them go from standing to kneeling immediately).
-=- Same goes for sound.  Music and sound effects could be better and original.
-=- Many people complain of lack of hotkeys, I dont see it as an issue personally.
-=- Inability to hire new staff.  Soldiers will just show up.
-=- Inability to have workshops /labs in other bases.  Reportedly advanced workshops can be built, but I havent gotten that far.
-=- Use one shot from a magazine, you throw out the other 19 rounds when you get to base.  MAN I miss that from AL.
-=- No overhead map of the tactical arena.  Doesnt affect me much really, but some complaints about it.

Hmmm... Thats all I can think of right off hand.

ET is VERY similar to XCOM, even moreso than the AS/AL series.  However, I feel it is a good game in its own right.  If you are a fan of the series, you should give it a shot.

[Space Voyager]

Hmmmmm... Some pros aren't pros for me... Like unlimited storage and barracks. Meh, I won't be able to pass on this game anyway.

[Jh316]

So far I've run into 3 terror missions. I'm up to June at the moment, so there's not nearly as many as in X-Com, but they're there. Civillians are just as stupid as ever, too.

[illegal youth]

hey all,

long-time lurker here and big x-com fan.  this site has helped me get my old games up and running again.

that said, i've been anticipating this title for a long time now, hoping it would live up to all the hype.

for those interested, i wrote a rather lengthy review of the game.

ufo: extraterrestrials - a review

cheers

[Slaughter]

New voices are always welcome! Extensive review you've written there. I'll see about taking a look tomorrow.

[Aralez]

Awesome review! You wrote about things that REALLY matter to us Xcom fans. I like your honest opinion and the excellent layout as well. Good work.

I especially liked the info about the different mods, i gonna check for them asap!

[illegal youth]

thanks!

i can only assume that you're the anonymous commenter on my blog.  i'm glad that other x-com fans feel the same way about some of the design changes in ufo: et.  i don't think they necessarily break that game, but the vanilla implementation of those features draws away from the gameplay.

right now, i've been running bman's mod, version 1.9.  let me tell you now, this mod really makes all the difference.  i can't even go back to the vanilla version anymore.  but moriarty also has a new mod out that makes some other really excellent changes (finances screen fixed, terror sites spawn from ufos -- not just randomly appear as they do in the vanilla game), so it's a hard choice.  just keep your eye on the frankenmod by iskandar, which combines the latest versions of the bman and moriarty mods.

lets just hope that official patch incorporates these mods, as well as some other things too... since writing that review i have noticed other problems.  windows are useless (can't see through them), night missions are no different from day missions as far as visibility range goes (and ufo: et doesn't have flares either -- basically, i get the impression that lightning plays no role in the tactical game at all.  which is pretty disappointing, considering that x-com: genesis was supposed to make lightning a much bigger part of the tactical game), interceptors are forced to be armed with a cannon and a ranged missile (no double plasma cannons like in x-com), and ammo clips are discarded if one round is spent (just like the bug in x-com).  considering that laser weapons require ammunition to be produced, and that production is really slow in ufo: et, that last one is a real problem.  you'll spend a lot of time making clips in the early game.

[UfoMan]

http://illegalyouth....als-review.html

--

Yes, nice balanced review there.

Chaos Concepts has gotten permission from the modders over there to incorporate the mods directly into the next patch thus saving the coding time, and making the patch come sooner, and thus making the game more like what we wanted it to be.

That's what they really need most now, is mods fixing all the things we don't like about the game, and there are already lots of mods.

They also need more complete lists of where UFO ET falls short of expectations, so that CC and the modders can go in and make it even more like X-Com.

UFO ET is the thing that comes the closest to being like X-Com, and what they need is lists and input where it falls short, so that they can work on making it more like what we want it to be.

http://www.ufo-extra...ewforum.php?f=2

[DarkPaladin]

Hi there

Well it's been a LONG time since I visited here, and no doubt an awful lot longer since I posted!

I have just bought UFO:ET and will admit I'm only a few game hours in, but so far I am quite impressed overall with the game.  I have noticed the lack of being able to buy soldiers, that you have to buy a lab or workshop in order to get scientiest (10 per lab/shop) that your soldiers don't die to name a few

I can confirm that UFO's DO land, trouble was by the time I got there it had taken off again

I was a little disapointed to find that after researching laser weapons, then the weapons themselves, one costs 4,000 to manufacture, and yet only sells for around 1,200!  You mean to tell me the latest in modern weaponry, only available from "you" wouldn't sell like hot cakes?!  Of course it shouldn't sell for stupid amounts of money either, but come on!  A Widescreen TV sells for more than that!   It also helps to justify having a staff of engineers sitting around doing nothing every day.  Not a big issue, but researched tech and alien equipment is of course going to be pretty rare, there's no-one else out there selling Laser Rifle's and UFO Engines on GalaxyBay

Oh and so far all the UFO's I've shot down have been intact, no damage at all... I used to enjoy entering a partially wrecked UFO

I would imagine that if you loved the original X-COM game and want to play a very similar game without the hassles of trying to get the old game running again on your modern PC, then this would be the game.  It's much closer to X-COM than any of the UFO After* series games

[Buatha]

The screenshots from your blog review are missing.

[illegal youth]

buatha,

hmmm not sure what's going on... i just checked them all and they display just fine for me.

maybe try reloading the page?

[rezaf]

Sorry for the blatant self-advertising, but since Slaughter explicitly mentioned missing item information on the equipment screens, I also missed this and modded it back in.
Has some very minor issues (basically cosmetics) and I stopped working on it for the time being, but it does what it sets out to do.
Thread on the official boards here.

A preview screenshot:

_____
rezaf

[Azrael Strife]

illegal youth, on 18th May 2007, 8:09pm, said:

hey all,

long-time lurker here and big x-com fan.  this site has helped me get my old games up and running again.

that said, i've been anticipating this title for a long time now, hoping it would live up to all the hype.

for those interested, i wrote a rather lengthy review of the game.

ufo: extraterrestrials - a review

cheers

Great review!

[Slaughter]

Very nice rezaf! Good to have so many excellent modders working on the game. Does it work with the new patch?

[rezaf]

Slaughter, on 3rd June 2007, 12:03pm, said:

Very nice rezaf! Good to have so many excellent modders working on the game. Does it work with the new patch?

Sadly, my version didn't require a serial# and thus I could not install the update from Matrix/Tri-Synergy.
Once on is out, I will update it.

If you are willing to go through the effort, you could upload the three xsrc files my mod contains as changed by the update someplace. It should be easy for me to update it to work again.

I'm working on a slightly more complex mod allowing to auto-resolve tactical missions now ... we'll see whether I manage to pull it off.  
_____
rezaf

[illegal youth]

Azrael Strife, on 3rd June 2007, 12:24am, said:

Great review!

thanks!

i left a comment on my blog responding to you, but i thought i'd post it here too, in case you don't check back there:


In retrospect, I inadvertently left out some important points... one of which I'd like to explore more.

Basically, the game has "eras," meaning that weapons researched from the early game become completely obsolete in the later game. This differs from X-COM significantly, where the player could make use of items like the laser pistol all the way through the final mission.

It also points to why the "no soldier death" design decision was made. It's not just about reloading, in my opinion, but a significant game balance issue. The later items, which become necessary to effectively combat the aliens, require soldiers with huge stats -- i.e., 90 strength for late game armor. Seeing as the soldier leveling system isn't exactly ideal, its difficult to get soldiers with these high stats quickly. If soldiers died, their replacements wouldn't be able to even use the later game techs, and that would make your fighting force pretty useless.

I should say something about the soldier leveling system -- this is an aspect of the game that I think needs to be fixed. Unlike X-COM, in which soldiers only gained experience by actually doing something -- i.e., firing a weapon and getting a hit increases accuracy, walking increases TUs, reaction fire hits during the alien turn increases reaction fire, etc. -- soldiers in UFO: ET only get experience for kills. Then the player can allocate up to five "skill points" to any given attribute. This will lead players to put everything into accuracy in the first couple of level-ups, making sharpshooters out of rookies in no time at all. It seems broken to allow the player to have that kind of control over where the skill points go, and it removes some strategic decisions about leveling-up soldiers from the tactical game.

edit: i should also add that the design decision to go with "strength requirements" for weapons and armor instead of an encumbrance system is also a part of the problem.

[Jh316]

Actually, you get experience from wounded aliens as well.