systems

What are your settings in your OpenGL Catalyst driver tab? Which options did you enable in the UFO Configuration utility?

Without Heavy Armor?! How? HOW?! The collapsable guns need heavy armour - the double machine gun and minigun don't.

Anyone hoping to play an modern game on a GeForce is likely to be disappointed (unless all they do is counter-strike). The GeForce was developed in 1999 - isn't it 2003 now (not far from 2004)? A brand new retail boxed 64Mb GeForce 2 MX is £25 - i.e. the price of a single new game. A brand new retail boxed GeForce 4 MX is £33!. Not much to expect from a games developer is it? Get one instead of a new game and it'll boost your gaming in everything. Feel free to tell me where to shove it.

Don't use the 3.8 driver - it causes slowdowns in the world map. Stick with 3.7. You turn off AGP fast writes in your BIOS - hunt for it in there NoCLuE.

I'm hoping he means Microprose - completely different company (and doesn't exist any more).

I turned them off during the tutorial. They pissed me off there and then. Did they deliberately employ the most annoying people they could find? Does anyone else dislike endlessly repeating voices? Starcraft, Baldur's Gate etc - they all get the voices turned off. They're funny once, but when you hear it again it's annoying.

You get biomass repulsors by doing a UFO mission in a downed PLANTER, then researching everything you find there. After doing that I think you need to do the "Russian Base" mission, but I may be wrong there. The yellow and red business is described in the game manual. Yellow means "trouble here", red means "get your ass here soon or you lose this area". To prevent this, change the base in that area to a MILITARY base. TIP: If you take a base and it's in biomass, change it IMMEDIATELY to a repulsor (once you have it). Otherwise it's destroyed in 1 second!

At least there is one black guy then - I'll start a new game in Africa and see what happens.

Hi all, I've been playing for a while now and have about 15 troops (no casualties). Every single one of them is white (about 10 male, 5 female). Is everyone in this game white? Or do you only get black troops when you start the game in Africa (I began in Europe). It just looks a bit odd to me - I'd rather have a mix of people.

I found the Russian base to be very easy. People warned about how difficult it was, so I delayed doing it until very late when I had sky armour, miniguns, masses of experience (all level 13) and a spare MP7 for everyone (I think my game date is almost April). I pretty much just lined up on either side of the main door (a couple at the hut), all nicely spread out so a missile could only hit one troop, then baited them to come out with a "streaker" running past the door. Whenever an alien stuck his head out, he took 2 Barratt sniper rifles, a minigun and 4 MP7s on burst to the face. 5 minutes later, we walked in. I went the "Long back way" to get the files and only met one alien. Easy. Now, if you want a tough mission, try capturing an alien on a ufo mission where you begin in the UFO surrounded by 8 with rocket launchers who all fire immediately! That happened to me last night. I just aborted and went home (you still get the XP).

I took the 3.8 drivers off as they slow the world map down (I've reported it to ATI). With the 3.7 drivers anti-aliasing works perfectly (with 9800). Make sure you set it in your OpenGL settings not DirectX.

The 8500 isn't obsolete yet (it's what I upgraded from incidentally). It's the speed of a GeForce 3 Ti but with the features of a GeForce 4 Ti (plus TruForm) - still good enough for anything that doesn't run with DX9 features. It'll run Max Payne 2 fine, if you're going for that on the 24th.

The pieces of software don't touch voltages or the cpu speed - they just force more idle threads than normal so that less work is done in the same time. I've had no trouble yet. Without it, UFO runs at 5 minutes per second when I set the game time to 5 seconds. :o

No, you can't make more ammo. You have to raid a new base.

If you use explosives inside the planters you lose it (I think). Also, you have to have done all the autopsies first.

I went in HMV on release day in the morning and they only had 2 copies and they weren't even in the "new releases" bit - they were on the bottom shelf with all the old games. Game only had about 6 copies but at least they were on the new releases board. I've had very little trouble with bugs, and they all have trivial workarounds anyway so don't be put off.

Sorry to amaze you - the game came out in the UK 7 days ago.

It's not a part of the official X-COM series - it's a game made in the style of that series. The offical games are now owned by Hasbro, who I think is now owned by Atari (who used to be Infogrammes). This game is made by Altar who are nothing to do with it. Check it's on the disc before buying PC Gamer - it might be on next months. The game will play like a charm with this spec: 1.5GHz 64Mb GeForce 3 Ti or Radeon 8500 256Mb RAM (512Mb best for XP). So you'll run like a beauty with an FX. I've got a 9800 running with X16AF and X6 AA and I'm capped at my monitor refresh rate it's so fast.

I bought the original retail box of Interceptor - with the "PC Dash" card. OK - if it's doable I'll try it again. Will it run with XP do you know? It's a game from the Voodoo2 generation but it uses D3D not Glide (thankfully), so with luck it'll be ok. I'd better install it then and hunt for the patch.

The demo is on the new PC Gamer - try that first if you're not sure. I'm a fan of the "UFO series" (even though this isn't part of it) and I'm pretty sure you'll love it. The base-building and funding side has been simplified, but the stats system has been enhanced. Graphically it's lovely and smooth. It's very much more a "squad combat game" than before, but still plenty of research and development. Just make sure you're happy playing at 1024x768 as you get no choice! Also, there is a patch out now so get that.

Hi, I put the new Catalyst 3.8 drivers on last night. Everything was fine except in one situation: On the world map, the game would run in slow motion whenever a helicoptor was flying. As soon as it landed, the game would be normal speed again. I have submitted a bug report to ATI. I put the 3.7 drivers back on and it was fine. Put the 3.8 back on and it was slow. Put the 3.7 back on and it was fine. Anyone else with this? I have a Radeon 9800 using X16AF and X6 AA.

Amazon are funny. X-COM Alliance has a sales rank with them (it's their 7,318 best-selling item!). Thanks for the reminder of the email X-COM game. I also never knew about Genesis. Incidentally, did anyone finish Interceptor? I finished X-Wing, TIE-Fighter and all that lot so I thought I was good at space sims. Then I played Interceptor and lost most missions and each took about an hour!

How about a race to colonise Mars? The humans have to ship "pre-fab" bases there from Earth at the start but later on can use Mars resources. I started a game of the original UFO last night and I have to say I miss all the funding side of the game. I liked having to keep governments happy. I like selling of alien tech for massive profit. Now I just train soldiers.

There are plenty of good ideas here now. I actually like everyone else's ideas more than I like my own! Slaughter (or other mods) - any chance of using your influence and shipping a list over to Altar with our "patch wish list" on? I've just realised how annoying it is to have to start a production to find how long it takes, and then you only build one item.

You need a util called Turbo. Get it here.