The developers of the free, X-COM-inspired UFO: Alien Invasion have released version 2.3 of their game. Despite the minor increment in the version number, this is quite a substantial update and definitely worth a look whether you're someone who's never heard of it before or even if you tried an earlier version.

 

The UFO:AI development team is proud to announce the release of UFO: Alien Invasion Version 2.3. Two years in the making, this version features loads of new content, a dramatically improved rendering engine and extensive improvements to nearly every aspect of the game's campaign and battle systems.

A few highlights of what's new in version 2.3:

• Complete overhaul of the campaign system, so that alien activity changes depending on the player's actions
  
• Alien bases have been added and the player can mount an assault on them
  
• Support for crashed UFO missions
  
• New weapons
  
• New music and sound effects
  
• And loads of behind-the-scenes optimizations and tweaks for everything from the pathfinding to the user interface
  

A full changelog, along with the download for PC and Mac and a call for help are located on the project's website.

Very nice!

I am however confused by their choice of version number. Version 1 usually means that it's complete, even if it can be improved, version 2 should not only be already complete, but with new features. And still, from their changes, it would seem like it's not what you'd call complete.

Yup, not sure what the thinking was behind that.

 

Still, it's one of the more complete X-COM-esque projects and one of the longest running (must be five or six years now). That's an achievement in itself!

It's such a great game with all the X-Com mechanics unlike other spiritual successors. Hopefully the player base will increase on this forum after the publicity. The game deserves a forum of its own imo.

I gotta try this. And being on "father's leave" I WILL find the time.

Pretty fun so far, but I can't seem to be able to recover any UFOs. I'm not sure if I'm missing something or it hasn't been implemented yet.

You need to build a UFO hanger in the Geoscape first before u can recover any UFOs and study em and then u can have better interceptors. Otherwise u can only sell em to please other nations

I was going to say this was stupid, but after thinking about it, this actually makes sense. I never even bothered to click on Create installation, because I just automatically assumed that installation meant base. I probably should have paid attention to the tips.

 

There's a few things that annoy me, but then again, there may be a solution that I am not aware of.

One is that I am not able to see which of my soldiers sees which alien. This is important to me when I want to hide them somewhere but can't really do a visibility check. Perhaps instead of (or in addition to) listing all the aliens that have been seen on the current turn, the same "button" could be used to list aliens that only the current soldier sees.

Another is that reaction fire doesn't seem to work for my soldiers at all. Maybe I'm unlucky but on the 4 or 5 occasions where I used reaction fire where the aliens actually got in a place where I would expect a reaction, the reactions didn't happen.

Night time missions can be a pain when trying to see what's going on. OK, this can be solved by changing one of the options, but the problem here is just that I can't see the doorways and such very well. Perhaps there is a better solution?

Sometimes I can't tell if an alien (or soldier) got hit or not. There should be a way to make it obvious - maybe a small animation showing some stuttering or a sound effect (or both).

Sometimes civilian corpses get glitches and then start sort of flashing which looks pretty bad.

I can't seem to reserve TUs for reaction fire for secondary weapons.

The animation for crouching is very slow.

The mail client could be better. Personally I'd rather have it be an icon (along with some others) and placed somewhere else (bottom left of the screen) but in any case one of the problems is that in some cases I don't even notice the mails. Normally the game pauses when a new research proposal is there, but a good example of when this is a problem is in base defense missions. I used the auto resolve here and after it was over the time was paused but the message displayed was "You've won the battle". There was actually a research proposal for Ortnok autopsy but I only saw it a few days (game time) after. The text Mailclient changed color to white but this isn't exactly noticeable. A number in brackets telling me how many unread mails I have would also be nice. Icon or not, the fact that there's new mail should be more obvious. Having the text (or icon) flash is how I would solve this.

The messages in rectangles have their text cut off and replaced by "...". Maybe I'm missing something?

I have trouble telling craft apart. UFOs as well as my own craft are pretty small and when I zoom in they seem to get even smaller instead of bigger or at least the same size. Perhaps an information window with a bigger picture of the craft would help?

Some of the music can be pretty annoying. Some of it just doesn't fit the tactical missions and some of it I found was downright annoying. That metal piece especially. What I think made the music in X-COM (mostly TFTD) in tactical missions so good was the fact that it added to the tension. The metal piece screams "action!" but it just doesn't fit the slow and tense tactical missions. If the game used real time combat then it would probably work (it did in RT in Apocalypse), but here it doesn't.

Production could be handled a bit better. I don't really get a sense of how far along each item is. A percentage and remaining time (per item or total time) would be nice.

One suggestion that I think could give the game a bit more polish would be to give your staff (Dr. Connor and Cmdr. Navarre) more character. The current 3D models have low detail and look very plain and uninteresting. Either replace them with some higher poly and more detailed models (could be a problem) or maybe even better use 2D drawings instead.

I think this covers most of the issues I have with the game. Some of these are minor but I thought I'd put them here anyway.

 

Despite all the criticism and suggestions for improvement, I really like the game so far. It has come a long way since the earliest version I've played (and it's been quite a few years since then). It doesn't have destructible terrain or randomly generated missions (OK, the maps are selected randomly, but there's no randomization in each of the maps) and the entire map is immediately visible which takes away from the tension and "going into the unknown" feeling (even if this is more realistic). At the end of the day though, it's still a really fun game that is well worth your time.

What I really like is that in comparison with X-COM the game has a better way of dealing with shooting. It's not just Auto shot, Aimed shot, Snap shot here. Finally I am not limited to just a 3 bullet auto shot. It's not a new feature in the game, it was there in the older versions too, but ever since I've first seen it I thought that an X-COM game should have it.

Also, the research. I really dig the amount of thought put into research (alien breathing apparatus for example) as well as the proposals and other e-mails detailing each entry. Sounds very scientific.

It still has a long way to go, especially when it comes to the interface (still looks pretty bland) and overall polish but it's a really fun game and that's all that really matters. Thumbs up from me.

The messages in rectangles have their text cut off and replaced by "...". Maybe I'm missing something?

 

I am. The text can be seen on the right side.

I just played this briefly and while it looks like it has GREAT potential, the are quite a few niggles which make it unplayable for me at the moment. I'll list them in the rough order which I recall encountering them.

 

1. Laggy mouse pointer on the Geoscape screen. While the globe looks impressive, I was instantly irritated by the slowness of the pointer and slow delayed movement of the globe. I'd rather see a crappy plane looking globe which moves quickly and effectively rather than this beautiful but sluggish thing. It annoyed me straight away I must be honest.

 

2. No options on the right hand side of the Geoscape screen (like X-com). I liked having those options there in X-com, there were clear, precise, efficient and self-explanatory. It took me ages of mindless and frustrating clicking to figure out how to Intercept the first UFO - and then to send out my Troop-Carrier to the crash site. I kept clicking on the Interceptor instead of the Crash Site so had to play around with the frustratingly laggy Geoscape controls and zoom until I finally got it - which as I said was only after I figured out HOW I was supposed to do it.

 

Having those options on the side of the screen would be SO MUCH EASIER. Like going straight to your base instead of having to click on the globe. There's plenty of room for those kind of buttons so I can't for the life of me figure out why you would chose to remove them.

 

TACTICAL MISSION

 

1. Heavy metal music - aaarghh! I HATE heavy metal music anyway, but for a game which is meant to be full of suspense - no, no, no, no NO!

 

2. Laggy mouse pointer again. It drives me mad! UFO - Extraterrestrials had it too and it made me unable to play any more than a handful of missions before I wanted to SCREAM! Please do something about while you still can.

 

3. My soldiers are already deployed outside of my Troop-Carrier - why? Stepping out into the unknown was a huge part of the suspense of X-com. Like choosing you most expendable recruit to go first ;-

 

"Go on laddy - It's part of your initiation - We've all had our turn before!"

 

"Errr.. alright Sarge..."

 

*ZAPPP, BLAST* - "arrrghhh...."

 

4. Kneeling down (soo slow) - Like the Heavy Metal music it's been mentioned before, but certainly worth mentioning again. Like the general laggyness of the pointer it's a horribly frustrating experience to watch.

 

5. I couldn't figure out how to Save during the tactical mission, so I exited thinking that maybe it did an auto-save.. it turns out it didn't, and I had to start all over again - thus ended my Alien Invasion experience.

 

If there is no ability to save during the tactical mission - fine I can handle that, I quite enjoy playing Ironman style but at least it could have warned me. An auto-save feature before the mission starts would have been nice too.

 

 

CONCLUSION.

 

There are some very nice features like the character equip graphics which are cool and varied. Nice weapons and crafts (from what I've seen) and a nice method of proposing research.

 

Sorry I know it has sounded like a ripping, but it is my genuine honest opinion. All the great features I KNOW are buried within this game are completely lost through an unnecessarily bad interface system (you could have / should have copied it directly from the original X-com) and through a general sluggishness of movement withing the game.

I don't have the laggy mouse problem. What are your system specs? Have you tried lowering the details? You could also turn on the option to show you "fps" and see how many you get on average.

 

As for the interception, maybe it's just a matter of you needing to get used to it?

 

I too don't like my soldiers being out of the troop carrier. It makes them extremely vulnerable, and even if I shoot at the aliens, reaction fire can be a problem.

Something to nitpick, the font they use feels like it's a placeholder for the real one.

I too don't like my soldiers being out of the troop carrier. It makes them extremely vulnerable, and even if I shoot at the aliens, reaction fire can be a problem.

On the plus side (and this is something I can believe they were trying to accomplish) it solves the problem of getting your guys out instead of dying at the entrance.

 

On the minus side, it just makes them ridiculously huge targets. Spread out around an unknown location without properly scouting assessing the location is just begging for an ambush.

I don't have the laggy mouse problem. What are your system specs? Have you tried lowering the details? You could also turn on the option to show you "fps" and see how many you get on average.

 

As for the interception, maybe it's just a matter of you needing to get used to it?

 

I too don't like my soldiers being out of the troop carrier. It makes them extremely vulnerable, and even if I shoot at the aliens, reaction fire can be a problem.

 

I don't know what my system specs are - my computer is a few years old and I'm probably due a new one - but I've played many bigger and better games than Alien Invasion (no offense intended) without such problems.

 

As for getting used to the Interception - you're probably right I would get used to it if I gave it some time - but what's the need for getting used to a different, less obvious method when there was a perfectly good tried and tested method that most people are already used to.

 

 

On the plus side (and this is something I can believe they were trying to accomplish) it solves the problem of getting your guys out instead of dying at the entrance.

 

On the minus side, it just makes them ridiculously huge targets. Spread out around an unknown location without properly scouting assessing the location is just begging for an ambush.

I liked the way many guys died at the entrance. Some missions could be a bit like the beginning of 'Saving Private Ryan'. You never knew what to expect the moment the 1st guy stepped out. It brought some real tension and suspense to missions. Quite realistic too as of course there would be a chance the enemy would have watched the Troop Carrier land and be waiting to spring an ambush. Removing this for me takes away a large part of what as so uniquely exciting about X-Com.

I did not like the battlescape one bit, it's hideous and uncomfortable. Plus, no load button in battlescape? wtf? are we back to 1993?

I had the laggy mouse too, but I'm using a mediocre 3 year old laptop that has no graphics card (just an accelerator) and 2gb memory and 1.5ghz dual core processor. So, I just assumed it was my computer.

 

I really like the idea of having pilots for each craft, I'm hoping that they will eventually have stats that affect their piloting so you can pick up different pilots for different crafts (like some are better at combat, and others are good at landing in advantageous spots for battle). I like the base layout as well, the new facilities are good, I REALLY like the idea of having different sized hangars, that adds some more strategy to the base layout design.

 

One thing I always wished you could do in X-Com was set up your initial base layout, since that is something you could conceivably do if you're there starting up the group, I realize that's not really the case in UFO:AI though. Still, I think it would be nice.

 

The interception I think could be done better. I didn't realize my first craft had been shot down because I wasn't looking at the time, I think it'd be nice to be able to observe the battle a bit better (similar to how X-Com does it, but you could do better, that was my least favorite thing of X-Com). I'd like to see more interaction in the intercept mode.

 

The battlescape I didn't do much, but as others said, I prefer bringing them out of the ship myself. The battlescape was slow for me, because of my computer, but I played a little bit. Orientation was a bit weird, it was difficult to exactly move and things, but I think that might have been due to my computer's slowness.

 

The only other problem I had was with the layout of the geoscape, as was said earlier, it's not laid out to be incredibly user friendly, I had to go searching for a lot of things that would have been nice to have them be very obvious, I do like the timing and zoom controls though. I wouldn't mind seeing the stopping of time going away though.

Did some reading.

 

1) No midmission saves. I've started playing Ironman on my own, but really, leaving it aside in this day and age feels barbaric.

 

2) You can build your base, or could in an earlier build. Start with no base or somesuch.

 

3) Read the plot. Yeah, there's beating impossible odds and there's being silly. This? The latter.

My problem is that it doesn't feel like X-Com. The battles aren't suspenseful and the music is poorly chosen. Their efforts are certainly admirable but it's just not doing it for me.

 

I'm currently enjoying UFO: ET Gold though, that is actually pretty close to X-Com.

I've been meaning to play UFO ET with BMan's mod, you remind me

I've been meaning to play UFO ET with BMan's mod, you remind me

That is the only way to play it! Never even tried the original, with immortal soldiers etc.