[Rodo]

Yesterday I was going through a bunch of old cd's that I had stored around here searching for windows xp install cd (don't ask why) and I happened to stumble upon this great old game..

for the sake of replaying at least a couple of hours I tried to install it but sadly the cd is too old and it's already unreadable... quite a bump cause I was really looking forward to play through it over again.

Do any of you remember this one right?? I loved the fact that almost everything was under your control in game, that's something not all games can achieve.

[TrashMan]

Is the CD scratched? There's one thing I tried once on a CD that was unreadable...adn it worked.

I took a piece of fabric (the one used to clean the monitor) and I polished the CD's underside..again and again and again and again...pressing down on it. After a while the scratches were visibly smaller and the CD worked again...for a while at least

[Adept]

X-Com Apocalypse is a great game. I absolutely love it. I dusted mine off and replayed it some months back (I have an old 200 MHz Pentium for these things).

But guess what, it's awailable on Steam for a few bucks! It's bundled up in a already configured Dos Box, so it works right on a moden PC. If you are a steam client, get a working copy and enjoy a great game! Maybe like me you still have your manuals too?

[Rodo]

manuals?? nop I dumped everything a couple of years ago and kept only the cd, I'm not that fan on buying on internet, I'm on Argentina and the shipping costs more than the game itself.

Is the CD scratched? There's one thing I tried once on a CD that was unreadable...and it worked.

I took a piece of fabric (the one used to clean the monitor) and I polished the CD's underside..again and again and again and again...pressing down on it. After a while the scratches were visibly smaller and the CD worked again...for a while at least

it is scratched but I doubt that's the problem, the inner part of the reflective disc (the metal part) is all corroded, I guess the moisture of this places has finally found a way into the cd and blasted it to hell, it's not even booting any more, a bump...on the other hand I'll google it to see if I can find a copy somewhere around here to buy it back.

[Rick James]

Is the CD scratched? There's one thing I tried once on a CD that was unreadable...adn it worked.

I took a piece of fabric (the one used to clean the monitor) and I polished the CD's underside..again and again and again and again...pressing down on it. After a while the scratches were visibly smaller and the CD worked again...for a while at least

If possible, I would create a CD image (something akin to an .iso file) so that you can run the game straight from your hard drive with something like Daemon Tools and not have to worry about getting your CD damaged any further. My Earthsiege CD had a rather prominent scratch on it that caused the disk to eventually fragment while the drive was reading and mulch the internal components.

[Rodo]

no I'm definitely not runing the cd any more... I've tried to install the game several times already to no avail.

I'll get a working copy somewhere... I'm guessing I must have made a copy of this one If I really liked it.

[Davros]

Then play UFO: Alien Invasion instead
http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/?page=Home

[Rodo]

hell look at that!! I might even start playing this one instead of looking for X-COM itself... it free as far as I can see right?

[Gortef]

Sweet, X-Com Apocalypse was indeed (and still is) a great game. We had so much fun playing it with my friend back in the days.

[Rodo]

Sweet, X-Com Apocalypse was indeed (and still is) a great game. We had so much fun playing it with my friend back in the days.

could you win on higher difficulties?? It was impossible for me! I stayed on the easy and medium at most and it was a pain in the ass after a couple of weeks the aliens already had battleships and crushed the entire city.

[TrashMan]

Then play UFO: Alien Invasion instead
http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/?page=Home

Some of my stuff is there...

[Rodo]

I'm downloading it right now... still an hour and half till it's finished and I'll peek into that one.

[Shade]

Definitely a great game. Now I need to install it and have a go again...

For higher difficulties, there are a few ways to exploit the way the game uses score to determine the difficulty of the next 'wave'. For example, raid the Cult of Sirius. Lots. Get loads of stuff to sell for cash and valuable experience for your troops. Unfortunately this also gets you tons of points and tells the game that the next week's aliens should be much tougher. However, once you feel you've raided them enough, instead take a few ships and start blowing up one of their temples from the air (take out the launch tubes first if you can, cuts down on the number of ships that can defend the place), and basically just keep gunning for that temple until your score is back down to a moderate level, as you lose points for causing city damage. An exploit, to be sure, and tantamount to cheating... but it does make the higher difficulties survivable

[Demitri]

Ah, brings back so many memories It was the very first game i played on my first pc. A Pentium 166MHz. You couldn't run a toaster with that these days! Loved the whole x-com series from then on. Got to admit tho, i was absolutely useless at it. Was quite young and didn't really know what i was doing so kept running out of money all the time. To my great shame i never finished it. Might look into getting it off of steam. The whole package was going for something silly like £15 not too long ago. Will need to check if its still the same

[Rodo]

well that's an interesting way of wining! I had no idea that the game sent the aliens conciderating what kind of sucess you had on the previous run, that might be the problem, I always kept my field missions 100% sucessfull, I never loose a single trooper, and If I did, I would replay it all over again.

I'm actually trying this new free version... it's like the same but with the hole world... which I don't like but well.. better that nothing.

[redsniper]

it's like the same but with the hole world...

Yeah, like the first X-COM.

[Rodo]

well I like the city version a hole lot more... this new one is really hard!! the terror missions are in shifts (on apocalypse you could choose between shifts or real time.. I'm so onto real time one and it's hard to get a hand on this mode), I can't get a knocked alien to research live specimen so far and I'm getting frustrated grgr.

[Rick James]

well I like the city version a hole lot more... this new one is really hard!! the terror missions are in shifts (on apocalypse you could choose between shifts or real time.. I'm so onto real time one and it's hard to get a hand on this mode), I can't get a knocked alien to research live specimen so far and I'm getting frustrated grgr.

Bah. You're a pansy if you can't handle turn-based action...which actually makes the in-game missions quite fair.

I like Alien Invasion, but I miss my destructible environments. I miss the days where I could have a soldier lob a grenade at a wooden wall, step through the hole made by the blast, and murder everything that wasn't human on the other side.

[Demitri]

Just looked on Steam and the package of all 5 x-com games together is £8.99! That my friends is a result. Will be getting that at the end of the month when i finally get paid. 

[Shade]

I like Alien Invasion, but I miss my destructible environments. I miss the days where I could have a soldier lob a grenade at a wooden wall, step through the hole made by the blast, and murder everything that wasn't human on the other side.

Amen. In fact, my main tactic for missions involving Chryssalids used to consist of two steps - 1) Bring rocket/blaster launchers and plenty grenades. 2) From a safe distance, demolish everything that could possibly hide an alien. Never enter a building - Level it. Never go around a hedge - Level it. With Chryssalids around, it was the only way to be sure...