illegal youth

ah sorry, heh. i was getting an outer shell crash before the game loaded. i don't recall exactly what it said, which isn't much help... it was something to the effect of direct draw not working properly. i had deleted ufo defense through steam yesterday, thinking that i could remove the xcomutil files and try again with a fresh install; however, when i reinstalled ufo defense through steam, all of the xcomutil files were still there. i loaded up the game and it worked this time, xcomutil running. so it's fixed; i don't know how, and i can't recreate the error from yesterday.

right.... but i assumed that if xcomutil could fix the difficulty bug, then steam could've just applied the xcomutil patch to the game beforehand. speaking of which, i can't seem to get xcomutil to run with the steam version. i've done what i usually do -- copy the files into the directory, run the xcusetup.bat file, and then edited the dosbox.conf file to call runxcom.bat instead of ufocd.bat. am i missing something? (maybe it's because steam uses ufocd.bat instead of ufo.exe/geoscape.exe/tactical.exe?)

i just thought of something... any word if the steam x-com games fixed the difficulty bug in UFO and TFTD? i searched the steam forums and came up empty. its not too big a deal, since we can always just use xcomutil... EDIT: oh, and the research tree bugs in TFTD?

hmmm. i wonder why?

no prob!

strange. well, we know it's a top seller in at least the US and norway, but not croatia, heh.

gimli, i can see it just fine. the regional codes only appear when you click the link for the complete pack. if you just go to the main page: http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php scroll down and click the "top sellers" tab. i see the x-com complete pack at the top.

i'm not sure a new voice patch is necessary... i have the dos version of ufo defense, and i was able to successfully apply this voice patch without any problems. my game still runs in dosbox. i'm also using xcomutil with that version... does that make any difference? if a new voice patch is really necessary, i'm pretty sure that i have a clean dos version of ufo defense at home, but i'll have to check. i'm at work now, so i won't be able to access it until later tonight.

after reading this post and all the links included, i've been inspired to write a little something about what i think makes x-com the game it is (and hoping that these game mechanics make it into any new x-com that may or may not be being developed): http://illegalyouth.blogspot.com/2008/05/x...buzz-again.html feel free to comment on my thoughts.

just thought that i'd point out that XCOM's visibility system was not random -- it was based on a fixed number. during the day, sight was even between XCOM and the aliens -- 20/20 squares respectively. at night, it was 9/20 squares respectively.

regarding squad command, if you click the link i provided above, there are DS screen shots available.

since we're still on a front mission kick, i thought i'd mention that another front mission has been annouced for the DS -- front mission 2089: border of madness. no one knows anything about the game except that it shares the name of mobile front mission games for cell phones (front mission 2089 and front mission 2089-II). it could be something new or a port of the mobile games to the DS. as far as i know, only front mission 3 has been released in europe, which is arguably the best in the series. in the states, we'd only had front mission 3 and 4 until recently, when front mission DS was released back on october. ok, i'll end my thread hijack here, heh. to get this back to the gollops, i was looking through the rock, paper, shotgun website and came across this link in another post on UFO: ET. a very interesting discussion about whether or not another XCOM is even possible, given today's gaming industry.

an XCOM DS homebrew project was in the works, but it's been inactive for nearly 3 months now.... THQ has squad command coming out in about a month or so. i'm not sure that they'd have the rights to do an XCOM DS port. oh, if you're looking for a game of a similar genre for the DS, front mission was finally released in the US. if you're unfamiliar with front mission, it's bascially a squad-level, turned-based game that uses "wanzers" (i.e. mechs) instead of foot soldiers.

chaos gate is pretty good, but there are a couple of game-crashing bugs that you cannot get around. i was able to install the game only through virtual PC, using my old windows 98 SE as the OS. its fun, but the game crashes make it difficult to sustain longer gameplay. i think there are some websites that still host the patches too, and you'll need them if you want to avoid the bugs that can be fixed. you're thinking of the second version of space hulk, the one that had better graphics and free-movement instead of square-based movement. it's called space hulk: vengeance of the blood angels. it's another title that i could only get running with virtual PC. it also has a few game-crashing bugs that have no way to work around, but the crashes are not as frequent as with chaos gate. i'm definitely looking forward to squad command. i bought a DS specifically for it! (it's just much better suited for the genre than the PSP)

thanks!