To all the X-COM fans who rejected Interceptor

[Mazdek]

It fills a spot in my game cycle as a flight sim, without having to be Star Wars or Microsoft's terrorist training program or WWII. Even better, its a space flight sim. I am a better pilot in space, don't have to worry about nosediving into the ground just because you forgot which way was UP during a dogfight. Unfortunately, its Zero G flight model is still focussed on gravity, requiring power to maintain a velocity.

 

I wonder if it would be possible to mod the code to act properly.

 

btw, a game "brand" that has a more accurate flight model is the Independence War pair.

[Pete]

Well I thought it was great too!

 

I still have to disagree with Dave Ellis (yeah yeah, I know he practically made the game) in that the bad guys were just too quick for your un-maneuverable craft and you mostly watched your wingmen doing all the hard work, but overall it had the whole set of X-COM elements - base-building, research, manufacture and a damned good plot combined with some intense action!

 

I've always wondered what it would be like with some more Capital Ships and using something closer to the X-Wing engine... *sigh*

[Blehm 98]

actually, from what i've heard, Interceptor wasn't incredible, just it wasn't quite so popular because they had to deal with a ton of really good flight sims at that time, which sucked for the Interceptor guys

 

I've never played this game though, but it sounds alright

 

now, i want to play enforcer, and see just how bad it is. Actually, i don't, because it isn't even an xcom game

 

Oh yes, and interceptor i believe took place before Apocalypse, yet i believe that you get infinite elerium or something in interceptor

 

yes from what i know about apoc, you still buy elerium and solmine is still in business

 

hmmmm, i smell discrepancies

[Pete]

Gah will everyone just stop hating Enfocer for five damned minutes? Enforcer was GREAT!

 

Okay, so it's not a "true" X-COM game in the sense that if you're a die-hard X-COM fan you'll hate it for even existing, but it was really fun to play against hordes of alien scum, blasting them to pieces arcade-stylee for a change

 

I believe the Elerium in Interceptor was mined from Mars if memory serves, where there was a vast concentration near the alien's old headquarters at Cydonia, so it's not technically unlimited, there's just an awful lot of it and X-COM stands between Earth, the various outposts and certain destruction by the aliens so there's not too much worry about elerium in that game.

 

By the time you get to Apoalypse (again, if my memory's still working okay) those mines are pretty much depleted and we go onto the (infinitely funky) devastator weaponery and toxiguns as an entirely different alien threat emerges

[Kret]

The weekly news reports in Interceptor spoke of the MegaPrimus project, so I think they're almost simultaneous. Would be best to just compare starting dates which I might do later after work.

 

Regarding elerium, you don't actually see this in interceptor, but there's a research about synthetic elerium. Still, you won't see any to buy/sell/plunder.

 

Personally, the only thing I hate is when Phantasms go into permanent cloacking while firing psi-blaster beams. It won't decloack when firing that particular weapon and if it's undamaged, it's hard to spot the ship from just the beams it's firing. Oh, and make sure none of your wingmen are psi-vulnerable. I particulary hate it when you've been in a big fight and a couple of wingmen have been downed as that damned ship only leaves you the option to hiperspace and re-intercept, loosing all loot and having the downed wingmen MIA as I know they have plenty of HP to survive.

[Jasonred]

The Megaprimus Project is under research during Interceptor, so logically, Apoc is a bit after Interceptor.

 

The whole POINT of the outposts, AFAIK, is that they're supposed to mine Elerium. Those outposts are sort of cowboy towns, with civilization centred around Elerium mines.

 

Solmine is owns the mining rights for these outposts, or something. Anyhow, they're the company which takes the excess Elerium from your space mining outposts and sells it back on Earth.

 

In Apocalypse, since when was there an Elerium shortage? I seem to remember being able to buy tons of the stuff off the open market, not exactly cheap, but not exactly a "rare and elusive" item. Plasma weapons are just fine to use on ships before you get Alien tech.

 

And, as I said on another topic board, when you modify your ship to fly BACKWARDS faster than any alien ship can fly forwards, and you have the longest range weapon in the game, there's nothing to stop you sniping everything into oblivion... That's the easy way to kill phantasms. Other than that, those Phantasms eventually run out of cloaking power and decloak for a while.

[Pete]

Now why didn't I think of that tactic?

[Jasonred]

I don't think it occurs to most people that such a thing is even possible. Cause you have to... let me try and remember.... ah, I forget exactly, but you take the biggest engine, the lightest ship (in other words, you use the beginning ship instead of your Super Avenger thingy), strip off the good armor and stuff, and stick on those Engine killer beam thingys.

 

Added bonus is the ridiculous amount of salvage you get, since you ONLY ever damage the engines.

[Kret]

Other than that, those Phantasms eventually run out of cloaking power and decloak for a while.

I haven't spent hours waiting for it to decloack, but after 10 mins of flying in circles does make the game tedious enough to hate when they do it. I don't particulary have problems when they go for the hit and cloack tactic since they always decloack just before they attack, but when they use psi-blasters, they NEVER decloack.

[The Veteran]

Wow, I love this thread, I just recently played a little way into Interceptor again and I loved it.

 

A couple of things... Interceptor is before Apocalypse, the Elerium thing is a bit of a glitch as Apoc was made first and they didn't think much about Interceptor at the time... Synthetic Elerium is a research in Interceptor but effectively has no use and changes nothing with respect to the game itself. I can't comment in Elerium availability in Apocalypse as I've not played it for some time!

 

Phantasms... Go straight for them at the start and it's easy... If you watch the beginning of a level there's a mini-flick that shows your ships advancing in line. The alien ships appear in a similar fasion and Phantasms don't cloak until they peel off from the line. As soon as the game starts just boost to uber-full speed and let loose with all you've got. You'll be able to get them smoking before they're able to cloak then you just aim for the fire and they're as good as dead!

 

Enforcer and Interceptor are both great yet widely misunderstood games. They don't seem to sit very well with the series from time to time but they work in the long run...

[Fishfins]

I liked Interceptor, but I had a big complaint...

 

You need a joystick. I tried playing with the keyboard and mouse, and found it extremely difficult to shoot down alien ships fighters. I managed to remedy this by arming my ship with Tracer Beams (I think, the weapon that aims for you).

 

Otherwise, it's my second favorite X-Com game (Apocalypse was boring, TFTD was an impossible, weird and a recycled production. The management side of the game was spot-on.

[Accounting Troll]

I rather liked Interceptor, although not as much as Enemy Unknown and Acopalypse. When I've had a bad day, I find it theraputic to personally blow up those dratted Sectoids. I certainaly don't blame Microprose for trying to take the series in a new direction to prevent it from becoming stale.

 

Regarding the Elerium question, in Interceptor the corporations have only just established an extra-solar presence and they are well aware that they can only operate if X-Com keeps the area around the new colonies free from pirate and alien activity. Thus it is in their interests to give you priority for elerium and manufacturing because otherwise they lose the money they've invested in their projects.

 

By the 2080s and Acopalypse, the extra-solar colonies are all owned by a few large corporations. They have a large military presence there because the colonists keep rebelling against their rule, which I suspect is as oppressive as that of the mining companies that literally owned their workers in South Wales in the early 19th century. This military presence is strong enough to deter all but the largest alien incursions. X-Com is probably not welcome because it might decide to side with the colonists.

 

And Solmine brought the patent for artificial elerium

 

As for the aliens, in Interceptor they panicked when humanity developed interstellar flight and attempted our outright destruction. However, they then realised that we are resourceful (more so than Sectoids, Etherials, etc, who fell from grace) and they tried to harness that by infiltrating Earth in Acopalyse.

[Kret]

Actually AT, the aliens in apocalypse where from a completely different faction, or at least that is what is seems. The only strong point that supports this is the fact that in one of the Destroy alien building missions, you have the optional mission of saving some sectoids that were being kept as cattle, or so I understood from the briefing

[Azrael Strife]

That's correct, in fact IIRC some UFOPaedia entries in Apoc state that the Sectoids are like slaves, or food, don't remember which, to this transdimensional aliens.

[Pete]

They had become an alien delicacy. I believe though that this was going to be quickly skimmed over and they were going to be back with a vengeance in X-COM Alliance before it was canned.

 

From what little I know, the Sectoid/Ethereal bunch of aliens are duelling in a HUGE war with the Ascidians (who we've never met before, are presumably losing (hence the alliance? It's also possible that the Ascidians are WORSE than the others and we side with them...))

 

So we instantly love the Ascidians. It's quite possible (in my mind at least - Dave Ellis was going to skip the whole Dimension Aliens question ) that the Ascidians sided with the regular bad guys against the vast Dimension Alien forces (you thought they only had ONE alien city? DUH!) and then perhaps the good old Sectoids and Ethereals turned on the weakened Ascidians once free of the clutches of their former foe.

 

Thus, we also explain away a nice period where the regular bad guys haven't tried to attack us again yet

 

It's a neat theory. Needs more work, but could evolve into a nice story or explanation. We just assumed up until the mention of the Ascidians in Alliance that there was only really one alien foe and that Apocalypse aliens were an exception to this rule. With the introduction of the Ascidians, we can't rule out more alien races with massive interstellar wars going on behind the scenes.

 

Neat eh?

[Azrael Strife]

Please don't say "Alliance" outloud

[Gimli]

They had become an alien delicacy. I believe though that this was going to be quickly skimmed over and they were going to be back with a vengeance in X-COM Alliance before it was canned.

 

I actually thought of a nice way to fit Apocalypse in with the rest of the game. Well, I didn't get the time to work on it yet. I still need to collect more material on X-COM.

 

On that note, I was thinking of trying to get more info on X-COM from people who worked on it, like Dave Ellis. Is it possible to get any of the stuff they had there (like some information from the Genesis design document, concept art etc.) from them? I meant to send in some questions and, if they agreed, post it here in form of an interview. Is that possible? I wanted to make a fan fiction of a kind, based on what is official and filling in the things that weren't explained on my own, and adding some experiences from the games.

 

Well, I certainly got off-topic. I remember seeing Interceptor at a friend's and then he let me play it a little, and then I broke his joystick. Yesss. :mad: I was a kid.

 

I'm interested, how are the controls? The only "space sim" game I've played recently was Freelancer, and it had excellent controls, IMO.

 

I've tried X2 after that but the controls were enough to push me away from the game.

[Accounting Troll]

I always thought that the Micronoids in Acopalypse had been running the show right from the beginning of the series, the Etherials in the first X-Com game were merely middle managers and the alien brain was in fact a Micronoid Aggregate. The Ascidians may have been another species earmarked for harvesting before the interference of X-Com.

 

I think it says in the UFOpedias that the Sectoids and Aquatoids were cloned, so maybe the Micronoids just mass produce them for when there's some abducting to be done. Using them as food when their work is done is simply a form of recycling.

[Azrael Strife]

On that note, I was thinking of trying to get more info on X-COM from people who worked on it, like Dave Ellis. Is it possible to get any of the stuff they had there (like some information from the Genesis design document, concept art etc.) from them? I meant to send in some questions and, if they agreed, post it here in form of an interview. Is that possible? I wanted to make a fan fiction of a kind, based on what is official and filling in the things that weren't explained on my own, and adding some experiences from the games.

One of the Senior Members working in Project Xenocide worked in the original X-Com: UFO Defense, you could try asking him, his name in Xcomufo.com is Drewid

[Blehm 98]

does he still hang around though?

[Azrael Strife]

Yes, but not a lot, apparently, but he can be contacted.

[RockmanX]

Wow there is a lot of thinqs I did't know (well I haven't yet X-Com: interceptor but I'm still searching for it [and if I get Apocalypse I will get this game to!]), , I really want know more about the other Aliens, the ones in war with the Sectoids.

 

and anybody know who was first? the Sectoid or the Aquatoid?

[Kret]

I'd go for sectoid. I believe the aquatoid was an adapted sectoid to underwater environments.

[Kacen]

I agree! Err...well to be honest...

 

Interceptor is the only X-Com game I've played...in fact for quite a while I didn't know there were other games in the series.

 

But I think its an awsome game. =3

[Solarius Scorch]

I'd go for sectoid. I believe the aquatoid was an adapted sectoid to underwater environments.

 

And I think aquatoids were the first ones; if I remember correctly, the sectoids from the UFO: Enemy Unknown were considered to be descendants of some aquatic race.

However, I personally think of X-Com: Terror from the Deep as more a fan fiction to UFO: Enemy Unknown than a consistent story part, so I don't really care