TFTD For Playstation

[kai]

Having developed the urge to start playing the X-COM games again (something which happens periodically) I've run in to the traditional problem of gameplay speed. Since my 466MHz Celeron box is otherwise indisposed (acting as a linux server) it's not an option, although that said it still played a little to quickly.

 

Since there are still a few copies of UFO/TFTD for the playstation floating around on ebay, amazon marketplace and a few other places, I'm in 2 minds as to whether or not to get a copy for the playstation and get a console (PSOne is dirt cheap these days)

 

Has anyone got any experiences with UFO/TFTD for the playstation and are they worth it?

 

(I'm posting in the TFTD section as TFTD seems to be cheaper than UFO)

[Knan]

I find Dosbox to be the proper way of playing X-COM these days. Speed is adjustable to taste with ctrl-f11 and ctrl-f12.

 

Can't help you with the psx versions, never even seen them around here.

[Zombie]

Has anyone got any experiences with UFO/TFTD for the playstation and are they worth it?

 

(I'm posting in the TFTD section as TFTD seems to be cheaper than UFO)

I have the Playstation version of UFO and play it quite frequently. The nice thing about this game is that a lot of the bugs present in the PC version have been eliminated. Proximity grenades work as advertised, there isn't a vertical Blaster Bomb bug (meaning you can set waypoints directly above each other) and if you manage to Mind Control all the aliens on a mission, it ends. Added bonus is that you can open doors without going through them by pressing the circle button beyond the door. A slight drawback is the long load times, but it never bothered me much.

 

Be mindful that the Playstation console has two flavors: PAL (all of the world) and NTSC (United States). You have to match the game to the console for it to play.

 

- Zombie

[kai]

Thanks for the suggestions eveyrone

 

I've decided to go with the playstation version (thanks for reminding me of the PAL/NTSC problem, could've gotten rather messy there)

 

I tried Dosbox but I've had trouble with sound and fine tuning the speed. Ultimately, it was a layer of complexity that I decided I could do without (and I've never had much luck with software solutions anyway)

 

unfortunately UFO has proven a little too expensive for me to justify the cost, so I've decided to go with TFTD (It was the first X-COM game I was introduced to, so it has more nostalgic value for me)

 

I've heard that the PS version of UFO has some nice little improvements over the PC version like a better soundtrack and animations on the UFOpedia, are there any such improvements zombie? (Not that it matters too much, I'm just glad to have a (touch wood) playable version)

[Zombie]

I've heard that the PS version of UFO has some nice little improvements over the PC version like a better soundtrack and animations on the UFOpedia, are there any such improvements zombie? (Not that it matters too much, I'm just glad to have a (touch wood) playable version)

Yeah, the music is better in some respects (at least I like it better than the PC), and there are some animated UFOpedia articles such as X-COM ships, HWP's and alien craft. Other than those, the remaining articles are the same. I'm trying to think what the other improvements are but they escape me at the moment.

 

Another slight problem is that on Battleship missions the game tends to hang if too much stuff is going on in the upper levels. Mainly this happens when you end your turn viewing the highest level or when your troops are on the upper floor of the Battleship. I tend to keep my men on the ground and shoot up the grav lift to circumvent the choppy play. Don't know if this happens on TFTD, so you'll have to experiment.

 

- Zombie

[Gimli]

I tried Dosbox but I've had trouble with sound and fine tuning the speed. Ultimately, it was a layer of complexity that I decided I could do without (and I've never had much luck with software solutions anyway)

 

From v0.70 Dosbox will automatically set the game to run at optimal speed when you run it, there's no need to touch the speed controls at all. With that, all you have to do is configure the sound.

However, as Zombie says, the PS version has some improvements, so it's your call.

[Bomb Bloke]

No one's mentioned the CE version of the game at all. I'm surprised.

 

While it's much the same as the original DOS versions of the games the CE editions are specifically built to run on modern machines under Windows. Unlike the PSX versions they don't really add anything, but they do work.

[Zombie]

Unfortunately, if you can even find a copy of the CE version for sale it'll cost probably twice as much as the Playstation. Though, with the CE you get 3 games for the price of one. Still, it's nice to have a console version sometimes as you don't have to fire up your computer.

 

- Zombie

[Aralez]

Beware: The loading/saving (memorycard) time for that game on the PS1 is VEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYY LOOOOOOOOONNNNNNG