UFO vs TFTD

[CapnKill]

Which one do you guys prefer?

 

I played TFTD first with a friend, and we thought it was amazing, this is probably back when TFTD just came out. Me and a friend basically played it hot seat style where I commanded my squad and he did his, it was a blast, but we eventually and unknowingly got stuck on the commander bug. I don't remember what it was, but basically a road block in the research tree, I think you all know it well.

 

Anyway, we then found out about UFO Defense, so naturally we tried it out and liked it much more than TFTD. I think the UFO weapons are better designed, the character models at the load out screens are far superior and most importantly, NO SHIPPING LANE MISSIONS!!

 

The only thing that TFTD did better than UFO was the ability to open doors with right click, although now that is no longer an issue with a mod.

 

So, personally, obviously I like UFO better than TFTD... what do you guys prefer? Yes, I know I"m posting in the UFO forum, there's really no neutral forum for it and I'm sure we all love X-Com enough to bounce between the two whenever a new post shows up

[Space Voyager]

Same here, and all for the same reasons.

[Jman4117]

I like the right click door, increased difficulty and the more varied missions of TFTD, but I also think the game is way too buggy and the plot is rather lacking compared to the other game. You can't finish the game without a guide which takes the already pretty lame story line and drops it through the floor since you know it before you can get to it because you have to know how to get around the bugs...OMG the aliens are back...oh wait, they are the advance force from 65 million years ago, this should be a turkey shoot...no, they are twice as tough...crap!

[Pete]

Yeah, hadn't thought about the fact they should be 65 million years worse off technologically!

 

A bit of simple story-telling would have sorted that to be honest, like they were a long lost tribe and as such were distant relatives to the guys who turn up in the first game. Long lost tribes have a right to be technologically superior, like in Battletech

 

I too came to X-COM via TFTD. I remember finishing TFTD first though. Got lucky on the research bug and did it in the right order, though my brother didn't on his first run through. I will have played it on easy setting first time though, making those shipping lane missions marginally easier.

 

Played patched UFO a year later and liked it more, though for so many years disliked the lack of right click door opening and the less aesthetically-pleasing interface (slightly more basic buttons plus I liked the fiery background in TFTD's Geoscape more.

[hatfarm]

I got into UFO first. I had never heard of it and for my birthday my friend bought it for me. I LOVED it immediately. It was pretty much everything I wanted in a video game at the time. I was super into the X-Files at the time too. I played it and beat it a couple of times, then heard about TFTD. My friend bought it and I spent the weekend there and we played it quite a bit. We got a lobsterman mission that we couldn't kill one last lobsterman (despite many grenades and emptied clips of gauss weapons). So, I didn't finish it, and actually never have.

[chiasaur11]

UFO Defense. All the way.

 

Lasers are reason enough.

[Bomb Bloke]

Re the lobstermen, the first time I ran into them (second level of a base offense) I managed to kill one after numerous clips were spent. After that I stuck around just long enough to collect the body before aborting.

 

Managed to avoid the research bugs on my first playthrough, presumably by pure fluke. Took an age to get the tech tree filled out, though. Really the game wouldn't be so bad if not for that - the shipping missions, for example, are great the first couple of times you have to do them. The tenth? Not so much...

 

And don't think I've forgotten about the implausibility of underwater projectile combat, either... Let alone the use of underwater medkits...

 

A bit of simple story-telling would have sorted that to be honest, like they were a long lost tribe and as such were distant relatives to the guys who turn up in the first game. Long lost tribes have a right to be technologically superior, like in Battletech

But... they were a long lost tribe...

[Pete]

Yeah, I meant a tribe who got more technologically advanced 65 million years ago after leaving their homeworld before the new aliens were created/evolved, thus explaining why the UFO aliens didn't have a better level of tech.

[kyrub]

While UFO is vastly superior to TFTD, there are areas where the latter title is much better than the former one.

 

 

These are:

 

- the horror-like battlescape music

- ultimate enemies: Lobstermen are excellently designed with a whole subplot (invincible enemy with just one soft spot that is, on the other hand, very hard to exploit)

- sophisticated terrain maps - no, not the terror ships, but those under water one. Just how good are Sunken ship mission, underwater Mining facility and (my favourite) the labyrinth of coral cliffs mission (Seabed?) maps, compared to booooring Farm terrain in UFO? And the USOs have this extra alienating design and are harder to take...

- better AI, aliens are much better in taking cover than in UFO. I often could not find the dangerman after the first contact for several turns, because he hid "somewhere". And he came out and took two of my soldiers. Great stuff. (This one is really disapointing in the first title.)