Boot Disk: X-COM: Apocalypse

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Boot Disk: X-COM: Apocalypse

Posted Dec 8th 2009 9:00PM by James Murff
Filed under: Features, Strategy

C:\BootDisk\APOC

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

X-COM is one of those classics that every older PC gamer remembers with fond nostalgia. Despite its age, incompatibility with newer operating systems, and somewhat clunky interface, it's still one of the best games ever made. It had a sequel that was little more than cranked up difficulty and a new environment, but the real innovation and continuation comes with the appearance of the third game. X-COM Apocalypse is the second game from the original developers, and it's an improvement upon the original in every way. It may be polarizing, but it's impossible to deny that Apocalypse has the X-COM spirit and design sense behind it.

Tags: boot-disk, featured, joystiqfeatures, microprose, mythos-games, retro, strategy, tbs, x-com, x-com-apocalypse

2 Comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

I tried to get into Apocalypse, but I never really liked the real-time battles. However, the original XCOM was a great game. My friends and I used to play that game for hours, even staying up all night playing on several occasions.
Any news on those rumors of a remake?Posted at 11:21AM on Dec 9th 2009 by Human1

Incidentally, I actually installed Xcom Apoc two weeks ago, I got the game many years ago as a free gift from a PC Gamer subscription and still have the disc. However, it was a nightmare to run, in fact I couldn't get it to, even with VDMS and DosBox. On googling for a solution, I read horror stories about people who spent days on end trying.

So I decided to save some time and got it on Steam for about £3 - which uses a custom version of DosBox to run it anyway! I'm really enjoying it, even each individual alien invasion is samey and if there's occasionally a crash. The game has an excellent difficulty curve in the aliens you face, followed by their increasingly crafty technology (Shields anyone?). I've just had a base invasion by the Cult of Sirius, which was followed by some reprisal raids of my own on their temples. I've also got to the point where I can research a dimension probe and finally take the fight to them.

I decided to play it as research for a game design of my own, I'd still KILL for a modern version (Disregarding those "After-X" imitation games - they were good but didn't quite have the same feel at all).Posted at 9:42AM on Dec 9th 2009 by Magic