What the
game is about:
 You have been promoted to Commander of X-COM and are now responsible
for the citizens of Mega-Primus. Sounds easy, right? It would be if the aliens hadn't
begun to return. Upon your investigation of the newly appeared Dimension Gates, it becomes
apparent that the aliens are at it again and you will be responsible for the outcome of
the upcoming battle. Review:
X-Com: Apocalypse has the feel of a work in progress. As Microprose's third game from the
series, we expected to see them remake the game we all love. We got some new features, but
we lost some of what made the game enjoyable.
The graphics are gorgeous and semi-realistic, the 3D
effects are getting better. Microprose has taken the game to a new level with this. The
blue spitters look like blue spitters. The brain suckers look like brain suckers. The
snasberries taste like snasberries...
One of the new features that X-Com: Apocalypse is
touting is that you have the option of playing your combats in real time. This might have
been a bad idea except that they have redone the AI (artificial intelligence) routines.
This was needed to make your agents semi intelligent, with more than the ability to get
from point 'a' to point 'b'. Your agents will not only move to point 'b' but they will
fire on anything they can. In addition, running, jumping and crawling have been added to
all your characters' repertoires, and they dodge incoming fire with a modicum of
'intelligence'. They also 'dodge' incoming proximity grenades before they go BOOM!
Another new feature is that armor can be bought -
and worn - piecemeal. (A Metropol helmet, a Marsec chest-armor-section, an alien right-arm
segment ... you get the idea.) This, along with some new ideas for items and your
interaction with them, has once again taken the game to the next level of realism. This is
complemented by the fact that you can now train your characters outside of combat!
On the bad side, though, the old turn-based mode for
combat has either been gutted or was added as an afterthought. Crouching now takes 6 Time
Units (as opposed to 4 in previous games), and movement costs have also been increased. To
its credit, though, running does halve the TU (Time Units) cost for most movements, and
inventory management no longer takes any Time Units. But while a character is in running
MODE their accuracy, even on aimed shots, drops to near-zero.
Outside of combat, the time controls are now extremely clumsy. Gone
are the old, reliable Time Buttons of <5 Sec>, <30 Sec>, <1 Min>, <10
Min>, <30 Min>, <1 Hr>, and <1 Day>. Instead, they are replaced with
annoying VCR-fast-forward-type buttons, plus a 'pause' button. Given that the physical
scope of the game has been reduced to one city, the temporal scope should be reduced
proportionally, but that is not the case here. The first four buttons barely pass the
seconds along, while the last button runs time by in HOUR-LONG SEGMENTS!
A more minor quibble is that the isometric view,
while it can be scrolled, cannot be rotated or zoomed. A rotation/zoom feature should have
been added, a la Dungeon Keeper or Syndicate Wars, since the game took long enough to be
released . Even a limited rotation function such as that in SimCity 2000 (i.e. 90 degrees
at a time) would have been better than nothing. The difficulty of not having one is that
you lack the ability to see on the other side of the 15 story building.
A much more major complaint is the game's difficulty
level. Even on Easy mode, your characters could not hit the broad side of several
skyscrapers. Even when you seem assured of a hit, the aliens just dance out of the way.
However, the aliens hit, shoot-to-kill, first time and every time. If you've done
something right in a past life, and you actually manage to hit an alien, he (she? It?)
will simply laugh off your shot, and nail you with one of his own. I once took 32 hits to
kill one enemy ... Never mind how many misses it took.
On a plot element, I could understand gangs like
Psyke, Osiron, and the Cult of Sirius having pistols, Tommy-guns (or the game's modernized
version thereof), and maybe even the odd plasma weapon, but where do spazzed-out Psiclone
addicts get rocket launchers and laser-rifles? (Psiclone is the brand-name of the game's
worst - and only - street drug ... whatever happened to cocaine, marijuana, or heroin?
(sigh) Kids these days ...)
Buying items has also become sort of a chore. Your
General Storage rooms must be getting a lot smaller, since it only takes about one-tenth
the equipment it did before to fill them up. That's OK, though, since the equipment
manufacturers will now only sell you a few items per game-week! That means, even if you
can afford it, some of your characters will have to go without weapons, or worse yet,
without armor! They could have made this feature a little more intelligent. Being able to
keep an inventory of 10 clips of xxx ammo should be automated and my agents should be
intelligent enough to make sure that they have ammo. Currently you have to give them tons
of ammo (drops their movement capabilities) or go through and put ammo on them (very
annoying and time consuming) after every mission.
The sound is almost top-notch, even on my El' cheapo
sound-card. Plus, the sounds are in stereo, so you can tell where they came from if you
listen closely. In the real-time mode, the sound will even 'tell' you where the enemies
are. (Deathmatch players will excel at this 'art'.) Despite interface problems, a really good time at a great price.
--Henry |
