Bay 12 Games Forum

Other Projects => Other Games => Topic started by: quintin522 on June 20, 2010, 07:56:27 pm

Title: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: quintin522 on June 20, 2010, 07:56:27 pm
Just for kicks, I decided to go and check their website to see what progress they have done, and apparently they finally released v2.3, after two years of development. The changes?

Quote
UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3 released

The UFO:AI development team is proud to announce the release of UFO: Alien Invasion Version 2.3. Two years in the making, this version features loads of new content, a dramatically improved rendering engine and extensive improvements to nearly every aspect of the game's campaign and battle systems.
A few highlights of what's new in version 2.3

    * Complete overhaul of the campaign system, so that alien activity changes depending on the player's actions
    * New capabilities for the rendering engine, including bumpmapping, specular lighting, glowmapping, flare support, texture blending and more
    * A new tactical overhead map
    * Alien bases have been added and the player can mount an assault on them
    * Support for crashed UFO missions
    * Overhauls of the map editor
    * Loads of new maps and new tiles for existing maps that are randomly generated
    * New weapons
    * New music and sound effects
    * And loads of behind-the-scenes optimizations and tweaks for everything from the pathfinding to the user interface
Website (http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/News)
Full changelog  (http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Changelog/2.3)

From what I've read it seems they mostly just changed around the way the system works, added more graphics, fixed some of the more annoying inventory problems, and some other misc. stuff.

...

Still waiting for content expansion...maybe they'll release that in another 2 years. Gonna start playing and see how much better it is
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Cthulhu on June 20, 2010, 08:27:26 pm
Still no destructible terrain?  That's a deal-breaker, especially with how tedious it is to clear a map in that game.  It'd be easier if I could just level the city.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Journier on June 20, 2010, 11:58:11 pm
last time i played there were no Armored vehicles.... or that i could build.... is there any added yet?
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: quintin522 on June 21, 2010, 01:23:02 am
Nope, no real new play content :(
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: engy on June 21, 2010, 08:32:34 am
Did they add a win trigger yet?

Alien Bases and such are nice, but fighting a never ending war eventually gets old.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Tellemurius on June 21, 2010, 10:00:02 am
no you just get a point in the game where you are so fricking powerful the aliens will be running away leaving you to trying just to take down one of their ships so you can do something.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: mattie2009 on June 21, 2010, 03:41:05 pm
The game is so slow during missions and the screen-edge scrolling is so clunky (no barrier to prevent the mouse from flying out of the game window) that I relied on the automission. Then I realised that the only thing I got from it was the enemy ship and quit the game in frustration to go and play the original X-com. You also start off with medkits. This could just be on the easy missions, and I could just be an originalist prick, but I enjoyed the frantic pace the game took when your best soldier got a mortal wound and the game became a race against time to finish the mission before he dies and sends the rest of the squad into abject pants-wetting terror because he was the highest rank available and you into pure xenocidal rage because that guy was the sole survivor of your original squad of assault-rifle wielding meatshields. also, Kikoskia's playthrough of the game before an alien revenge mission came along and wrecked his shit.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Josephus on July 26, 2010, 08:01:21 pm
Using my immortal powers, I breathe life back into this dead thread.

So, I just picked this game up. It's pretty fricking cool. I'd recommend it if you have a piece of shit video card (like the Intel 965/G965) that for some inexplicable reason won't let you turn off DirectDraw, meaning you can't play X-Com.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: ChairmanPoo on July 26, 2010, 08:33:43 pm
Still no destructible terrain?  That's a deal-breaker, especially with how tedious it is to clear a map in that game.  It'd be easier if I could just level the city.
AFAIK the engine they use doesn't allow it.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: fenrif on July 26, 2010, 09:04:51 pm
I was really enjoying this, but had to stop playing because some maps don't have working pathfinding. So I ended up getting stuck in missions where my squad couldn't enter a certain section of a UFO, and there was an alien in there... Meaning unwinnable missions.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Tellemurius on July 26, 2010, 11:02:28 pm
you probably had a bad build. 2.4 is looking good they finally implemented the tank in.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Mephisto on July 26, 2010, 11:04:16 pm
Using my immortal powers, I breathe life back into this dead thread.

So, I just picked this game up. It's pretty fricking cool. I'd recommend it if you have a piece of shit video card (like the Intel 965/G965) that for some inexplicable reason won't let you turn off DirectDraw, meaning you can't play X-Com.

What's the problem? Use DosBox. If you've got X-Com through Steam, it all comes set up already.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Tellemurius on July 26, 2010, 11:07:34 pm
did you download the patches?
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Megaman on July 27, 2010, 01:42:01 am
After playing it for a while, I got kinda tired of the maps because most of the time I was just looking turn after turn for something to shoot, and it dragged on way too slowly.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Josephus on July 27, 2010, 07:31:38 am
Using my immortal powers, I breathe life back into this dead thread.

So, I just picked this game up. It's pretty fricking cool. I'd recommend it if you have a piece of shit video card (like the Intel 965/G965) that for some inexplicable reason won't let you turn off DirectDraw, meaning you can't play X-Com.

What's the problem? Use DosBox. If you've got X-Com through Steam, it all comes set up already.

Apparently, my system is completely incompatible with it. The thing is, I need to be able to disable DirectDraw to play it properly; on my work laptop, which is running XP, this works fine (but it's my work laptop, so I can't exactly be playin' X-Com on it all day). On the laptop I use for games, I'm running Vista, which relies on Direct3D, apparently, to render my desktop. Normally this would be toggle-able via dxdiag, but since my video card is in the 965 series, I'm not allowed to do so.

At any rate, it turns out that all of my soldiers shoot like complete bitches. I almost got TPK'd, 8 soldiers against 5 aliens.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Sergius on July 27, 2010, 12:54:38 pm
Still no destructible terrain?  That's a deal-breaker, especially with how tedious it is to clear a map in that game.  It'd be easier if I could just level the city.

I doubt that will ever happen, since they use the Quake (2?) engine for 3D. I don't think they can change that without a major rewrite.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Sowelu on July 28, 2010, 12:32:25 am
Still no destructible terrain?  That's a deal-breaker, especially with how tedious it is to clear a map in that game.  It'd be easier if I could just level the city.

I doubt that will ever happen, since they use the Quake (2?) engine for 3D. I don't think they can change that without a major rewrite.

Yeaaaahhh...When they STARTED the project, everyone was yelling at them about how stupid of an idea it was to use Quake 2 because the terrain wasn't destructible, and like fools, they did it anyway.  They get no respect from me.  I'm all for an engine rewrite at this point because it's not like they have to be very efficient with an engine that old...all the old optimizations for old machines?  Just rip them out etc...

(yes I know it's not that easy, but it's their own goddamn fault)
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Sergius on July 28, 2010, 02:34:38 am
Still no destructible terrain?  That's a deal-breaker, especially with how tedious it is to clear a map in that game.  It'd be easier if I could just level the city.

I doubt that will ever happen, since they use the Quake (2?) engine for 3D. I don't think they can change that without a major rewrite.

Yeaaaahhh...When they STARTED the project, everyone was yelling at them about how stupid of an idea it was to use Quake 2 because the terrain wasn't destructible, and like fools, they did it anyway.  They get no respect from me.  I'm all for an engine rewrite at this point because it's not like they have to be very efficient with an engine that old...all the old optimizations for old machines?  Just rip them out etc...

(yes I know it's not that easy, but it's their own goddamn fault)

I agree, it was a very stupid decision.
Title: Re: UFO: Alien Invasion 2.3
Post by: Josephus on July 28, 2010, 03:47:05 am
I've found it's best to just Auto Mission the levels with plenty of buildings. The game apparently is glitched; auto-resolve gives you neither a penalty nor a bonus, it just clears the site and gives you a bunch of dead aliens (and a UFO).