X-COM: Terror From the Deep

So my understanding of the timeline is that Microprose went to the X-COM developers (Mythos Games) and said “we want a sequel, but we want it in six months”. The developers said “no, but we can give you a bigger proper sequel in a few years”. So Microprose’s own internal developers said, “fine, we’ll reskin X-COM 1 then”.

So yeah, they made a palette-swapped X-COM 1, where instead of being based on land and fighting UFOs in the air, you’re now building bases underwater and fighting alien submarines. Except they also couldn’t be bothered to have the subs avoid land, so they’re flying submarines. Except you can’t fight while flying, because then they would need to deal with crashed subs on land, and the entire “X-COM but underwater” thing would fall apart.

All the techs and weapons are just X-COM 1 techs and weapons, renamed and reskinned. Human laser weaponry is now gauss weaponry (and requires ammo, sadly). Alien plasma weaponry is now sonic weaponry. Alien Alloys are now Aqua Plastics. Elerium-117 is now Zrbite. Psionics is now Molecular Control (M.C.). There’s still three new ship classes you can research, except instead of Firestorm/Lightning/Avenger, you have Manta/Hammerhead/Leviathan.

Annoyingly, a lot of techs are now hidden behind capturing and interrogating certain enemies or collecting their corpses. (Yes, these are two different things, since apparently your scientists operate No-Kill Alien Shelters and refuse to kill and autopsy the aliens you capture once they’re done with them.) Want to research Aqua Plastics? Too bad, you have to go find a Deep One corpse. Want to continue down the M.C. tech line? Go find a Tasoth corpse. Want to build your own subs? Gotta research Magnetic Navigation, which requires that you capture a live Lobsterman Navigator, a species that doesn’t even show up until many months into the campaign.

Finishing the game requires capturing three Lobsterman Commanders. But if you interrogate them all at once, you’ve wasted them — you gotta interrogate one, then research the tech that comes from that, then another, then the tech that comes from that, etc.

Adding to this tech tree “fun” is that not every kill or capture always counts. The final mission of X-COM 1 was a two-part mission, where you first approached the alien base, then having found the entrance, you took your squad inside and fought in there. The TFTD devs said “hey, that was fun, let’s do that for every alien base!”

The first time I did an alien base, I found several new species outside it, so I made sure to kill some (for corpses) and capture others (for prisoners) to make sure I had all the related techs unlocked. Except having completed it, I discovered that none of my loot from part 1 had been collected. I guess if I’d wanted to research those enemies, I would’ve had to put their bodies in my soldiers’ backpacks and carried them into part 2, whereupon I could’ve put them down on the ground so they’d count for mission loot purposes.

Another combat gripe — like X-COM 1, you generally need to kill every enemy on the map to complete a mission. Unlike X-COM 1, the maps are waaay more complicated and cluttered (meaning more places for aliens to hide), and the aliens don’t seem to want to come out of hiding on their own (so you have to stumble upon their tiny 1x1 hiding spots, and the Motion Sensor sorry, Particle Disturbance Sensor doesn’t help in finding them).

So yeah, I can’t really recommend TFTD. It was a rush job by the B-team, and it really shows. Everything feels like lower production standards. The opening cutscene is the traditional “horribly compressed CGI rendered video” rather than 1’s “moving comic book” style. The globe looks way lower quality, with the coasts all being flat angular lines that you can barely recognise as continents. Everything in the UI feels lower res, with some important fields being removed entirely due to lack of space (probably in part because of all the ridiculously long tech names). There’s several bugs that permanently block progression on the various research trees, some of which are necessary to win the game, meaning you can brick your entire savegame if you do things out of order. Etc etc.

If you’ve played X-COM 1 (UFO Defense) and you really want more of the same but a bit different, then I guess you could play this. Otherwise, just go play X-COM 1.

One of the classics... Still have the box art from 1995 in my collection, looks and plays well in 2025 once you can recall the controls!

This is a very poorly made attempt of a sequal to the Xcom: Ufo Defense game(s).
The game is basically unplayable, geared so hard against the player that even on beginner level, you will fail and lose the game in six months no matter what outcome.
It was more like a very bad patch added to the origional game, they skewed the combat perameters and made just a bozo of a game.

It being even free it would be a waste of your emotional and mental resources to even play this.
Hard pass for anyone that is a lover of strategy. As there is none here.

Its a continuation of the original XCOM. Once again, oldie but goodie.

Entertaining and relaxing.

G.O.A.T game !!

Such a classic X-COM game that got me hooked to the series! Start here then play everything else!

Insane atmosphere.

Classic, but look for OpenXcom.

🗣🗣🗣

A blast from my past gaming experiences. Fun and refreshing.

An all-time classic strategy game. Sometimes a mission will take a long time because an alien gets scared and hides and it takes a lot of work to find it. But apart from that, a really enjoyable game.

old school goodness!

Old but very good game

I shouldn't get stuck unable to research key tech and have to look up online to find out that the order you do research matters and after a certain point you will be unable to get the live alien you need to research to get your tech to win the game. Long story short, do not ever research live alien medics they may give you research findings without the tech tree credit. Also, you MUST research the live Deep One Terrorist LAST, after you have ion beam accel and plastic aqua armor, or else you cant get access to more advanced armor and subs. I think this is poor programming and in game research design and not the intention of the programmers

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ht

scared in the deep

Classic turn based game. The difficulty ramps dramatically in a short time period and some people view that as a flaw.

****USE OPENXCOM IF YOU PLAY THIS GAME!!!****
OpenXCom is free to download, and only requires you to move some game files into it in order for it to run.
On the website's forums you can find mods if you've had enough of vanilla. Most of them will require OpenXCom (OXC) or OpenXCom Extended (OCXE) to install.
I had only ever played this game using OXCE. After playing the normal version, I can say this was the correct choice.

If you like your ass beaten, and for it to somehow feel more fair than XCOM 2;
If you like lots of micromanagement (I mean a LOT of micromanagement);
If you didn't like UFO defense because it was too easy for your unmatched intellect;
If you like looking at wiki pages and forums that haven't been touched in a decade (or two);
If you don't suffer from an anxiety disorder, but would like to;
If you like hammy 90's horror soundtracks;
Play this game.

This game will beat your ass. This game will get you feeling good that you managed to pull off a mission without anyone dying, and then next mission it will beat your ass. You will unlock new armor, or a fancy new alien grenade, only for it to beat your ass. You will screen your soldiers for M.C. strength, send them on a terror mission, and it will beat your ass. This game is not for the faint of heart. I have yet to beat the game's hardest difficulty.
If you want a game that you can play, and play, and play, and play, then mod and play some more, this game has you covered. The difficulty levels all play differently from each other, and if you ever get bored there's always Ironman mode. The research tree, in tandem with random alien activity and few truly guaranteed events mean that each new game, the story can play out differently.

I don't know how to end this review. Play the game. It's good. I think it says enough that this game is older than I am, by years, but I'm still comparing newer games against its standard.

for nostalgia

Still worth playing in 2024.
Use OpenXcom tho