Hello all,
For those of you who are old enough to have seen it first time round (or even heard of it!) I am a big fan of Gerry Anderson's tv show "UFO". When UFO: Enemy Unknown (as it was called in England) came out in the 90's, I was thrilled to actually be able to play a game which had much in common with my beloved tv show.
It's horribly dated now, of course, but still holds a special place in my nostalgic heart
Games come and go, though, but despite new alien strategy games coming out (X-Com Apocalypse, UFO: Aftermath etc) only Terror from the Deep came close to matching that first one.
And then I stumbled across Xenonauts...
While still capturing that "essence" of the X-Com game, Xenonauts has surpassed it in virtually every area. I'm sure many players have already commented on the things that make it superb (my favourites are the simple things like opening the door without having to rush through it and die and vaulting fences) so, I needn't rehash them here.
I just wanted to say thank you to the designers for making such a fabulous game.
Now, I have read that Xenonauts 2 is in the offing and I am eager to see what shape that will take, be it a re-boot or sequel.
If it was a sequel, I would love to see it in the form of a re-imagining of Terror from the Deep. I think, with the right enhancements, that could be a great game. The only problem is, as pointed out, a sequel would see humanity starting with advanced technology, from the first game, whereas I enjoy the game, the most, at the beginning, when all we have are jets, rifles, flak jackets and machine guns.
While I understand that capturing the alien technology, researching it and then using it against them makes sense, I feel that it really could do with stretching out somewhat. Would today's scientists be able to study advanced alien technology, reverse engineer it and create usable equivalents in a matter of months, especially in the 1979 setting of the Cold War? Granted, it's a game and I doubt humanity would have years to develop technology, if invaded from another world!
So, yes, stretching the period of tech advancement out would be nice (and thus the corresponding alien escalation to match I suspect), and it would be great to utilise different terror sites. In TFTD sites would occur on Cruise Liners or Cargo ships at sea, as well as Island sites.
My only other bugbear is the main screen interface being too small. It's a real strain to see how much money is in the coffers!
Thank you, once again, for making Xenonauts and I look forward to seeing the sequel or re-boot.
