As history has shown time and time again, when a publisher applies pressure on developers, it usually results in lesser games. When a publisher primarily concerned with quarterly financials meddles determinedly in the development process, the game ends up either crippled, released far too early or bloated with unnecessary features incongruously shoehorned in to conform to current trends.

(“A chess game would be okay. But a chess game in HD played with a gimmicky controller, that’s what the world needs right now. Also, can we make it an MMO? And be on Facebook? With DLC?”)

However, UFO: Enemy Unknown a.k.a. X-COM: UFO Defense is an outstanding example of a game that benefitted immensely from publisher meddling.

The story goes Mythos Games’ Julian Gollop had trouble selling the initial Laser Squad-inspired design to Microprose, the game’s eventual publisher. Microprose had hit big with deep turn-based strategy games like Railroad Tycoon in 1990 and Civilization in 1991, and requested changes to X-COM’s design to make the game more Microprose-like. This would result in a game that is much greater than the sum of its parts.
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PC tech has come a long way since UFO: Enemy Unknown (a.k.a. X-COM: UFO Defense) was released in 1994. The game manual has references to ancient technologies consigned to the dusty storerooms of history: AdLib and Roland soundcards; XMS/EMS memory management; SMARTDrive memory cache; DR DOS, Novell DOS and OS/2 operating systems.

The tech the game was originally designed for may be gone and forgotten but running UFO: Enemy Defense is actually easier today than it was back then. Thanks to the brilliant emulator, DOSbox, you can get the game from Steam and immediately begin playing it. There’s no need to hire scientists, construct a laboratory, spend time and money investigating how it’s supposed to work.

While DOSbox works fine as is, it can be tweaked to taste. To do that, you need to edit the dosbox.conf file in the Steam/steamapps/common/xcom ufo defense subdirectory. I made the following changes:

fullscreen=false
windowresolution=1280×960
scaler=hq3x
cycles=20000

Those changes make the game run in a 1280×960 window, improve the scaling quality and speed up the gameplay slightly. At the very least, I’d recommend changing the cycles setting since DOSBox’s default setting makes the game play a little sluggishly.

In addition to that, this Steam thread has tips for improving the audio. Even with those improvements, expect the game to sound quaint and old timey.

The gameplay, however, is as brilliant as it was 16 years ago. The hardware may change, the software may differ but one suspects X-COM will retain its fundamental appeal 16 years hence.

I have no idea how. I have no idea why. All I know is when I clicked on the Steam store page for the X-Com Collection a few minutes ago, I was finally — finally! — able to purchase the game. I had been pining to replay UFO: Enemy Unknown for well over a year but Steam never did let me purchase it.

Today something changed. I don’t know why. I don’t really care.

I have X-Com.

(Bonus: the entire collection is on sale for a measly two dollars.)

Let the defense of planet Earth begin.

Just a quick note for those playing the Steam version of Football Manager 2010. A recent Steam update has apparently caused a minor issue with the game. To wit, you may see the following Steam error message when you attempt to launch it:

Translation: “You can’t play. Neener neener.”

Here’s how you may be able to solve it.
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Football Manager 2010’s greatest achievement is it enables series veterans to easily manage the information overload typical of the series; its biggest flaw is it doesn’t do enough for the novice.

The manager is constantly overwhelmed with stats and options in this series. Selecting the first team and substitutes from a squad of 40-plus players for the first time is traditionally a time-consuming affair since picking the best player for a single position is a complicated task. There are 36 major player attributes to take into consideration, each with ratings between 1 and 20, and player roles may require at least competence in several interrelated attributes.

The new manager might be flummoxed gauging something as simple as a player’s speed. Where to start? There is the Pace attribute, of course. Ah, but it’s not that simple because the Acceleration stat must also be taken into account. Then there’s Stamina which will determine how he’ll last over the course of 90 minutes. Oh wait, there’s also Agility and Balance, and we can’t forget his Natural Fitness.

Let’s not even go into the fact there are hidden attributes that affect player behaviour and ability.
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