The long career of Corporal Jonlan
Shamus (of the now-superseded DM of the Rings comic) has a post up about the joy of X-Com, a still-excellent game that you can now play for free on a $5 computer.
I managed to avoid the various X-Coms entirely, but I sank quite a few hours into X-Com’s predecessor Laser Squad.
I made a sort of Zen meditation out scenario 1, “The Assassins”, with the evil industrialist and his tame Daleks hiding in his house. My first move was usually to blow the front wall away with a bazooka. Sometimes, this ended the game immediately, because the bazooka shot went through the one-pixel gap between the leaves of the front door and blew up against an interior wall, close enough to the evil industrialist to kill him.
(Laser Squad has now begotten a modernised, proper multiplayer version of itself, Laser Squad Nemesis. It’s commercial software, but it only costs $17.)
Oh man. I immediately recognized the name Corporal Jonlan, but didn’t remember where I knew it from. Then it all came rushing back. Blasting Wub Wub Trees in Cyber Hordes. That one really powerful droid that I could never kill…
Makes me want to dig the old C-64 out of the attic and play it again. Or do the emulator thing. Laser Squad and Red Storm Rising alone would make it worth the trouble.
Comment by RichVR — October 27, 2007 @ 5:36 pm
I played both Laser Squad and UFO on my PC when they came out (the former on my 286, IIRC). Laser Squad is a great game, but UFO has considerably more depth. You should give it a try Dan.
Comment by Rave — November 7, 2007 @ 3:36 am