XCOM: One Does Not Simply "Shoot" a Cryssalid...

[Aotrs Commander]

In Afterlight, you just research shotguns and give everyone skills that let them run. Then it's all literally run and gun - they are too fast for the enemy to react, you just run up to them and shoot them in the face. Everything dies except for some lategame spoiler units that require their own (laser or melee) specialized weaponry.

Well, I'm pretty sure I didn't do that, so that's was probably my problem!

There's also UFO Extender, which fixes most bugs and adds a substantial number of quality-of-life additions to the game. I haven't tried XComUtil so I can't compare them. I do know that I wouldn't want to play without Extender now. Those QoL changes are pretty huge.

That's what I've picked up (for one thing, in was on the Steam forums and still an active thread). I've fiddled so far, but it's crashing out on the mission (which appears to be due to the MP3 fix, which I'm downloading a theoretical fix for now!)

The first thing that struck me about this game was that I recognised the music from endless games of Civ II Fantasic Worlds (which had a mod of XCom and music on the CD!) It's kinda weird, then coming it at from the other end!

Edit: Can't get the MP3/.ogg music to work, and the CD is...sketchy (a bit like Civ II used to be, actually!) So, back to the default music for me I think.

So, not really played much, but enough to fiddle around and work the controls. And do a mission, and get three out of my eight guys killed right away, because I had no idea what I was doing! (Yes, on beginner mode..!)

But that was a trail run; now I actually have some idea what to do, so I'll start a fresh game 'pon the morrow, and try again.