I’ve been playing some X-COM lately and it is so much fun. I picked it up over at Abandonia, a home for abandonware and am running it on DOSBox, a DOS emulator. The Mac port of DOSBox seems to work fine except that you need to have the config file in the same directory as the application. So if you just drag the binary into your applications folder, you’ll struggle with getting some games to run. Another hint is that you shouldn’t run the setup in the X-COM folder. Some games need a setup, this one specifically doesn’t. Just run go.com and it will work just fine.
The cool part about X-COM is just how old it is. This is a great strategy game with a lot of complexity, all from 1994. That’s a very long time ago in gaming years when you think about it. It’s so good that it actually took the title of best PC game ever in an IGN article published last year.
If you’ve never played before, the learning curve can be a little steep. It is complex after all. If you stick to it though, you’ll find that you’ll get the hang of it and will be playing the harder levels in no time. Here’s a hint. Start at the easiest difficulty level to get the hang of how things work.
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6 responses so far ↓
1 Jean // Apr 1, 2008 at 11:57 am
I love the old games. Thanks for the tip on dosbox.
I tried playing Dune 2 on our companies PC and it just won’t work
X Com is one great game…was it in 1995?
Jean
2 Maximillian Gunther // Apr 1, 2008 at 11:15 pm
X-COM is a timeless classic, to this day beating the best modern strategy offerings from the last 10 years. The biggest obstacle to playing this game is NOT its dated graphics, but on finding a (legal) version of this game and on getting it to work under the current generation of Windows
3 Akhmad Guntar // Apr 1, 2008 at 11:23 pm
I really love this game! I played it in my 386 DX PC back then ! The game managed to take two seemingly sterile genres - turn-based battle and resource management - and create a truly engrossing experience.
4 Matthijs Enschede // Apr 2, 2008 at 2:52 am
About a year a go i installed an Amiga pack with about 50 old games. I’m still playing those old games. In some way they are better than the new games. Expecialy Speedball 2 is a great game.
5 Marc // Apr 3, 2008 at 7:37 am
The game is legally available for free. It’s been abandoned and is available as abandonware.
6 filme // Apr 30, 2008 at 3:34 am
Old is gold as they say, new games require too much thought, i just want something i can pick up and play.. Amiga classics such as speedball, sensible soccer etc.. those were the days!