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Author Topic: Which X-Com / Ufo: runs on Linux?  (Read 11494 times)

ufogio

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Which X-Com / Ufo: runs on Linux?
« on: February 21, 2008, 09:46:26 am »
Hi,
I like ufo:ai a lot, I think it is one of the best game opensource.

But I've never played any X-Com/Ufo game, and I was thinking about buying one. The problem is that I don't own a windows license (neither I want to have one), and I don't know if these games run well on linux.
Can you give me some suggestion? Do you know if they run under wine?

Thanks :)

Offline Mattn

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Re: Which X-Com / Ufo: runs on Linux?
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2008, 10:03:25 am »
there is only ufo2000 afaik
http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/

but last time i tried this was multiplayer only

nemchenk

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Re: Which X-Com / Ufo: runs on Linux?
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2008, 12:34:56 pm »
XCOM3 runs fine in DOSBOX, and I would expect XCOM1 and 2 do so too.

I recommend you go back to the beginning ;) UFO:EU/XCOM1 is IMHO the best game, XCOM2/TFTD has a more polished interface, but is clearly a derived work.

XCOM3 is... weird. Some aspects are excellent, others bizzarely off-key. The game feels very unfinished, and certain aspects ruin the experience. For example, it is possible to raid the other organisations (i.e. countries) and drop their bank balance into the negatives (yay!), but that has no effect on their performance (what?!). Weirdness.

Offline tchristney

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Re: Which X-Com / Ufo: runs on Linux?
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2008, 06:16:53 pm »
I've had great success running X-COM:UFO on dosbox. I do think you need to make sure you get the DOS version though - not the Windows 95 version released several years later. It is available from several "abandonware" sites.

Offline Nevasith

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Re: Which X-Com / Ufo: runs on Linux?
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2008, 12:25:35 am »
I managed to run UFOeu on wine, but the game screen was small- much to small to play. Il try with the dosbox soon

Offline Sarin

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Re: Which X-Com / Ufo: runs on Linux?
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2008, 05:00:53 pm »
DosBox will always give you window sized 320x200 or 640x480, depending on game. But unless you have LCD very high-res screen it's okay.

And yea, UFO:EU is best of series, and the only original one, I still have mine and play it sometimes :) Make sure you get the CD version tho, most of those available on various abandonware sites are bugged that everytime when you enter alien base interior the game freezes.

Offline Destructavator

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Re: Which X-Com / Ufo: runs on Linux?
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2008, 01:45:51 am »
Doesn't DosBox have a full-screen option available in its configuration file?  I played with some of the old versions of DosBox a long time ago and they had such a feature, even on linux.

Regarding the original games, I still have the floppies for the first and second of the version released in the United States (old version for DOS before a patch was released), and the CD for Apocalypse.  Yes, I've gotten all three to work under DosBox running on both Windows and Kubuntu Linux.  Unfortunately, the copies I have aren't for sale (sorry!).

I also have to agree about Apocalypse, I personally didn't like that one too much.  I also like the first better than Terror From The Deep, but that's just my personal opinion.

EDIT:  I forgot to mention, the Wikipedia actually has a list of all of the X-COM/UFO re-makes, although I haven't checked that list recently and honestly don't know how complete it is.  Also, if you can run Wine I suppose it *might* be possible to run one of the Windows-based ones, but I haven't tried it and can't guarantee it would work.

I also recall from somewhere someone had set up a website to play the original through an internet browser, and I tried it myself - it worked but I don't know if it's still up and don't recall the URL or where I found the link to it.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2008, 01:50:54 am by Destructavator »

Offline Sarin

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Re: Which X-Com / Ufo: runs on Linux?
« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2008, 01:28:09 pm »
Yes, DosBox has fullscreen I think. But imagine 320x200 stretched on 17'monitor or even larger. Gross.

Agreed about TFTD. It looks like original UFO was too easy so developers just increased it by making some aliens tougher, adding some unnescessary and illogical requirements to tech tree etc...and in the end the game became hardly playable.