We have created a teaser video for the comic here: TheStrategyTube

eRe4s3r wrote on Jan 19, 2016, 23:22:
Very nice work Enjoyed it

Only thing one could bring up against it is that it would have probably needed twice as many transition frames, some of the jumps are very hefty, but for the quality and work involved.. and believe me, I color manga as a hobby.. this is incredible detailed work.

Glad you enjoyed it. You are probably right, but I have it from good sources the project leads were complete amateurs ;). In addition, our budget were hurting real bad through the entire creation...

Anyway, would appreciate some help spreading the word!

Kai has now posted all the concept drawings he made for the comic here: http://ukitakumuki.deviantart.com/gallery/

Your attention, please. Today at StrategyCore we are proud to present "Deep Rising - a tribute to X-Com", a unique digital comic featuring lavish art and accompanying original audio, all to be enjoyed entirely for free.

We've recruited some of Earth's finest - plain great human beings who also happen to be fantastically talented creative professionals - to make this dream of a full-fledged comic set in the world of X-Com a reality at long last.

So, without further ado, we invite you to experience the fruits of our labor for yourself, at StrategyCore.

[img]http://cdn.strategycore.co.uk/i/press.jpg[/img]

Hey baltar, the demo runs by default with AA and other things enabled. turn them off -- the game doesnt need them -- and it ran at a nice clip for me on my nothing special PC

Same with me. Turning of AA and a few other things made it run smoothly. Not brilliant of them to set things so high by default.

So like... 5 hours instead of 3?

Well, StarForce lasts days at times. Did with UFO: Afterlight for instance. Some may argue it's because the game's not too popular, but the other UFO games was cracked as fast as most other games. Some say that publishers loose as many sales using StarForce (because many gamers despise it) as they gain from holding off the pirated version a day or two. I do not believe that to be true however, as I believe most gamers are oblivious to the copy protection being used. More do become aware, but it's still a small percentage of the total market (even if the bashing of Spore at Amazon.com is promising).

I don't like StarForce, as it's too intrusive (not to mention outright harmful for your hardware/software at times). That being said, I can't say I like the people that never buy games either. I can live with people downloading games to test them, as long as they buy the ones they do like, but too many people never give a dime to the developers.

...

also - wtf wit starforce in a demo? what does that even accomplish?

Well, usually the exe of the demo is very similar to that of the retail version of the game. Thus, if they do not protect the demo exe, the full game will be cracked even faster when it's released. Not fond of StarForce, but that's the reason they also protect the demos.

...

So to someone who's purchased the game, what are you thoughts?

We're back to discussing the games? Lovely! Personally I have never bothered testing Enforcer and Interceptor. Hear Interceptor is worth giving a try though.

As for the others, I see it this way:
- X-COM: UFO Defense is one of THE greatest games ever made. They've managed to mix global scale strategy with small scale tactical battles in a way never done so well since. This one alone is worth the price of all five games in my opinion.
- X-COM: Terror From The Deep was the first game in the series I ever played. It's harder than UFO, but has a great atmosphere IMO. I played the demo years ago, and starting that tactical battle under water with the great scenery (for that time), fitting music and excellent turn-based tactics was instant love. The terror missions are maybe a bit too hard compared to all other missions (when you complete the first part, that is hard, you get to the second that is just as hard), and it is easy to bring "water only weapons" to land based missions, but not too much trouble. Besides those, I think it's just as good as UFO.
- Apocalypse takes some time to get into, and you may never like it. If you take your time with it however, you'll come to enjoy it I think.

Anyway, to answer your question, I think those three games are well worth the price of the 5 games.

Which begs the question...can anyone answer if mods do indeed work on the Steam versions?

As far as I know, they will. Even mods that alter the exe should work, as I don't think 2K altered it (though they may have renamed it). Not 100% sure though, but guys like Zombie and Bomb Bloke at our forum will know (they're X-COM experts/maniacs ;)).

[shameless plug]
If people are looking for mods, gameplay tips and the likes, check out our X-COM website at http://www.strategycore.co.uk/xcom/pg/start . I think it's safe to say we have the largest X-COM files section out there

http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/index.php?cid=3
[/shameless plug]

This comment was edited on Sep 4, 18:19.

Come on! Adventure games these days are so simple it's impossible to go wrong. In the situation you mention, you're tied up, and thus can't move anything. There's also a thug in front of you planning to give you a beating. Since you're not gagged, how do you imagine you can manage to move with the help of your tongue and an angry thug in front of you...?

I'll grant you this is one of the more complicated things in the demo, but that says more about the simplicity than anything else. In the good old days you had an inventory full of things, with no apparent logic as to how they are to be used, and plenty of ways to walk. In this game you have only a few things in the inventory, and they disappear as they're used. Adventure games is often about solving puzzles. What's the point of an adventure game if there's only one path to walk and everything is obvious?

Um, UFO: Afterlight - the third game in the UFO: After series...

I think E3 might have lost focus over the years. In the beginning it was a great arena for developers to show their games, and talk to media and buyers face to face. Lately it's become more of a "most booth babes and loudest noise" sort of show, and that's not what it should be. ESA did try to restrict this by enforcing new rules this year, but I don't think it was enough.

In my opinion they need to find back to the roots. I went to both E3 and Vegas this year, and both places bombards you with so many impressions at once it's hard to focus. I did manage to do the interviews I had pre-planned, but a lot of time is spent looking around confused and distracted. Granted this was my first year, but I don't think it's a good way of providing information. E3 is an important event, but it has to change. Few stands and many interview and private display booths would be good I believe.

@Some Dude: I was accepted because of a part-time job for the IT department of my University and running something akin to a fan-site ( http://www.strategycore.co.uk ), so that is very true. I think I gave some smaller developers much needed attention (Disciples III and JA3D for instance), but if I should have been accepted... And I'm by far not the worst example.

Keep in mind that they don't care all that much about localization while they work on the game. I agree that quite a few foreign games has bad grammar in them, but you shouldn't draw conclusions from some screens that are taken from an early version.

New patch coming soon. Hopefully that will help you with your troubles.

I can understand its roots in real table top games, but now your on a multiprocessing fast gaming machine..turn based games are redundant now. This game was cool back in 1994 or whenever it first came out but now its boresome...

UFO: Aftermath and UFO: Aftershock both use the S.A.S. system, which is sort of a real-time with pause system. I imagine UFO: Afterlight will also use this system, so where did you get turn-based from? These games are not part of the X-COM line of games.

UFO: Aftershock is a very good game! It had a lot of bugs when released, but large parts of them were taken care of with the first patch.

As for X-COM, it shares quite a few features with it. It does use the S.A.S. however, that is sort of a real-time with pause system. If you can live with that, go play! Aftershock has it's weaknesses, but it's a great game despite that!

And some would say "play the game and decide for yourself"

You can get the imported UK version from GoGamer.com Cheese. Hard to tell when Tri Synergy gets it out in the US, but most people seems pleased with GoGamer.com

Depending on the map and the type of enemy you fight, this may or may not happen. In some missions snipers will attack you from rooftops and so on. All in all the AI is better than in Aftermath, but far from excellent.