2019-04-01_Retro_Gamer

UFO: ENEMY UNKNOWN
QAlso known as X-COM: UFO Defense in the US, this is
Mythos’ defining game. You control the X-COM organisation
and must protect the earth from alien incursions. Half of the
game takes place in the Geoscape, where you build bases,
deploy aircraft, hire staff, manage finances, research tech
and tr y to keep the globe’s nations happy.

MAGIC & MAYHEM

QMythos’ final game is an RTS featuring RPG elements

and a continuation of the legacy of the Chaos games. While

playing through the game, you collect ingredients which can

be shuffled between the law, neutral and chaos lines in your

Portmanteau spell book, changing their effects and allowing

you to equip your wizard with a variety of different spells.

XCOM: APOCALYPSE

QX-COM Apocalypse moved from a global scale to a city run

by corporations. The game had interesting ideas, including

the introduction of pauseable real-time combat and a

faction system that required you think carefully about your

relationships with other organisations in the city and the

potential benefits of helping them grow or wane in power.

were fed up as being the toy division of Microprose.
Microprose US was doing all the serious games
and Microprose UK was doing consoles and
conversions and not having serious internal projects”.
Mythos were told the game had to incorporate several
Civilization-like features, including an extensive research
tree and a Civilopedia-esque feature where you could
look at all the things you’d discovered in-game. Finally,
they asked that the game’s theme be based on Gerry
Anderson’s Seventies TV series, UFO.
Julian tells us that though he was worried about the
increased scope of the project, he was mostly happy
with the changes. “I went away for a few days and
came up with a design which I thought was pretty
cool. The original design document for UFO: Enemy
Unknown was about 12 pages long, but it had all the
elements there that made it into the final game. One
thing I changed from what they wanted, I thought Gerry
Anderson’s UFO was a bit boring. The aliens in UFO

Microprose decided

to ignore the order and

keep the project going

clandestinely

Julian Gollop

were like humans, basically. I decided to take some stuff

from contemporary UFO mythology. This came from a

book called Alien Liaison by Timothy Good.” From here

Julian plucked the alien greys that would appear in the

game and got the idea of allowing players to reverse-

engineer UFO technology, based on claims made about

Area 51 by Bob Lazar in Alien Liaison. “The bit we kept

from Gerry Anderson’s UFO was the idea of multiple

levels of interception,” Julian continues. “You can have

air-based and ground-based interceptions. All those

ideas came together very, very quickly.”

The game’s development was not without problems.

In fact, the game was ‘cancelled’. “We didn’t know

about it,” says Julian. “What happened was that Bill

Stealey, who was the major shareholder in Microprose,

sold his shares to Spectrum Holobyte. They visited the

Microprose UK studios, took a look at UFO and said,

‘This looks crap, cancel it.’” Fortunately for Mythos,

however, Microprose decided to ignore the order and

keep the project going clandestinely based on positive

feedback from the QA team. “They kept it going until

such point as Spectrum Holobyte were facing financial

difficulties and they demanded that Microprose UK

come up with the goods. They wanted projects to be

released before the end of their financial quarter in 1994.

Microprose UK said, ‘Well, you know that project you

didn’t like? It’s kind of still going’. They said yes.”

I

n UFO: Enemy Unknown, the systems and

ideas Julian and Mythos had been playing with

throughout their history came together perfectly,

making it Mythos’ most successful and influential

game. “I think finally in UFO, the role-playing aspects

of it come to fruition,” Julian says, reflecting on

» [PC] Upgrading your base and equipping it with scientists and engineers to help you get bet ter equipment is a key par t of UFO.

» [PC] On UFO’s Geoscape, you send out Interceptors to tr y and take

down alien ships before they land.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: MYTHOS GAMES

RETRO GAMER | 67