Enemy Unknown (1994) Extended

Overview

This describes how to easily setup X-COM: Enemy Unknown with a small set of the best mods for fixing bugs, improving audio and video quality, and keeping the game in line with the intent of the original developers. It is intended to save you the frustration of finding the different mods and figuring out how to set them up. It uses UFO Extender.

This should work with any Windows Collectors Edition version of X-COM, which is included in the GamersGate and Steam distributions. If you have a "UFO Defense.exe" in your X-COM installation directory, you should be good.

Install X-COM: Enemy Unknown

However you do it, figure out where the X-COM installation directory is.

For Steam, it is at C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\xcom ufo defense\XCOM.

Download

1. Create an "xcom" folder on your desktop.
2. Download the following into this folder:
   1. Combo Patch (Developer-Intended Map Fixes)
   2. Voices Patch NEW Version (Better Sounds From Older X-COM Version)
   3. Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (Needed For UFO Extender)
   4. UFO Extender Mod (Bug Fixes & Improvements, Download Most Recent File)
   5. UFO Extender Config File (Download Most Recent File)
3. Create an "mp3" folder inside the xcom folder you created and download all these files into it. This is better music from the PlayStation Port of X-COM. Note that you must have Windows Media Player for these to play in-game.

Verify

You should now have the following in the "xcom" folder you created on your desktop:

• Combo_Patch.zip
• mp3/*.mp3 (multiple files)
• EUExtendedINI.txt
• UFO_Voices_patch_new_version.zip
• UFOLoader.zip
• vcredist_x86.exe

Modify

1. Move the Combo_Patch.zip file into the X-COM install folder and extract it. Say yes when it asks you to overwrite files. It is simply fixing data bugs in various files that shipped with the original version of X-COM.
2. Extract UFO_Voices_patch_new_version.zip wherever you like, then:
   1. Copy all the files in the SOUND subdirectory of the extracted folder over the files in the X-COM install folder SOUND subdirectory. This improves many of the sounds you will hear in game.
   2. Copy the "UFO Defense.exe" file from the extracted folder over the "UFO Defense.exe" file in the X-COM install folder. This maps the improved sounds into the game.
   3. Do not do anything with the mp3play.dll file in the extracted folder. This is handled by a different mod.
3. Launch vcredist_x86.exe and install it.
4. Extract all the files in UFOLoader.zip into the X-COM folder.
5. Rename the "EUExtendedINI.txt" file you downloaded in your "xcom" directory to "UFO Extender.ini" and copy it into the X-COM install folder, overwriting the file that is there. This will configure a particular set of options, including all the bug fixes and some of the improvements. By all means, take a look at this file, and edit it if you want to enable or disable different options. It is well documented with the reasons for picking or not picking certain options. (For alternative opinions, see this article's Talk Page).
6. Simply copy the "mp3" folder you created and filled with MP3s into the X-COM install folder.

Make Shortcut

You will now want to launch X-COM using the new UFOLoader.exe that came with the UFOLoader.zip file (it in turn uses the "UFO Defense.exe", so you need both). Drag the UFOLoader.exe file to your desktop while holding down Alt (make sure you see the little arrow shortcut icon) and release.

Play

Double-click on the UFOLoader shortcut on your desktop.