User talk:Danial

Why I'm Here

Where It All Began

In '95 (grade 11) I got my first computer. It was a 486 33MHz with 4MB RAM and a whopping 124MB HDD!! One of my friends at school was quite the geek and gave me a cracked version of this game called UFO: Enemy Unknown so I had something to play on my newly acquired toy. All I'll say is that this lead to many a late night!

The Evolution

A few years later in '97 I started University. I bought a new computer: a Pentium. Not sure about the specs, but it was better than the 486 none-the-less. For whatever reason, I decided to install UFO onto it and got back into the swing of things. Having access to the Internet at Uni, I found a few sites relating to the game and my interest was renewed. During Uni, I learnt of scriptwriting and decided that UFO would make a cool movie, so I started toying around with ideas, which kept feeding my interest for the following years.

The Conclusion

On the 16th of November 2003, I signed up to XCTC and the constant discussion on the forums continued to feed my X-COM fandom, and has done to this very day. Besides the few times my computers have crashed, there hasn't been a week where I haven't checked the forums to see what's going on in X-COM land. My interest in UFO:EU is stronger now than it ever has been and I can't see it going away any time in the near future.

Where I'm At

Trains Of Thought

My current interest in X-COM, and UFO in particular, has shifted now from the thoughts of writing a movie. My current brain-threads are wrapped around the idea of a first-person-shooter based on the original game. After playing such great games as Half-Life and Rainbow Six, I'm sure X-COM has a place in there somewhere.

X-COM Alliance

Everyone is aware of the now defunct X-COM Alliance, but although this promised to bring X-COM into the 3rd dimension, it didn't satisfy my hunger as my heart has always been with UFO:EU. Its style and character is something that Alliance (and every sequel in-between) seemed to be missing. None of this really matter however as it doesn't seem Atari (the current rights holders) have any future plans for the X-COM franchise anyway.

X-COM: Last Hope

A group of Modders started on a project years ago that was to be a Half-Life Mod called Last Hope, based off UFO:EU. This never came to completion. Then Half-Life 2 was released and there was promise that it would be revived and ported over to this new engine. But that hasn't come to completion either. The group has now moved on to another project, apparently still X-COM-based, but has left Last Hope behind.

The Dream

Ever since HL2 came out, I've been learning how to map and texture and model for the game. I've started creating some UFO maps and will hopefully be able to create some Alien models soon too. I've also started learning C++ programming, which is the language that HL2 was made in, in the hope that I can learn enough to allow me to start my own Mod. I'm only one person however, with limited time on my hands, so I'm not expecting to be able to create a completely new game, but my dream is to create atleast one playable level. Whether this happens or not is anyone's guess, but atleast I have the vision. I won't be able to rest until I can run around in a 3D version of UFO:EU. If Atari aren't going to help, then it looks like it's up to us fans to take charge!