X-COM: Alliance
Encyclopedia
X-COM: Alliance was a cancelled video game in the science fiction series X-COM
, being developed by first MicroProse
, then Hasbro Interactive
and eventually Atari
from 1995 until 2002. The game was originally announced in 1998 to be released in first half of 1999, then repeatedly delayed and put on hold before becoming vaporware
.
The early versions of Alliance garnered very favorable reception by several video game publications, including GameSpot
's "Best of E3 (Sequels)" award in 2008 and IGN
PC's "Best Action Game of E3" award in 2000. GameSpy
called it "the most ambitious game we've seen at E3, and if they can pull this one off ... the pinnacle of tactical gaming, a new high-water mark that'll bust through established game genres" and PC Zone
called it "a serious contender for 'game of the year'" in 2000.
and five years before these of X-COM: Interceptor
, when the Patton, an Earth research ship, travels to Cydonia to locate Elerium-115 on the surface of Mars and establish a mining facility. The Patton goes through a dimensional wormhole
gateway and ends up many light years from Earth, finding the alien invaders from UFO: Enemy Unknown (such as Sectoids and Ethereals) engaged in a war with a new alien race, the Ascidians. The crew of the Patton joins forces with the Ascidians and their alliance gives the game its name. There would be also several new alien races introduced as well.
elements too". The game had the player assume the role of commander of the lost X-COM mission. Gameplay would emphasize team management and tactics. Through the first-person perspective, the player would assemble and lead the squads of up to four members (from the pool of only 12, mostly scientists and engineers, all of them with not only different skills but also their own unique abilities, voices and lines of speech, personalities, feelings and attitudes, resulting in their display human-like behavior, distinctively different for various characters if they were put in the same situation) through the 13 missions with various objectives. The troopers' speech, movement, and combat effectiveness would be affected by their emotional state which would be infuenced by their individual personal traits and conditions such as the current morale and fatigue levels and their surroundings. Multiplayer co-operative (for the story mode) and deathmatch
and capture the flag
modes were also being planned.
to stop media leaks) began in the UK Studio of MicroProse and was then led by the producer Stuart Whyte and the designer Andrew G. Williams, who previously had worked together on the Amiga and PlayStation ports of Enemy Unknown and then on Terror from the Deep for the PC (Whyte has also co-produced Apocalypse). The game's concept was inspired in part by the head-mounted cameras of Colonial Marines in the film Aliens
, also sharing similarities with the 1993 video game Hired Guns
, co-created by Scott Johnston who was also part of the original development team of Alliance. According to Whyte, the game was at first (in mid-1990s) supposed to be multiplayer-based, possibly with one player assuming the role of the team leader and directing the other players. It was also envisioned as featuring deformable landscapes (as in the X-COM strategy games), similar to the one powered by the game engine that would be later created for Red Faction
.
In Apirl 1999, when "much of the foundation work had already been set", the work on the game was then taken over by MicroProse's Chapel Hill
Studio (Chris Clark-led development team behind Klingon Honor Guard
) after Hasbro
had acquired MicroProse and decided to close the British studio. Development progressed and game design advice was lended by X-COM development veteran Dave Ellis
(the designer of X-COM Interceptor and the unreleased X-COM: Genesis
who previously had also wrote the official strategy guides to the first three games in the series) and the game elements such as the featured weapons and alien races were being coordinated for canon compatibility between Alliance and Genesis. The game was to use the heavily-modified Unreal Engine
, with a skeletal animation
system also using motion capture
, a completely different AI, a new sound system to be able to store and playback large amounts of speech, dynamic, and a large 2D component for the management section.
Near the end of 1999, Hasbro closed the Chapel Hill Studio, ending the development of Genesis, while the work on Alliance was moved again, this time to the Hunt Valley
Studio, and pushed back to Q4 2000, and then again to "sometime in the year 2001" in August 2000. In January 2000, the game was stated to be the producer Martin DeRiso to be "60-70%" complete. The project was put on indefinite hold in late 2000, when the Hunt Valley studio was redirected to create the much less-ambitious X-COM: Enforcer
instead. In January 2001, Alliance was claimed to be again in develolment and its new planned release date was set to third quarter of 2001. After Infogrames Entertainment bought Hasbro Interactive, the game was announced to be postponed again because of the departure of a key team member (responsible for the implementation of the game's would-be revolutionary AI system) and would not ship until "the end of 2001 at the earliest". An official website was even put up by Infogrames in February 2002, just to be taken down only a few days later. The game was ultimately aborted without any official announcement.
Julian Gollop
, the chief designer of Enemy Unknown and Apocalypse, said in 2011: "I do remember going to E3 in 1999 and MicroProse had a huge display for X-COM: Alliance, with giant tubes with alien foetuses and guys dressed up as aliens walking around, but when I went up to try and play the game they didn’t really have anything playable. They were clearly having problems getting the engine to work properly. It ... looked good, but it was kind of a tragic demo in a way – the playability wasn’t there. It was later cancelled, of course."
X-COM
X-COM is a series of strategy games created by Julian Gollop. In 2010 2K Marin announced the official reboot of the series, entitled simply XCOM. The original game has a cult following.- Original series :...
, being developed by first MicroProse
MicroProse
MicroProse was a video game publisher and developer, founded by Wild Bill Stealey and Sid Meier in 1982 as Microprose Software. In 1993, the company became a subsidiary of Spectrum HoloByte and has remained a subsidiary or brand name under several other corporations since...
, then Hasbro Interactive
Hasbro Interactive
Hasbro Interactive was an American video game production and publishing subsidiary of Hasbro, the large game and toy company.Hasbro Interactive was formed late in 1995 in order to compete in the computer and video game arena. Several Hasbro properties, such as Monopoly and Scrabble, had already...
and eventually Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
from 1995 until 2002. The game was originally announced in 1998 to be released in first half of 1999, then repeatedly delayed and put on hold before becoming vaporware
Vaporware
Vaporware is a term in the computer industry that describes a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is never actually released nor officially canceled. Vaporware is also a term sometimes used to describe events that are announced or predicted,...
.
The early versions of Alliance garnered very favorable reception by several video game publications, including GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
's "Best of E3 (Sequels)" award in 2008 and IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
PC's "Best Action Game of E3" award in 2000. GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
called it "the most ambitious game we've seen at E3, and if they can pull this one off ... the pinnacle of tactical gaming, a new high-water mark that'll bust through established game genres" and PC Zone
PC Zone
PC Zone was the first magazine dedicated to games for IBM-compatible personal computers to be published in the United Kingdom. Earlier PC magazines such as PC Leisure, PC Format and PC Plus had covered games but only as part of a wider remit. PC Zone was founded in 1993.The magazine was published...
called it "a serious contender for 'game of the year'" in 2000.
Plot
The game takes place in the year 2062, 12 years after the events of X-COM: Terror from the DeepX-COM: Terror from the Deep
X-COM: Terror from the Deep is a strategy video game released in 1995 for the PC. It is the sequel to UFO: Enemy Unknown, and the second part of the X-COM series.-Gameplay:...
and five years before these of X-COM: Interceptor
X-COM: Interceptor
-External links:*: An extensive wiki containing information, analysis, strategy, and other resources for the X-COM series...
, when the Patton, an Earth research ship, travels to Cydonia to locate Elerium-115 on the surface of Mars and establish a mining facility. The Patton goes through a dimensional wormhole
Wormhole
In physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it...
gateway and ends up many light years from Earth, finding the alien invaders from UFO: Enemy Unknown (such as Sectoids and Ethereals) engaged in a war with a new alien race, the Ascidians. The crew of the Patton joins forces with the Ascidians and their alliance gives the game its name. There would be also several new alien races introduced as well.
Gameplay
Unlike other games in the X-COM series, most of which were turn-based strategy, Alliance was a first person shooter, but described as "with strategy, adventure and RPGRole-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
elements too". The game had the player assume the role of commander of the lost X-COM mission. Gameplay would emphasize team management and tactics. Through the first-person perspective, the player would assemble and lead the squads of up to four members (from the pool of only 12, mostly scientists and engineers, all of them with not only different skills but also their own unique abilities, voices and lines of speech, personalities, feelings and attitudes, resulting in their display human-like behavior, distinctively different for various characters if they were put in the same situation) through the 13 missions with various objectives. The troopers' speech, movement, and combat effectiveness would be affected by their emotional state which would be infuenced by their individual personal traits and conditions such as the current morale and fatigue levels and their surroundings. Multiplayer co-operative (for the story mode) and deathmatch
Deathmatch
Deathmatch may refer to:*The Death Match, a wartime association football match in 1942 between Soviet POWs and Nazi soldiers*Hardcore wrestling, a form of professional wrestling that eschews traditional concepts of match rules...
and capture the flag
Capture the flag
Capture the Flag is a traditional outdoor sport generally played by children, where two teams each have a flag and the objective is to capture the other team's flag, located at the team's "base," and bring it safely back to their own base...
modes were also being planned.
Development
The work on Alliance (its original working titles being X-COM 4 and Fox Force Five in a reference to the film Pulp FictionPulp fiction
Pulp fiction may refer to:* pulp magazines, short stories presented in a magazine format, printed on cheaply made wood-pulp paper* Pulp Fiction, a 1994 film directed by Quentin Tarantino...
to stop media leaks) began in the UK Studio of MicroProse and was then led by the producer Stuart Whyte and the designer Andrew G. Williams, who previously had worked together on the Amiga and PlayStation ports of Enemy Unknown and then on Terror from the Deep for the PC (Whyte has also co-produced Apocalypse). The game's concept was inspired in part by the head-mounted cameras of Colonial Marines in the film Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
, also sharing similarities with the 1993 video game Hired Guns
Hired Guns
Hired Guns is a role-playing video game produced by DMA Design for the Amiga and the PC in 1993.The game is set in the year 2712, in which the player controls four mercenaries selected from a pool of twelve...
, co-created by Scott Johnston who was also part of the original development team of Alliance. According to Whyte, the game was at first (in mid-1990s) supposed to be multiplayer-based, possibly with one player assuming the role of the team leader and directing the other players. It was also envisioned as featuring deformable landscapes (as in the X-COM strategy games), similar to the one powered by the game engine that would be later created for Red Faction
Red Faction
Red Faction is a first-person shooter video game developed by Volition, Inc. and published by THQ. It was released for the PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows and Mac in 2001. A version for the Nokia N-Gage was developed by Monkeystone Games. The game was also re-developed as a top-down shooter for...
.
In Apirl 1999, when "much of the foundation work had already been set", the work on the game was then taken over by MicroProse's Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill may refer to:*Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a town in the United States, or**the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a major university within the town*Chapel Hill, Alabama...
Studio (Chris Clark-led development team behind Klingon Honor Guard
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Klingon Honor Guard
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Klingon Honor Guard is a first-person shooter set in the universe of Star Trek during the time of The Next Generation. The game was developed by MicroProse in 1998, using the Unreal game engine.-Gameplay:...
) after Hasbro
Hasbro
Hasbro is a multinational toy and boardgame company from the United States of America. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States...
had acquired MicroProse and decided to close the British studio. Development progressed and game design advice was lended by X-COM development veteran Dave Ellis
Dave Ellis (game designer)
Dave Ellis is an author and video game designer. He is also an avid classic arcade game collector and a columnist for GameRoom Magazine.-Career:...
(the designer of X-COM Interceptor and the unreleased X-COM: Genesis
X-COM: Genesis
X-COM: Genesis was a computer game in development in the X-COM series. It was being produced by original MicroProse employees, then working for Hasbro Interactive who bought out the game developer. Production took place in the original MicroProse offices in Chapel Hill, North Carolina...
who previously had also wrote the official strategy guides to the first three games in the series) and the game elements such as the featured weapons and alien races were being coordinated for canon compatibility between Alliance and Genesis. The game was to use the heavily-modified Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine
The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games, first illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, MMORPGs and RPGs...
, with a skeletal animation
Skeletal animation
Skeletal animation is a technique in computer animation in which a character is represented in two parts: a surface representation used to draw the character and a hierarchical set of interconnected bones used to animate the mesh...
system also using motion capture
Motion capture
Motion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics...
, a completely different AI, a new sound system to be able to store and playback large amounts of speech, dynamic, and a large 2D component for the management section.
Near the end of 1999, Hasbro closed the Chapel Hill Studio, ending the development of Genesis, while the work on Alliance was moved again, this time to the Hunt Valley
Hunt Valley, Maryland
Hunt Valley is an affluent unincorporated community in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It lies just north of the city of Baltimore, along Highway 145 off Interstate 83. Loch Raven Reservoir...
Studio, and pushed back to Q4 2000, and then again to "sometime in the year 2001" in August 2000. In January 2000, the game was stated to be the producer Martin DeRiso to be "60-70%" complete. The project was put on indefinite hold in late 2000, when the Hunt Valley studio was redirected to create the much less-ambitious X-COM: Enforcer
X-COM: Enforcer
X-COM: Enforcer is the fifth game in the X-COM series, but takes place in a time line separate to that established by the first four games of the series. This game was presented as an action shoot'em up game instead of tactical turn-based strategy as in previous games.-Plot:The game is set during...
instead. In January 2001, Alliance was claimed to be again in develolment and its new planned release date was set to third quarter of 2001. After Infogrames Entertainment bought Hasbro Interactive, the game was announced to be postponed again because of the departure of a key team member (responsible for the implementation of the game's would-be revolutionary AI system) and would not ship until "the end of 2001 at the earliest". An official website was even put up by Infogrames in February 2002, just to be taken down only a few days later. The game was ultimately aborted without any official announcement.
Julian Gollop
Julian Gollop
Julian Gollop is a British designer of strategy video games and founder of the defunct game studios Mythos Games and Codo Technologies.Gollop's career spans over 25 years, during which he has designed games for numerous systems over the years, from the early 8-bit home computers to 32-bit PCs...
, the chief designer of Enemy Unknown and Apocalypse, said in 2011: "I do remember going to E3 in 1999 and MicroProse had a huge display for X-COM: Alliance, with giant tubes with alien foetuses and guys dressed up as aliens walking around, but when I went up to try and play the game they didn’t really have anything playable. They were clearly having problems getting the engine to work properly. It ... looked good, but it was kind of a tragic demo in a way – the playability wasn’t there. It was later cancelled, of course."