Good Tactical TBS Games?

[ATB]

Finished up Xcom and loved it.  What are some other good TBS Tactical games out there?

I'm thinking of going back and picking up Jagged Alliance 2 on Steam...but are there others that are more recent that are any good?

[TiLT]

Temple of Elemental Evil.

[hepcat]

Temple of Elemental Evil is my vote for one of the best TBS games ever made.  It's also in the running for most disappointing TBS ever because it was so undersupported and buggy.  But when it was working, it was the best at what it did.

[skystride]

Not sure how well it holds up but Silent Storm is probably the closest thing to X-Com squad based combat.  I also liked Fallout Tactics.

I don't know of anything recent but you might enjoy SRPGs (Tactics Ogre, Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics, Gladius).  Many choices on PSP/PSV/other handhelds.

[Harkonis]

Temple of Elemental Evil is my vote for one of the best TBS games ever made.  It's also in the running for most disappointing TBS ever because it was so undersupported and buggy.  But when it was working, it was the best at what it did.

I'll second this, and there was a fan patch that was huge and fixed most of the issues

[Gratch]

I don't know of anything recent but you might enjoy SRPGs (Tactics Ogre, Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics, Gladius).  Many choices on PSP/PSV/other handhelds.

This +1.  There's a ton of tactical TBS games that fall under the JRPG category that are fantastic, if you can stomach that particular style.

[Canuck]

FFT:WotL is a game that must be played and you can grab Silent Storm 2 from GoG for $9.99.

[hitbyambulance]

Silent Storm is still too much fun.

for modern games, King's Bounty series.

on PSP, i have to mention Jeanne D'arc...

[Razgon]

Silent Storm - it DOES bog down a bit due to the AI taking horrendously long turns, but its one of the finest of its kind.

Xenonauts, which is an Xcom without the name but closer to the original is also worth looking at. Its currently in beta, but if you pay, you can play it at once. I recommend that one quite a lot!

[Canuck]

Oh right, that's obvious.  If you're looking for more of XCOM then you should definitely grab Xenonauts when it comes out.  Only $20 I believe.

[Turtle]

Just keep in mind that Asian style SRPGs (strategy RPGs) have a particularly different, more puzzle-like take on combat missions. But, they also have a heavier emphasis on character and story in general.

Don't bother with Xenonauts quite yet if you're looking for a product you can actually play to finish, it's nowhere near done yet, but progress is coming along. When it comes out, it'll be another good X-COM clone to enjoy.

[ATB]

Xenonauts looks awesome.  Got to figure out which level I want to buy at. Looks amazing..

And Canuck I played almost all the way to the end of WotL got to the final boss. Got killed. Figured out what i needed to do to beat him, and then never did.

That game is excellent!

[Roguetad]

Temple of Elemental Evil is my vote for one of the best TBS games ever made.  It's also in the running for most disappointing TBS ever because it was so undersupported and buggy.  But when it was working, it was the best at what it did.

I'll second this, and there was a fan patch that was huge and fixed most of the issues

Temple of Elemental Evil still holds up really well today with the fan patch.  It's a very tactical game, with a lot of options when you consider all of the classes, skills and spells. 

[Vikki]

Gladius and Gladius again

[USMC Kato]

Gladius and Gladius again

Sequel or an update for current gen systems would be nice

[Harkonis]

Gladius and Gladius again

Sequel or an update for current gen systems would be nice

Loved that game

[hepcat]

Ooh, forgot about that classic.  This is the Lucasarts Xbox game, right?

[ATB]

I spent 100 hours in Gladius. Loved every moment of it.

Would kill a crunchwrap for a sequel.

[Razgon]

Fallen Enchantress :-)

[TiLT]

Fallen Enchantress :-)

Not much tactics in that game as far as I can tell, or at least it's the weakest part of the game. It mostly focuses on strategy.

[WorkingMike]

I have no idea how it holds up, but I loved Warhammer 40k: Chaos Gate back in the day. That is my gold standard for turn based strategy games. I'd also second Silent Storm, it's a very well done game.

[Roguetad]

Gladius and Gladius again

Sequel or an update for current gen systems would be nice

Loved that game

I forgot about Gladius.  I played a ton of that game.  It had a good balance between heavy, medium and light units.  I had a pair of nasty myrmidons that would end things quickly for the opposing teams if they had the opportunity.

[Vikki]

Ooh, forgot about that classic.  This is the Lucasarts Xbox game, right?

That's the one.  It was also on the PS2 and GC but the PS2 version had a slightly choppier framerate and the GC version didn't have any blood... everybody needs blood in their turn-based tactics.

[ATB]

IIRC, there was sequel announced at one point and then cancelled.

[skystride]

I just loaded up Gladius on my PS3.  I haven't played it since it came out so I've pretty much forgotten everything.  Normally I'm not big into nostalgic/retro gaming (I'm a bit of a graphics whore and most old-school UI pisses me off) but this game seems to hold up really well.  Graphics look relatively clean.  I realized that I never did the campaign for the male dude so I started that one (it says hard difficulty though).  So the story appears to be completely new, something I've never seen before because I played the Barbarian chick on my PS2.

[ATB]

I just loaded up Gladius on my PS3.  I haven't played it since it came out so I've pretty much forgotten everything.  Normally I'm not big into nostalgic/retro gaming (I'm a bit of a graphics whore and most old-school UI pisses me off) but this game seems to hold up really well.  Graphics look relatively clean.  I realized that I never did the campaign for the male dude so I started that one (it says hard difficulty though).  So the story appears to be completely new, something I've never seen before because I played the Barbarian chick on my PS2.

Yeah, I still kick myself  for not playing both sides...

[Blackjack]

I believe Blue Byte's Incubation is on GoG and well worth checking out. It's a 1997 game, so don't expect much visually other than geysers of gore.   This was from the era where we bought "add-on" 3-D video cards like 3DFX and Diamond's Monster 3D, and this was one of the early games that supported that.

Incubation's not listed individually as GoG, but you can get it and the Wilderness Missions expansion as part of the:
Battle Isle Platinum set ($9.99):
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/battle_isle_platinum
*Unlike X-COM, there's no base/research aspect. Also, due to needing to have certain "hero units" survive, and the design of some maps, lot of people complained in its day it was too "puzzle-dy." I loved it anyway and ran a crude looking (1997 era HTML) fan site for years.

Incubation's producer Wolfgang Walk often cited the Playstation strategy game Vandal Hearts as its main inspiration, not X-COM. Years later I finally played Vandal Hearts on PSX and it was quite fun. The 3-D again is very blocky, and its movement grid is really more like a pretty chessboard with elevations. Here's a video review:

Classic Game Room : VANDAL HEARTS for Playstation 1 review
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRKt22qaXBw
*I believe a successor came out on XBox360 a few years back, I don't know much about it.

Back to PC, of course there's the bloody good Silent Storm (2004):
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/silent_storm_gold
*Although I loved it for the most part, I ultimately found the campaign too frustratingly difficult. I never came close to finishing it. I also found on some maps I might take an hour in turns just to find the last target on a map.
*If I had a nickel for every time someone said they wanted a new X-COM using Silent Storm's engine, I'd be rich. None of the mod projects attempting to do that ever reached fruition, afik. The game engine and its ragdoll physics still look good today.

*Although I still have my discs, I have been unable to get the game to run on Vista 64-bit. I know GoG claims its version runs on Vista, just wish I could confirm it runs on Vista 64-bit.

[Blackjack]

Your thread might get me to dig out my dust-gathering PSP to try some fun tactical TBS games that I enjoyed on it like....

Jean d'Arc (Gamespy review from Aug. 2007)
http://psp.gamespy.com/playstation-portable/jeanne-darc/812374p1.html
*While this is technically a TB-RPG, I would liken it to any fun tactical TBS too. It was one of my favorite PSP titles.

Around that same era, I really wanted to like Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command on PSP, but it didn't quite cut the mustard (camera issues, no movement grid, no real skills/abilities development etc.):

IGN review
http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/11/17/warhammer-40000-squad-command-review-2
=============

Veering back to PC, this is waaaay old but SSI released a solid squad-level TBS called Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate (this used an engine they previously used for Wages of War, and Soldiers at War, but it seemed to really come into its own on this 1998 title)

Gamespot review
http://www.gamespot.com/warhammer-40-000-chaos-gate/reviews/warhammer-40000-chaos-gate-review-2538390/
*While it didn't have randomized maps in its 15 mission campaign, it did randomly insert some "side missions":

The campaign system also mixes things up by slipping randomized "missions of opportunity" into the mix. In between the fixed scenarios, the system may generate an optional hunt-and-destroy mission, which helps build troop experience.

Chaos Gate also shipped with a full mission editor. I am hoping some day this game gets a GoG release. Many fans of the original X-COM liked this one in its day.

My dream is that Firaxis' XCOM will be successful enough maybe we'd get a TBS in the Warhammer world brought up to current graphics/sounds etc. though that might be too brave a step for publisher THQ to take (I'm sure Relic would be game). 

[jztemple2]

Can anyone comment on Frontline Tactics? I hadn't heard of it before but I see on Steam News that it is now available as Free To Play. For some reason my Steam Client isn't allowing me to download it

UPDATE: I restarted Steam and I'm now downloading

[CeeKay]

it sounds like it just came out today, sometimes it takes Steam a bit to get caught up.

UPDATE: nevermind, forgot to hit post and looks like it works now

[Warfran]

*Although I still have my discs, I have been unable to get the game to run on Vista 64-bit. I know GoG claims its version runs on Vista, just wish I could confirm it runs on Vista 64-bit.

FYI the GOG version of Silent Storm runs fine on my Vista 64

[skystride]

No one mentioned Valkyria Chronices in this thread, wtf!

[USMC Kato]

No one mentioned Valkyria Chronices in this thread, wtf!

This game has a permanent place in my video game collection

[Hrothgar]

No one mentioned Valkyria Chronices in this thread, wtf!

Strange, that was my reaction when I figured out that Valkryia Chronicles gave mission scores based entirely on speed.  Otherwise, great game.

[jztemple2]

Don't know if this fits under the category of good tactical TBS games, but UFO: Extraterrestrials Gold is now available on Steam for 75% off, today only (21 hours to go as of this posting).

UPDATE: Saw this over on Metacritic, it's a User Review:

Note - This review is for the GOLD edition only. When UFO first came out almost 4 years ok it was "ok". I bought it from Gamersgate and played it a bit, though probably no more than an afternoon. I would have given it a 6 at the times, though looking back 1 of those points might have been for the nostalgia of the game it tries to emulate (X-Com) What the Gold edition offers is just about every improvement that the community asked for with the original. Better ranged combat, better AI, better UI, tweaked graphics, moddability (some hard coded into the game - you want turn based or real time combat? It's an option. You want immortal, mortal or VERY mortal troops, select them) In fact it turns out that the developers took the contents of the top community mods and (shamelessly but quite understandably) hard coded them into the game along with the existing bug fix and improvement patches (of which there were either 2,3 or 4 depending on how you bought your original game) The result is a FAR better game. The graphics will still disappoint some (though they are much better than the original X-Coms form 17 years ago) and the first really good tribute to the Microprose/Gollop brothers legacy. I will add that if you have no money what-so-ever then UFO Alien Invasion is an option. It is not as good as this, but for free it's not too bad at all. Anyway, the original release was worth 5 or 6, this one is worth a solid 9 for fans of the game.

[Roguetad]

No one mentioned Valkyria Chronices in this thread, wtf!

Strange, that was my reaction when I figured out that Valkryia Chronicles gave mission scores based entirely on speed.  Otherwise, great game.

I keep meaning to pick this up.  I've heard good things about it.

[Canuck]

Don't know if this fits under the category of good tactical TBS games, but UFO: Extraterrestrials Gold is now available on Steam for 75% off, today only (21 hours to go as of this posting).

UPDATE: Saw this over on Metacritic, it's a User Review:

Note - This review is for the GOLD edition only. When UFO first came out almost 4 years ok it was "ok". I bought it from Gamersgate and played it a bit, though probably no more than an afternoon. I would have given it a 6 at the times, though looking back 1 of those points might have been for the nostalgia of the game it tries to emulate (X-Com) What the Gold edition offers is just about every improvement that the community asked for with the original. Better ranged combat, better AI, better UI, tweaked graphics, moddability (some hard coded into the game - you want turn based or real time combat? It's an option. You want immortal, mortal or VERY mortal troops, select them) In fact it turns out that the developers took the contents of the top community mods and (shamelessly but quite understandably) hard coded them into the game along with the existing bug fix and improvement patches (of which there were either 2,3 or 4 depending on how you bought your original game) The result is a FAR better game. The graphics will still disappoint some (though they are much better than the original X-Coms form 17 years ago) and the first really good tribute to the Microprose/Gollop brothers legacy. I will add that if you have no money what-so-ever then UFO Alien Invasion is an option. It is not as good as this, but for free it's not too bad at all. Anyway, the original release was worth 5 or 6, this one is worth a solid 9 for fans of the game.

I was thinking about this game too. I didn't realize it was on Steam. I like the game a lot. I heard from a review on Gamersgate that the basic version is better than gold because gold doesn't take advantage of all of Bman's mods and the gold version isn't compatible with the other mods. Still for $2.49 its hard to go wrong.

[ATB]

68 on metacritic?

[jztemple2]

68 on metacritic?

Those reviews all appear to be for the vanilla, non-Gold version. I bought the Gold version and have been tinkering with it a bit. There's three pages of settings for Bman's Ease of Use Mod which among other things... well, let me show you the screen captures:









There's a very long readme for the Bman mod explaining all the changes. Look's like you'd have to do some research if you want to figure out what all the others do, although some look straightforward.

UPDATE: Sorry, I'm an idiot . When you mouse over the various items on the three pages of the Bman's mod settings, text pops up at the bottom of the page explaining what that particular setting changes in the game.

[Hrothgar]

Anyone still interested might want to check out the GoG Sale this weekend.  Perhaps one of the mods can convert this into a GT Link:

GoG Sale

Some good TBS including:

Silent Storm
UFO series
King's Bounty

Etherlords in interesting but may be an acquired taste.  I also enjoyed Star Wolves and Soldiers: HoWWII on that list, but they don't fit the topic very well.