looks awesome.

however, knowing how bottomless time sink X-com is, i just dont dare to reinstall yet ;)

If you already have played X-Com to death and want a more advanced looking and slightly different version you might want to try UFO: Alien Invasion.

There are a few features from xcomutil+extender we can't easily reproduce.

However, we've done our best to support all their popular options, as well as add a lot more improvements that would never be possible by just "patching the original". Plus it all runs natively, no more need for emulators and workarounds to work on modern systems.

So as a whole it probably supercedes xcomutil+ufoextender, though I'm biased. ;) Check the trailer for more details, and try it out for yourself.

TFTD is "Terror From The Deep" (the underwater sequel to xcom, it uses the same engine from what I can tell so it'll be easy to port) :)

Thank you! I think i will try it as soon as possible. Screenshots look awesome. Absolutely better than xcomutil+ufoextender on that point.

Edit: Just played shortly. This thing rocks! Many many impovements at first glance. Even sound and music are much better.

It seems to me that they're opening themselves to a cease and desist letter. They use XCOM in the name and it looks exactly like the original. Unless of course if they have permission.

Are there some good guides around for those who are new to classic X-COM.... like me? ;)

Not quite. They don't use the original art or code, but rather has OpenXCom reinterpret the data from X-COM files in order to run. This means that no assets owned by Firaxis or Take Two is included with the program. Emulators like OpenXCom are legal, but the user would have to acquire a legitimate copy of X-COM.

Ha, I should have known. It's like the open source Warcraft 2 several years ago. I wonder what happened to it.

Check this guy at youtube. I really enjoyed his way to explain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuM_ZW1qsCo

Wow...watched the whole video, this is amazing! Can't wait to try some of the mods. Once I am a billionaire, I will bribe these guys to do doovers of all my favourite buggy old classics.

The UFOpaedia is a good reference, as it provides stats for the various aliens and items in the game, among other things.

UFOpaedia (Wiki)

After "Project: Xenocide" bit the dust and "UFO: The Two Sides" got hit with C&D, I was highly skeptical of any remake attempts. I am all the more pleased to see this emerge :).