XCOM Enemy Unknown

X-COM Enemy Unknown. This one is a tactical turn based RPG with base management elements. I first got acquainted with this series by playing one game called Rebelstar Tactical Command on Game Boy Advance. I kept reading comments like “this game is just like X-COM”. Back there I didn’t check on the series. If I did hoo boy I would probably be disappointed with those older X-Com games. Seriously don’t even bother trying to figure out “Terror From the Deep” or “Apocalypse” without a manual. 

Anyway what’s the plot? Ever seen “Mars Attacks”? That’s the plot minus the playing coy and pretending part. Humanity finds that they are not alone in the ever expanding universe. Aliens started to drop weird probing machines to abduct people like cattle. World quickly organizes new agency to fight the alien menace in response to abductions. But as quick as it was, the agency was equally incompetent. So we barely have any equipment to match even the weakest butt naked insectoids. Our first encounter with aliens left us with 3 out of 4 squad members terminated. First time is always a mess those are wise words from folks back in the day. So our commander said “we really got to try really hard not to soil our britches”.

And so we got serious. The whole process has two sections. Base management section and encounters with aliens. Let’s start with our base. First we need to decide where our base is going to be, just pick whatever bonus you prefer. Then we dig deep inside our mother earth. There we have a couple of things to consider before expansion. First we need to excavate the area. Then we have to consider the placement of future facilities because correct placement gives us extra bonuses. Then if we want to dig deeper we need an elevator. Lazy scientists and engineers do not want to use ladders for some reason. We also need to mind how many of those eggheads we have and do we have enough power produced by our generator facility. 

Enough with that now what initial facilities do we have? We have research, engineers, barracks, hangar, satellite room and conference room. Well the first three are self-explanatory. Research figures out alien’s tech, dissect alien’s cadavers, and interrogate captured aliens. Engineers build every alien tech we studied so we can give the aliens a taste of their own medicine. There are also utility items, there is a big variety of them. Grenades, scopes, extra vest under your armor, med kit, stun gun, you name we build. And building costs money… you’ll always be nearly broke, always lack eggheads for new facilities. So where do you get money to fund your war against the alien invasion? Well since we are a world organization we receive our paycheck from all the countries in the X-Com counsel. So you keep killing aliens, keep countries safe and on low alert and you’ll get more money. You can view each of the countries tension levels in your observation room. If a country's “worry” level gets in the red zone they’ll leave the X-COM which also means your funds are cut too. To prevent the panic meter from rising we need to have a satellite to fly over that country and don’t forget interceptor jets to protect the satellites. But each uplink room can only support two satellites… sigh...life is pain peko. No, President Mugabe, I cannot send satellites and interceptors to Africa, because I only have two of each and they are already busy with North America and Europe. You have to wait a couple of weeks before our workers dig another area. Then we would need more engineers. Then we would need more funding to build a new uplink facility, and THEN we can build more two more satellites and interceptors to send to Africa. PLEASE WAIT! I understand aliens are probing your people but our asses are full too. 

Funny thing is that by the end of the fiscal month I got a rating of “A” on my performance. Right, I forgot, all the tech and corpses that we brought, we need to give an official order for eggheads to start their experiments. We go through all the paper work, we know all the deadlines what do we do next? We go to the globe room where we use our satellites to scan for the alien activity. And when we find it, usually more than one, we need to pick one whose country is most panicked at the moment. 

Phew, that’s the basic of the base part, now to encounters. First we pick a squad of four, yes we can increase the squad size in the military school facility. Then we need to adjust their loadouts. You don’t always need to have a stun gun on you, but who knows when you will encounter a new type of an enemy? So keep one fighter equipped with a stun gun. Grenades? Yeah, they’re good but can be ignored for better utility items. You know since it’s X-COM your fighters will have the accuracy of bad guys from 80’s action movies so having a scope is not a bad thing either. Med kits? Initially no, but later- very yes. Because in the beginning enemies most certainly will one shot your soldiers. 

Right, also at the start all your soldiers will be equipped with the same stuff, assault rifle, pistol and grenade.  After they get their first promotion they will pick their specialization. Heavy machine gunner, Support, Sniper, Scout etc. They will be able to pick a different main weapon and their special skills. So the average encounter goes? First of all take cover, preferably full cover. Remember you have two actions, one for movement, one for fire, or two for movement. You can tell if you would be able to fire after movement by the color of the outline of your movement. If it is blue, you can still make a shot, if it’s orange that means you can’t. Then you start to move in the direction of your objective from cover to cover. And when you encounter the enemy the shooting part starts. 

Okay, do you see your enemy? You can tell by the red alien head logo in the lower right corner. So pick a fighter and check if he can see the enemy. Enter the gun mode, pick a target and shoot. If conditions are not optimal you might want to relocate and instead of shooting you may throw a grenade or send a rocket their way. Or you might set an overwatch to catch your enemy while he’s changing position. Your enemy of course can do the same. Don’t get too close to your enemy unless you want to catch it alive.

Lastly objectives, be aware that objectives will most likely get updated through the mission so you would need to do more than initially was planned. Your enemy will likely get reinforcements every turn. And of course sometimes you will need to do your objective in a limited number of turns. And if you survive that’s not it yet. If you got injured during a fight you would need to spend a couple of days in the hospital, depends on how severe your wounds are. Well recruit, you got your basics, don’t die out there.

So did I like it? Yes I liked it very much. Game got optimized for more casual players. So now you do not need a bureaucrat diploma and mindset to play. Just expect a lot of save-scumming and you don’t have the heart to play on an Iron Man setting.