XCOM: Enemy Unknown

An excellent tactics game! So XCOM Enemy Unknown is a very important game in the sense that it revived the tactics RPG sub-genre and that almost every modern TRPG and even some CRPGs took it’s gameplay and did their own version of it. I originally played this game on PS3 and enjoyed it a lot even though it can be a very punishing game at times. So I wanted to replay and actually finally finish it as I hadn’t before. So what did I think? Visually, I still think the game looks pretty decent all things considered. The environments look good and the general art direction has let this game age pretty well. The aliens still look very good and detailed. The humans look okay but I mentioned in my review of Marvel’s Midnight Suns how the humans always look damn ugly and like they're straight out of The Sims 3. It still has some of that here but I’d argue this game looks better then the Marvel one. There’s the base management which is fairly simple as you have your 2 departments of research and engineering. As you develop new tech in research you can then build it in engineering. This definitely had an addictive quality to it as you unlock new stuff constantly. Especially when you perform autopsies on dead aliens as well as capturing and interrogating them. Then there’s managing the council of countries that fund the XCOM project and their panic level being a failstate mechanic that can end your game if too many countries leave. I also love that my own country of South Africa was included in the council and that you can recruit soldiers from there. Though the ironic part was South Africa was the first country to leave the council in my game which definitely annoyed me lol. Combat is probably the most influential part that many other games took from, as you move your soldiers in a 2 point action economy. I really loved the tactical element as you have to make use of cover and flanking maneuvers to get a one up on the aliens and don’t advance your soldiers too far in because the aliens will all tag team on one guy. There is also the XCOM meme of your guys having a chance to hit depending on how close they are to the target. And the fact that you could have a 90% chance to hit and still miss. I honestly have a love hate relationship with it as while it does play into the strategy of combat, it’s also extremely luck based and prone to some terrible RNG. Like you can go a whole turn of your guys missing every single shot but then on the aliens turn they hit your guys dead on like 99% of the time. Overall, I like the combat but the RNG nature leaves a lot to be desired. One area I didn’t like though was the intercept missions where you have to send one of your fighter jets to take down an UFO so you can then send a squad in to assault it afterwards. Now while you can build new weapons and one time use abilities for your jets, you only get 2 planes in the whole game being the normal human jet and alien hybrid jet that you get later on. I like the management aspect though where you have to launch satellites over countries on different continents and then ship planes to them so that when a UFO shows up you're prepared. However, the ship combat is really simple with you just having this low res digitised version of the fight and there’s not much you can do. And the game will punish and chew you out if you don’t do these missions even when it's like a massive alien ship vs one of your tiny jets with no real way of you winning. Finally there’s the story which is decent for the most part. While this is obviously a game that focuses mainly on the gameplay side the game does make an effort to have cool cinematic cutscenes with your 3 department heads acting as the main characters in them. I still think they could have done a bit more to have a compelling narrative like for example one mission had a whole cutscene of me finding this woman who had been captured by the aliens and had developed psychic abilities. And the cutscene was cool looking like something straight out of an X-Men film. But afterwards you never get to talk or even recruit this girl and all of her backstory is told to you by the department heads in passing while you manage your base. Still I do appreciate the effort they went into with it all. Also it's worth noting that the one possible ending where you lose the game is actually the canon ending that sets up XCOM 2 which is pretty interesting. But overall, a good game and one I really enjoyed replaying. It has aspects that I critiqued but I still think its a solid time and one I can recommend.