Actual Game

The Games

UFO DEFENSE aka ENEMY UNKNOWN
Here's the setup. It's 1999, and UFO sightings (of the classic variety) have become common. Aliens are starting to routinely land in major cities, infiltrate governments, and destroy the population. There's no hope of living in peaceful coexistence; these guys don't care about anything but colonization, and they don't exactly speak "human", either. These aliens are of the Roswell 1947 variety - mysterious, deadly, psionically enhanced. No single world government stands a chance of fighting their superior technology. This is where you come in: the U.N. has created a project named X-COM, whose only purpose is to put an end to the alien onslaught. You are the commander.

The gameplay is innovatively structured in a two-fold manner. Normally, you play with a 3D view of Earth (you can spin it around, zoom in to see city and country notations, etc.) You start the game with a base in a location of your choosing, and a certain amount of funds. In this Geoscape mode, you'll be able to look at a 2D plan of your base, add facilities to it, manufacture the technology you already know (in the beginning, things like conventional fighter planes, rifles, and grenades), research new technology, manage funds, etc. Surprisingly, none of this ever seems boring. In addition, you'll be supplied with a couple of hangars (on your base), an Interceptor (an F-15-type air-to-air fighter), and a Skyranger (an aerial transport for your troops).

The game has unparalleled replay value. It's definitely quite difficult until you figure out the correct battle tactics and the most efficient resource policies. You'll learn to attack in groups of 3 or 4, to crouch behind cover, and to sell expensive alien technology at a profit. You'll also learn to research aggressively, and to build new bases to cover more area (after all, countries you're not serving appropriately will lower, or even drop, funding - eventually, the game ends if enough countries are unhappy). Every mission is different from the next, so you're not likely to run into repetitious gameplay. The aliens themselves mix it up, throwing attacks ranging from recon to terrorizing major population centers to attacking X-COM's bases, if they can find them. And while it will be difficult, you'll be able to beat the game - even without finding all the available technology. This means the replays will let you explore further (for instance, you will be able to get your hands on psionic technology to control the enemy!). In addition, there are five difficulty levels, and the most difficult level is definitely doable once you've gotten good. In fact, once you've mastered the game, you'll realize that the aliens aren't all that scary; their strengths, which are their superior weapons and psionic abilities, are balanced by the fact that (a) humans can be a lot smarter, and (b) the aliens just can't aim very well. But good luck getting to that point.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about X-COM is how well it has aged compared to similar landmark games in other genres. X-COM more or less invented tactical turn-based combat, just like Westwood's Dune II more or less invented real-time strategy, and just like Wolfenstein 3D came up with first-person shooters. Now, be honest: Is Dune II really better than newer games like Rome : Total War or StarCraft, or even classics like Warcraft II and Command & Conquer? How about Wolfenstein 3D compared to Half-Life or Half-Life 2? That's what I thought. But X-COM: UFO Defense is still truly unsurpassed in its genre, despite its inferior technology and numerous sequels. And that makes it an absolute homerun of a game.

TERROR FROM THE DEEP
It's the year 2040 and the alien menace from 1999 was thought defeated, but in vanquishing the alien base on Cydonia the X-COM troops unknowingly triggered a tachyon beam which has activated a huge alien base that lies somewhere beneath earth's oceans. These new aliens have started to terrorise islands and sink shipping; your task is to take control of the X-COM Terran Defence Force and eliminate the alien threat.

X-COM II is similar to its prequel, UFO: Enemy Unknown released by Microprose in 1994, and thus it has the same successful blend of strategy and tactics. The X-COM series continues to lead a dedicated following seven years after the release of the first chapter, and shows no signs of slowing down.

The game puts you in control of all of X-COM's activities. With funding from about 20 (new world) countries your aim is to eliminate the alien threat, initially by intercepting UFOs, sending troops to investigate crash sites and researching alien artifacts. As you capture live aliens you can hope to find out more about the alien origins, their missions, and hopefully the location of their gigantic undersea base.

Funding is critical; though you can make cash by selling alien artifacts and any items you manufacture, you need the backing of the world's nations to keep X-COM running. Each country will change its funding monthly depending on your performance in their zone, and overall funding is also weighted by research success. Fail to suppress terror missions and you may find countries pulling out of X-COM or even signing pacts with the aliens.

You start out with one base, two interceptors and a troop carrier, plus miscellaneous equipment, and some spare cash. There are a number of strategies to try; building new bases (up to 8) to house interceptors and sonar watch posts, hiring scientists to advance your technology, or spending your cash on lots of troops and heavy weaponry (including tanks). Getting the blend just right is the key to success. You'll spend a lot of tense moments with the time-skip set to 1 hour, waiting for events; completed research reports, equipment and personnel arrival, construction completion, UFO sightings, funding announcements, and more.

Part of the game strategy comes in micro-managing your bases. X-COM II is not a wargame; you only control your bases and the troops and equipment in your bases. At each base you can build new facilities (stores, workshops, sonars, alien containment rooms, etc) or manage your troops, submarines, scientists and engineers (who manufacture items). Keeping your monthly maintenance bill low is important, but you also need to keep stocks of all the equipment and weapons you need, for example gauss rifle clips, Ajax missiles, grenades, and other consumables. Selling off excess captured alien items is a useful little earner, but it's hard to fund all your activities on just artifact sales.

Assuming you can bring in enough cash to keep the fight against the aliens rolling, you'll find that one of the big appeals of X-COM is the research element; finding new tech, dissecting dead aliens and interrogating live aliens all give valuable new knowledge and clues. In order to get the more useful tech advances, you'll need to research the right items in the right order. A lot of successful games use tech to add interest (eg. Civilization and Master of Orion) and it works well in X-COM too. The only minor irritant is that you know the name of an artifact before you research it, but not how it works or its purpose until the research is complete.

The strategy in X-COM involves choosing where and when to build and expand new bases, whether to put emphasis on research, manufacture, or troop equipment, how to deploy your submarines (and what to arm them with), and so on. The tactics come into play when you encounter the aliens, be it on an anti-terror mission, a sub recovery, a crash site investigation, or an all-out assault on an alien colony.

When one of your bases detects a UFO, you can send a Barracuda sub to intercept it; your aim is to force the alien down so you can recover items from the ship. Early in the game large alien UFOs will carve up your subs, even if you attack in numbers. The sub combat is done on a small tactical window showing just range to target, your ammo, your damage and with buttons to allow you to choose attack style. It's not great, but it works well and can be very tense. With luck you'll down the UFO before it downs you, and you can then dispatch a troop ship to the crash site.

Once you arrive at the target alien site, the game switches to an isometric turn-based combat system. It's quite similar visually to a few other games (for example Ultima VIII) and has been quite well thought out. Everything is line-of-sight, so you can only shoot at what you can see. At night this can be very atmospheric; remember to throw flares! You can look at different cut-away levels of the map, look at an overall plan view of the battlefield, and scroll freely around the landscape.

Assuming you remembered to load your troop ship with men and kit before you left, you'll be able to equip each soldier individually when you land before you step out of the transport sub to face the aliens. The carrier can take up to 14 men (or 1 tank in place of 4 men) and 80 pieces of equipment. Though 80 sounds a lot, by the time you include ammo clips, grenades, medikits, motion sensors, flares, tazer rods, dye grenades, and other odds and ends you'll be finding yourself forced to make some compromises.

Stats are important; each trooper has a number of stats, including strength, morale, health, bravery, shooting accuracy, throwing accuracy, TU's, reactions, 'fatal' wounds, armour strengths and energy. All are used very effectively in the game. For each trooper you have a record of their missions and kills and each trooper has a rank (promotions are done for you). As they get more combat experience their stats should rise. TU's are a very valuable stat, though shooting takes a percentage of TUs not a fixed amount (the percentage varies on the weapon type and type of shot ... aimed, snap, or the gung-ho 3-shot autofire).

Combat is turn based. Sometimes you get brief glimpses of where aliens are during their movement phase; if an alien moves into sight of one of your troops in the alien's turn, your trooper can shoot at it automatically with opportunity fire, provided he has enough TUs left over from his previous turn. There are buttons you can use in your turn to ensure when moving your troops that they have enough TU's left over to perform opportunity fire.

There is quite a variety in mission terrain types; in the main they're underwater encounters when landing at UFO crash sites, but you also get terror missions on land (islands full of bikini clad women or short fat men wearing skirts!) or on cargo ships and liners. Though a little more detailed than the battlescapes of the originals, they sometimes feel a little more contrived. The graphic quality is good, though by no means exceptional. It's certainly done well enough to be clear and quite atmospheric (little bubbles stream up from your troops' helmets, trails of bubbles are left by underwater projectile weapons). The background music and sound effects are also good, so they add well to that atmosphere.

Overall the ground combat part of the game is fun; obviously missions will become a little repetitive as there's only so much variety in the landscapes (and all cargo ships do look rather similar), but each battle may present slightly different problems as different tactical situations arise.

Winning the war is all about getting the alien tech and using it against them, developing your weaponry (including molecular mind control), finding alien leaders and interrogating them, finding out what makes the aliens tick, and using it all to your advantage, probably leading up to some awesome final conflict.

To win at X-COM, and to like the game, you have to get into the X-COM world. You need to care for your troops and get involved with their development. Of course it's tempting to use your rookies as alien bait; the captains and commanders are too important to lose. But if you feel a loss even when that new rookie lass with low bravery and firing accuracy stats gets her brains sucked out, you know you're secretly enjoying the game.

I'd recommend X-COM II to anyone who enjoys strategy games, but in particular to anyone who has not played X-COM I, but then I'd recommend X-COM I too. Both are great in their own right. The acid test is whether or not the game is a late nighter. For me it certainly has been, as the determination to win each battle, to research new tech and to defeat the aliens is just as strong as it was in the original.