Sure, I played Advanced Wars back in high school, and I tolerate combat in Dungeons & Dragons, but I never really considered myself a person who enjoyed tactical games. But I was feeling pretty jealous watching my girlfriend have a blast with Fire Emblem: Three Houses, so I decided to dust off my Steam library to see if I could find anything comparable

What I found immediately captured my thoughts and attention. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a stylish, snappy tactics game that's a far-cry from the pixels or pen & paper I was used to. The presentation of XCOM makes it a real joy to watch, with a dynamic camera that follows your characters and slick 3D graphics (well, slick for 2012, which I'm chill with on my dinosaur of a laptop).

The story hits just right as well, as it revels in cheesy sci-fi tropes, but plays them so wonderfully that you can't help but be absorbed in the world. Every research item, weapon, facility, and alien has little bits of flavor text that really flesh out the world, and make you feel like you're running and important but distrusted project, one bad mistake away from losing funding and shutting down for good

The mix of facility management and time management as it related to the in-the-field gameplay is wonderful. Both halves of the game influence eachother, and I always felt excited to move from one stage to the other. The gameplay loop of bringing loot back from the field to experiment in, and then bringing new developments out into the field to try out hits my reptile brain just right. Just as well, the combat itself is gripping, with many of the early and middle game fights leaving me on the edge of my seat; I practically had to lie down after some operations just to collect myself.

(Granted, I'm a weenie)

All this said, obviously the game is not without fault, the flow of combat has some very frustrating aspects, like aggro'ing enemies at the end of a turn, missing a shot with a high hit-rate, and the lack of clarity on what exactly constitutes line of sight. Put simply, the game is jank. You will run into several situations where a plan doesn't work out simply because you misunderstood the precise operation of game mechanics. In instances like this, I fully support save scumming, and liberally making new save files throughout gameplay saved me from what I felt was unecessary heartache. Of course, any genuine tactical errors I made stayed in the game, RIP to my mismanaged soldiers.

Overall XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a fantastic game with a lot to enjoy if you like tactics games, management, fussing with fiddly little details, or putting your friends into video games to watch them die. While this game has an enormous capacity for janky bullshit, you can scale its effects with save scumming and difficulty adjustment, depending on your personal tolerance for such things.

Oh, but I think XCOM 2 is basically better in every way? Lmao what are you doing? Go play that one, it's 2020 my dude, save yourself 30 hours

This was my first, and currently only exposure to the XCOM series, after friends repeatedly told me I would love it.

I was enthralled with the resource and time management, and the tense small skirmishes with the aliens. The mechanics of risking your soldiers to grab aliens alive for research, and rewarding keeping soldiers alive to level up was really fun.

I also really enjoyed the managing the wider globe, trying to decide which missions to do, which countries to help, and which research to explore.

I found each class of soldier useful, but certain ones, the sniper in particular, difficult to keep alive long enough to level well. The heavy weapons specialist I found very powerful early on, while the other classes took a couple of levels to catch up to them.

The cover system worked well, and made sense.

So, all this praise, why did it get 4 stars.

First, the soundtrack got very repetitive. It is serviceable and does what it needs to but not amazing.

The ending was also a little lackluster, after the great success of the main campaign.

Still well worth playing for any strategy fans. I can't wait to start XCOM 2 : )

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a great game and the prime example how strategy games should be made. It features beautiful graphics with strategic combat and a rewarding progression system.

In XCOM, the earth is invaded by aliens, which are rapidly exterminating the population. The XCOM Foundation has been assigned to repel the threat and find out which entity or who is responsible for the invasion.

You operate from a big underground complex with a production facility, barracks, research labs and plane hangars. When earning money from missions and donations of protected countries via Satellites, you can expand your base by excavating deeper and building more facilities. When countries panic (because you did not cover them with satellite coverage), your income will decrease.

Every mission, new items, building and research becomes available and with the time in mind it takes to complete, it needs to be chosen carefully.

From your hub, you scan for alien activity and engage in various missions to keep the order in the world, rescue important people, collect new intel and items and hopefully, to find out who is responsible for the alien invasion.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown looks absolutely stunning, especially for the time. The characters, facial expressions, environments, landscape and effects all look so nice.

The sound is also a work of art. Weapons sound solid and strong and the bullet impact on aliens can be felt trough your headset.

The interface and controls are easy to understand and can be mastered quickly.

This game is hard. Very, very hard. Especially on higher difficulties, a small mistake can cost you the mission. Ran too far ahead with your Assault Class soldier? Too bad, the alien flanks you and blast you to smithereens. You missed the Crysalisk on the other side of the street with your Sniper Class? That's a shame, it will now one-hit your wounded Heavy that lies beyond the destroyed cover. It is unforgiving, but a real challenge at the same time.

I really like that you develop and use Alien technology later in the game. You collect the bodies of fallen aliens, use these resources at your research department and make some awesome gear.

I also love the bonding with your soldiers. You can give them a name, customize them and can get really attached to them when using the same team over and over again and watching them grow. With each level, they gain a promotion and a special skill, making them even stronger.

Overall, I loved the experience that XCOM: Enemy Unknown offers. The base building, the careful planning, choosing priorities because you cannot help everyone at once, the combat, the progression and the endgame.

XCOM will always have a special place in my black heart, and I will surely recommend it to everyone.

It was a grind by the end. After everything, I can say XCOM is one of the few franchises that has given me more than what I wanted. You make all the decisions in a government program dedicated to isolating and eradicating the invading alien armies. Complete with alien autopsies that allow you to salvage extraterrestrial tech and use it against the invaders.

Mechanically, the game gets most things right. It's an isometric tactical turned based action game. It has a lot of similarities with most games of it's genre. Leveling and upgrading units, resource management to equip your units with better and stronger weapons, branching abilities and classes with each unit. Good stuff.

What does it do differently? Well. One of the largest complaints of this game is how the hit accuracy is somewhat rng based. You get a percent chance to hit a unit depending on cover conditions, distance, weapons, etc. There are also items you can use to increase your hit rate. I didn't really have much of a problem with this system but there were many 90-95% chances to hit that I would miss.

I would say the best thing this game has got going for it is the atmosphere and setting. Being able to research plasma, laser, and alloy weapons is rewarding when you finally are able to use them. There are really cool upgrades you can invest in as well, such as grappling hooks to get to higher ground and snipe your enemies, jetpacks, camouflage chameleon suits, etc.

You also manage a world map, which is kind of strange and clunky, but it works and I am sure they fix those problems in the later games of the series. You dig to excavate areas in your base and then you build different facilities that allow you to research faster, generate energy for your buildings, or create ships and satellites that allow you to defend different continents/countries, and generate funds from those areas.

The ship vs UFO battle is weird and static. It's basically like a... turned based rpg battle with Active Timed Battle mechanic, so if you just stand there and wait you will eventually die. You can choose between tracking, aiming, and dodging at any given time depending on what you've researched. Once a UFO is down you can use your units to infiltrate the crash site to kill the aliens and salvage their bodies and ship for alloys and other materials.

The ending was cool. The last battle had a few problems with it, namely with the hidden units being lost in the fog of war and not searching for you and just sitting there in the dark, turn after turn until you eventually stumble on them. This is troublesome if they are hidden somewhere remote on the map and you have to search every section in order to proceed. It only happened during the last battle, so at least there's that.

I've been on a kick lately for tactical rpgs, so I'll probably purchase and play the later games. This game is also on mobile, with more enemies and tech. I hear XCOM 2 is the bee's knees. That's where I'm headed.