Hello everyone,
Day 21 … Shortest day of the year. And :
Special snow man Gonk droid today. I wonder if they’ve switched to covering a few old favourites now for the last few doors.
That’s what I’m doing now with the games, there’s a few that I want to cover before the series comes to a close. For today, it’s the XCom / UFO Enemy Unknown series … This started in 1994 with Julian Gollop’s UFO Enemy Unknown, another one from the very prolific studios who had Microprose as a publisher.
The game starts you off on 1 Jan, 1999. UFOs have been sighted in the skies and strange abductions are becoming more common. The nations of Earth decide they need to answer this new threat and the secretive XCom agency is created. There can only be one leader of XCom …
The game is divided into a Geoscape section, where you manage your base, your people, the research and the production, culminating in attempts to intercept UFOs and send troops over to check them out. And then there is the ground assault section where you send your people in. The above pic has them about to knock on the door of a small scout UFO.
A hallmark of these games is that they gradually ramp up the strength and menace of the aliens and you need to be able to keep up with the research to allow your people to stay having a chance at defeating them. The game also included a fairly sophisticated seeming line of sight and light model, so if you went into a ground mission in the dark, enemies that could see in the dark could pick off your people.
Oh and it was also incredibly tense … aided by futuristic styled music.
UFO Enemy Unknown had a sequel called Terror From The Deep, which moved the aliens from the sky and had them menacing the oceans instead. (Never played this one).
The cd in the picture is for XCom 3 Apocalypse, which was based in a megacity instead of encapsulating the world. That megacity felt more alive though.
The city was filled with factions, who would get upset if you ignored aliens knocking on their door. You needed some of the factions to sell you kit, so if they got too upset then they’d stop selling you goodies.
The aliens were very different too, with brainsuckers going to a few varieties of soldier alien and the feared Popper who would dash up to your people and explode.
I’m not sure if I remember the tension quite so much in XCom Apocalypse but a real time mode added nicely to its gameplay and was the only counter I knew for the Poppers. (Firing squad massed fire tactics !) There was a neat art-deco look for everything as well in this game which set it aside nicely from the others.
The next one in the series to be released was XCom Interceptor.
This one was set in space, with you being in charge of an increasingly wide network of stations that were there to mine materials to go towards building the Mega City in Apocalypse. Aliens appear again, so it’s up to your people to go out there and shoot them down. One major change here was that instead of being a passive overview commander, you were one of the pilots. I don’t think this worked and it was probably a big mistake to do so. The space combat engine was nice … but it was too fast (as a veteran of the Tie Fighter game) and had bugs. I didn’t finish Interceptor.
The original series was fizzling out at this stage and the eagerly anticipated XCom Alliance was cancelled before release with the bones being turned into some other game that got the XCom tag thrust upon it (Enforcer), much to the chagrin of the fans of the series.
Since then, there has been a fan made recreation called Xenonauts. I watched a Scott Manley series on this and they did a great job updating the UFO EU mechanics and expanding the equipment available. Haven’t played it. There was also a spiritual successor trilogy in the UFO Aftermath series. I looked at Aftermath, it was actually pretty good. Not sure why I didn’t stick with it.
And then there was the reboot …
I haven’t got any action screenshots of this one sadly … This one came out in 2012 and was a great reboot for the series. It was a bit simplified, with squads of up to 6 instead of a maximum of 36 in Apocalypse but one of the things I read about this one was that they examined everything about the games and took out things that they didn’t think were fun.
It was great having such a big army in the original game but it did make the battles take longer than they needed to … and you’d have to fight an increasing number of fairly meaningless police action battles in order to keep up. They also simplified the air interception system.
And then came the latest game …
So, another small unit tactical combat thing. XCom 2 picked up the story a decade or so after XCom 1. Earth lost … in a big way. And you are expected to be the leader of a resistance that saves the day.
One of the strengths of these games is the customisation …
That one was going to get “Truthseeker” added as a nickname as soon as it let me.
Yep. That’s what she’d go by when she wasn’t using the name HeyChrissa.
I’ve been thinking about going back into the XCom games … although I’ll stay with the new ones and keep the nostalgia of the old ones intact. That might happen sooner rather or later because Per Aspera isn’t really working out (it has bugs it shouldn’t have).
So there we go ! A massively important series of games where you’re out there sorting out the alien threat and saving the Earth. There was also XCom Declassified, a shooter style game. Must actually play that. The latest is XCom Chimera Squad, which I am highly likely to get in the impending Steam Sales.
I think that’s it for me today. Have fun everyone, stay safe, be well. See you tomorrow.