You’ll construct X-COM facilities, recruit new soldiers, buy and sell equipment, and manage resources needed to halt the alien attackers. Just like in Enemy Unknown, gameplay flips between base management and tactical combat sequences. But as alien incursions intensify, X-COM must grow into a full-fledged strike force or risk losing each nation to alien rulers. Deciding no one country can defeat the menace alone, they create X-COM, an international first response team that can be dispatched anywhere in the world. Reports of abductions and mysterious experiments circulate the globe, and the world’s leaders can’t agree on how to proceed. X-COM: UFO Defense begins in a futuristic 1999, roughly a year after alien spacecraft appeared in the skies. It’s no wonder we’re still talking about UFO Defense twenty years later – and why we might still be studying it once we actually encounter alien life. But it’s hard to deny X-COM: UFO Defense got a lot right on the first try, or that modern developers are just catching up to it. And we’re no exception – in 2012, former Escapist editor Steve Butts argued X-COM: UFO Defense was the greatest video game of all time.ĭid Microprose really craft the perfect video game in 1994, and everything that’s come after is a pale imitation? Should Firaxis just remaster UFO Defense instead of bothering with sequels? Of course not – Enemy Unknown brilliantly improved upon the original in all kinds of ways. Many gaming websites still called X-COM: UFO Defense the world’s best PC game as recently as 2007. UFO Defense was an impressively complex strategy title for 1994, boasting a tactical scope Enemy Unknown couldn’t match. Sure, many fans always prefer original games over reboots, but with X-COM they have a pretty strong case. But depending on who you ask, the best alien defense game was already released in 1994: UFO: Enemy Unknown, or as it was marketed in North America, XCOM: UFO Defense, This series set the bar for turn-based gameplay, permadeath, and harsh tactical decisions in modern games, and the sequel should improve on XCOM: Enemy Unknown in every way. XCOM 2 finally launches next week, and alien invasion strategists couldn’t be happier. Platforms: PC (reviewed), Amiga, PlayStation.
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