This is something I have meaning to write about for some time, but for what ever reasons I have been putting off doing any writing for nearly a month. This afternoon I decided to pull my finger out my ass and crack on with writing about a game I enjoyed beyond belief.
Xcom at it's heart is a turn based strategy game, it uses a system which could easily be done with pen paper, tape measure and dice (warhammer style). So how can such an old style of game have gripped me so completely? Because none of your brilliant strategy's are guaranteed to work. The skill in the game comes from reducing the risks your troops take and planning for the worst case scenario constantly.
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At the start of each mission your squad is dropped down in an area and you must traverse the map weather it be a UFO crash site in a forest, or a city center under attack. You must command your team very carefully and traverse each map with due care, if you get it wrong you could be staring down a large group of very pissed off aliens and defeat very quickly.
Aside from the missions, you have to manage your base as well, your research team will torture interrogate captured aliens to learn new technologies form them. Once these technologies have been discovered your engineering team will construct them for your troops, albeit at a cost. Everything costs money, do you upgrade your troops as quickly as possible? Or provide more satellite coverage to the nations providing you money? If you don't protect the nations funding you they will pull funding, to many country's withdraw and it's game over. It's one hell of a tight rope to walk between keeping your base running and keeping your troops alive in the field.
It's very difficult to try and put how much fun Xcom can be into words, the story is quite bare-bone, but this isn't what you will remember about the game. The stories come from YOUR PERSONAL experience, for example one of my rookies took a shot at a certain alien that causes 'Intimidate' forcing them to take a 'Will' test and failing. This rookie in a state of panic turns and blasts my favorite corporal in the face with a shot-gun killing him out right. That's right Gaunts Aldenhai 87 kills 38 missions, killed in combat... by one of my own fucking rookies shitting themselves, a truly inglorious death. I laugh about it now but at the time? I was mad as fuck.
All in all Xcom for me is an amazing game and one I will keep coming back to time and time again I am only sorry I missed the original back in the day.
(I always thought xcom was a spaceship flight simulator - how wrong I was)
I have also recorded myself playing Xcom, you can find the video here:
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