Let's Talk About Games

I only played the two originals and X-COM: Apocalypse (which is XCOM3 to me, so I was very confused reading that it's eagerly awaited...).

The first game (Enemy Unknown) is by far the best, and it's still being developed today as Open XCOM, with improved gameplay, sounds and a few graphical improvements.

I've just played it shortly before Christmas, it's as great as it was 30 years ago.

I was a huge fan of X-COM from the 90s. I saw it in some magazine with a couple of screenshots and knew I would love it. I went to my local Media Play (basically like the proto-Best Buy before Best Buy) and they didn't have it but their selection of PC games was large enough I went to the counter to have them look it up in case I missed it. I didn't. But they'd order it for me. So a week later I had X-COM: UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown.

I loved it. It was hard but I loved having multiple bases, being invaded as part of the sandbox experience and the tactile stuff you could do. I love how you could destroy almost anything and the strategies you could do for that. Like if there's an alien you can't see on the second floor of a farm house but you can see the shots coming from there? You can just toss in an incendiary grenade in there and it'll burn down the floor and spread. Maybe the alien panics and runs out. Maybe it falls through the floor. Maybe it burns to death.

Yes a first turn wipe with an alien grenade in the sky ranger sucks. but it kind of does add to the charm....after the fact when you think back on it later. Dumb civilians are dumb.

The pixel art is fantastic and you can really see it shine in the city maps with all of the cool details.

The biggest downside to the OG is that you can easily fall behind because there was essentially a static clock. You could doubly feel this because of the quick lack of funding as your funding lowers and nations leave. It would have been cool for those nations to try to fight back if they left you due to you ignoring them, even if that meant that the forces may be hostile to you if you happen to be fighting on the same turf or something.

X-COM 2 was more of the same but underwater with some bug fixes. X-COM 3 was different and I could see myself liking it if it was actually finished and focused on either real-time or turn-based.

When the XCOM reboot came out I thought I was going to hate it, especially with the simplified movement but it was great and even better with the expansion. The only thing I didn't like was having to overwatch my way through at the beginning or risk losing a lot of people. The system of pods was also annoying. Also not being able to re-take nations after defeating the alien bases unmodded was annoying. Having basically "XCOM but bad guys" was also really cool to go along with the exosuits.

XCOM 2 was better, including with its expansion. I thought I'd hate more timed missions but it does force you not to overwatch all the time and in XCOM 2, you really don't need to, even early on. Fantastic game. Being confined to one base was OK but I do prefer multiple bases but it made sense in the story and was still pretty cool. I have to always have three mods though: Evac All so I can just click one button to evac everyone in the square instead of going through each one-by-one; the one that makes the zombies equal chance to attack aliens, mostly for immersion; and lastly the mod that makes the rebels actually be armed and not be super dumb though they can still be really bad shots with really crappy guns, also mostly for immersion.

I hope XCOM 3 adds underwater and hope it just reboots again or does something very interesting with interstellar travel.

Really I would like them to treat XCOM like they do Civilization. Instead of a continuation of a story that will eventually be terrible, just keep revising the game every time but don't do the Civ thing and release it again but hold back features from the last one just to be able to put them in a DLC later.

The first encounter part of almost all X-coms really suffered, if you walk into aliens and it isn't enough of your teams turn then the baddies get a full round of shooting back at you just because you triggered their fod of war. Chimera Squad really good great with this because you got to breach each encounter and spend extra points to get a better first turn or not and the rest just come in waves.

Midnight suns is also fantastic and I consider it a spiritual cousin or whatnot.

My first experience with XCOM was with Enemy Unknown, although I'd heard whispers about the earlier games for years. My campaign was a wild experience and it fully sold me on the concept of permadeath.

I had a mid-game mission go terribly; I lost half my squad (Cyberdiscs, ugh) including my most senior officer. By this point in the game, I'd developed a taste for the randomness, and I started inventing narratives in my head for my troops. When it came time to recruit replacements, my newest assault Rookie was a British woman named Sarah Jones. Between the way her first mission played out and my growing confidence in being more aggressive with my troops (especially the new recruits), my headcanon set her as this plucky, reckless newbie. A couple missions later, when the game assigned her the nickname "Geronimo," the narrative was set in stone. This was how I was going to play the character.

Rookie Jones became Colonel Jones, making it all the way to the last mission, becoming the star of my run. By the end, she became a little bit tempered by experience, but she was still Geronimo. Looking back, savescumming would have robbed me of that experience (a trap I'd sadly fall into with XCOM 2). I still think about Sarah Jones from time to time.

The important thing about XCOM is naming all your soldiers after your friends, that way it hurts more when they die!

Wait, they're doing an XCom3? When should I start getting hyped?

I finally picked up WotC when it was in the Xbox sale a couple weeks back and have been slowly working through it. I've been struggling a bit with the sheer amount of new mechanics being piled on since I haven't played the base game since launch, but I'm enjoying it and I'm trying really hard not to save scum!

Oh, and I was pleasantly surprised when I recognised the voices of 5 (or 6?) Star Trek:TNG actors, it felt like a bit of a reunion.

I started with X-Com: Terror from the Deep on the PS1. Loved it, sucked at it. I can still remember the fantastic atmosphere though, fueled mostly by my men horribly dying every few turns and the great music of the PS1 version. An example.

I put some time into the reboot, but never made it far, as I insisted on playing on ironman. Tried XCOM2 when it was in a humble bundle, but the timed missions made me quit.

Gave XCOM2 another try a few days ago and timed missions made me quit again. I know I could mod them out but I am not really a fan of changing gameplay elements on the first playthrough. Any tips on how to handle them?