X-COM: UFO Defence AKA UFO: Enemy Unknown Games Room Review

This is a review I have wanted to do for a very long time, but it took me awhile to get round to it mostly because I wanted to record my own footage for the review and for some unknown reason every time I would try to record it something would go wrong making the footage unsuitable, but here it is complete and finished, for those who prefer to read reviews instead of watching them the written version is below the video.

X-COM: UFO Defence known as UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe is a science fiction strategy video game developed by Mythos Games and published by MicroProse in 1994. It came out on PC, the Amiga the CD32 console, and the PlayStation. My first experience of it was on the Playstation. I loved it from my very first go, it was quiet simply unlike anything I had ever played before and I found myself constantly returning to it just because it was so different to everything else in my collection, it was also one of those rare games which a lot of my friends also seemed to get into. Every so often there would be a game which my whole friend group would seem to buy and this was one of these games, we would all play it separately but kind of come together to talk about our in-game adventures and our tactics it kind of made the game exist beyond the confines of the screen.

Ok so to explain X-COM UFO Defence as a game to anyone who has not played it or heard of it before well it’s a game which basically mixes a real-time management simulation game with a turn-based tactics game. The player takes on the role of commander of X-COM – an organisation which is an international paramilitary organization which exists to defend the Earth from aliens.

So, when you play the strategic part of the game you are in charge of the research and development of new technology, you’re in charge of building and expanding your home base, with the choice of also building additional bases, you’re in charge of the organization's finances and personnel, and alongside growing your organisation your also in control of monitoring and adequately responding to UFO activity.

When you respond to UFO activity by sending your men to a crashed or landed UFO then you enter the tactical section of the game, as soon as your craft lands you are tasked with issuing orders to your individual X-COM troops, you tell them where to go and what to do. You can only see enemies on the map when they are in view of one of your units. At the start of the game your men will have conventional weapons, pistols, rifles and grenades and you will be fighting with Aliens who have Plasma based technology. This is where the two game types connect, if you want to have better equipment in the field then you need to research it and develop it, if you can either kill all of the enemies on a map or pick up a defeated enemy’s weapon and then retreat then you will be able to take their weapons and equipment back to your base and start the process of researching this otherworldly technology.  Obviously having a working team of researchers and other staff requires money, and how do you get money well you answer to a council made up of members from the various nations, if you help to keep their airspace clear and to eliminate aliens who land on there soil or conduct terror attacks on there cities then they will fund you, keep failing them though and they will withdraw their support which will lower your funding.

The game received strong reviews and was commercially successful, acquiring a cult following among strategy fans; several publications have listed X-COM: UFO Defence as one of the best video games ever made, including IGN ranking it as the best PC game of all time in 2007, the game has directly inspired several similar games, including UFO: Alien Invasion, and UFO: Extraterrestrials. The game had many sequels its first sequel was very similar to this game but was set under the sea, but after that for my taste at least the games strayed too far away from this formula the third game was overly complex and none of them captured the spirit or the fun level of the first two games.

IN 2012 there was a remake of the game called Xcom: Enemy Unknown created by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games. While this remake is a fantastic game that I would heartily recommend I wanted to show the original game and review it as I don’t think the original should be replaced both of them are brilliant games which deserve to both stand tall.

By today’s standards X-COM: UFO Defence has incredibly basic graphics and sound but the core gameplay is still incredible, it’s a great example of a deep tactical game which can literally eat away days and days of your life, if you get into it the game all of the basic graphics just cease to be an issue. Sure, the remake is fantastic in its own right but I would argue that this version is possibly a deeper tactical game, there are things you can do in this game that you can’t do in the original, for example you can shoot walls to destroy them, you also take far more men out in to the field which I think gives the game a slightly bigger feel. I am not putting down the more modern remake both of these games are very rare cases of games which I would score with a solid 10 out of 10.

The top 5 Retro games in my collection I could never sell

I talk to lots of people who buy or have retro games and we all seem to collect slightly different things, some people are into RPG's or the games of a certain studio or for a set platform, some peoples collections are in the process of growing others have started to downsize, some people have even quit collecting and then started again. On one of the forums I am on I thought it would be a good thing to discuss the games in peoples collections that people simply wouldn't be able to say goodbye to for one reason or another.

I wanted to think of ten games I own that I could simply not get rid  of but this proved tough so I decided Id start with 5 to get the ball rolling and then I could return to this topic in the future.

The number one game I could not get rid of is World of Illusion on the MegaDrive, the reason I couldnt get rid of it is purly sentimental, I dont really think it has that much worth money wise and I dont think its particularly a rare game but to me it holds huge sentimental value.  I can remember getting it for Christmas from my parents, I can remember how excited I  was the first time I played it and I have many happy memories of playing it with my mum who unfortunately passed away about 6 years ago. As silly as it might sound selling it would be like selling part of her, it would be like parting with a family heirloom and its not something I am prepaired or willing to do. I miss my mum a lot all of the time but even playing this game for a few minutes reminds me of how blessed I was to have her in my life and not only what a great mum she was but also how much fun we always had togther.

The second game I wouldnt want to get rid of is Fire Emblem for the GBA. Yes a fully boxed Pal copy of this game might be hard to come by and costly and this does feed into the reason im going to hold on to thid game tightly but theres a little more to it than that.  I got this game from a carboot for £5 complete back when the GBA was pretty current, I have to admit that as far as I remember I didn't have a clue what it was, I played it and instantly fell in love with it, it reminded me of Vandal Hearts  which I had previously rented on PS1 and extremly enjoyed. As far as it goes with this game I love the way it plays I find it extremly replayable, im really happy I didnt pay much for it and it sparked a love for a whole series of games which still burns brightly within me more than this though its the purchase that reminds me of many happy carboot trips and for me is like a symbol of my collection, and of the way I go about collecting games.

Number three is yet another Fire Emblem game, this time it is Fire Emblem Path of Radience , I first played this game when a buddy lent it me not long after release. He basically played it none stop, then lent it to me and I played it none stop and then we talked about the plot and characters loads. It was one of those games that I knew I would play through a whole bunch of times and that I needed to purchse it. So I kept my eyes open and looked for it all over the place, even when it was relativly new it wasnt exactly an easy game to get hold of, eventually I found a second hand copy in a local branch of GameStation and I purchased it for £20 and then a friend stole it, I struggled and struggled to get another copy which cost me £40 , its the game which actually stopped me letting people lend games from me. I guess I have it now and even if I ultimatly paid £60 as I had to buy it twice lots of people have paid a heck of a lot more for this game and with the amount I have played it the game has certainly been worth every penny.

The 4th game is The Punisher on Megadrive, lots and lots of happy memories of playing this with my brother, we were like best friends but we have drifted apart, this reminds me of the good old days. To be honest I wouldnt really want to get rid of any of my walk along beat em up games because its one of my favourate genresbut this is particularly true of the rare ones which would be incredibly hard to get again.

The 5th game I wouldnt ever want to get rid of would be Xcom Enemy Unknown for the PS1 , my whole friend group played this when I was younger and we chatted about it loads. My favourite person to compare notes with now lives in America, playing it is not only enjoyable it makes me think of our friendship.It was really funny as in the early stages of the game id use a certain tactic which would drive him up the wall, he always refered to  it as me cheating. So what did I do that was so bad? Well basically when I was on a mission with a tiny alien spaceship that had landed I would get a solider and make him prime a grenade, I would then have him walk into the alien craft knowing that he would be instantly gunned down but his grenade would then explode at the end of the turn killing the aliens inside, winning me the mission and securing me a tonne of things to sell and research, id sacrafice this one dude and it would really get the ball rolling. My friend would refuse to let anyone purposly die but would meanwhile loose loads of soldiers engaging in fair warfare with the Alien menace, my tactics might have worked better but if theres ever a real alien war id sooner he be my commanding officer than someone like me, just incase im the one holding the grenades.