When people ask me: "Hey, you like PC games, what's your favourite game?" I respond with "X-Com, with the - in it" and they often get confused with the modern XCOM, but I further clarify with "The one from 1993". Which is normally the point where they pretend to look at their watch, make an excuse and walk out of the room.

So why in 2015 is my favourite game still this? Well firstly, I'm going to outline what makes this game so special. And then to wrap it up, I'll tell you how you can enjoy it in the modern world. Because for me this game is still my personal favourite.

X-Com puts you firmly on the back foot from the very start. Aliens have invaded and it's your job to mount Earth's final defense against the Alien foe before we are all killed or enslaved or something happens (the intention of the invasion isn't clear to begin with). What you spend most of the game doing, is trying to shoot down enemy UFO's with your rubbish fighter jets, and then trying to fight the Alien's at the UFO crash site with your poorly equipped troops.

I use terms like "rubbish" and "poorly equipped" because you are fighting Aliens here. Not Germans, not Japanese, not another nation - but mother-flipping ALIENS. These guys have better weapons than you, better vision than you and more resources than you. They flew across the galaxy to fight us, and the only thing you can do at the start of the game is fight them off with humanities best and brightest, which just isn't enough.

This means that your troops will die. A lot. And it's mean, and it's unfair and the game is obviously hard because of that. But at great cost of life, humanity is able to claw it's way back and slowly put up more of a fair fight. As you recover Alien technology from your encounters, and spend time researching it, the X-Com scientists are then able to reverse engineer the technology into better equipment. This can be armour that can survive a few shots, or better weapons, or ground and air vehicles. Slowly but surely, humanity is able to avoid extinction.

You are fighting for the very survival of the human race, and that's not meant to be easy. Fortunately the game equips you with the systems you need to be successful but it's on YOU to work out how to do it. This is a game where you might have to watch some tutorial videos on YouTube or read the manual. And if you do these things, you will be rewarded with one of the deepest and enjoyable single player experiences that you can have.

So if you read this and you're willing to invest a bit of time to enjoy the game. After all, it is only £3! I recommend you use OpenXcom[openxcom.org] to play the game. You won't be able to launch the game through Steam, but it gives you much better performance on modern systems than playing the original game through DOSBox. The alternative is that you check out Xenonauts which is a faithful recreation of X-Com using an updated UI, better graphics and a bit more automation (such as not having to order ammunition and things). I know it sounds a bit odd, but Xenonauts is so faithful to X-Com that if you don't think you can cope with how dated this game is, I would encourage you to treat this as a review for Xenonauts. Other than very minor tweaks, and a change to air combat, they are essentially the same game.

Never before
Have I been so afraid
Of one single alien
Who holds a grenade

Long before I can access Steam, I've been playing this like crazy in DOSBox. 10.2 hours of playtime? Bruh, it's more like 250 or more actually. First found this game in a website about abandonware a long time ago when dial-up connection is still a thing.

For non-ex player, what you need to know about X-COM: UFO Defense (or UFO: Enemy Unkown in several region) is basically XCOM Enemy Unknown/XCOM 2 without limitations, like:

You want to send literally 20 troops to battlefield? OK, proceed.
You want to freaking spam-and-snipe with pistol? OK, proceed.
You want to strip down literally ALL enemy weaponry before executing them? OK, proceed.
You want to steal enemy weapon(s) because you ran out of ammo or brought wrong weapon? OK, proceed.
You want to research multiple subjects without dr. Vahlen's or Tygan's premade schedule? OK, proceed.
You want to actually hit enemy with MULTIPLE 50% accuracy fire? OK, proceed.
You want to hit enemy with gattling gun loaded with high explosives? OK, proceed.

Amazing. Not even the new XCOM can compare their gameplay with this. Too bad its sequels couldn't show the same glory as this one.

In-game sounds really create right atmosphere for this game. Playing night mission with original BGM in a dark room is NOT advised.

I'm not going to comment the graphics. Leave it alone. It's a game from 1994. Boo for them who complain about graphics for retro game.

This is an example of EXTREMELY AWESOME game which is able to live among newer turn-based games and not limited by its age.

Also known as UFO Enemy Unknown. The original (1994) was super buggy and nearly unplayable on newer systems, but thanks to these guys (the people working on the openxcom project) the game is now playable and with lots of bug fixes.

The game is pretty unbalanced and exploitable, here are a few tips:

- Don't exit the craft in the first turn as the aliens, that have visual on you, will have full AP and will likely reaction fire.
- Always have the maximum number of soldiers in the landing craft (while this might be obvious, I saw people that don't do this, usually the same kind of people that spend all the APs exploring instead of having some AP for reaction fire or retreat).
- Put the most expandable soldiers closer to the exit of the landing craft because the first ones out are the likeliest to get killed.
- Don't hurry, especially getting your troops out of the landing craft.
- Advance slowly, only extend yourself when you have an alien’s location and you can kill it because you don't want it to have a full turn while you are in sight. Expanding on this, try to kill all the aliens that you see in the same turn that you see them; that's why it's usually best to advance slowly (to have lots of APs) and have lots of soldiers (and implicitly firepower).
- You should use scouts (~rookies) that at the start of the turn will try to advance but also retreat at the end. This way you'll create a buffer and decrease the chance of enemies sneaking close enough to the rest of your (more valuable) soldiers.
- Exploit: After turn 20 the aliens are generally going to come and try to find you, useful for landed/crashed UFOs.
- A very good starting location is in west Lebanon so that you will have cover over Europe and a lot of the downed UFOs could be in North Africa where the desert maps are pretty smooth.
- The beginning (or better said the first half of the game) is going to be pretty brutal, use all the force that you can and don't shy away from explosives and leveling buildings even preemptively in some cases.


Pros: great feeling, nice combination of tactical game, researching stuff and base building while under pressure to survive.
Cons: exploitable, unbalanced, bad spotting/FOV mechanic, you see as much as the aliens only in full light which will lead to a lot of frustration.
Rating: now, we are prodding *them*!
Recommendation: only if you are into this kind of games and you can tolerate/like the graphics.

http://pixelloot.com

I bought this game on floppy disks back in 1994. I renamed all the soldiers after friends and people I went to school with. Watching so many of them die through my own incompetence was not pleasant on my first play through to Cydonia.
I replayed the game with the survivors and other friends, over and over. The veterans of the first play got thinner in number.
The in game year 1999 came and went. I kept playing, rebuying the game on new formats as I upgraded my computer. More friends died. Work collegues got vaporised by blaster bomb attacks. Mutons picked off work mates and relatives.
Now, over 20 years since first release, I'm still playing and I'm still sending people I know to their deaths. The best man at my wedding got taken out by a cyberdisk in a Terror Attack on Tokyo. I'm the only one of the original 8 still alive. Countless others have been sacrificed to defend against the alien incursion. I have mourned their loss. Although when my ex-wife became that scene from alien at the claws of a crysallid, I was less moved.
The alien threat is unlikely to diminsih any time soon, I'm going to need more friends.

I do own the new xcom enemy unkown and within, and i must say even though they are both really challenging and enjoyable, they don't compare to the original.

X-COM: UFO Defense has an tense feeling, like everything could go wrong at any moment, something thats present in the new one but not as strong. I swear while doing missions, my hands shake, especially if i've grown attached to a character, who could die at any moment.

The game gets difficult fast, any free time you have should be spent preparing for battle.

Pros
-tense music makes the missions scary
-whenever you lose a soldier that you took the time to name, it hits you right in the feels
-aliens arn't pushovers, they will mess you up
-addicting, I always have to get my fix, that only the original can provide

Cons
-I wish i could choose my starting base layout, i always have to move stuff around
-black characters apear white on the battlefield, get hard to keep track of good people
-can't undo actions on the battlefield, somehow this makes he game more tense
-knee high walls make the worst cover, and you always have to walk around them leaving you open to alien fire

Observations and tips
-civilians are stupid as hell, and they always run into the aliens
-alien in corn field = death
-never stand next to a window, you will die
-never pull the pin on a gernade unless you have enough action points to throw it
-first soldier that steps off of the skyranger always dies, choose wisely
-don't get rid of any weak soldiers, use them as meat sheilds for your better soldiers
-DO NOT GROUP YOUR SOLDIERS TOGETHER, aliens have super gernades that will kill all of them
-always have a few worthless soldier on your team to look for aliens, or take gun fire

I would recommend this game to any person who loves turn based, squad management games.

This game is the shining example of the golden era of computer gaming. Before all Triple A companies forced people into multiplayer online competitions , I liked games rooted in science fiction with enough realism to be believable. You feel the pressure of managing a multi national earth defense force while struggling to maintain the support of world nations and stopping extraterrestrial threats, scrambling to desparately reverse engineer their technology.

I prefer this over the new X-COM, the older X-COM games were scarier and felt more like what eye witness reports have said about actual alien encounters. I have bought this game for several of my friends.

Remember gentlemen- just because something is old, does not mean it is bad - and just because something is new, does not mean it is good. Old games are where it's at. I don't play a game for sport or to be the best I play it to immerse myself and forget reality. In a day and age of micro transactions and garbage fan bases ruining community experiences the original X-COM is my safe sanctuary away from the toxic world of modern gaming.

One of the most addictive and interesting game I have ever played, the music, theme, horror, the unknown!,
all that gathers up and makes one hell dramatic and scary survival story where you are the organization that must defend Earth from the Alien invasion.

11/10

This game is freaking awesome, after 20 years it's still amazing.
There are so many good things to say that is difficult to decide where to start ...

- turn based strategic combat, take your time to decide your strategy
- research based on alien captured technology, this keeps me motivated to keep playing
- management of resources of your bases, full control of your assets
- recruit soldiers and see them evolving ... and dying :)
- if you are spending too much money, you could sell things and even fire people!
- air combat is simple and effective
- and every element is this game has an effect on other parts:
A) resources captured in the battlefield will give you new research paths and money
B) research will give you new stuff to build
C) stuff you build will make you more powerful in the battlefield
D) more battlefield missions will give you new resources

As a Sci-fi aficionado this game will give you plenty of funny hours.
Absolutely recommended, if you haven't played, do it now!!
This game is a masterpiece!!

Originally posted on November 11, 2010

I've been occupied by XCOM for the past two weeks straight, and it's been a blast. XCOM: UFO Defense is simply one of the best games ever made.

The gameplay is deep, addictive and atmospheric, and does a surprising amount for a game from 1994. Your task as leader of the newly formed project for the defense of earth from aliens is to stop alien raids and abductions by shooting down their ships, ambushing their landing parties, and destroying their bases. Eventually you are tasked with taking the fight to the aliens and defeating them altogether. There are two modes of gameplay, the Geoscape and the Battlescape.

In the Geoscape (real time, variable time speeds), you build bases around the world, dispatch interceptors and dropships to deal with UFOs, do research, manufacture and purchase weapons and vehicles, and try to please all your sponsor nations so they don't reduce their funding. However, it quickly becomes apparent that both human technology and the funding from sponsor nations are both completely inadequate for the task. In order to survive and stop the aliens, you need to capture alien technology, research it, and produce your own copies, and then sell the excess loot for mounds of money.

The Battlescape on the other hand (turn based tactical, top down) allows you to control your squad of soldiers (who improve over time in surprisingly sophisticated ways) in attempts to stop the aliens. But don't think it will be easy. The Battlescape is an unforgiving world filled with aliens waiting to snipe at your men from distant cornfields and ambush you from around corners. The first several missions you play, it is likely that you will fail spectacularly. This is entirely intentional, and really contributes to the atmosphere of the game. You really feel like you are learning on the job, facing a totally unknown and technologically superior enemy who holds all the cards. A genuine feeling of satisfaction accompanies finally being able to defeat the aliens in a mission (albeit with heavy losses), or re-engineering your first bit of alien weapon tech. The lack of a tutorial actually helps the game in this way, as it is much deeper than it first appears, and it feels very authentic to learn the ropes of the game in this way.

The graphics and sound are marvelously retro, and might take some getting used to for some of the less open-minded gamers out there, but I assure you the reward is worth it. Overall, this is a game that you MUST play if you call yourself a PC gamer at all. It joins a myriad of other gems from the 90's that modern gamers are continually ignorant of, though they inform modern developers every single day. There is no better indication of the current stagnation of game development than playing a game like XCOM and seeing how incredible it is. This game with an extreme facelift would be strategy GOTY.