The weirdest decision in XCOM is having the ironman mode not being optional, but strongly unadvised for the first try. Don’t listen, put it on. It’s not about difficulty, choose easy if you want to, it is about not losing sense. About thinking how rigged are the odds of failing an 80% shot and how right was your call on a lucky 50/50. Really, permanent deaths are not that much of a deal compared to how vital it is to feel that there is only one chance at a moment, to live with your decisions and getting to see when there is no going back, that most of them weren’t neither right nor wrong, just multiple ways of uncertainty.

It also reinforces a defense approach because risks cannot be rewinded until turned into hits. Obviously, the defensive focus sounds bad because usually the defensive stance in games means the worst part, not here though. Don’t venture into the dark, don’t stay uncovered, we are not in this fight to conquer but to defend. It isn’t cowardice to take advantage of the infinite turns, the courage is assumed upon stepping into the battle, it’s about wit. A small step at a time, no turn is bad as long as the final consequence can be explained in that you took care. Let the aliens come, let them retreat, take advantage of whatever they do, split the team to cover all the angles, together in spirit but not clogged with fear.

What’s the worst that can happen? You can’t make it and get the bad ending? As long as you fought with all you had every single time, who can call that as a loss?

Never played older X-COMs, but this one I found insufferable.

First of all, I think it looks ugly and sounds very generic. Second of all, it acts like it's some kinda cinematic experience, while having no sense of good pacing and delivering all information through simple talking heads. Third of all, the controls are very unintuitive, there's no free camera rotation, mouse wheel changes elevation for some reason instead of zooming in/out, and the zoom keeps resetting after each turn. Plus I hate these tacked-on "cinematic" close-ups for simple actions that you're gonna be doing thousands of times. They get old really quickly.

The actual combat seems fine, but it didn't really strike me as anything special. It's your standard, run-of-the-mill turn-based combat. It is kinda cool how you can change elevation and enter buses and shit like that. But it's also the kind of game where you can be hiding behind a stone wall and somehow get hit by the enemy, or approach the enemy, shoot them point-blank and miss. This kinda immediately ruins all the immersion they're so desperately trying to create with that "cinematic" bullshit.

While I'm not typically a fan of turn-based games, I thought I'd give the XCOM series a go since so many people have said it's great, and about 20 hours and a complete campaign later, yeah I think I see why.

By far the greatest strength of XCOM EU is the personality given to your characters. I would stream this in Discord calls every once in a while and had my friends create soldiers, which led to some laughs and sadness when one would land a lot of shots in quick succession or proceed to die. Besides my personal soldier, one of them even ended up being the "hero" of the story who decimated everything in her way. I knew the character storytelling was interesting before playing, but I didn't expect to become that attached to characters that frankly don't have much to say.

The gameplay systems also add a lot to the experience, particularly outside of individual battles. Having to choose between certain countries to protect while others collapse and stop supporting XCOM was great, since it never felt like a choice was particularly easy. Combined with researching and purchasing upgrades for soldiers, managing a pretty tight economy, and building up the base, and the sense of progression is great.

Only have some minor gripes with the game that hold it back from being a masterpiece. Namely, that you can't either pause during or fast forward an enemy turn. The amount of times a turn started with something that made me want to load a save, only to have to watch the other five aliens on the field necessitate that loaded save even harder, can be really annoying. Also the odd bug here and there, including some that made me close and relaunch the game itself.

But yeah, I'm really happy with the 20 hours I sunk into this game. It isn't too long, has plenty of strategy, and feels rife with personality. Will totally be checking out XCOM 2 at some point soon.

P.S. Found out after I finished the main game that Enemy Within is the same game but with added features. I only feel slightly stupid

This was my introduction to the XCOM games and even though I put a decent amount of time into the game, I was never able to complete the last few levels and therefore did not beat the game hence this review is only based on my experience.

Tactical gameplay is great and there is a reason why this is one of the most respected franchises out there when tit comes to tactical and strategy RPGs. Creating your own units and upgrading your base and skills after each mission is completed is fun and forces micromanagement of all the components. RNG outcome is sometimes bull but this is somewhat expected from the XCOM games to the point it's almost a joke among fans of the series at this point.

Playing this on the PS3 was rough due to performance issues (under-powered system and un-optimized version compared to other systems) so if I ever replay this game I will definitely do it on PC via Steam. Graphics are not very detailed and textures are on the low-quality side. Framerate is terrible on this PS3 version.

Despite its performance flaws, XCOM Enemy Unknown is a great tactical game and a good place to start if you are new to the series and perhaps even the genre.

Years ago, I was introduced to the genre of turn-based tactics games with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and for better or worse I was left chasing that incredible high ever since. The only other game that could provide that perfect mixture of strategy, risk management, and the iconic kick of RNG was none other than XCOM 2. While the sequel largely supplanted this one in terms of pure gameplay, every once in a while I still get the hankering to start a campaign in this atmospheric sci-fi horror setting to beat down aliens with my stompy mech soldiers.

But why was I so instantly captivated by this game? This wasn’t something I could easily answer at first while getting thoroughly obliterated as a newbie commander. That first campaign was confusing, brutal, yet still inexplicably fun. 1000 hours of play later, I’ve come to the conclusion that XCOM has the most perfect loop of interesting decisions and significant consequences constantly alternating one after another, keeping players invested all the way up until the endgame. The choices are weighty, varied, difficult but still intuitive to understand. Whether things go right or wrong, both newbies and veterans can always uncover a new layer of strategic depth.

I was hooked on this rapid and dynamic loop of learning, adapting, and gradually molding my troops into badass alien killers. My first campaign didn’t go very well, but as soon as it ended I was pumped to start the journey again with the knowledge that I had gained through my mistakes. Then I did it again, and again, until I finally won my first classic ironman campaign after a long, bloody war with a death toll in the 50s. That victory was one of the most memorable gaming moments in my life, and something I always hope to experience again when playing other strategy games.

Whenever I get reminded this game came out in 2012 I'm always a little stunned. Stunned because the passage of time is terrifying, and because games have been ripping off XCOM EU's formula for ages. Shadowrun Returns dropped only a year later and pinched it wholesale, right down to having blue/orange movement. If I tried to rhyme off every game that borrowed from XCOM EU I'd be here until 2025's first review.

And, to be honest, why shouldn't they pinch mechanics from this game?

Gaming's history is littered with attempts to dredge ~the classics~ out from the murky waters of memory and doll them up for a brand new younger audience, whose attention spans are increasingly being fried each year. The majority of these attempts are abject failures, either not selling well or selling morbillions but discarding the franchise's identity like wet underwear and losing their soul alongside it. Hell, this game's developers have tried it ad nauseaum.

XCOM EU is the cake that Firaxis actually got to fucking eat. It is a remake of the original X-COM game but with the hyphen surgically removed (congrats on the bottom surgery) and a whole host of lipsticks and eyeshadows to pretty up the pig for a new audience. And I gotta tell you, the pig is gorgeous. I don't envy whoever pitched this to 2K, notoriously soulless goons that they are: "Hey man, let's take this influential but niche cult classic and remake it for a modern audience, it'll sell millions!".

It did.

This game's premise is extremely familiar to anyone still alive. You are in charge of an agency that has to simultaneously convince everyone on Earth that the deadly force lowering the population is a valid threat while also protecting them long enough to actually have a population left to sign the tax breaks. Yeah that's right, you're a COVID relief agency, welcome back to hell.

Jokes aside, the premise is simple. Aliens are invading, you need help from world governments to get money and staff, so go kill some aliens to make them like you. Also try not to cause the human race to go into a thanatophobic death spiral that ends with their surrender - which is the canon ending by the way.

There were a fuckton of games trying to hit that 'casual strategy' niche in the early 2010s, and I'd say the reason EU succeded and they didn't is... It manages to blend casual-friendly and accessible controls with both decent presentation and actual strategic depth. Your units start with an assault rifle, a pistol, two action points, a grenade and can spend two AP to move without taking an action. Later on you get more options, sure, but not many.

Where EU really shines is in how you can use those options, though. Take the humble grenade; kinda sucks, low damage, nukes all loot from an enemy, might set off environmental explosives and kill your Sergeant-rank medic. But it's guaranteed damage in a game where the dice are rolling every other action, and it can bust open firing lines that're blocked by the environment. The moment Young Mira realized this game was great? Realizing I could resolve what looked to be a Code Black (total party kill) by blowing a hole in a warehouse wall, which let my Heavy shoot a rocket in.
And sure, the pistol line of weapons seems utterly worthless given their low damage... Until you learn you can capture aliens for tasty buffs/rewards, and suddenly a way to do nonlethal damage even on a crit seems delicious. Echoing the famous comment from CoD4, switching to your pistol is faster than reload since the mere act of swapping consumes no AP but reloading does.
Really, compared to this game's infinite imitators and even its own sequel (which really doubles down on the RPG elements, the expansion triples down), EU is oddly reserved when it comes to actions. It becomes apparent when you compare the maps, for a lot of EU's maps are claustrophobi urban slug fights where it's difficult to outrange enemies and thus the need to take actions carefully is omnipresent. The only time the game ever goes a bit hard on giving you too many actions is if you train up a Support and give them Psionics.

And man, we need to talk about units. Each unit in EU spawns with a randomized nationality, voice, gender, and name. Simple, but due to the repetitive and stressful nature of the missions they undertake, it's really easy to form attachments to these compilations of random entries and be sad when they die, or relieved when they merely go into bleedout rather than instantly drop dead. It was a fantastic way to bridge the gap between casuals and oldheads by giving them something to discuss, a community builder that more than likely led to the still-blooming XCOM modding community.
You can even name them after your friends! Don't do it if you're really protective of them like me!

On the presentation front, too, this game looks fantastic despite the camera being WAY above ground. I only ever remember it's a 2012 title when I see the models up close, because the lightning and environments are exceptional. Even when- No, ESPECIALLY when they're being blown up, set aflame, and destroyed by 95% chance to hit shots that miss! Almost every mission occurs at night too, which makes this perhaps the only game to really flex UE3's great lighting capabilities - albeit, that made this and the sequel a nightmare to run on contemporary midrange hardware.

...

What, why are you looking at me? What have- Sigh.

Fine.

Alright. Enough praise. Let's talk about the three big issues. The three really big issues. They're bad. They're really bad. They're why I don't come back to this very often, but I do 2-3 playthroughs of the sequel every year.

First of all, there's what I call the Overwatch issue. No, it has nothing to do with the bad Blizzard shooter. 'Overwatch' in XCOM is an ability any unit can use that ends their turn and makes them take a free shot at anything that moves during the enemy turn. This seems innocent, right? And it is to most players, but... Look, the core loop of each mission is walking into fog of war (unrevealed areas) and dealing with what comes out. Equipment is expensive to replace, there's no monetary replacement for training, and units die permanently... So the ideal strategy for nearly every mission is to use blue movement and Overwatch. Over and over. Over and over.
This issue comes first because it's one both the wider community and the developers actually agreed on. This game's expansion takes baby steps to address it, and the entire core of the formula was reworked for 2 to encourage players to stop being timid. Overwatch only gets more effective as classes level up; especially Sniper and Support who get endless buffs to it, and even rookies can get some kills with it if they equip any Aim boosting items.

The second issue branches off from this: XCOM EU, even with the expansion, is a very rigid and formulaic game. Good for a first playthrough, but on subsequent playthroughs it's very easy to... Solve the game, for lack of better words. There is always an ideal order, there are always ideal tactics, there are always ideal levelup perks to take, etc etc. The one thing all of EU's imitators/followups did right that the game itself didn't is giving most things a use.
I gushed over all the options available earlier, right? But when you repeat this game, there's always a best choice, and not even situationally. Snipers are never going to take Snapshot and most of Assault's perks are useless, you can just hug one side and be perfect.
Again, XCOM 2 solved this by giving each of the 4 base classes what amounts to subclasses. Its progenitor has no such luck. There are, indeed, dump options.
This is really obvious with the research and facility build options, too. I can't be too harsh though, because this is Firaxis' biggest problem as a studio: Experimentation is pointless, for these games tend to be Rubik's Cubes meant to be solved and even now in 2023 I'm amazed War of the Chosen bucked the trend.

Lastly, a combination of these two issues, is something harder to articulate without first talking about the sequel. XCOM 2's approach to balance is more focused on components. Individual enemies aren't very threatening, but combined with other enemies there start to be major problems. ADVENT officers are pathetic by themselves, but if they mark one of your units and anyone else is nearby, kiss that fucking unit goodbye. Likewise, your soldiers complement each other really well but it is fantastically hard to solo with any one class because of this. There's an effort made to encourage the player to invest in a variety of units, not just their A Team.
XCOM EU/EW is more individualist in comparison. There are a lot of enemies on Legend that, by themselves, can be run enders like Chryssalids or Mutons or Sectopods. Likewise, your units will likely snowball into unkillable embodiments of death that can kill endless enemies by themselves while the rest of your team sponge XP and twiddle their thumbs. Snipers were notorious for this in EU and the EW nerf bat didn't do much. There's not much synergy going on across the board, which is best embodied by the Support class (Specialist in XCOM 2): In 2 it utterly excels at aiding the entire team via either direct buffs or by hacking enemy emplacements/machines to reduce the overall threat in a mission. In EU it's best used as a self sustaining Overwatch machine that very occasionally stabilizes a dying unit. You could spec into team buffs, but they're inferior to simply becoming a turret made of meat.

If you've never played Enemy Unknown before, don't let my griping dissuade you. It is absolutely worth a full playthrough or two. Even if you're not all that into it, it could be nice to see a bit of gaming history; as I've alluded to throughout this entire review, so many games ripped off Enemy Unknown. I literally just got done with a 2023 release that was basically a homage to it. There's a reason everyone rejoiced when Jake Solomon announced he was coming back for 2, after all.

And hey, Happy New Year, folks! Here's to more 5s and less 1s, you know? Have a good one.

A fun turn based strategy game with easy to learn but hard to master gameplay with interesting squad and base progression. Probably the game I would recommend to people as an entry into the genre.

The main criticism I see about this game is how there is a lot of random stuff that can happen to quickly and unceremoniously lose one of your best soldiers, and this can leave to a lot of save scumming. To me this defeats the purpose of the game-- an untimely massive crit, or turning a corner to see a sectopod and berseker right in your face is bad luck and does suck. But that's kind of the point, war sucks, and casualties happen, especially if your enemy is vastly superior in terms of military technology. If you refrain from reloading when your best guy dies you will find yourself actually caring about the death of a seasoned veteran. It really does add a whole new element to the game.