X-COM (Collector's Edition)

Although the X-com games came out in the late 90's and are arcaic by todays standards, they are still a benchmark on which all squad based games are tested. Few games then or since have included and in depth turn based mission play with base building and RPG elements. The closest game recently to the X-com genre is probably Warcraft 3, although there are definate differences.

The mission style game play which all three games share is based around a squad of varying size, from as few as one or two to assault teams of 24 men. Each squad member is a unique induvidual with differing levels of health, stamina(number of move points) and accuracy. As members of the squad survive, their abilities grow, meaning that losing a squad member can be a damaging possibility. These squaddies are sent into a mission area that is totally dark except for the small area around the dropship itself. And until you start moving around, you have no idea what is out there. This makes for some tense playing with questions like, should I go around that corner and run out of move points or should I stay and throw a grenade. The missions themselves vary greatly, with base attacks, defenses, capture, and terror missions, where your teams must protect civilians while clearing out a location. The maps themselves are fun if somewhat canned. Each area also hase numerous levels, meaning death can come from above too.

The base building is also devistatingly fun as you must work hard to earn enough money to expand, start new bases and buy interceptors. EVery detail is here, from buying ammunition to running out of storage. And this part of the game takes on new meaning when later in the game your bases get assaulted by alien forces. Did you build in good choke points? did you have enough defenses? Altogether Brilliant.

For me, Terror of the Deep was where I started and therefore I actually prefer it. The graphics are slightly crisper and the difficulty greater. No longer do alien ships simply "dissapear" into the ocean, meaning every thing you shoot down can be attacked. But really the biggest change is that in UFO Defense, the pen-ultimate weapon has a burst fire command and in TFTD it is single shot. Trust me, it is a BIG difference.

Appocolypse, on the other hand, never really grew on me. Unlike the older games, both Aliens and Humans start the game being highly resistant to damage and thus fear of enemy fire obliterating your squad is much less. I also did not enjoy the new look of the game as much as I thought I might. But overall, if you simply cannot stand turn based combat, Appocolypse gives you a real time option (although the game difficulty ramps up greatly if you use it...).

The best reason to buy these games is that this was the last time X-com ruled the world. Most of the follow up games were either unimpressive or buggy or went unnoticed. But if you ask any serious game from the old days, all of them will fondly recount hours spent with sore eyes watching their men sweep dark alleys for an elusive alien.


One near-perfect game...and 2 others   January 9, 2004
 21 out of 21 found this review helpful

The original X-Com is one of the greatest games ever. You could run the old DOS version on a 386-processor computer, and I'm still playing the Collector's Edition port to Windows on my 1.3GHz notebook years later.

It's not a perfect port, though. The opening cutscene is missing some of the sounds from the original, like the British woman saying, "Warning...warning..." The sound files for the aliens seem to have been randomized, so some of them sound pretty weird. (The Sectoids have surprisingly deep voices when they die, and one of the pink-blob aliens makes a huge explosion noise as it moves...) The Blaster Bombs go off in random directions if you try to change altitude. And when the aliens invade your base, sometimes a large part of your defending force just doesn't show up for the fight...I once had to hold off a bunch of Ethereals and Sectapods with nothing but various HWPs, despite having a dozen Squaddies stationed at that base.

Despite all that, it's still fun as all get-out. I love to rename all my Squaddies after friends and relatives. It makes the fights a lot more nerve-wracking. (Oh no, they got Kevin!)

There are the two mainline sequels on the disk too. Terror from the Deep is OK, but it's just more of the same--not really original or much of an improvement. X-Com: Apocalypse was a fun game, but never quite as fun as the original, IMHO. Oddly, I've never been able to get it to work on a recently-built computer, though. I've found myself just playing this slightly-flawed version of the old original X-Com, over and over.

I don't want another sequel to X-Com--I want the original, updated, with more aliens and technologies and suprises, multiplayer options, and all that, great graphics, a better interface--but all with that original humor and horror.