I hardly played computer games in the past – tried an old version of Command & Conquer, played some browser based games and that was about it. My attention span for computer games is not long, and I wasn’t with a crowd that played much. But after meeting my husband (who plays PS3, boardgames, computer games, roleplaying, tabletop etc), I tried out my first MMORPG Star Wars The Old Republic (which I found really fun, and another story altogether!), and my first video game, XCOM Enemy Unknown.
I was h.o.o.k.e.d. onto XCOM.
First of all, amazing soundtrack. Designed to get hearts pumping and elicit a flight or fight response, I sometimes still get a jolt when they announce POSITIVE ENEMY CONTACT (even after 80+ hours of game time).
Second, it’s also a management game, my favourite type! Tactics is a huge part when tackling aliens, but engineering and research are two pillars supporting your arsenal against the aliens. You shouldn’t neglect either, I call them pillars for a reason. (;
Dr. Vahlen (research) & Dr. Shen (engineering) looking increasingly worried at our odds of winning…
Yesterday I played a huge mission. Don’t worry, no spoilers here. But let’s go through the thought process in a tactical mission.
Holy shit, Commander – we have a situation. Multiple contacts in the sky – and we can only go to one. (Yes, we are the elite forefront and last line of defense for the ENTIRE WORLD but we can only choose ONE country at a time. I blame it on the fact that we only have one skyranger.)
Time to boogey. Ready, aim, FIRE!
Alright, men – we’ve splashed the UFO, time to find and neutralize any surviving crew. (At this point, Dr Vahlen will butt in and say she wants you to catch them if you can.)
Your team lands at site. Survey area – HOLY SHIT the map is huge!! Or HOLY SHIT why is the nearest cover so far!!
Consider terrain cover and send your men out. Ideally you would use men of different classes to their advantage (e.g. sniper on higher terrain; assault goes up front). I like to be able to see my men on the battleground from far, so I use bright colours for each class. Rookies are the most likely to panic, so they’re in yellow. 😀
Either your movement uncovers aliens (in bundles of 3, oh joy) or you move men forward and overwatch. Here I anticipate alien hiding points. After your move, is the Alien’s turn.
As you play, more and more aliens get uncovered – and they have different tasks / sets of powers similar (and more than) what your men have. You have assault, heavy, support and sniper classes, and sometimes you can manufacture robots to help you out with a mission. What do they have?
Oh, that looks typical.
Wait. Huh? They have aliens resembling men?
WHAT THE- (ok, remember to breathe, it’s just a game).
I won’t go more into detail about the other aliens because these guys you see quite quickly into the game. The other cool thing I like about XCOM is that there are different types of missions: target extraction, bomb disposal, terror mission, ufo landing, ufo crash, etc. The storyline is pretty good and I’ve played so many hours also because I like to experiment with choices made, so I’ve played lots of games but only completed three so far, once with the new expansion XCOM: ENEMY WITHIN. SUPER GOOD expansion, but another post on that next time!
GO TRY IT. It is super AWESOME and I can keep playing it all the time. What the expansion does is extend its playtime by providing A LOT more maps, new storylines and plots and new stuff you can do with your soldiers. No spoilers I promised!
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