Reboot of a series that worked!
I loved X-Com since I first played Terror from the Deep on floppy discs in the 90s. It posed a scenario of an alien invasion and how Earth would deal with the threat. It is turn-based tactical strategy gameplay, but you also have base management, squad management, character creation (for your members of your squads), and research. X-Com UFO Defense and Terror from the Deep were true classics, and I never really liked any type of turn-based game just to give you an idea how good they were.
XCom: Enemy Unknown was released as a reboot of the series. The series died off about a decade or more prior with some unremarkable titles that tried to continue the formula, cross into the space sim genre, and one to cross into the action genre. The reboot stayed true to the original formula, but re-imagined the story and modernized the game.
The first thing is the base management. Your facility is secret and underground, so you can only expand by excavating areas of your underground space. You build different areas such as an engineering area, scientific labs, satellite uplinks, power generators, and more. Different facilities have bonuses when they are adjacent to other facilities, which provides a layer of strategy in your base layout. You have to manage funds and resources (recovered alien technology, corpses, etc..) while building your base, equipping your soldiers, making and deploying satellites, buying defense aircraft, and more.
The next layer is squad management. You have a squad of up to six soldiers of four different classes (heavy, assault, medic, and sniper). The soldiers start out at a recruit rank and increase in rank by gaining experience during missions. The class is randomly assigned, so you have to carefully assign soldiers to missions in case one is out for an extended time for an injury, or gets killed. For example, you need at least one medic. If your medic gets seriously injured and it's the only high-ranking medic, you're in trouble for a few missions and may lose other high-ranking soldiers. The soldiers have various equipment that you can upgrade through research throughout the game. You can also customize the look of their gear, the person, and the name. The only thing you can't change about the soldier is their nationality and gender, which is randomly assigned up recruiting them.
The tactical turn-based portion of the game are the missions. There is a story to follow, but the missions you get are random. You also don't have to follow the story when you don't want to. You can put off story missions until you're ready for them, but as you advance, so do the invaders and story missions get more difficult as you delay them. You get missions by detecting a UFO via the satellites, sending an aircraft out to shoot it down, and exploring the wreckage, detecting abduction sites, dealing with an alien terrorist situation, or through story missions. Another layer to the strategy is the council that governs XCom. XCom is an international organization, funded by the participating countries. You will lose member nations by allowing the panic level to rise by failing, or passing on missions in their area. You can lower panic by completing missions, or by deploying a satellite over their nation. You have to carefully weigh the bonus of a successful mission with the possible panic increase and loss of a member nation.
The graphics and sound are great and still hold up today. While they're not life-like or anything that will really blow you away, they are great for what this game is trying to accomplish and are perfect for keeping you immersed in the experience of running an international shadow agency, fighting against an alien invasion. The controls are perfect, with a keyboard shortcut for each of the control buttons on screen.
Enemy Within adds so much new material that it is almost an entirely new game. I can't speak so much for Enemy Within because I played hundreds of hours in Enemy Unknown, but only a handful of hours on Enemy Within. Not because I didn't like it, but because I just moved on by then. I still go back and play it every couple of months, and when I do, it's usually Enemy Within.
This is the complete package with each DLC and the expansion. It is all offered for the price of the original base game and DRM free! It is well worth it for any fan of strategy, science fiction, or just gamers that appreciate a high-quality experience built for the fans.
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