Xenonauts

This is the most faithful homage to the original game you can get. It's less gamey than the XCOM Enemy Unknown released by Firaxis - it's says it is a Planetary Defence Simulator and it's right. The Air War is very well done and fun to play. The ground combat is as deep as the original one but much smoother. Graphics - you either hate it or love it. Personally I love it, it's old-school, it's crisp and clean and very elegant. It's also very well written: ufopedia is a joy to read, so much that you can't wait for that next research result! It's very "feet on the ground", so every new discovery or development will be well explained - with no gamey magic a là Firaxis Xcom. Heck, it's even better than the original. Music is great. Made by the same composer that created the soundtrack for Amnesia, if I'm not mistaken. It's very moody, suitable dark and downright terrifying at times. It recreates the atmosphere the original had perfectly. Bottomline, if you like turned-based games or you're a fan of the original, then this is a MUST-BUY.

This game aims to be a devoted remake of X-COM: UFO Defense. PROS: — The bestiary is true to the original and somewhat predictable, but not boring; — Carefully added new mechanics (reaction fire modifiers, suppression and assault shields) make tactical combat deeper, but preserve the original feel; — The lore tries to be science fiction, theorizing on how the devices are possible from the scientific standpoint, not barely stating how cool they are; — Fighter aircraft role split into interceptors and strike craft in the strategic part; — Most routine maintenance and logistic problems are out of the picture. CONS: — The atmosphere! ...is completely lost. The feeling of dread is gone. In X-COM we used to capture engineers and medics to get to know the threat, explore horrifying harvesters and terror ships. Here, there is one type of UFO (in tactical) coming in half a dozen sizes. Inside? 3-4 types of items that fetch a price + alloys + energy. The rest are dumb props to hide behind. In short: somewhere mid-game I felt I'm grinding for money. The original X-COM series never felt like a grind. Some deep, important aspects of the game seem to have been ruined by extreme focus on core gameplay; — Software engineering is horrid. Assets are 10000+ png files. Black and white squares. Mid-turn crashes. Threw a grenade with 110% hit probability and missed. Fired a magic rocket that disappears and forces everyone to skip a turn. Had (-2^32) hangar slots. Save games are plaintext+binary!.. — Lack of interesting appliances in tactical. Everything either shoots or explodes; — Air combat. Felt like a triumph of human technology in X-COM. Here, it's an 'evade-fire-evade-fire!...' chore. Reminder: UFOs are all the same; — Music. Well, there is music. RECOMMENDED: — Those, who would like to revisit X-COM: UFO Defense. NOT RECOMMENDED: — Newcomers to the genre (redirected to the original with mandatory OpenXCOM); — Those who seek better tactical (redirected to X-COM: Apocalypse).

Save for a couple of small defects, this game does *everything* right ..... EXCEPT the most important thing - combat. This is the most stupid line of sight (LOS) implementation I've seen in *any* game. The manual says that the game is not using 3D for LOS (it draws some zigzag on the ground to show the bullet's flight path) and that the player will see some strange behavior. Well, it is not strange. It is idiotic. The developers KNEW the LOS was horrible but did nothing to fix it. They could have simply reduced the object clutter (such as trash cans, small boulders, etc.) but I am getting ahead of myself. See below. I am talking performance of top rank max stats soldiers who are alive only thanks to Quick Save/Load. - a soldier standing next to a waist-high barrier cannot toss a grenade over it (the barrier has a 45% chance to block) and half the time he drops the grenade under his feet; he can't reliably roll a grenade into a room while standing in the doorway; grenades in this game (no 3D remember?) fly straight, not on a ballistic trajectory, so every tiny thing on the ground is an obstacle to your grenade; when your strongest soldier has an 81% chance to hit with a grenade, half the time it will fly sideways, not toward the target; the same applies to firing RPGs and firearms; - tanks have about 20% chance to hit; and when the tank is towering over a 2-foot tall boulder (or an object like a highway divider), half the time the shell will *hit boulder*, explode and BLOW UP YOUR TANK; - firearms are no better; when an 7-foot tall alien is *standing* behind a boulder that barely reaches its knees, the boulder reduces your chance to hit by 45%; if there's a trash can to the side of the bullet's flight path your chance to hit is reduced further; And so on and so forth. I bought it for 6 bucks and I regret it. It is an exercise in frustration because you spend 80% of the time in combat which does not work.

I enjoyed this game a lot (143h on steam). As a big fan of classic X-Com and JA2 I was not disappointed. Pros: + Ufo dogfight is brilliant game mechanic + Turn based tactics in it's best classic form (AP, grenades, more than 2 levels of terrain, destructible environment, sneaking enemies with different tactics) + Global strategic gameplay is not annoying, almost no micromanagement needed. But there are more abilities than in classic X-Com! + Immersive game with lore, characters and background story. It may be a lot similar to X-Com Ufo defense, but still interesting. Posters 'Know your enemy' are very notable. + Music and sound + Good 2D graphics. I prefer such 2D over 3D, it's very nice as for me. + Mods. There is no plenty of, but still Cons: - It's a long game. Like classic games of 90's. I spent almost 80h for first walkthrough. But may be it's not that bad? It was a fun time! And another 60h of fun to play again with mods... Then I just started to wait Xenonauts 2 )) - Weapon system is built around classes and tech levels (e.g. shotguns - firearms, laser etc). Mods expand classes with sub classes (like SMG). But some kind of "a lot of guns" from JA2 or attachment/mods would be great.

Nicely balanced squad level tactical game. Turn based combat, permadeth, destructible and multi-level terrain. UNDECIDED - a campaign is rather long, I think 80 hours at first, what you can cut to ~60 on later attempts. The game requires more commitment than Shadowrun or XCOM - this game is not for gun nuts. There are enough options, all with their niche though. Enough for me, but there is not Jagged Alliance level of customization available. PRO - lovely art style and sprites - early 80's cold war aesthatics provide nice flavor, and is rather unique - no handholding, players are treated with respect - non-tactical gameplay is streamlined from the original, almost no annoying base management is necessary - nice sounds CONS - some super fun options from the original UFO are not available (such as psion soldiers or guided rockets) - maps are randomly chosen from a pool, but there are not enough map layouts to support a long campaign. You will see the same layouts again and again. - biggest problem for me: the text is very tiny, and there is no possibility in game to make it readable. (well there is, but maximum setting is till very tiny) Unfortunately, while the devs are aware of this issue, they cannot fix it. Alltogether, a good remake of the original, what I would recommend. I would surely buy a lovecraft-ish Terror from the deep from the devs, as long as they fix the tiny texts issue.