X-Com: UFO Defense

My childhood friend whom I played video games with nearly everyday after school told me about this really cool game one day and asked me to come over and check it out. We both sat down in front of his computer, a common thing of the time before the advent of the Internet, and he booted up this unusual brand new kind of game that I had ever seen before. I watched him choose the starting location for his base, build facilities, set up research, equip the troop transport and arm the interceptor. Then we waited. After a few moments, a small UFO was detected. He sent an interceptor after it and shot it down, then the troop transport followed. The game then switched to the soldier arming screen, and my friend commented about how the auto-cannon can shoot explosive rounds and "destroy cover and stuff". The mission area was the farm map around dusk, with crop fields, wooden fences and a barn. We sent our soldiers to dispatch the surviving Sectoids in the area and inside the downed UFO itself which had a gaping hole and several dead aliens inside. We ended our turn and thought we'd taken out the last of the aliens survivors, but the mission didn't end. The alien's turn finished almost instantly, and we didn't see any movement during the turn. Then my friend had an idea. He pulled all the soldiers away from the barn and put them on overwatch. Then he ordered the soldiers armed with auto-cannons loaded with high explosive ammo to do full-auto repeatedly on the barn. The rounds not only took out the walls of the barn, but most of the second floor along with the staircase as well, and exposed the last Sectoid hiding up there in a corner. Alas, our auto-cannon guys ran out of time units and we decided to end our turn. The Sectoid panicked and tried to run away, but got caught in a hail of reaction fire from rifle soldiers. A round struck its soft tissue and it dropped dead. The mission was a success, and the soldier that killed the last Sectoid got promoted.

Especially with the OpenXCom open source engine, which adds fullscreen support and other QoL improvements like keybindings. I was impressed how much fun this game still is to play even after so many modernized version have been released. Still the GOAT.

See title: I really don't know if it's one, the other, or both but I love this game. I've always loved this game. And aside from the hallmarks of early 90's RNG such as a tank taking 0 dmg for 4 shots, and straight up dying on the fifth there's nothing to complain about. Besides the abrupt ending. More 90's charm. I've got over 200 hours playtime with this bad boy and that number feels way too low

I haven't played this for 30 years, the gameplay is still good, Microprose did amazing things back then. The graphics and interface are a bit dated of course.

I used to play on Amiga computer back in the ancient times. Today the game is still great. Tactical combat, global strategy, human and resource management. Also one other thing that never went away- the fear, when you sneak trough the unknown area. Your soldiers are dying like flies. Every next corner might be a death trap.