First, I wanted to correct the description. I've owned this game since I was still in highschool when my father bought it in a 3-pack with UFO Defense and Terror from the Deep. I don't know why they decided to take it upon themselves to change the backstory from what the original creators designed, but the reason for the one major city is because the aliens released a deadly gas, and the humans made this one spot on earth remain habitable. There was nothing in the story about human excess or pretty conflicts. Really, gog, if you're going arbitrarily invent backstory not written by the original authors, then you could at least have the common courtesy to invent something that hasn't been cliched to death, or is at least intelligent. Anyway, about the game, it's pretty good. I enjoy the turn-based style of the xcom series, but unfortunately the brain suckers in this game make that really difficult, especially in the beginning. Their time units are ridiculous. They can be launched to the other side of a large room, hatch, run over to your unit really far away, and suck his brain out all in the same turn. You pretty much have to play real-time so you can actually kill the creature on its way to kill your unit. And the brainsucker is the aliens' main weapon in the beginning, and even after they start using mainly real weapons, they will still have a few brainsuckers freely running around. The style of this game is somewhat different from its predecessors. You do everything here that you did there, but in a smaller area, and the world feels much more dynamic, much more manipulatable and precarious. You have a rudimentary political system now where you can fall out of and into favor with organizations, vastly more easily out of favor of course. Apparently, there is also project underway to add all of the content the creators didn't have time to implement. Sounds really good from what I was reading, and GOG's version here is compatible, as is the disc.
Imagine feminists hired some programmers to do a point-and-click adventure game about stopping climate change. Imagine all of the notions they have about men, women, big business, and just in general about the world. That's this game in a nutshell. It's actually quite funny in the beginning because you just see every notion they typically have, and you can't help but laugh at the fact that the writers were being serious. I have to say this first. I would have probably given it 3 stars, but this game is literally Eco-terrorism propaganda. It condones eco-terrorism as a necessary evil to provoke change. They pretend like they're not condoning it while they literally put all of the argument on the side of the terrorists, like there's nothing to refute them, like the fact that literally everything that's predicted proves to be wrong except for predictions of that which has been happening will continue to happen. Those are literally the only predictions any of the climate change scientists get right. Often even those predictions are not as dramatic as predicted to be either. However, I will say that it's got some good qualities too. They did a remarkable job of not allowing you to get yourself in a situation where you couldn't get past an objective. There are a few glitches, so have a lot of save points so that you don't have to go back too far when you encounter them. However, a lot of glitches actually are not. They're because you didn't do something or get something. For example, I kept having to do this thing over and over again because I didn't put the wedge where it was supposed to go first. I thought it was a glitch. It wasn't. Another one was because I was supposed to put the keys back on the table first. I have to say that a lot of the steps were not logical. What you needed to do often had illogical steps. But then a lot of these kinds of games have that. As for the story, it's what you'd expect from a climate change crazy. It wasn't boring though.
One of the single best strategy games ever. The strategic micro-manager's dream-game right here. But fear not, it does NOT require quick-thinking. It's a turn-based strategy game for the tactical, and the other real-time portion allows pause. Multiple games have attempted to recapture this game's essence. A couple I've played are UFO Afterlight & UFO AI. It seems like they all do alien invasion like they can't apply these concepts to any other scenario. But understandably, they're just trying to recapture the best strategic gaming experience they ever had. X-Com: UFO Defense (US)/Enemy Unknown (some other nation) is a game where you sit as the micromanaging commander of a world-wide effort to stop the alien assaults on the world. World nations collectively fund the organization, and will increase or decrease funding depending on how effectively you're protecting them. I didn't figure out how to continue always getting increased funding. The Alien assaults get progressively more numerous. It gets hard to keep up with them. You decide where to build bases, their different rooms, the layout. You buy & allocate scientists and engineers to research and build new technologies. (You will be defending your bases tactically.) Eventually, you start to match the power of the aliens. At first, they are clearly superior. To defeat them on the battlefield, you really have to take advantage of the terrain and position your soldiers to always be covering each other. It's like chess; don't leave your guys undefended. I think everything is destructible. Soldiers that actually survive improve in their skills. You do want survival though because you're going to need skilled soldiers when stronger ridiculously fast enemies start showing up. Oh man, the first time you face those, if you're not ready, it's going to be a slaughter/reload unless you're hardcore. In that case, you're getting an expensive fresh new batch of newbies to figure out how to face these new enemies.
I give it 3.5, but round up for posterity. I do so sincerely hope that Tex will continue this franchise. The guy who invented this game, he plays the part of Tex Murphy. Yep, that's actually him, the guy in charge, the main programmer making it all happen A.K.A. Chris Jones I would give it the whole 5.0, but I didn't like how some of the stuff from the old ones was changed, how Tex does things and such. What I DO LIKE though is the nicely effective keyboard-mouse interface. That was something long missing from the Tex Murphy franchise because keyboard-only movement is just so cumbersome. However, it's still not where it should be. Hey, Tex Murphy, A.K.A. Mr. Jones, play an FPS once in a while! That's the kind of keyboard-mouse interface that needs to happen here. I liked the story, but I think more could have been done with it, a few more relevant plot-twists, much more storyline. It was simply too short of a story. I think you could have made a half-hour tv episode with all of the commercials . . . maybe. It was far too easy even on the hardest difficulty. Compared to the older ones, it was a cake-walk. More choice-impact needs to be given. This is the kind of game that one expects the choices they make to have some kind of significant effect, not just on the ending. It's time to graduate Tex, the time of ending-only impact is over. it's time to have current and near in-game impacts from decisions made and conversation choices as well. There needs to be cause-effect branches. How that's creatively implemented, I leave in your very capable hands. Anyhow, it really does bring you back to the good ole days with Tex Murphy. The suspense could have been better as well. It didn't quite capture the suspense as good as I remember these games doing. Hey, Mr. A.K.A. Jones, you need to also hire some decent comedians to help you with the humor a bit. Don't get me wrong, you have a decent sense of humor, but some professional help on that would add that much more.
