I don't know much about the original X-COM games, but this seems like a mediodcre implementation of an otherwise excellent game. Seems like GOG only allows 2000 characters per post, so I'll have to be short. The game itself has many good addictive features; soldier management is definitely one of them. The Jagged Alience 2 feel of the ground combat gives you an illusion of realism. The air combat is unrealistic, but still good enough. The reason I can't rate Xenonauts good enough, is because of some of the wrong decisions on the dev's side. I feel that the devs are obsessed with giving more challenge than anything else. As a result, the game is mostly made for the die-hard fans of X-COM. Is there any problem with it? Well, yes, the strategic aspect of the game is very rigid - you are supposed to build exactly 3 bases; not 2, not 4, 5 is right out, otherwise you're doing it wrong, etc. There's an "optimal" build in the game, and you must obey this to avoid getting fucked. Not only that, I must mention the one utterly broken game mechanic that is Psionic. Apparently, the psionic in the original X-COM was so OP and the devs decided to remove this mechanic from the game - only in a half-assed way. The aliens can still use this mind-fuckery while you have little means to defend. You have a 50% chance of resisting Mind Control at best - Once. Every. Turn. The dev's justified this by saying "You don't complain when your soldiers die from a blind plasma cannon round came out of nowhere" Which is bullshit because a plasma cannon round must be shot by someone who had a proper line of sight. And this doesn't happen by freaking 50% each turn. All in all, the game is fun enough, but grindy, and the dev's made some delusional decisions. Unfortunately, I guess much of the fun comes from the original X-COM game rather than the reimplmentation. If you've enjoyed this game, you might enjoy the old X-COM as well, but I'm afraid not necessarily the other way around.
Even the good voice acting, fine visual and decent writing don't make up for the horrendous dialog. It's the infamy timed dialog and, this game is poor and clumsy even at that. They spit out whatever they have in mind like a flying bullet and can't seem to resist doing so before others are done doing so. And you, have to be like them and must say a word before even perceive what you want to say, because your three dialog options are already fading out by the time the other one is almost finished his curent line. Some people say this is for the realism and this is "great", but I think quite some of them are mistaking the concept of 'novelness' for 'greatness'. And what do you get by going through this unskippable dialog horror for eternity... Not much, because 80 percent of dialogs are pointless banter in this dialog-heavy game. If there's a 'game' in it other than tinkering with the radio, that is. I guess this makes about 70 percent of your time spent on listening to the endless chitchat for precisely no purpose. Ignoring these dialog problems, and the sub-optimal unremappable controls, and perhaps the resolution-related or AI bugs, yeah! Why not? This is an ok game.
It's really either: You have a fighter joystick (or possibly even joypad might do), this game might worth it; This game was a great 2D fighter. Or: You don't ever waste your time on this... The port is done in most insincere manner. It's a straight blind direct port. You can't even remap controls. And the default keyboard scheme is set up in the most illogical way possible; QW and... what? XC? I would have understood if it were either QWAS or ASZX or that sorts... Just how are you supposed to quickly hit such keys so far from each other? What a bummer.. You might be able to use AutoHotkey or similar workaround on Windows, and there probably is a way on Linux too, but that's not the point. You shouldn't be the one who must care about that. Also worth mentioning is that the Linux version doesn't even uninstall when double-clicked from a file manager. It looks like the uninstall script is not handling paths properly.
