Story
There's not really a need to explain the story. The story is masterfully presented through a cutscene that was just absolutely beautiful at the time.
You're the commander of X-Com, which is the world's last military hope to stop an alien invasion. You have to figure out how to stop them by intercepting their UFOs, infiltrating their bases, killing and gathering whatever you can to help you figure out where the threat is coming from. It's not Hollywood, but if you know me well, you'd know that, in my opinion, it doesn't have to be.
5/5
Gameplay
The game takes two completely different types of games and merges them together to create a cohesive experience.
The Geoscape is where you manage your bases, soldiers, and crafts, along with all the equipment they possess. You can research some of the aliens' technology that you gather from an interception and then use the workshop to actually make it and turn the tables. Your troops will start with nothing but a rifle and a few grenades, but later on your troops will be decked out with powerful armour and plasma guns. Your base starts with simple radars, but then you get the Hyper-wave Decoder, which makes things easier for you.
Unfortunately, as the game goes along, the aliens get tougher, and the only way to stop them is to send out your interceptors and shoot down any alien ship you can find, and then send your Skyranger, with up to 12 troops, to go investigate.
That's when you enter the Battlescape, where you actually fight the aliens through a turn-based system. You take all the time you need to move your soldiers around and shoot aliens, and then the aliens will move around and shoot back. Certain types of missions may have civilians, indestructible alien base walls, or other factors that change up the already interesting gameplay.
The most important thing, however, is to make sure your soldiers don’t die. If you put your soldier out in the open and he has a high rank… you can kiss him goodbye, especially on higher difficulty levels.
I should also probably note that on the original copy of the game, all difficulty levels were set to easy, regardless of what the game says. On the Steam version this is fixed, however, so you can now set your difficulty to Superhuman and see how long you can last.
My only real gripe with the gameplay is the aliens themselves. So many times I found my soldiers cheaply get killed because an alien sat right outside of the Skyranger, and given how precious my troops can be, this can get aggravating. I could also mention that whether aliens get hit by your shots is entirely based on chance, but unlike an RPG (where this sort of thing would bug me) what you do directly impacts your chances by a whole lot, and the game also directly tells you your hit chance. Plus, since you’re the commander, it’s really tense when your soldier is trying to shoot an alien, because if he misses and he’s vulnerable, then he might as well be dead.
Other than the occasionally cheap alien AI, the gameplay is extremely solid.
4.5/5
Graphics
Okay, I have to admit that the graphics definitely look dated. I still think that even with the system specs of DOS, Microprose could have made the soldiers and aliens look a bit nicer, especially with the animations. Anything that doesn’t move looks really nice though.
4.5/5
Music and Sound
This is where X-Com really shines. The music isn’t catchy, but it is incredibly atmospheric. The music sets the tone for the game, and regardless of all of the innovations that X-Com made with the tactical turn-based strategy game, X-Com’s music is by far the best part of the experience. I cannot play X-Com without the volume on my computer maxed out. It’s necessary for the experience. The one thing that I really hope they did with the new X-Com (I had a bit of computer issues and haven’t played the game yet) is make the music as atmospheric as the music of the old X-Com, because catchy music would completely ruin the experience.
The sounds are beautifully terrifying too. When you kill aliens, some of them make this really scary screaming sound. It’s the touches like that that make the sound so great. The laser guns sound like lasers, the rifles sound like rifles, and the grenades sound like explosions when they go off.
But the music still takes the cake for being the best use of music to compliment the gameplay in any game ever made (except rhythm games, for relatively obvious reasons). For that, this category gets some extra credit points. That’s right, a six out of five.
6/5
Playability
The game’s control is another of the game’s great features. The game may look complicated at first, but all of the buttons on the UI have nice looking pictures on them that clearly tell you what they’re meant for. This is a really effective way to teach the player how to play your game without tutorials or one of those button layout things in-game.
The only real control aspect that took me a while to figure out is how to go back to the standard mouse from the crosshair icon for shooting. At first, a lot of my soldiers shot each other accidentally when I was trying to figure it out. Apparently you have to right-click. Ah well, I got it eventually.
The only other problem is that when you lose, you have to start all over. And yes, that is a great thing about the game, but it’s also the same reason why I don’t play X-Com all the time. When I get a game over, I don’t touch the game for a while. Yes, you can reload and fix your mistakes, but that almost feels like cheating to me, as I’m sure it does for a lot of other people. I have yet to find someone that loses the game and then just goes and starts a new game right then and there. It’s not like in Yoshi’sIsland, for example, where you get a game over and then you just boot up the game right after that and restart the level. The term “Game Over” has a more faithful meaning to the words that make up the term. When your game is over, it’s over. You have to start all over. And that really does impact the playability of the game.
That all said, however, these are pretty minor complaints, and the biggest one also helps make the game so great. So that’s why this category gets an almost-perfect score.
4.5/5
Impact
The game’s impact on the player is solely a result of how the music complements the game. If the game had no music, the experience wouldn’t feel nearly as tense. That’s why it’s so fun, and that’s what engrosses the player so much. I’ve praised the music more than enough, so I’ll leave it at that.
5/5
TOTALS
5 + 4.5 + 4.5 + 6 + 4.5 + 5 = 29.5 / 30 = 98%
X-Com is more than a game… it’s an experience. And while the gameplay is really solid and very enjoyable, I still think that the music is what makes this game the legend it is. And a legend it should be.
I’m certain that if you mention this game to someone who has played it, they’ll tell you to get the game as soon as you can. I’m going to tell you something more important. When you play the game, turn the lights off and turn the volume to the max to see why this game is so engrossing and so legendary.
Recommended: Yes
There's not really a need to explain the story. The story is masterfully presented through a cutscene that was just absolutely beautiful at the time.
You're the commander of X-Com, which is the world's last military hope to stop an alien invasion. You have to figure out how to stop them by intercepting their UFOs, infiltrating their bases, killing and gathering whatever you can to help you figure out where the threat is coming from. It's not Hollywood, but if you know me well, you'd know that, in my opinion, it doesn't have to be.
5/5
Gameplay
The game takes two completely different types of games and merges them together to create a cohesive experience.
The Geoscape is where you manage your bases, soldiers, and crafts, along with all the equipment they possess. You can research some of the aliens' technology that you gather from an interception and then use the workshop to actually make it and turn the tables. Your troops will start with nothing but a rifle and a few grenades, but later on your troops will be decked out with powerful armour and plasma guns. Your base starts with simple radars, but then you get the Hyper-wave Decoder, which makes things easier for you.
Unfortunately, as the game goes along, the aliens get tougher, and the only way to stop them is to send out your interceptors and shoot down any alien ship you can find, and then send your Skyranger, with up to 12 troops, to go investigate.
That's when you enter the Battlescape, where you actually fight the aliens through a turn-based system. You take all the time you need to move your soldiers around and shoot aliens, and then the aliens will move around and shoot back. Certain types of missions may have civilians, indestructible alien base walls, or other factors that change up the already interesting gameplay.
The most important thing, however, is to make sure your soldiers don’t die. If you put your soldier out in the open and he has a high rank… you can kiss him goodbye, especially on higher difficulty levels.
I should also probably note that on the original copy of the game, all difficulty levels were set to easy, regardless of what the game says. On the Steam version this is fixed, however, so you can now set your difficulty to Superhuman and see how long you can last.
My only real gripe with the gameplay is the aliens themselves. So many times I found my soldiers cheaply get killed because an alien sat right outside of the Skyranger, and given how precious my troops can be, this can get aggravating. I could also mention that whether aliens get hit by your shots is entirely based on chance, but unlike an RPG (where this sort of thing would bug me) what you do directly impacts your chances by a whole lot, and the game also directly tells you your hit chance. Plus, since you’re the commander, it’s really tense when your soldier is trying to shoot an alien, because if he misses and he’s vulnerable, then he might as well be dead.
Other than the occasionally cheap alien AI, the gameplay is extremely solid.
4.5/5
Graphics
Okay, I have to admit that the graphics definitely look dated. I still think that even with the system specs of DOS, Microprose could have made the soldiers and aliens look a bit nicer, especially with the animations. Anything that doesn’t move looks really nice though.
4.5/5
Music and Sound
This is where X-Com really shines. The music isn’t catchy, but it is incredibly atmospheric. The music sets the tone for the game, and regardless of all of the innovations that X-Com made with the tactical turn-based strategy game, X-Com’s music is by far the best part of the experience. I cannot play X-Com without the volume on my computer maxed out. It’s necessary for the experience. The one thing that I really hope they did with the new X-Com (I had a bit of computer issues and haven’t played the game yet) is make the music as atmospheric as the music of the old X-Com, because catchy music would completely ruin the experience.
The sounds are beautifully terrifying too. When you kill aliens, some of them make this really scary screaming sound. It’s the touches like that that make the sound so great. The laser guns sound like lasers, the rifles sound like rifles, and the grenades sound like explosions when they go off.
But the music still takes the cake for being the best use of music to compliment the gameplay in any game ever made (except rhythm games, for relatively obvious reasons). For that, this category gets some extra credit points. That’s right, a six out of five.
6/5
Playability
The game’s control is another of the game’s great features. The game may look complicated at first, but all of the buttons on the UI have nice looking pictures on them that clearly tell you what they’re meant for. This is a really effective way to teach the player how to play your game without tutorials or one of those button layout things in-game.
The only real control aspect that took me a while to figure out is how to go back to the standard mouse from the crosshair icon for shooting. At first, a lot of my soldiers shot each other accidentally when I was trying to figure it out. Apparently you have to right-click. Ah well, I got it eventually.
The only other problem is that when you lose, you have to start all over. And yes, that is a great thing about the game, but it’s also the same reason why I don’t play X-Com all the time. When I get a game over, I don’t touch the game for a while. Yes, you can reload and fix your mistakes, but that almost feels like cheating to me, as I’m sure it does for a lot of other people. I have yet to find someone that loses the game and then just goes and starts a new game right then and there. It’s not like in Yoshi’sIsland, for example, where you get a game over and then you just boot up the game right after that and restart the level. The term “Game Over” has a more faithful meaning to the words that make up the term. When your game is over, it’s over. You have to start all over. And that really does impact the playability of the game.
That all said, however, these are pretty minor complaints, and the biggest one also helps make the game so great. So that’s why this category gets an almost-perfect score.
4.5/5
Impact
The game’s impact on the player is solely a result of how the music complements the game. If the game had no music, the experience wouldn’t feel nearly as tense. That’s why it’s so fun, and that’s what engrosses the player so much. I’ve praised the music more than enough, so I’ll leave it at that.
5/5
TOTALS
5 + 4.5 + 4.5 + 6 + 4.5 + 5 = 29.5 / 30 = 98%
X-Com is more than a game… it’s an experience. And while the gameplay is really solid and very enjoyable, I still think that the music is what makes this game the legend it is. And a legend it should be.
I’m certain that if you mention this game to someone who has played it, they’ll tell you to get the game as soon as you can. I’m going to tell you something more important. When you play the game, turn the lights off and turn the volume to the max to see why this game is so engrossing and so legendary.
Recommended: Yes
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