XCOM: Enemy Unknown
XCOM: Enemy Unknown will place you in control of a secret paramilitary organization called XCOM. As the XCOM commander, you will defend against a terrifying global alien invasion by managing resources, advancing technologies, and overseeing combat strategies and individual unit tactics.
The original XCOM is widely regarded as one of the best games ever made and has now been re-imagined by the strategy experts at Firaxis Games. XCOM: Enemy Unknown will expand on that legacy with an entirely new invasion story, enemies and technologies to fight aliens and defend Earth.
You will control the fate of the human race through researching alien technologies, creating and managing a fully operational base, planning combat missions and controlling soldier movement in battle.
Key Features
- Strategy Evolved: XCOM: Enemy Unknown couples tactical turn-based gameplay with incredible action sequences and on-the-ground combat.
- Strategic Base: Recruit, customize and grow unique soldiers and manage your personnel. Detect and intercept the alien threat as you build and expand your XCOM headquarters.
- Tactical Combat: Direct soldier squads in turn-based ground battles and deploy air units such as the Interceptor and Skyranger.
- Worldwide Threat: Combat spans the globe as the XCOM team engages in over 70 unique missions, interacting and negotiating with governments around the world.
Steam User 66
Classic turn-based tactics game that is still very fun and challenging to play today. Although it is not deck verified, playing it on steam deck still provides a perfect experience as long as the linux version is chosen.
The difficulty of the game is quite high on classic+ difficulties, even without Ironman. Overall a must play for anyone who loves strategy games.
It will take more than 150 hours to get all achievements. There are several challenging achievements.
- A continental fellow: requires at least 5 runs and the achievement is bit buggy. The achievement did not pop for me after my latest run. Then it pops after I loaded all five saves and watch all endings again.
- Ironman classic+: this is the best achievement in my opinion. Definitely a big challenge and not recommended in the first run.
- impossible: not as difficult as ironman classic+ since save / load is allowed. still difficult especially for the first two months.
Steam User 45
Oh, I had not posted a review on this game yet.
What am I doing????
Let me explain, even 11 years after launch, this game stays good and will remain a classic for the years to come.
How to have fun:
1st : you play the game, it needs 30 ish hours to finish.
2nd : you download long war, it gives you an extra 100 hours of pure fun.
3rd : you download long war rebalanced for an extra 70 hours (you got better).
Than you play other games like xcom2 (long war 2 and lwotc included), pheonix point (terror from the void included), xenonauts (and the 2nd in a short time) a little battle brothers, battletech (included roguetech) and maybe a tactical rpg like arbiter's mark.
After all this, you will feel the urge to come back to an eleven years old game because it is just that fun.
Thank you for the creator of all these games and the modding community.
Steam User 36
I practically live in XCOM 2 these days, but back in the day I was a big, big fan of XCOM: Enemy Unknown and its official expansion, Enemy Within. It's worth reviewing the game for the benefit of players new to the franchise, or want to progress from the older game series, or are XCOM 2-only players who'd like to know how the war was won, or at least how it could have been won in their timeline.
It's the near-future year of 2015. (Well, it was ten years ago!) A rain of strange capsules descend on Earth. People who investigate the capsules are surprised, then terrified, to discover that the capsules contain alien beings with a definite hostile attitude! A brand new international agency named XCOM dispatches a team to one site with orders to investigate. This investigation turns into the tutorial mission, which gives the basics of what to do during a mission, and how to do it. And also what not to do, such as leaving a soldier exposed to a flanking shot. *facepalm* One soldier survives the mission and returns home with confirmation that the alien invasion is on!
As it turns out, XCOM has been anticipating an alien invasion for some time, and is preparing to go into action to stop it. You the player take on the role of the Commander, XCOM's allegedly expert tactician. (Don't worry, you'll live up to the hype eventually.) You have three subordinates to give you assistance. Dr. Vahlen, the not-at-all gender-bent Dr Strange love stand-in who is head of Research. Dr. Shen, a cautious, ethial technocrat who is head of Engineering. And last but not certainly least is Major Bradshaw, who as Central helps run operations and helpfully reminds you at length about mission objectives and alien dangers. The game does further tutorials, introducing the NPCs, promoting your surviving soldier to Heavy, and introducing a large but unfinished base located in one of the 15 member nations that makes up XCOM's governing council. A mission comes up, and your Heavy takes three Rookies out on a mission. It's easy, take out some aliens, bring back some bodies for Dr Vahlen to study and some alien artifacts for Dr Shen to develop into useful gear for you. Hopefully all your Rookies survive, and you get one of each of the other classes: Sharpshooter, Assault, Specialist. Now, go save the Earth, Commander!
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a tactical turn-based game. Your soldier team all take their actions, then the alien force takes their actions. the turn ends, do it again, until one side is eliminated and/or mission success requirements are met. It's not easy; the aliens aren't sitting ducks, and taking cover is necessary for survival! Patience and judging the best angles of attack are important for victory. Don't rush ahead, or your soldiers may activate an extra alien group or two, increasing the odds against your soldiers. As your soldiers gain experience they will increase in rank (level up) and learn new skills to use. The Science and Engineer teams will make discoveries which will be used to make equipment which will give your soldiers better chances of success. Be wary of the enemy though, since they have special skills of their own, and at higher levels of difficulty become better shots and will take more advantage of bad moves. Save often!
There is also a strategic level which is just as important as the missions, maybe more so. Alien UFOs will conduct raids to abduct humans, and too many of them in a given member nation will cause panic levels to rise. Too many unopposed raids and the nation will give up and leave the Council. That means less resources and less control of Earth. Shooting down UFOs and raiding them in turn keeps the skies friendlier and yields more rewards for the whitecoats. And every so often the aliens will carry out a "terror raid", aa massive attack intended to spread fear and destruction through a nation. Those will be challenges for your soldiers, so do your best on those!
If you do well on Enemy Unknown and want to up the challenge, get the supplement Enemy Within. The official DLC adds a new enemy, the Human secret society known as Exalt, which has their own plans for enemy prisoners and technology. They provide a new wrinkle for XCOM, since they are hostile to XCOM and their presence on a mission means a vicious fight against an enemy that operates on XCOM's level. A few new missions and maps are added to the overall game as well, keeping the game exciting and fresh.
This game is very challenging and exciting! I have played over a thousand hours on it, both on Steam and as a PS 4 game. I recommend it to fans of sci-fi games, turn-based games, and action games.
Steam User 27
Solid game, becomes repetitive very fast, I would struggle to play through this again though. Which suprises me because I played its predecessor to death and Apocolypse as well. Still its not a bad game at all and well worth playing if you like turn based strategy, It could severley use different maps and more varied aliens not ot mention some kind of narrative.
Also its frustrating when you can sink 10 hours into something only to realise that there is no way you can possibly win, "but Dave thats gaming, what did you expect ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥", well be that as it may I still found it frustrating. Incidently I have a free copy of this game so if anyone wants it just ask.
Steam User 20
they should panic more they actually hit their shots when their panicked
Steam User 22
Buy this game, install the Long war mod, spend an ungodly amount of hours playing. That's it, just do it.
Steam User 14
Col. Nathan Aerts served me from tutorial to the final room of the final missio . Slaughtered by a particle cannon reaction shit whilst mind controlled. I promptly requested compassionate leave