XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Quel bonheur ce jeu, pur génie tactique, où chaque décision devient presque dramatique, des aliens surgissent dans la nuit métallique, et ton sang reste froid malgré le chaos critique. Tu planifies, tu doutes, chaque tour est décisif, un soldat tombe, et ton cœur devient pensif, mais tu relances encore, toujours plus offensif, car ce jeu rend l’esprit vif et combatif. Les missions s’enchaînent en tension fantastique, la victoire se mérite, jamais automatique, et chaque réussite a un goût épique, dans ce chef-d’œuvre stratégique et magnifique.

Took me quite a while to finally getting around to playing XCOM, but I'm glad I did, as I had a pretty good time playing through it, even if it does have a few issues. The story felt a lot like the plot of a B movie (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). You're tasked with protecting the Earth from an alien invasion while trying to develop new technologies to fight against the alien's vastly superior technology and trying to understand what the aliens are after. It's definitely a bit shallow and predictable, but it still felt interesting enough to keep the experience enjoyable. I played through the game on the easiest difficulty and it didn't propose much of a challenge in terms of gameplay, although I still enjoyed it. You manage a military base, making choices on what things to spend money on (research, weapons, facilities, soldiers, reconnaissance, etc.), which is interrupted whenever an alien attack occurs. When this happens, you fly your soldiers out to the site of the conflict and the game transitions into turn-based combat between you and the aliens. The management of your base feels quite daunting at first, as it's hard to tell what you should prioritize, and making the wrong decisions early can cost you later, but once you learn how everything works, it gets a lot easier. The combat felt pretty easy for the most part (likely due to the difficulty I chose), although there were a few things I still found frustrating, and made me glad I didn't try to beat the game on a harder difficulty: [list] [*] You typically only learn where the enemies are by moving your soldiers close enough to them, and the aliens only attack you once you've discovered them on the map. However, this means accidentally discovering an alien when performing your last move on the turn can be extremely punishing, and can feel a bit unfair. [*] It isn't always clear how close you need to be to an alien to shoot them, or whether one position will provide a better shot than another. There were often times when I wasted moves because I thought I'd have a shot, but was actually too far away, or a shot that looked like it should be easy was only a very small chance to hit. [*] It's easy to click on the wrong square when moving your unit, either because there are multiple elevations and you clicked on the wrong one, or because it looked like you had cover somewhere when you actually didn't. [/list] The game certainly looks a little bit dated at this point, but it still looks alright. It also ran great, and I don't recall running into any bugs. [b]TL;DR[/b] This fun turn-based strategy game offers an enjoyable story, fun gameplay, and still runs great, even if the story can be a bit shallow and there are several things about the gameplay that can end up feeling a bit frustrating or unfair. I'd recommend getting it on sale if you enjoy tactical turn-based games, as long as you aren't looking for an amazing story or completely perfect gameplay.

I love this game but the steam version annoyed the heck out of me with RANDOMLY failing to launch enemy within AND launching enemy unknown in stead so I can't continue my run. And it's been an issue happening on and off for a decade now for people based on me looking it up. I had it running, I'm 30 hours in, then it decides to randomly stop working and start launchin genemy unknown. What? Don't bother here, go buy the DRM free gog version for your own sanity like I should have done.

This game was already one of the best turn-based games, I've ever played. After playing the PC version, It's easily in the top 5.

Classic, yet great. Highly recommend to buy the game under a discount (95%) if possible. Try turn on the native language speaking for soldiers in setting by the way. I really like this feature, feels like all united. Hints for new players: Turn on the "auto save" before playing the game unless you are playing easy mode, sometimes the random number will just piss you off and cause heavy losses. Save and load can prevent that, ignore this if you prefer ironman mode (no save and load). Under high difficulty, move carefully unless you need MELD (Enemy Within DLC content) urgently. If your soldier triggers the enemy at the end of turn then you are in big trouble: Your first two soldier should be the one moves the furthest in 2 angles (left and right usually), and all other soldier should try their best to not step over their position (middle between and behind them). Enemy moves slower then your thought, though they have a long shooting range. Sometimes backing up and overwatching (do not just overwatch and end your turn, enemy won't move unless they can't attack your soldier or they are not in cover) is not a bad idea if you are not responding to a terror attack. PS: On the menu when it asks play Enemy Within or Enemy Unknown just play Enemy Within. EW contains all the content Enemy Unknown has and its own new events & mechanisms. (I played EU 5 times for all original achievement then find out that I have to re-unlock everything (second wave, starting continent) in EW, so just go play EW straight ahead if you bought it)

Fantastic game for its time. Holds up really well Turn-based, squad-based combat

Worth every minute I didn't have I played the original UFO: Enemy Unknown as a teenager in the 90s. It was one of those games that just got into your head. Played Terror from the Deep, Apocalypse too. Then life happened — job, kids, the usual — and gaming became something I used to do. This one sat in my library for years. Every time I thought about installing it something else came up. I'm a bit annoyed about that now, because it's brilliant. I finally carved out the time and I've been playing it over 25 hours now. Late nights mostly. Still going. It's not identical to the original — it's more streamlined, more guided, a bit more cinematic. Some of the freeform chaos of the 94 game is smoothed over. The UFO interception side of things felt lighter than I remembered, though honestly that might be on me. But the thing that made the original special — the permadeath, the attachment to your soldiers, the absolute devastation when you lose a veteran squaddie you've been nursing through a dozen missions — that's all still there. Completely intact. If you're an old fan who's been putting this off: stop doing that. And if you're new to the series, just know that when a 90% shot misses, that's not a bug. That's XCOM, baby. Recommended. ✅