If you're comparing it to the original XCOM: UFO defence (Which it is a spiritual successor to), it very likely is a massive step up in every way and would be more up your alley.
But if you're comparing it to the Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within and XCOM 2 series, including long war, you might find the game to be a struggle to play on.
This review might seem weak, given I spent at most, 59 minutes playing the game before giving up and refunding, and yeah, I'm not gonna lie, its gonna seem petty, but I'll just explain what my biggest problems were in that 1 hour, and my experiences during the hour:
My biggest problem was that the game relied [i]extremely heavily[/i] on you reading the manual for learning the game (Which you can actually miss if you're not paying attention, the manual is [b]not on steam itself[/b] so if you enter the game past the launcher, you need to actually close the game, and start the launcher again to have the option to open your manual, unless you wanna google, its kinda annoying to figure that out), with your only information in game being text boxes that don't really give you much visual representation or actually teach you anything, they give you more lore/story stuff.
So, either assuming you read the manual, or just skip it like I did initially, you are quite literally, just tossed right in and [b]are assumed to know how the game works[/b] or at the very least, have an understanding of what you're doing. Again, if you're comparing it to the original 1994 XCOM UFO Defence, its probably very likely familiar, and potentially a massive step up and you might be right at home.
But for a game that came out [i]20 years later, in [u]2014[/u] (and only 2 years after the rebooted XCOM: Enemy Unknown), long after manuals stopped being something required to understand the game controls and mechanics, and even stopped being included in game boxes...[/i] It didn't leave a great impression, I'm sure to veteran players I may look 'entitled' or 'lazy' for not spending probably 30 - 60 minutes reading a manual, which sure, I'll concede, that's not a hugely outrageous ask, but I am wanting to play the damn game too, however the appeal of manuals was also how short and flashy they were, here I'm reading [b]33 pages of just pure text that only really explain parts of the mechanics and not the controls or how to do stuff[/b], that's boring, its unhelpful. I was hoping the game would at least give me even a simple prompt on how to do stuff, at best I got told how to build a base, and... That was it, I was just forced to deal with everything on the fly!
I already had a very minor / basic idea of how the game would work just based on what I saw from videos from both the original UFO defence, and videos of Xenonauts, but despite that familiarity, the next biggest problem that came following the manual was the UI, which is just... Atrocious, its too small, for reference I was playing on a 1600x900 in windowed mode, so by no means am I playing on 4K screens here, I found it incredibly difficult to see where even my cash flow was (Its very small, but hidden away in the top right) i was constantly leaning in and squinting to read the small text, I only found out by sheer luck that my objectives were in the bottom right, blending in to the background on the geoscape, again, I'm not playing on a huge monitor, its 1920x1080.
Now, the combat. You know what I will give credit that the time units system certainly is more understandable compared to the original UFO Defence (cause not even the original i understand, but here, I did), but outside of just basic movements, everything else you are quite literally left to figure out all on your own if you are again, not reading the manual, which is not great, when I struggle to even figure out some basic mechanics that are much easier to go through in other games, such as:
[list]
[*] How do I shoot accurate shots? Why are all my shots low accuracy?
[*] Why can the enemy overwatch me, but I can't seem to overwatch them?
[*] How on earth do I heal my soldier that is currently bleeding out?
[/list]
I did eventually figure out the 1st and 3rd [b]through trial and error[/b], shooting accurate shots was not that hard to find out, but it definitely took me some tries to realise that clicking on the same enemy multiple times to [i]expend more time units[/i] increases the chance of a successful hit (to a maximum of 95% only, you can NEVER go beyond that, its hard-coded, as stated in the manual)! That's cool! But that's not something you want to find out after already wasting several shots on low % chances to hit!
As for the healing, that took me quite a bit longer! I was aware that some of my soldiers had a medpack in their inventory as I had given a few of them extra ammo and a pistol for good measure, but there was no prompt to actually use said medpack, nor if you click it does it give you a prompt to use it, I only found out through just brute forcing methods that the medpack is a "weapon" you equip and "fire" on yourself / your soldiers to heal, and that you can expend more time units to heal more health. Awesome! [i]But I really don't want to have to figure this stuff out through sheer trial and error whilst also trying to figure out how to kill the aliens around me.[/i]
And the overwatch part I never figured out, I read the manual for that section, and I didn't get it, I believe it requires you to hold onto enough time units to automatically shoot back when fired upon, but that's not really reliable as it relies on other [b]hidden[/b] mechanics like initiatives.
[b]So. My conclusion is, if you are a fan of the original UFO defence but want something a bit more 'modern', have played the original game and want to see what spiritual successors have, or know the interface and the mechanics to it very well, you might find this game extremely enjoyable!
But, if you're coming from the Firaxis/2K XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 series of games, and have a very limited understanding of the original 1994 game, unless you are willing to dedicate time to read the manuals, and trial and error through parts of the game, there is probably a good chance you'll struggle to enjoy the game, or may have to dedicate several hours just figuring out the mechanics and UI.[/b]
Its a shame because I was quite interested in the game just from the images and the video, although i was a bit skeptical, I pushed through hoping I could get something gritty, unfair, but rewarding and fun, something that challenges me to have squads of soldiers instead of just a special forces with high ranked soldiers that cripple my game if anyone dies. Instead, I just found myself bored and annoyed that the 'difficulty' i was experiencing was not even the gameplay, but the small, crappy, small yet somehow clunky UI, and lack of information from the game itself, I have to consider if I really want to put up with that in the long term, for tens of hours and the answer is: No.
This may be a lot of yapping and nonsense for only 59 minutes of game time and a refund, for what will ultimately come down to someone commenting that I have a skill issue and need to read the manual to understand the game, but I am going to stand firm, a manual is fine, but it should be complementary, if you're going to make the manual the way to learn the game, fine, but make it exciting and flashy to look at like they did back then, include images at the very minimum. Games don't have manuals now, they sure as well were long on their way out back in 2014, and even say back in [b]2011 when they first [url=https://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/index.php?/topic/461-xenonauts-manual-release/]made their manual[/url] and released it on their forums[/b] game manuals were still on their way out. You can even find people asking such [url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/mu3oy/what_ever_happened_to_instruction_manuals/]questions back in 2011 where game manuals are[/url].
