Xenonauts

This is one of the most brutally challenging games I have ever played. I have seen things happen in this game that are so unfortunate it makes me question the nature of reality. Still one of the best alien defense games ever made, really makes you feel like you are fighting an unwinnable war.

I can see how people would compare this with xcom. Xcom's combat is more involved and intense. However, in every other way like base building, tech development, engineering construction, team building, I prefer Xenonauts. 75/100

Got a literal headache trying to play this game because the UI is so tiny. The action/health bars are 1 pixel high, like it's designed to play on a 90s CRT monitor

Basically, OG XCOM but: Feels harder Animations are more fluid Cold war (freaking based) Feels more like you're controlling a global network and keeping governments happy instead of just controlling a military.

It suffers from the same "Alpha Strike" issue as all IGOUGO game systems, where you can have a bunch of your dudes wiped out in a single turn because you have to waste your first turn moving to a place where you can see the enemy, but don't have enough time to shoot them. Then you have to take an entire enemy volley before getting a chance to return fire. Xenonauts also combines this with an incredibly short time to kill. Your dudes die in a couple of hits early game and several early game enemies can tank several shotgun blasts/M-16/sniper rounds even on normal difficulty. There is also the issue of your dudes having an incredibly limited field of view and vision range. In what universe do humans not have 120 degree field of vision and also suffer such crippling myopia that they can't see past 10 paces? Oh and before you ask, no, the aliens do NOT suffer these impediments. X-com UFO defense(from the 90s) is a better and honestly, far more engaging game than this flawed remake. The old pixel graphics have a charm that the bland, crudely drawn character models of this game can't touch. Combine that with a lower price tag and a modding scene that has produced several total conversions (X-Files, 40k, Halo, War of the Worlds, Terminator etc.) and I just can't in all good conscience recommend this game.

Still a masterpiece of turn based gaming! Micro manage your subordinates like a CEO with a bad coke habit. defeat the enemies of humanity by stealing their intellectual property and using it against them.

40 часов, как под наркозом, я работал ксеновозом, не шофером, не таксистом, а вoнючим тарелкочистом, ой-ой-ой. Еслиб только вы все знали, как же много их насрaли, ой-ой-ой. Даже у такого усидчивого aутиста, как я, сдали нервы после 100 сбитого НЛО, я узнал что конец игры, где-то на 250-ом. Это по сути и не игра вовсе, а настоящая работа, однообразная скучная зачистка тарелок, и выковыриание из них пришельцев. Особенно бесят ситуации, когда остается один зеленый человечек на карте, но ты не знаешь где, и миссия не заканчивается. Но основная претензия даже не к медитативному геймплею, с нашумевшими 95% = промах, и не к микроменеджменту инвертаря каждого солдатика, а к чудовищно малому количеству контента на такой гигантский хронометраж для полного прохождения. Причем сначала все идет нормально и бодро, появляются новые задачи, первые часов 10 интересно их делать, а потом появляется миссия: "Захвати лидера пришельцев" и все, пошел ты нaхер, ищи его как ветра в поле. Месяцы проходят, военные бюджеты растут, улучшаются кораблики, броньки, пушки, а воз и ныне там. Развлекай себя сам пока лидер не соизволит прилететь. И при том, хоть бы видов операций было, ну 2 или 3, так нет, все они одинаковые, высадись убей пришельцев. Ни тебе бомбу разминируй, ни тебе спаси заложников, захвата флага нет, просто вот тебе вилка, чисти. Есть конечно защита и нападение на базу пришельцев, но там меняются по сути только декорации. Скучища нереальная, даже ланшафт у карт имеет максимум 5 вариантов, шо очень мало, большинство карт - стандартные рандомно натыканные ассеты складов и офисов, которые приедаются уже на первых 15 часах. А разрабы видимо думали, что этого хватит чтобы держать игрока заинтересованным 50-60-100 часов, ну-ну. Прежде чем выпускать новую часть, вы либо в этой контента довалите, либо крестик снимите. Ну или сократите полное прохождение часов до 25. Кто-то скажет, так сбивай тарелки, крути время, зачем летать на все операции? Под конец я уже и начал так делать, но все равно, то на базу нападут, то атака на город, то думаешь вдруг в этом большом крейсере лидер и летишь чистить, а его нет и нет. В остальном игра вполне приятная в духе классики тактических партийных пошаговых стратегий, и визуальный стиль хоть и схематический, но зато интуитивно понятный. Претензий к геймплею нет, если в таком жанре нет промахов на 95% то это уже и не игра, а микроменэджмент это обязательный атрибут такого времяпровождения. Если вам не принципиально полное прохождение то, поиграть часов 15 можно, а дальше только если ты колос мысли верхом на срaльном ведре или тарелочница.

I bought this having never played the original XCOM games but having absolutely loved the rebooted games. I suppose I can see why there are purists who prefer it (and the original games it's based on) to the newer games - it's more open ended, with a greater level of customisation possible, and it does make the rebooted series feel a bit more 'on rails' in comparison - but it's just too punishing for me. I remember getting wiped out the first time I played 'XCOM: Enemy Unknown', but once you got the basic hang of combat, you could progress through a satisfyingly tense and challenging campaign, without it ever feeling impossible. In Xenonauts, it feels like unless you're an expert at the game, even on lower difficulty settings, you're going to need to regularly 'save scum' in order to get anywhere - to the extent where it just doesn't feel fun. Other than the punishing difficulty, it's also just a lot lower-res and uglier than the newer games, to the extent where it can even hamper gameplay, as it can be difficult to see the enemies/objects on the floor, and there's no option to rotate the camera. I know graphics shouldn't be the priority for this kind of game, but still, you compare meeting new alien types to the rebooted series, which would be accompanied by radio chat speculating on the nature of the beings you were battling, and felt genuinely exciting - in xenonauts, you meet a new alien type and you can barely make out what it's supposed to be based on the combat sprites, let alone there being any other bells and whistles to help make the experience feel more significant. In fact, often events happen on the battlefield that are so poorly visualised that you're left baffled as to what's happened to the extent that you wonder whether the game's just bugged out or you've accidentally misclicked. If you're someone who got frustrated by your soldier's missing high-percentage shots in the rebooted XCOM series, that's nothing compared to how infuriatingly useless your troops feel in xenonauts.

I found out that they were making a Xenonauts 2, except they never fixed the bugs that were in this game. Nearly 9 years they've had to fix the bugs for this game, and yet they've ignored them in favour of releasing a sequel, that's the kind of Developer/Publisher Goldhawk Interactive is. If there's no profit in it, then they're not interested, they'll quite happily take your money and the run off after release. In terms of the game itself, when you can get it to work, making lots of save files is highly recommended, the game is okay. The biggest problem is that the campaign is fairly short, and with no alternative game option or Steam Achievements there is zero replay value. Definitely not worth full price, but generally just not worth it. There are better games in the genre that're both cheaper and more interesting, longer too. In regards to Xenonauts 2, it looks more like a fully patched version of this with very slight graphical improvements, I wouldn't recommend getting either game to be honest.