I was digging around the garage this year of 2009 and found the X-COM CD-ROM buried with my other oldies, but goodies.
I was digging around the garage this year of 2009 and found the X-COM CD-ROM buried with my other oldies, but goodies. Needless, to say, I ended up installing this game on my Alienware, XP equipped laptop via a DOS emulator freeware.
To make a long story short, I've been sucked back into the excitement of snap missions, base planning, recruitment of support and field personnel, funding dilemmas (before a 1 billion dollar code cheat was employed *grin*), and the joys reaped from reverse engineering the alien technology ladder. All of this happened in game, while traversing the globe day and night in style.
The fact that there are several different races of aliens that are encountered throughout the campaign of an X-COM operative has proven great for the shear replay value alone. The player is pitted against the strengths and weaknesses of each race in various missions. They never know exactly what to expect next until landing at the LZ (landing zone).
Music and graphics for its time are just right in setting an atmosphere of uncertainty. Civilians go about their daily lives until a Terror attack brings everything to a halt. Meanwhile, the X-COM HQ alarm klaxons go off emitting an amber glow to the screen as everyone runs to their Skyranger and Avenger birds over in the hanger.
Turn based style moves make this a souped up version of digital chess match as each character only has a limited amount of time units that can be effected by characteristics such as equipment weight, energy left, wounds, morale, and other factors of the mission environment.
An hour can easily go by before you know it with this title, so remember to save your missions to come back to play another day This title has earned a top spot in my classic collection.