XCOM: Enemy Unknown

This is an excellent game made whole with the DLC. It's OK on it's own, however it seems like a full experience when you include the DLC and play enemy within mode ironman on commander difficulty. Don't "save scum", it's more intense that way :) I made the mistake of save scumming and it lessened the experience for me, learn from my mistake and don't get too 'emotionally attached' to your soldiers.

After making XCOM 2 out of rubber. I've returned to the first game of the saga with the surprise of finding a somewhat fun game but mostly more unfair than its predecessor, the game is dark with a more macabre tone which I like much more than the G.I Joe tone that its sequel has, the little bits of gore that XCOM has without a doubt makes it much more macabre.

As for difficulty without DLC it is noticeable that the game is somewhat RAW no matter if you are in good cover the enemies are going to kill you anyway... but well the game is noticeable that it is thought to be like that as much as in the 2 and its way of being like a child wanting to win. Now with the DLC it is another story the game besides having a couple of new things for your "Squadies" it feels like they made it a little less unfair or at least they let you have a bit more of victory.

My advice is still the same: Save and Load (every time you start a battle save first TRUST ME!), and if you like the autosave mode that XCOM 2 has, you can activate it in settings (I hate it).

Recommended if you like to spend time alone for a while a good while. I don't know if there are mods but meh the game is fun as it is ,perhaps not as crazy as the second one but gud enough.

A great re-imagining of the original series. Very solid game even without the Long War mod.

This is a absolute timeless classic! Even though the game was released in 2012, you hardly notice it – the graphics and gameplay still feel fresh and engaging today. A big plus: the game runs smoothly even on older PCs and offers a great experience. A clear recommendation for anyone who loves turn-based strategy and doesn’t have high-end hardware!"

Played through the campaign - first game I ever played in "ironman" mode where there was no possibility of loading the game. It made the stakes higher and the game exhilirating to play. The gameplay was tight, and the tactical maneuvering very satisfying.

Forgot how much I loved this game, just great all around for it's time.

Highly recommended.

At first I thought, ok it's an entertaining game with simply mechanics. Then I noticed I was hooked.

Turn based combat, based on taking cover and flanking, sounds easy, but quickly becomes challenging.
There's a bit of management, you have to expand your base, assign research and do other tasks in order to unlock and upgrade weapons, and equipment.
You can customize your troops, names, looks, colors, which is cool, just don't get too attached.
Visually, it's just ok, I like the maps, but they're not spectacular. They do the job. The aliens designs are a bit clumsy. Which fools you into thinking this is a forgiving easy game. It's not, you'll hate them.

I'd say it's worth the price, but I got it as a special promotion, and it definiteley paid off. If you find it on disscount, get it, you won't regret it.

A great tactic game. I love strategies, and this one is my first tactics, but I love everything about it. Cool imagery, ideas, mechanics, good balance and challenge where it needs be. It teaches you by slowly raising the level of difficulty and giving you different tasks that don't seem the same from level to level. Also, you have to tend to your base to be able to perform the tasks at hand. But it is also pretty realistic that you cannot save everyone and anyone, and sometimes have to sacrifice something to make the next step or get and achievement. Love everything about it.

Won't lie. I've had this in my library for about half a decade and just now started playing it. Wow, it is challenging.

The RNG Gods are RUTHLESS. Downright curb-stomp, prison yard shank, BRUTAL. That is what makes the wins that much sweeter.

Thankfully there is tons of resources to help new XCOM players. Def recommend buying Enemy Within.

Good game but the multiplayer mode is not working, that 's why I am not able to get those two achievements. I got the rest 83 achievements. I will try xcom 2

Somewhat neutral, as I can recognize that this is a good game while also recognizing I didn't like it. The mechanics are unique and interesting, but don't mesh well with my entertainment preferences, and the story has a cool concept, but takes too long with the aforementioned mechanics I don't love to get there.

XCOM is an amazing TBS game. Ultra punishing and fairly difficult at least for me. Love the perma-death aspects. There are so many things to manage and feels like a couple games at once. The soldier customization is REALLY fun. You can change hair color, names etc. pretty much everything about how they look.
Determining what to build in your base, what items to research, where to put satellites, what upgrades to give to your soldiers, what to sell and buy, what missions to take. Not to mention the combat, which is great but can be slightly frustrating at times.
Game is excellent. 9.5/10

Game is still randomly freezing during missions. This is an ancient bug that the publisher simply doesn't care about anymore. If you do buy it don't pay full price.

10/10 One of the Best Sci-Fi Tactical Games Ever Made

If there was a sort of alien who's able to arrive here, their technology must be far more advanced than the earth.
There is absolutely no chance for human to win.
So this game is ridiculous for the idea that human can fight or capture or win the alien.
But otherwise, its gameplay was super fun to play.
IMO, Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within are the two best titles in the XCOM series.

What a great game! Basically sets up its own genre - "X-com style" of RTS game, combining strategic view (base management with resources, soldiers, upgrades, research etc.) and tactical view (missions and maps where you need to achieve objectives). Lots of fun, totally happy to recommend!

great strategy game I rather enjoyed.

tips for beginners: don't immediately read 80< percent as 100%, have the squad stay roughly in the same area but not as close together as possible, don't assume they're all coming from the same direction

base building and elite squad building is very satisfying, but note that there is permadeath

cons: incredibly janky camera that takes getting used to, unskippable enemy intro cutscene Every. Single. Time.

It is legendary game from the past that brings unique gameplay mechanic that was copied by many games. And the best part of it is that graphics are still good with tons of gameplay content

For me, it's a puzzle game with a sci-fi coat of paint. I enjoy moving pieces to positions where they are the most beneficial for me. I probably wouldn't have picked this game if my partner didn't recommend it to me to at least try, so I recommend it to more than just strategy game enjoyers.

Although it is an older game, there is so much depth to it without it being overwhelming. I come back to it every 6 months for another playthrough

"XCOM: Enemy Unknown" has surpassed my expectations in almost every way. Initially, I was skeptical, but now I find myself looking forward to playing it almost every day. The game is packed with features that cater to fans of turn-based strategy and tactical depth.

Gameplay

The gameplay mechanics are fantastic, offering solid complexity and a satisfying challenge. While I initially wished for more guidance in base management outside of battles, I’ve come to appreciate the added difficulty, which requires careful planning around panic levels, financial constraints, and personnel management. This aspect really adds a strategic layer that keeps me engaged.

Graphics and Sound

The game excels in creating an immersive atmosphere. The ambiance during missions can be downright creepy at times, which I find incredibly effective in drawing me into the experience.

Story and Atmosphere

The story is intriguing, but I've chosen to pace myself, focusing on side research and technology to build up my base and strengthen my soldiers before diving too deep into the main storyline. This approach feels rewarding and adds depth to the game's strategy.

Replayability

"XCOM: Enemy Unknown" has solid replayability, thanks to its random elements like map sequences and global events. These variations keep each playthrough feeling fresh and challenging.

User Interface and Controls

The interface is intuitive and straightforward, making it easy to navigate and quickly understand what everything does. This ease of use is crucial in a game that requires constant strategic adjustments.

Favorite and Least Favorite Elements

My favorite aspects are definitely the base and soldier upgrading mechanics, which are deeply integrated with your income and mission choices. On the downside, I encountered a couple of minor technical issues, such as screen glitching when alt-tabbing and a camera bug that could be a bit irritating during gameplay. However, these were minor annoyances and didn't significantly impact my enjoyment.

Performance and Bugs

Aside from the minor glitches mentioned, the game runs smoothly. The alt-tabbing issue is easily fixable by simply tabbing out and back in again, and while the camera glitch can be distracting, it's a small price to pay for the overall experience.

Multiplayer

I haven’t tried the multiplayer mode, so I can't comment on that aspect.

Value for Money

I bought the game on sale, and knowing what I know now, I would have been happy to pay full price. On sale, it felt like a steal.

Final Verdict

If you're a fan of strategy games that require careful planning and provide deep, tactical gameplay, "XCOM: Enemy Unknown" is an excellent choice. It's a game that keeps you coming back with its engaging mechanics, atmospheric missions, and rewarding progression system. I highly recommend it!

Disclaimer: I used an AI tool to help write portions of this text to speed up the process, but all thoughts, opinions, and the final verdict are entirely my own.

Good strategy game. Really hard if you want it to be. If you want more random maps per mission, play XCOM 2.

While this is not a game meant to be approachable for every player, it's quiet a interesting challenge.
The permadeath mechanic gives much more weight to the decision making, making this an incredibly deep tactical game. A failure is satisfying, but a failure is always devastating.

The game has a beautiful atmosphere, and the storyline is also interesting and keeps your attention peaked.

Luck has too much of an impact though, which might feel frustrating at times.

Overall, was a fun game to play. Challenging, frustrating at times, but very rewarding.

One of the best turned based strategy games ever created. To appreciate it even more one has to play the original from the 90's: XCOM UFO Defence.

I really like this game, even though missing a shot while having 99% hit chance feels like %&$$&/$$%&/. But after all there is a 1% chance to miss so it is kinda fair I fear lol. It is a great turn-based tactical game and if you like this kind of games you will like XCOM for sure. It has some tiresome aspects to it at times (like most games have tbh) when enemies seem to cheat you with more turns than you have or having abilities that just make your team look so incompetent that you enjoy watching them all die. But other than that the game rocks. And the fact that your team can talk to you in the native languages of their nations is a nice touch to make this fight for survival truly feel like humanity´s joint effort.

It can be prone to crashes though, so maybe save a lot. It crashed at my last cutscene and I had to replay parts of the last mission, which was VERY vexing.

I started the game with the add-on "Enemy Within" and to me, it was honestly a bit overwhelming. There was so much to do and so many missions to take , while learning how the game actually works, that I kinda wished I'd started the game without the add-on and just had a second playthrough with the add- on activated. The game has great replayability anyway.

After numerous play-thru's of WotC I went back to this for the first time. It scratched the itch and was a nice backdrop to the roots of the game. They learned from bad voice acting. Mechanics are funamentally the same, though obviously it evolved - a lot - in WotC

The last mission was definitely an unenjoyable expierence, the rest of the game was solid but the extreme increase in difficulty with an unskippable endboss cutscene almost made me wanna quit the game. I finally reached the endboss without getting the majority of my squad one shotted as soon as I spotted him - it took me 2 hours to get there - just for my sniper to double tap him. The balancing and pacing was good until the last mission...

The audio synchronization in the cutscenes wasn't great, the voice actors weren't great either in my opinion - the emotional delivery is very odd, it's like they didn't really know what kind of character they are trying to portray. The aliens sounded alright and the mercenaries in battle sound fine aswell. It really just feels f'ed up in the cutscenes

I liked the amount of different enemy types, aswell as the gameplay as a whole. It felt like a combination of different games but still managed to bring a breath of fresh air with it. I also enjoyed the idea of how you get your upgrades - first encounter the enemy, kill or capture and then research it, I am also a fan of how the round based combat works and how some of the enemies have some great weaknesses which lets you outsmart them easily. I also enjoyed most of the cut scene visuals, they didn't look great graphically but they definitely put some thought behind it, they didn't even need to make a cutscene for like every little event but they still did and it creates some good looking action scenes. Most of them are skipable which makes it fine. They could have just added a small messenger box letting you know what just happened but they put some actual effort into it.

What I am absolutely not a fan of is "missing shots" which connect on screen, bullets which go through walls and still hit, enemies who teleport and somewhat fixed hit percentages in the sense of save scumming and changing position with a character because he missed beforehand will most likely make him miss again and again and again, even though you are changing the position with different hit percentages always higher than 50% but you'll still miss 98% of the time, which mathematically doesn't make much sense. It definitely prevents save scumming but also gives me the feeling of what ever I would have done that round with that character was unnecessary and would have lead to the same result.

There is also not much room for changing tactics, it's rather deep on the surface but whenever you go into it, you'll realise the overwhelming majority plays this game the same way - because it's pretty much the only viable way to play through it - you won't switch a lot throug your mercenaries, you'll most likely always have the same types of mercenaries with you, you'll most likely build the same facilites in the same order...

It's a solid idea and plays well, it just ain't as polished as I expected it to be and has some rather annoying bugs and difficulty spikes. (7/10)

XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within is a fanstastic turn-based, squad tactics game. It's every bit as good as it's sequel and I love these games. If you like tactics, you need to try this game out!
7/10

I've been someone playing X-COM games on-and-off since the early 2010's with X-Com Enemy Unknown, but I still enjoy playing the games on-and-off to this day. Yes, this is an incredibly difficult game for casual or new players, or - in my case - those that come back to this game after a long gap since I last played it, but I really enjoy the challenge and how much it frustrates me at times as well and how much it challenges me. While I would say take things cautiously for new players, I would still recommend this game in a heartbeat.

Incredible, classic squad based tatical RPG.

There is an addictive base building simulation in between missions that let's you build new facilities to customize how you outfit your soldiers with different weaponry (alien & conventional), genetics, mech suits, and psionics.

The hours will fly by while you play this.

It's dated, but still fantastic, probably one of the best options out there.

Great game that you can pick up on great sales, would highly recommend.

Doesn't have a launcher, still has multiplayer, and doesn't need wifi to play single player

I wish there was a maybe option, But this game and its sequal are good fun games. especially if you're into cock and ball torture because thats what the X-com series is. Its ballbustingly hard and the game is just straight up unfair to you the player. But overcoming that makes you feel like a xeno slaying bad ass.

XCOM is an excellent choice for turn-based strategy game lovers.
Tactical depth, engaging story, high stakes, replayability.
It provides a thrilling experience that keeps me coming back for more!

Excellent game, I absolutely loved it -- my one complaint is that sometimes Enemy Unknown used to crash after mission completion, as the Mission Complete screen was half-loaded following the flight back to base.

Literally it froze and hardlocked the computer.

The expansion Enemy Within increased the frequency of crashes to pretty much every time I finish a mission, so I have to save before I finish every. single. mission. I don't know what's going on but gods it's annoying.

In spite of this, it's a great game and I'll always recommend it to new users.

(and yes I've tried the Borderless Window workaround, it doesn't work)