XCOM

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

This article or section is about something oldschool - and awesome. Make sure your rose-tinted glasses are on nice and tight, and prepare for a lovely walk down nostalgia lane.

This is a rare treat. X-COM, or as it's called across the pond, UFO: Enemy Unknown is a turn-based strategy game that is, to put it simply, about as close to a game of Dark Heresy as one can get in isometric 3D. Note that X-COM is significantly older than Dark Heresy, and older than all but the first edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, so it'd be better to say Dark Heresy is a lot like X-COM on the tabletop. Dating back to the much-lamented Microprose, it set a gold standard for atmosphere and playability that has, frankly, not been breached in ages.

The game is old as balls and in isometric view, which, paired with the Dark Heresy similarities, makes it more /tg/ material than /v/.

A General Gist

A general synopsis is that in the not-so-distant future, there is war - and aliens. Aliens are arriving, and they are most assuredly hostile. It falls upon the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit, or the eponymous X-COM, a multi-national task-force, to deal with the invasion by blasting the fuck out of the Aliens, stealing their shit, researching their technology, and using it to fucking kill them off, all the while fighting off terror attacks and trying to figure out where in Uranus these fucking things are coming from (as it turns out, from Mars, and if you win, the final mission involves you going to Mars and dropping an Exterminatus on their asses).

It kicked ass. It was good enough to spawn a sequel, which was basically the same game, but underwater and infinitely harder. It then spawned a second, somewhat different, but still appreciated sequel, which was decent, if not overwhelmingly good. Then Microprose was bought by that which must never be named, who proceeded to nose-dive the IP with games like X-COM: Interceptor and X-COM: Enforcer.

Fucking Hasbro.

Anyway. Combat is a lot like Dark Heresy's in that it's exceedingly lethal; at the game's outset, you have no armor and your firearms are only moderately capable against alien forces (though quite diverse). In order to properly take these fucking things on on anything remotely resembling their own terms, you need upgrades. Upgrades come through research, and research comes by shooting down UFOs, landing a ground assault, killing the surviving aliens, and stripping the UFO like the Blood Ravens do other chapters' shiny bits. Once brought back to base, your researchers can look into what makes the alien's gear work, research your own weapons and tech, and develop technologies to help in the fight against the Aliens. Eventually, you can load your forces up with Power-armored bad-asses, but starting out, your forces are fragile, and fighting smart is vital. You will suffer casualties early on - guaranteed - but such is war, and you must press on, allowing the survivors to grow into manly badasses.

The Aliens themselves are diverse, ranging from the Sectoids (conventional "gray" aliens), to Chryssalids (horrifying abominations that inject targets with eggs that turn them into mindless drones which will explosively birth new Chryssalids thereafter). Nightmare fuel = yes. The game manages to be exceedingly creepy for one so simple, and is one of many reasons that X-COM works so well.

Tales of Heroism

In accordance with /tg/'s love of war stories about your dudes, several examples of awesome have been compiled:

Instant death doesn't always happen. Occasionally, one Rookie will be touched by God and succeed against all odds. After that, he will die horribly. X-COM agent of note: Marc Lecointe. Lecointe survived numerous missions, got the highest kill count on most missions, killed a Snakemen leader and his bodyguards (despite losing over half the squad), and got shot in the face and back with plasma and lived. He eventually was hit with return fire in an alley and began bleeding. He returned fire and killed the Snakeman, but bled to death before help could arrive. Lacointe lives on in our hearts.

Another agent of note is Gristle McThornbody, a Rocket-Toting Team-Killing asshole who refuses to die OR be mind-controlled. He's so badass, that even when he has 85% or more to hit on a 2x2 alien, he'll still hit the wall twenty tiles to the left.

New Stuff and Things

According to things /v/ likes to watch on the Internet, a new X-Com game is in the pipes, set to be made in the gameplay and spirit of the old games, with new graphics and updated for the new generation of gamers to be introduced into the X-Com game style. It lost the dash along the way someplace, and got re-named XCOM: Enemy Unknown. This new game, which has spawned joy boners in many on /v/ and /tg/ alike, is believed to stem from the utter, burning fury that was originally spawned from 2K's simply-titled XCOM game, which, near as we can tell, is an FPS that takes place in the 1960s and has exactly nothing to do with the actual X-COM franchise. Seriously, don't look into 2K's game if you're a fan of the series on any level - it will cause veterans to spontaneously transform into Angry Marines and/or Khornate Berserkers. Apparently, those in charge had the wherewithal to note that if they didn't make a proper X-COM game, /tg/ (and by extension, /v/) would leave their asshole in ruins. They even went ahead to declare the two games take place in separate universes. If only Games Workshop had that much sense...

XCOM: Enemy Unknown by Firaxis

XCOM: Enemy Unknown's Space Marine-esque goodness.

And Firaxis came to the rescue, promising to return to the roots of XCOM (note the lack of a hyphen this time around, although the logo does have a horizontal stripe taken out of the "COM"). Since Firaxis has a lot of ex-MicroProse people, a lot of them have had to do with the original as well, and the original musical score will make a return. Although it's changed a few things like removing time units, cutting down on your maximum amount of squad members (4 at the start and 6 maximum) and limiting us to one base (Although each base gives it's own unique bonus), the game lives up to the original, xeno-killing TBS(Turn-Based Strategy) series.

If you haven't bought the game and you're a TBS fan, everyone in /tg/ that isn't That guy, would highly recommend you give it a whirl at the modest price of $39.99.

There's now also a stand-alone expansion pack for the game that adds tons of new content into the game named "XCOM: Enemy Within" for the price of $29.99. Steep, but Emprah be praised, its well worth ponying up for it.

If anything, this edition of X-com is more in the lines of a traditional board game than the previous ones. One might even be so bold as to compare it to Necromunda and Mordheim on its similarities.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

Despite having the name XCOM in the title, the game really haves little relation to the series. The reason behind this is because 2K passed this game on to the lovely people that brought you Bioshock 2; meaning it was made by a studio that makes more or less decent games. It's supposed to be a prequel, set in the 1960s during the Cold War era. The protagonist, William Carter, was a CIA agent just delivering a suitcase of classified "documents" until an Outsider disguised as a female agent got ahold of it. Not long after that, an alien invasion commenced!

The Bureau is a RTS that plays like Mass Effect, but not as good for varies of reasons. One reason is in the dialog scene, you're given choices of what to ask/say. They really don't impact the game, nor changes it for the most part, so you can skip a majority of it if you want to. The agents in your squad are pretty dull, sure you can change their names and how they dress, but really doesn't offer any friendship/foe engagements. If they die, you will need to recruit another agent and start him off from scratch, but really, leveling them up isn't fun and customizable, so just restart a checkpoint if they do die.

The agents in your squad haves bad AI if you don't babysit them and give commands on what they should do, and there skills at fighting Outsiders are... Well, okay. The best they can offer is their abilities, so spamming them and you taking care of the killing is an effective way to go (Some recommend starters to start their first mission with a Recon to cause critical damage on certain enemies and a Commando for taunting the grunts and make them easy picking for you.

There would be more to go on, but if you want to know more about the game, you can search up reviews of XCOM Declassified. In short, it's a decent prequel that fans can find some enjoyment, but it's not as good as Enemy Unknown. Still worth looking into if you can find it for cheap or rent it.

See Also

• X-Com Play By Post, experimental rules for playing X-Com on a forum.
• XCOM: Tomorrow's War edition, a conversion of Tomorrow's War for playing X-Com on the tabletop.

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