UFO: Enemy Unknown
| Developer: MicroProse | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: MicroProse | Sound: |
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| Year: 1994 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Strategy | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
9/10 | |
Là-hauuut, là-hauuut, très loin dans l’espaaace, entre la Terre et Vénuuus…
[You poor English speakers didn’t get a dubbed opening? We’ve had five! – Ed.]
Aliens have paid us a visit … and they’re not exactly friendly. In a panic, the world’s governments have decided to set aside their squabbles and pool their resources to create a military force capable of fighting back: XCom (Extraterrestrial Combat Unit). Unfortunately, human technology doesn’t quite measure up to the enemy’s reverberating carbonizer with mutate capacity. Survival will depend as much on the brilliance of our scientific community as on the sheer guts of our soldiers. Oh, and by the way, you’re the newly appointed commander of XCom. No pressure—get to work!
The American PC-DOS version is titled X-COM: UFO Defense. Subsequent sequels and remakes have stuck to the same name (X-COM or XCOM).
The game splits neatly into two interconnected phases. First, there’s the “world map” mode (Geoscape), where you oversee global surveillance and order UFO interceptions whenever they show up. Outside of emergencies, you’ll manage the construction and organisation of scientific and military bases, oversee research, and prepare tactically (essentially, stockpile big guns). This part of the game—“routine management”, let’s call it—relies on a few graphs and financial charts (don’t worry, they’re mostly for show) and a detailed, ever-updating database (the UFOpaedia) to track your discoveries.
The second phase (Battlescape) begins the moment you deploy a team in the field. This could mean investigating a crash site—whether it landed on its own or after a little nudge from one of your fighter jets. Here’s where things get hands-on, so to speak. The distant strategy game morphs into a turn-based tabletop affair, reminiscent of Laser Squad (by the same creators), albeit vastly more fleshed-out and, much better presented.
In this phase, you’ll position your troops and command each soldier individually, spending action points as you go. Naturally, weapons are involved—plan to use them. The specimens (dead or alive) you bring back from these expeditions will serve as raw materials for your engineers, enabling the development of new gear, which will, in turn, help your soldiers.
“It’s always comforting to have friends, especially when they come well-armed!”
What truly makes this game shine is its staggering number of missions and the satisfying sense of progress you feel as you constantly develop new ways to outsmart the Overlord. That said, it suffers from the same issue as most games of its kind, where the computer is left to calculate its moves: an agonisingly slow execution speed!
Today’s tip: keep the manual handy to decipher those cryptic icons.
If you’re emulating it on an Amiga, go for a hard drive installation (AGA version). Even so, I encountered prolonged loading times—bordering on crashes, honestly—but patience usually did the trick. That said, I’d recommend the original PC version instead; it’s likely faster, though I haven’t tried installing it myself. There’s also the modernised remake (arguably watered down): XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012).
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