Game Journal I - X-Com Enemy Unknown (1994)

MY FAVORITE GAME OF ALL TIME: X-Com Enemy Unknown.

Due to the not eminent enough release of the Firaxis remake (of the same name) I'm finally going to beat the original game on the highest difficulty: Superhuman. And I'm going to do it without save scumming (though there's no way to actually prove this, you'll have to take my word), that is, I will only load saved games as a means to continue where I left off, not to undo some devastating loss.

If you've never played let me throw out a short list of what made this game revolutionary in 1994 and, quite possibly, the best game of all time:

1. Randomly generated sandbox world.
   Every map is different, every progression is flexible, the world is dynamic, and you never know what might be waiting for you. 

2. High challenge but fair environment.
   It may not feel fair, in fact I admit that it might not actually be fair in the moment, but this game lets you do whatever you want to win. If you want to ambush alien raiding parties as they perform their missions you'll loot tons of valuable technology over their dead bodies or you could blow that same ship from the sky and deal with only the deadly creatures that survived the crash, you lost a bunch of the goodies in the wreckage but you may live to appreciate it.

3. Interaction is player goal-oriented.
   The current generation of games is well known for hand-holding a player through the entire experience. Waypoints, HUD indicators, scripted events, impassable terrain, and invisible walls are basically the hallmark of today's average game. X-Com, whether due to a lack of time or a design choice, doesn't bother. You're told to defend the world, aliens are bad, and here's the .000000001% of the world's GDP that the greatest nations in the world found in their sofa cracks to do it with.

Good luck.

   If you want more money those nations expect performance, if you want better weapons you'll need to research and build them yourself, if you want to find more enemy craft before they do whatever nefarious things they care to then you'll need extra bases and fighter jets. Oh, and those jets, scientists, engineers, and soldiers? On loan, on salary. You better be able to pay the bills at the end of the month too. There's plenty to prioritize, place the damn waypoint yourself.

The beginning of the end:

So let me end the intro here. This game is unforgiving on any difficulty. I fully expect to loose soldiers, tanks, aircraft, probably even a base or two on a playthrough that goes perfectly on NORMAL difficulty. Superhuman difficulty makes things so, so much worse.

Thus I'm naming all my best soldiers after characters in famous tragedies.

Hello cruel world, I'll do my best to defend you from threats unknown.