Despite playing X-COM: UFO Defense a lot more than other games when I was a kid, I’ve never actually made it this far. Bad things are happening in my campaign, but I’m having some successes as well. I still don’t know if I can win, but there’s only one way to find out.
Weapons research has been the best part of the campaign so far. All soldiers have personal armour, and the heavy plasma rifle is standard equipment now. The troops are tearing through mutons, snakemen, chrysalids and other bizarre invaders.
That isn’t to say there aren’t heavy losses for X-Com. Many soldiers have ended up staring down an alien after they missed there shot, knowing what’s to come next. But the organisation has been sweeping up crashed UFOs and repelling aliens from terror sites successfully up to now.
The research team has developed new ship designs to help combat the enemy. A second base has been built with more hangars so that we have space to manufacture these new ships. But, as it turns out this has been unnecessary. All the larger UFOs we detected have landed, and foot soldiers have managed to capture them after we sent the Skyranger in.
We also have a Hyperwave decoder to help us detect UFOs. Following the larger ships has also led us to alien bases that have been established on the ground. Our troops have successfully wiped out each one we have located so far. It almost feels like we are winning this war.
Or, it would if it wasn’t for a major setback. Both China and India have signed a treaty with the aliens and withdrawn funding for the X-COM project. Our funds aren’t in short supply right now, that’s not really the problem. The problem is that almost half of the population are now unprotected from the enemy.
Despite our victories up to this point, it feels like the fight has become harder than ever.
