Prator: I know most of this already. I still have four serious problems with the game:
1. There's no obvious plot, besides what's described in the manual, and none of your legions of identical mooks have any real personality.
2. The game is EXTREMELY unforgiving. The manual only gives you the most basic instructions. Failing to do ALL of the things you listed in your post may result in a game-over eventually. Also, none of the combat situation buttons are labeled for some reason.
3. I absolutely HATE the "line of sight" mechanic in the game.
4. There's a very serious flaw in the premise of the game: you're directing a UN-sponsored defense team that is supposed to protect the ENTIRE WORLD from alien invaders, but you get minimal support from your sponsor nations. You're given less than a tenth of what is spent annually on the U.S. military alone. You're given almost no weapons or personel to begin with, compared to any other military force on Earth. You can't even get tips from the radar arrays that every NATO and former Soviet country has to aid in the detection of aliens.
All things considered, I can't help but feel that a lot of work has gone specifically into making this game arbitrarily hard, and the "story" does not nearly make up for that. I commend X-com for being a marvelously complex game, but that doesn't mean I want to play anymore.
Yes, sort of. It's based massively on (or at least heavily influenced by), the old Gerry Anderson TV show "UFO". It's a start-up organisation; secretly funded, and very little known outside a few key people in the UN...no wait...it wasn't the UN, it was a Astronomical organisation. Gah, where's my DVDs? International Astrophysical Commission. Umm, anyway, I suppose that doesn't really explain the moonbase, submarines, interceptors, ground combat vehicles.... O_o Though if I recall it correctly, the Chief of the IAC obtained his budgets for the SHADO organisation through government funding.
The game requires a lot of planning, from where you place your first base, right through to the end. It is rewarding though. I usually get a couple of Colonels out of the first 3 missions, and they help the rookies later. Getting armour is pretty much a necessity though. As is laser weapons and better.
Still, if you don't like it, you don't like it. There's plenty more games in the shop:P
