X-COM: Apocalypse

aka: APOC
Moby ID: 349

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Critic Reviews add missing review

Average score: 83% (based on 20 ratings)

Player Reviews

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 87 ratings with 6 reviews)

Probably the only playable real-time tactical combat game...

The Good
The pause-able real-time combat mode is great, plenty of terrain and buildings (most are destructable), good mix of weapons, lots of alien environments too, enemy reinforcement portals you can actually blow up

The Bad
Too many aliens to fight, no more base designing (the building's "fixed"), the factions have little to no effect on the city or economy, the neo-retro look, can get REALLY repetitive

The Bottom Line
XCOM:Apoc is a game that revolutionized real-time tactical combat. The ability to choose between real-time and turn-based combat reveals entirely new ways of playing, as each mode requires completely different tactics and weapon choices.

The maps now feature plenty of floors that are much larger than the old XCOM maps. You can visit the slums (where the gangs usually hang out) and see the architecture different significantly from the rich sections of town, which is yet different from the industrial sector, and so on.

The terrain now is even MORE destructable than before. Once, I've shot someone on a slum balcony. The balcony collapsed and the body fell six floors. Pretty darn amazing... Consider this is just isometric sprites!

The basic game premise didn't change: you have to engage UFOs and exterminate any aliens you find, either infiltrating the different corporations or causing general mayhem. After you take down the UFOs or located infiltrations, you can engage in tactical combat. Research captured aliens/bodies/equipment so you can make use of them for youself, and build bigger/better equipment, and eventually deal with the problem once and for all, while managing your research, budget, building new stuff, buying new stuff, hiring new people, make all the factions happy or at least neutral... it's a lot of responsibilities.

The problem with APOC is frequently, the game becomes just "hunt down that last bug". On tight maps, the bugs don't attack that much, which makes seeking them out dangerous as you must search room to room for that one last "bug" to kill. This was a problem in TFTD, and it still didn't get resolved, though aliens do try to escape if they're close to edge of the map and things are going bad.

Another problem with APOC is the huge amount of damage the weapons cause. It feels somewhat unbalanced. The armor aren't that much better, and there's an "entropy missile" that actually strips armor from your XCOM troopers! One hit, and the trooper is without armor. One more hit (from just about anything) and s/he's toast! At least you can carry personal shields (if you can capture/manufacture some), but that just delays the inevitable. In later stages, when enemy carries only the toughest weapons and visibility is bad, expect to lose a LOT of your agents in assaults.

The craft combat (CityScape) phase is also a bit unbalanced, as it's easy to win with a fleet of Hoverbikes. The larger vehicles are only useful for delivering your agents to buildings in a single group and return with captured stuff.

All in all, XCOM:APOC is not a bad title, but it didn't quite have the "magic" like the initial title did. Individually the features are fine, but they don't quite all fit together as a whole. If you like XCOM, definitely give it a try. Even if you don't, give it a try to see how GOOD real-time tactical combat CAN be.

DOS · by Kasey Chang (4598) · 2001

Aliens + Weapons + Explosions = Fun

The Good
The best part for me was the actual combat. Being able to choose between realtime mode and turn based mode is a nice feature, although I have to admit I've only ever played in turn based. I tried realtime and it wasn't to my liking. Playing in turn based mode I was able to take my time and methodically comb through a building. The different aliens demanded different tactics to deal with them. When going after a multiworm, for example, I didn't fire at it, but instead positioned my agents around it, then ended my turn. When the aliens had their turn, my agents used their remaining time units to fire on the multiworm, hopefully not actually killing it outright. Then when it was my turn again I had full control of my agents to deal with the four hyperworms that popped out of the dead multiworm (this usually meant trying to kill them all with one explosive round from an auto-cannon). On the other hand, the only strategy you need to kill a Spitter is to shoot it a couple times, or in the case of a Psimorph, to hide. The combat really makes this game.

The research helps develop the story at a good pace, and also allows you to make better weapons (and use the aliens weapons against 'em). Better weapons helps you deal with the powerful aliens that show up the farther the game goes. Trust me, if you don't use these new weapons, you'll feel a bit silly trying to kill a Megaspawn with machine guns. One of the trickier things is trying to get a live specimen of every alien, so you can develop an effective toxic to use against them. Stunning most aliens is relativly easy, but trying to get a live Popper or Brainsucker is going to require alot of planning or alot of luck.

You can rename your agents. This makes the death of one of your agents a bit more substantial. I dunno about you, but when I see "(insert girlfriend's/wife's/familys pet's name here) has died." I get a desire to reload the game. Actually, I reloaded every time someone died. I'm just too caring.

There are three types of people you can hire as agents. You've got the normal humans who are usually lacking in skills at the start but get better as the game goes along, those alien/human hybrids from the last game (their name escapes me) who are really slow and pretty bad at combat, but have good psi abilities, and andriods, who are good at everything, and immune to psi attacks from the start, but can't ever get better. Because everyone has different abilities that change as the game progresses, you have to carefully decide who should get what type of weapon. You can't just randomly give people things...a person who has poor aim is going to be worthless with a sniper rifle, and if you weigh down a weak person they'll slow down the entire squad. This is strategy.

Explosions! You can blow up EVERYTHING if you're so inclined. Although this might make some factions in the city unhappy, it will surely satisfy you, and that's what it's all about.

The Bad
The Civilians! Bleh! What were they thinking? They add nothing to the game, only serving to get in your way, and make you wait (during turn based play) for them to move during their turn. I'd rather not spend time watching helpless civilians dash around doing nothing. They don't even try to help. Maybe if they occasionally picked up a weapon to help you, or jumped up and down on a brainsucker, or something, rather then just wasting my time. Their pathfinding is pretty bad too, causing them to get stuck on steps (always in your way), and invariably I ended up shooting half of them so I could get where I needed to be.

Sometimes the map would be awfully big for the amount of aliens on it. There have been times when I've killed a total of three aliens on a map that could have easily taken fifteen. Taking seven to ten turns to carefully walk across three-quarters of a map, making sure an alien doesn't jump out and suck someone's brains out, only to find a Spitter and two eggs at the far end can put a kink in the entertainment.

After a while, before you get to take the fight to the aliens, the buildings all start to look the same. They are made of blocks, instead of randomly generated, and because of this you get to know where everything is, and even where aliens are likely to be. After seeing the same shopping mall six times it kinda loses the cool factor.

You don't get enough control over your vehicles. All you can really do when you spot an alien craft is send your stuff after it, and then just sit back and hope it gets shot down before it beams aliens down to a building, or before it destroys all your craft.

The Bottom Line
All gripes aside, this is a really fun game, even more so now that you could probably get it for $10. If you like turn based strategy games at all, go buy this game. If you like realtime strategy games, I'd imagine you'd like this game too.

Windows · by Dr. Elementary (273) · 2012

X-Com 3: The return of the life eater

The Good
Everything, its like the first game - but ten times better. There are so many levels to this game: politics, corporate wars research etc. Often I found myself forgetting the point is to stop 'the alien menace' and instead concentrating on turning a profit and raiding my rivals base for laughs!

I have kept coming back to this game over the course of the last 5 or so years - its got replayability in droves!



The Bad
The graphics are poor even for the time it was released, and the music is made up of fairly annoying 80's style synths which you'll want to turn off straightaway. The sound effects are good and solid though.

I found the real time play option redundant. I always preferred the turn based action, but this was mainly personal preference

The Bottom Line
In depth squad based strategy

DOS · by Ken0x (34) · 2005

Tactical game which can be played both in real time and turn based mode

The Good
The game is extremely immersive. The world of the game just draws you in. The loading screens are quite moody and the kitchy 50's look of the vehicles is great. The aliens are very diverse and they provide plenty of challenge. The building of bases and researching new technologies is keeping you busy. And the music is great.

The Bad
The graphics are too bright and this ruins the atmosphere. The older X-COM games had a great atmosphere primarily due to some great music and some really moody graphics. Apocalypse has got the music but the graphics lets it down.

The Bottom Line
Those old-school die hards who were actually playing games on their PC or Amiga back in 1993 will probably remember a nice little tactical strategy game called UFO: Enemy Unknown or in the US X-COM: UFO Defense. This game let you battle invading aliens in a struggle to dominate both through military might and technological dominance. This struggle is started all over again in X-COM Apocalypse. It is the REAL sequel to UFO Defense as the first sequel seemed more like an expansion pack both because of a very similar look and feel and because it was so much more difficult that you would have a hard time playing it unless you had been playing the first game before.

Where the first two games had you fighting aliens all over the world the third game of the series has you fighting them in a city which the aliens are invading from a different dimension. The story of the game world is somewhat goofy reminding of a 50's science fiction comic. And some of the graphics, especially the look of the vehicles in the game, supports this notion.

In general the graphics are very disappointing. The aliens don't seem the least bit scary and this certainly hampers the atmosphere compared to X-COM: UFO Defense. The color palette is simply too bright to be any frightening. However the sounds are awesome. The effects do what they need to but what the graphics sort of hampers the music more than makes up for. So if any geeks out there with a bit too much time were to make a graphics mod which is a bit dark we would be back to the scary world of the first game.

The gameplay is just as solid as in the first games. For the purists turn-based gameplay is available in the missions and for the new-comers the option of playing it in real time is certainly a welcome opportunity. Whichever option you choose you will find yourself sufficiently challenged by the game.

To conclude this review X-COM: Apocalypse is in many ways a natural step forward from X-COM: UFO Defense. The addition of optional real time I think is a good idea. The only thing weighing down on this game is its graphics. Normally I don't have anything against ugly graphics. But here the graphics are counterproductive to the atmosphere of the game and this is a real shame.

DOS · by Mark Langdahl (158) · 2013

City planning made easy (BOOM!)

The Good
You can blast almost everything to bits! A very easy (though not always smart) way of killing your enemies, whether they be aliens or evil cultists, is using high explosives to level all the buildings and structures on the screen - and a very pleasing way at that. Never mind the civilians, they always get in the way anyhow (you often have to murder a couple of innocent fools just because they block doorways). The aspect I like most about all the UFO (or X-Com) games is the fact that while they are essentially tactical wargames, they acknowledge the fact that raising hell is actually a tactic.

The ability to choose between real-time and turn-based combat from mission to mission comes in handy, as certain types mission do not require a lot of control over the units, and combat can be quite tedious if you command a dozen or so agents in turn-based mode.

The retro-futuristic hi-res graphics are also very nice, and the sound effects are quite rewarding (aieegh! boom! zap!), though the music is quite hum-drum.

For a game that needs no storyline the storyline is OK, but the overall atmosphere and the constantly increasing difficulty kept me motivated enough to actually finish the game (which for me is something quite rare).

The Bad
As with the first two UFO games, some of the combat missions tend to drag out, but Apocalypse is much more playable than its predecessors in this sense. Also, on more difficult levels of play the bases tend to get very crowded right at the beginning, which is not a good thing, though it does make the game more difficult all right.

The music could have been more inspiring, or inspired.

The Bottom Line
Running an X-Com operation in a self-contained metropolis of the future means having to deal with evil cultists, criminal gangs, political organizations and mega-corporations while fending off (and eventually destroying) evil aliens from another dimension. While most of the action takes place at UFO (or IFO, if you research them) infiltration and crash sites in fierce isometric combat, but you also get to look at the city map while building your base, researching alien technology, arming your troops and using you craft to shoot down enemy vessels - in short, this game has it all! (Including hulking monsters rampaging through the city, destroying buildings.)

Though some aspects of the game could have been developed further (like the political and economical life of the city, space travel, etc), this game is one of the best in its genre as far as it goes. It's no Jagged Alliance 2, but well worth the price if you can find it!

Windows · by Late (77) · 2001

You'll either love this game or you will hate it; I hated it

The Good
I liked the classic X-com part of the game..down an alien craft, investigate it, research new alien technologies, manage your base, buy weapons, all that good stuff.

The Bad
I hated the insanity of every combat aspect of the game. For starters, the game almost required you to play it in real time(you can choose either real time or turnbased) since one turn base mission usually takes about 4 hours. I really did not like playing this game in real time..I'm more accustomed to the traditional turnbased style of UFO Defense. I also hated the fact that rarely does 1 alien craft come through the portal to attack, it's usually several..making many companies hate you early on in the game. All in all, I was for the most part disappointed by this game.

The Bottom Line
If you think real time fighting is more fun than the traditional x-com turnbased fighting then you may like this game, if not, I recommend you stay clear of this game.

Windows · by xTSx (13) · 2001

Contributors to this Entry

Critic reviews added by Scaryfun, Tim Janssen, Cantillon, garkham, Rwolf, Skitchy, Wizo, PCGamer77, Patrick Bregger, Alsy, Adam Wojciechowski, Cavalary, Havoc Crow, Utritum.