X-COM: Apocalypse

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.

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

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.