Getting slowly sucked into XCOM…
and other turned-based games

May 4th, 2020

While I liked turned-based games for a while, I wouldn't say I was a fan of them, or that I played the most of this genre. However as I got older, my shitty reflexes got slower, so when I play something on my computer, it's not an FPS (first person shooter) anymore, but slower game types like turned-based strategy or adventure games, or just slower paced games, like Thief, where you have to have patience to make your move…

Honestly I wish I've started playing them sooner. Outside of chess, I dropped every opportunity to play them, because real-time was just more attractive to me as a young person. Instead of the original UFO or Jagged Alliance games, I played Warcraft and C&C. I was very impatient as a kid.

Recently however the genre has become popular with the XCOM Enemy Unknown remake and especially XCOM 2. Not to mention Xenonauts which looks like the old UFO games to me. Now a lot of gaming universes are having their own versions. Nintendo did Mario vs Rabbids, and we have now Gears Tactics, which plays in the Gears of War universe, in fact it's a prequel, so even people who are not familiar with the history of that game, can play it. In between we had Mutant Year Zero too.

I had a little money on Steam (from the recent Rocket League fiasco), and I looked at games, and XCOM was on sale, and I thought why not. I like watching others playing that game, and I think in the back of mind I already decided long time ago that I give it another chance of this genre. Of course playing the demo of Mutant Year Zero also helped making the decision, and between the two XCOM is much more playable, because it is older. The other game that barely works is XCOM 2, but first I want to finish the first XCOM.

These games also helps the mind kept occupied. It makes you think, slow you down. And I like that. On the downside it has the one more turn - or in this case, just one more mission - thing, when you are playing the game well into the night, knowing that you should go to bed, but you just can't stop.

So yeah, right now I have XCOM (with 3 hours recently), Xenonauts (haven't tried it yet) and Invisible Inc. (very nice spy-tactical game, on a small timeframe, with rogue-lite mechanics). I think I will be busy for a while…

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This was my day 8 of #100DaysToOffload, an increasing number of people started to write. I like this project, because unlike novel writing, you can write about anything. Maybe later I will try some short story stuff too. :)