UFO: Alien Invasion

It’s been years since I’ve touched anything from the X-Com series. Remember back when those turn based games were the rage on the PC? Well, UFO: Alien Invasion is heavily influenced by X-Com.

If you’ve never played the X-Com series, then you might be able to draw parallels with this game with Civilization. Basically, the game play is turn based strategy where you develop, research, and hire with limited resources and try to beat the computer or other players in a battle for territory domination. Think of it like chess pieces where you’re not only creating pawns, but also placing them on the battle field and playing their strong sides and minimizing their weaknesses.

Game Mode: Not quite a MMO since multiplayer only supports up to six players and it’s more like server based match play. Good thing about turn-based games is that you have a little bit of time to think (on a timer) but strategy plays a key-role in these plays since it is more calculated. There is also a single player game and allows both Internet and LAN play.

Playability: The design of the interface is pretty straightforward although there are a few control screens and development screens that could be fixed to be a smoother interaction between screens and more consistency with the button placement. The game definitely brings back memories as far as how X-Com worked and was fashioned. The whole development/research cycles along with actual engagement scenes take a bit getting used to if you’ve never played the former but should be pretty easy to follow if you’ve played real-time strategy games such as Warcraft.

Cost: This is a GPL licensed game. Open-source.

Operating systems: Windows and Linux. There is even a beta for Intel-based Macs that is out.

Overall: For an open-source game, this is done incredibly well. Not many of the games have as much detail and maturity as this game with graphics that might not be directly in-par with the gaming industry, but it can pass as one of the top indie developers without breaking a sweat. Having been around since before 2004, this game definitely has a cult following. What more can you ask for, when it supports three different operating systems and allows online play? Nothing. Not a dang thing.