Really wanted to love this... I was excited for Gollop to make this happen and see past ideas and dreams become a reality.

Goodness knows I like me some X-COM

But I'm afraid this game became a rabbit hole of development... Things that seem cool on paper or in programming isn't necessarily fun for the player. I'll do my best not to write a novel here, but here's some bullet points already well covered by other reviews... and I'll start with some positives first.

- Narrative lead in and art design pulled me in.
- Beautiful call backs to TFTD with creature design
- Story choices with Factions
- Consequences from story choices
- Time Units / Free Aim - cool ideas
- The Aliens evolve


But then I got a couple hours in...


- THIS GAME IS SLOW... long load times, turns in the tactical layer... Loading games...
- UI design is complicated... period
- Graphic design for icons are too small? maybe I'm old?
- Soldier and Gear menus really take the joy out of the game
- Really easy to miss click things, or the UI reacting weirdly to inputs. ie. map movement / rotating soldiers
- The geoscape strat layer quickly becomes a chore
- The multiple choices for missions and strats are great a first, but eventually the UI becomes the real enemy
- You eventually stop caring about all the cool ideas and just want to get on with it.

Which is sad, because its obvious that a lot of thought and love went into this...

But I'd say if you enjoyed The UFO:Aftermath series and its multiple options and gear management then this very well might be a game for you.

For me all I can see is a over engineered game design where no one really thought about what the player would be thinking when they can't quickly navigate the menu / bases / load outs. Management can be fun in a game, but not when it doesn't flow and connect with the rest of the experience.

Try to the demo, but be aware... it gets more frustrating, not challenging as the aliens evolve and you just can't keep up cause you can't find that latest gun you just manufactured... wait what base am I looking at?

The PP support support group meets on Thursdays.

See you there Commanders...

Honestly, as some dude that plays xcom a lot, this one confused me. If you come from XCOM, you might want to look at a guide to understand some of the systems.

The lack of *UPGRADES* (i.e mag rifles, power armor etc) was kind of upsetting honestly. I understand that the "sidegrades" are your means of progression, but it feels like the enemies get stronger while i get weaker.

The geoscape is a lot different than xcom 2, though, this wasn't too much of an issue for me because i played a lot of XCOM LWOTC, (don't ask if im good at it)

The gun system i feel is a really interesting concept, and was executed fairly decently. The only real "gripe" i have is the shield icons. The "full cover" icon does not mean that your character has a low chance to be hit, it just means that they are covered from their torso to their head, and if you get return fired, it counts as little to no cover, so i usually go with the lower cover option because of how hard it is to hit people from it.

Overall, i expected this to be very similar to XCOM, but it turned out to be a (mostly) pleasant surprise.

not X-com but, it will do.