I was going to do a video on UFO: Enemy Unknown
anyway, because I’ve been obsessed with
it most of my life.
But then I realised it’s been 25 years since
the game first came out, back in the early
months of 1994.
TWENTY.
FIVE.
YEARS.
Twenty five years of keeping a watchful eye
over earth, of battering flying objects that
have definitely been identified out of the
sky, of losing two or three or seven soldiers
somehow, some way, even though you were being
really careful.
A quarter of a century spent being terrified
of Chryssalids.
Normally I’d have an existential breakdown
about this point, life being as it is so very
fleeting and time apparently accelerating
as you get older.
But with UFO it’s different.
UFO is something truly special to me; a game
that never ages, that never gets boring, that
never outstays its welcome.
There are going to be some of you wondering
what in the blue hell I’m waffling on about,
so for your benefit I’ll offer up some semblance
of explanation.
You might have heard of UFO: Enemy Unknown,
though equally you may know it as X-COM: UFO
Defense in the States, X-COM: Unknown Invaders
in Japan, and, in one of my favourite little
titbits which was cute until someone put it
up on the Wikipedia page, thus ruining my
feeling of superiority, X-COM: Enemy Unknown
in the PAL PlayStation version.
Many names, just one games.
Game.
Set in Space Year 1999, that being the near
future, UFO has you policing the world, attempting
to put some kind of space dam up around the
planet to stem the flow of alien invaders
into the airspace above Bromsgrove.
And everywhere else on the planet.
But mainly Bromsgrove.
You do this by watching the planet, setting
up a base, scanning for unknowable floating
oblongs, or “UFOs”, intercepting them
with terrestrial aircraft, attempting to shoot
them down, then heading to the crashed wreckage
and plopping down a bunch of grunts with guns
to mop up the chunks.
That’s your basic setup.
As you may well expect, it gets a lot more
complex, and a lot deeper, from there.
As you progress through this real-time world-watching
and turn-based alien-blasting sim, you get
better.
More bases around the world and so more satellite
coverage.
Research into alien tech leading to more offensive
and defensive strategies - and technologies
- to employ.
You can shoot down unknowable floating oblongs
easier, and your troops’ chances of survival
begin to creep up bit by bit.
And then UFO just kicks you in the face again,
and ratchets things up a level.
It is a sadist of a game, and your alien foes
are not about to let you get the upper hand.
Just as quickly as you make any progress and
think you’ve got a handle on it, the angry
ETs turn up in bigger space-boats, with bigger
guns and angrier friends.
And the whole sorry mess goes back to square
one.
UFO: Enemy Unknown is glorious.
See, I’ve played UFO so many times now - I’ve
started and restarted games more times than
I know how to count to.
Like, more than six, I think.
And it was quite funny - to me, at least - playing
the game on all these different versions for
the video and seeing how I automatically do
the same thing at the start of every game.
Place the base, name it AEIOU - yes, that
was a cheat in Terror From the Deep, UFO’s
sequel - build a large radar, general stores,
living quarters, and alien containment, buy
in a few bits and pieces like stun rods, sack
any troops with firing accuracy below around
55, then hire in about 1.5 times the amount
of troops fired.
It is… methodical, I’d say.
And it never bores me.
It’s the right way of doing it - this is
a game I’ve pretty much mastered.
I know all its ins and outs in a way I don’t
know them for any other… well, hardly any
other game.
I don’t even think I know Football Manager
this well, and I’ve been playing that series
even longer than this game.
It’s second nature, it’s comfortable and
- dare I say it - it’s fun to do.
If it was just that opening few actions on
repeat, forever, I’d probably still be happy.
I do like my comfortable...ness, after all.
But, ho! of course it’s more than that.
UFO’s mix of simulation and turn-based strategy
blew my tiny mind back in the day - no, it
wasn’t the first, I know, but that’s not
the point.
Its blend of playstyles, the control you feel
you actually have over things - both in that
you’re able to make decisions as to how
you proceed, and that these decisions can
come back to bite you in the behind later
on - makes it something you can really take
ownership of.
And there’s such a sense of foreboding to
everything, and it’s not entirely down to
the difficulty.
The music plays a huge part in it too.
Ah, the music.
So lovely.
And faintly terrifying.
This is all compounded by getting into that
turn-based combat and having your rookie grunts
cock up and miss nine shots in a row before
a hitherto unseen space-arse shoots you from
behind a farmhouse and kills your sergeant.
Not only is there this threat of things just
not going your way, but there’s the ever-present
feeling that you can nadger it all up for
yourself if you’re not careful enough - if
you don’t think about every move, if you
don’t take your time, if you haven’t researched
better weapons even though it’s already
March of Space Year 1999 and the bigger xeno-buggers
are starting to show.
And when you do fail - which you will do on
your first few plays - you fail hard.
It becomes a series of cascading failure-waves,
knocking you further and further down.
The aliens don’t let off if you’re on
the back foot, allowing you time to regroup
and refocus - they double down.
More UFOs show, alien bases are set up on
the earth, world governments sign pacts with
the invaders, thus leaving you bereft of much-needed
funding.
And eventually, they just win.
There often comes a point in a game of UFO
where you realise you’re not going to turn
it around; that the inevitable game over screen
can’t be far off… and yet, if you’re
anything like me, you stick with it until
the bitter end.
Because sometimes - oh-so-sometimes - the
impossible happens.
You turn it around.
You stumble across an already-landed large
alien craft that you don’t have to risk
entering air combat with.
You send the troops in.
You accidentally kill two aliens with one
go, even though that wasn't the intention
at all.
The aliens get into a bit of a panic themselves,
and they manage to recreate the classic UFO
technique by shooting one of their own troops
in the back of the head.
The comedy of errors you're used to contending
with reverses, the scales tilt ever so slightly
in your favour and - if you’re paying enough
attention and being careful enough - you actually
can bring it back from the brink.
You probably won’t, mind.
But sometimes you can.
If I’ve done it, anyone can.
And, one thing all of this struggle teaches
you - something a lot of games would never
acknowledge - is that running away is a viable
option.
It’s not what the heroes do; but it is what
the survivors - the winners - do.
As long as you survive, you can win.
As long as your troops are still there, they’re
not dying, they’re getting that little bit
better, you’ve got a sliver of a possible
dream of a hope.
I think that’s what UFO really boils down
to - what it always comes back to.
It’s the progress you enjoy.
You start out hopeless, scratching through
any way you can, losing 50, 60, 90 percent
of your squad in a mission - and the rest
end up in sick bay for a month recuperating
from their wounds.
But sticking it out past those early days
leads somewhere - it’s not just about you
getting better at the game… or learning
how to scam it, as I may well have done.
You get the armour, so troops can take more
shots before dying - at least in theory.
You get lasers, then plasma weapons, so you
can actually deal damage to some of the hulking
gits obsessed with this invasion thing.
Later on you end up with better attack and
transport craft, so a very large UFO doesn’t
immediately mean a destroyed interceptor and
a base under attack.
Instead it means you can put up a fight in
the skies, and those extraterrestrial vehicles
stop being able to run away so quickly.
There’s even psychic powers, which allow
you to learn about your opponents, hammer
their morale and - brilliantly - take direct
control of them.
Seeing as you spend half your missions against
Sectoids and Ethereals fighting off their
psychic advances, that last element is a perfect
exercise in player empowerment.
Just for those taking notes.
It’s just such a steady, perfect progress
- while always maintaining an ever-increasing
threat.
You start out hopeless, you end the game on
the front foot.
Power armour, heavy plasma weapons, hovertanks,
the Firestorm taking your squad of grizzled
combat veterans to the alien home base, on
their home planet.
It flips - the momentum shifts as you play,
as long as you play well, and that feeling
- that reward - is so well earned.
It’s something special.
Admittedly Chryssalids are, were and always
will be bastards of the highest order.
These chitinous swine are capable of turning
even your most heavily armoured, strongest
troops into zombies with a single swipe.
Oh also the zombies, when killed, turn into
more Chryssalids.
Yeah, imagine the first time you encounter
those in a game that’s already stupidly
difficult, when you thought maybe you were
just about getting a handle on things.
Yeeeeeah.
My personal journey through UFO has taken
in every version of it available over the
years, and in classic Bransfield fashion I
did it in a weirdly ass-backward way.
The original version is for the PC, and so
naturally that’s the best one.
I didn’t play that until about 2004 or so,
specifically around the time I got a new PC
to play Half-Life 2 on.
No, I started out playing this particular
game on the PlayStation, with all its terrible
controls and incredibly slow-moving action.
It was the classic childhood tale: entering
a swap shop in Rotherham with whatever it
was I wanted to get rid of in my hand, being
told I could have whatever from a certain
section for a nominal fee, seeing this cover,
and being completely unable to resist.
I took my new game home, popped it in the
PlayStation and… well, I’m pretty sure
everybody died in my squad.
I don’t remember much, because UFO took
a fair amount of time to sink its claws in
deep.
I do keep thinking I wouldn’t have bothered
at all with UFO had I come to it a bit later,
when I wasn’t so desperate for any game
to play, when I had less free time and instead
did things like ‘hang out’ with ‘friends’
when I did have free time.
It’s not a game that’s friendly to newcomers.
Or veterans, but that’s beside the point.
I digress.
Fact is, I did give it the time it needed,
and before long I was hopelessly obsessed.
My natural need to have All The Things came
into play with my second purchase of the game,
picking it up for the Amiga 1200… which
ended up proving itself to be an odd mix of
a decent impression of the PC version while
also being a chugging, struggling port.
It was demonstrably worse than the PlayStation
version, and I didn’t actually give it a
huge amount of time before… well, my brother
sold the Amiga so he could have some money
to go on holiday with.
That’s why I stopped playing it.
True story.
I only got back to it the other year on reacquiring
an Amiga.
Anyway, having one Amiga version wrenched
from my grasp led me directly to another - I
was convinced the Amiga 500 version of UFO
could definitely hold a candle to the A1200
one, which is the same as thinking a Game
Boy game could be technically on a par with
a Switch game.
I have no reason why I thought this, but…
I wasn’t actually entirely wrong.
Right now you'll think I’ve gone peculiar,
I’m sure, but while it looked just two steps
removed from a Spectrum game, the A500 version
actually had better music than the A1200 and
CD32 versions.
I don’t know why.
I want to talk about it running smoothly too,
but I have no idea if that’s because of
my super-accelerated Amiga I had playing this
or not.
But there’s plenty there in the A500 version
that wasn’t in the 1200 one at all - music,
art screens, it even tells you the progress
of alien turns; something which isn’t in
any other version at all and seems like a
thing that… well, really should be in there.
Eventually when I did arrive at the PC version,
my world was finally complete.
The music might not ever have been as good
as that on the PlayStation, but the game itself
was pure UFO, running at a good pace, controlling
better than the other versions… at least
once you learn what all the obscure tabs at
the bottom of the screen mean… and generally
being a game I ended up losing way too many
hours to.
You know what?
Ignore that - I enjoyed those hours, so they
couldn’t be wasted.
Val Kilmer coined that phrase, I think.
The game’s aged, obviously, and I wouldn’t
expect a lot of younger viewers to see the
appeal here.
I don’t blame you - it’s clunky and confusing,
and really bloody annoying even when you do
know what’s going on.
You’ve got troops who won’t walk places
they can walk, just because the AI is confused
about, I don’t know, a brick or something.
You’ve got the message saying there’s
no line of sight to blast an alien scumbag,
even though there’s clearly line of sight.
Movement is… awkward, let’s go with.
It’s just very 90s.
Plus, frankly, it’s been bettered.
The 2012 rebirth of XCOM was superb, and its
sequel - to me - is a better game than this
one I love so very much.
It was quite clearly made by people who get
what UFO is about, and updated the core concept
with slavish care and attention paid to the
source material, while also making it something
you don’t have to have a degree in icon...understanding…
to play.
But that’s not really the point being made
here, is it?
Because UFO: Enemy Unknown, X-COM: UFO Defense,
X-COM: Unknown Invaders, X-COM: Enemy Unknown
- in Europe, on the PlayStation - whatever
you want to call it, the end result is the
same: this game is magnificent, and I’m
too far gone now to ever stop loving it.
I appreciate you letting me indulge myself
with this one - 25 years is a long time for
anything, especially for playing a game that
hasn’t changed at all over those years.
But I’m not sad about that fact.
I’m happy about it.
And now I’m going to set up my base, build
my extensions, buy some stun rods and proximity
grenades, sack my rubbish troops, and hire
replacements until I get a solid initial squad
to throw straight into the meat grinder.
The way it should be.
The way it’s always been.
The way it always will be.
