Sin Vega first introduced me to X-PirateZ three years ago, already a sprawling X-Com: UFO Defense mod by “Dioxine” about leading a crew of sexy lady air-pirates in a post-apocalyptic world. She called it “The greatest total conversion ever made” at the time, but I wasn’t so convinced. Massive as it was, I felt it was still skeletal and confusing, requiring much trial and error and many false starts. A lot has changed since 2016, and it has grown into a (mostly) coherent strategy RPG sandbox with a devil-may-care attitude on par with Disgaea.

Orbital, underwater and underground missions are in. Story arcs, bounty hunts, tons of factions, over a hundred mission types and more guns than anyone could ever use. There are duels and even dating>, somehow. There are also problems, of course, any mod of this scale has some, but I’m officially on board now. This may be the best total conversion I’ve played, and less likely to kick newcomers in the teeth than classic X-Com. Still, there’s a lot to learn and tons of new systems, so here’s a crash course on X-PirateZ, plus a guide for surviving your first year as a corsair captain. (more…)

Six years ago, Firaxis pulled off the impossible with XCOM, re-envisioning a DOS classic – next week, they’re celebrating this feat with the Tactical Legacy pack for XCOM 2: War Of The Chosen. It’s pure fan-service of the less-sexy kind (unless Carapace armour turns you on, in which case fly your freak flag high), featuring old favourite equipment and environments used in a new series of tactical mini-campaigns. Better still, it’ll be initially free to owners of War Of The Chosen. It’s out next week, October 9th. Check the reveal trailer below.

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Is six years within ‘fashionably late’ territory? Better late than never, at least. Today, Firaxis’s alien-bothering turn-based squad tactics revival, XCom: Enemy Unknown has launched on GOG after over half a decade of the PC version being Steam-exclusive. Rather than divide it up, GOG are only selling the Complete edition of the game, including two minor bits of DLC and the rather more significant Enemy Within expansion.

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There are more wonderful games being released on PC each month than ever before. In such a time of plenty, it’s important that you spend your time as wisely as possible. Thankfully, we’re here to help. What follows are our picks for the best PC games ever made. (more…)

Over at GOG, the reduced-price trips down memory lane continue, only this week there’s a whole lot more X-Com. Specifically, this week’s GOG sale range focuses on a lot of 2K’s older franchises, particularly from the strategy genre. The entire original run of X-Com games can be found here for less than 2 / $2 each, which is nigh-impossible to not recommend. Then there is the 2004 version of Sid Meier’s Pirates, a game I’ve poured more hours into than I really want to think about, and much more.

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Oh sure, it’s basically been pennies for years, but nothing motivates the merely curious like free-free-free. For that is the case for X-COM: UFO Defense aka UFO: Enemy Unknown, the 1994 alien-bothering strategy game that kicked off a series now made something of a household name by Firaxis’ remakes. Only until tomorrow, though. … [visit site to read more]

XCOM 2 [official site] is a hugely exciting prospect (so much so that I’m genuinely grumpy about the delay), but XCOM and X-COM are so very different things by now that it’s unlikely to slake anyone’s thirst for a true-blue, Gollopy experience. Fortunately, sounds like we might also be in for a sequel to unofficial X-COM spiritual sequel Xenonauts [official site], 2014’s Cold War-set alien invasion strategy title. … [visit site to read more]

Well, he eventually rebooted and remade war of wizards Spectrum classic Chaos Reborn, which I’ve had a lot of fun with over the last few days, and which took to Steam Early Access yesterday. You can read more about that here. But what happened to the co-creator of X-COM, Laser Squad, Magic and Mayhem, Rebelstar and more over the last ten years or so? While so many long-standing developers have seen their stars rise and rise, Julian Gollop seemed to fall out of sight. In this concluding part of my big interview with him, we talk about where he’s been, why he turned to Kickstarter for his comeback, how he was doing Early Access long before it ever existed, his thoughts on latter-day X-COMlikes such as Xenonauts, Invisible Inc and Mordheim, and the pressing question of whether we’ll ever see a new X-COM or Laser Squad=style game with him at the helm.> … [visit site to read more]

X-COM creator Julian Gollop did have plans for his own new version of the legendary strategy game, but abandoned them in the wake of 2K’s well-received XCOM. “I seriously considered that before Firaxis announced their XCOM,” he told RPS in an interview published today, “but of course once they announced it I thought, well it d be a hopeless cause because it s just not going to get the same traction.”

“I may have been completely wrong in thinking this by the way,” he added. When I suggested that he’d probably have succeeded nonetheless, he added that “I probably could have. I don’t know.” The Laser Squad and Chaos developer, who yesterday released wizard-battling strategy remake/sequel Chaos Reborn on Steam Early Access, hasn’t entirely ruled out an X-comeback of his own, however. “Well, we ll see. Got to finish Chaos first.”

I think it’s on all of us reading this to let him know below that that a new Gollop-made XCOMlike is far, far from a hopeless cause, eh? Also below: the game Julian Gollop almost made instead of Chaos Reborn.

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Some moments in some games stay with you. The right event, the right surprise or the right hats at the right time, and it’s imprinted on your memory forever. I’ve been playing PC games for almost 25 years: I’ve got a million of these, and so have you. I’ll show you just a few of mine if you show me yours. … [visit site to read more]