X-COM: Complete Pack

The X-COM: Complete Pack is exactly what the label says: all five MicroProse-era entries collected under one Steam key. That means X-COM: UFO Defense, X-COM: Terror from the Deep, X-COM: Apocalypse, X-COM: Interceptor, and X-COM: Enforcer. If your interest is in the series as a historical artifact or a deep tactical challenge, the first two games are the main event. UFO Defense is where the blueprint was drawn: a real-time Geoscape for base management, interceptor scrambles, and research queues, paired with brutal turn-based ground missions where individual soldier action points govern every step, crouch, and shot. You juggle plasma rifles, stun rods, and Blaster Launchers while managing psi-research trees that can completely flip the tactical equation once your troops develop mind-control capabilities. Sectoids, Floaters, Mutons, and Ethereals escalate in a satisfying threat curve. The AI cheats on reaction shots, and the interface has aged like a carton of milk left in the sun, but the decision-making underneath remains strikingly clean. Terror from the Deep swaps the alien menace to the ocean floor, forces you to abandon every weapon from the first game (saltwater renders them useless), and then dials the difficulty up to genuinely punishing levels. Multi-part ship assault missions, Lobstermen who shrug off most conventional damage, research trees that will softlock an unguided playthrough, and Tentaculats that make the original Chryssalid look like a minor inconvenience. Community consensus is clear: TFTD is a hardcore follow-up best approached after you have internalized UFO Defense completely, and ideally with a research guide open in a second tab. It rewards methodical, patient play, but it will not hold your hand for a single second. Apocalypse moves the action to the dystopian mega-city of Mega-Primus, introduces a real-time combat option alongside the traditional turn-based mode, and experiments with faction politics between city organizations. The shift to pseudo-3D visuals and the clunkier new mechanics landed to mixed reviews at the time, and the community remains divided on it. Interceptor bolts base-management onto a space flight-sim, while Enforcer is essentially a third-person shooter that has very little in common with the rest of the series. Neither of the latter two titles is why you are buying this pack. Treat them as curiosities. The practical reality of running these games in the current decade is that the OpenXcom project (a free, open-source engine replacement requiring legitimate data files) dramatically smooths the experience for UFO Defense and Terror from the Deep: mouse-wheel support, widescreen, bug fixes, and a massive mod library including total conversions. Your Steam purchase gives you the legal data files needed to run OpenXcom, which is the recommended way to actually play the first two games today. Without it, expect DOSBox quirks and an interface that assumes you read the manual twice. The mod ecosystem built on OpenXcom is genuinely one of the more impressive fan-sustained communities in PC gaming, producing total conversions covering Warhammer 40K, investigative X-Files-style campaigns, and pirate-themed overhauls. If you are new to the series entirely, start with UFO Defense, resist the urge to reload every bad outcome, and accept that losing soldiers is part of the resource-management game rather than a sign you are doing something wrong. The learning curve is real but the depth waiting on the other side of it is equally real.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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