Xenonauts
Throughout the 1990's, X-COM was a very popular series of games and although it lives on with the XCOM series of recent years, some gamers loved the franchise more in it's original form. Xenonauts is much like X-COM as players have to hire, arm, research and upgrade the equipment of soldiers and aircraft whilst defeating Aliens in the air and on the ground. The action starts with a map of the world and on the map you see your first base and news events as they happen, if a player sees a cluster of events happening chances are an Alien force is in that area.
Players can send out fighters to patrol for and intercept Aliens around the world, the more you shoot down and then defeat on the ground the happier the countries will be because if you let Aliens dominate the air and ground of a country, you will lose their support and if you lose the support of the majority of the Earth's continents you will lose the game.
Players earn money for their organization by shooting down the Aliens and then ordering the site to be bombed or by sending a squad an take out the Aliens at the crash site therefore earning money from the equipment you salvage.
Each member of your squad has points which can be used up per turn by either moving, changing stance and by firing at a target, weapons have different settings with every mode increasing the chances of hitting the target yet costing more in points, poimts are refreshed after every turn. Xenonauts is a lot of fun, it can get frustrating when your squad can't hit an Alien from a few squares away and the Aliens have better success but you soon learn to adapt to increase the chances of hitting, killing or incapacitating your enemy. The good news? Xenonauts 2 is on it's way and will be available to play in 2017. Rating 5 out of 5
