XCOM - A Boardgame with More X and Less Calm

So, if I told you I had played XCOM this weekend, you might have asked, "what the heck is that?"

But if you were somehow familiar with that tortured acronym (which supposedly stands for Extraterrestrial Combat), you might think I was playing the XCOM Legends game from 2021 on a mobile device.

Or maybe I was playing the XCOM: Enemy Unknown game on my Playstation, even though it came out -wow, in 2012? -  or the PC game that inspired it from 1994.

But in fact, I was playing a board game based on all those things (but mostly Enemy Unknown) that came out in 2015. And not just me - I had help from Scott and Jeff...and my iPad.

One of the reasons I had purchased the game (besides really liking Enemy Unknown and being a fan of the publisher Fantasy Flight Games and knowing their production values are rock solid) was because it was one of the first app-assisted games I had ever heard of. A decade later, I am actually surprised there aren't more of them.

Plenty of games have applications (usually third-party) that can help with record or scorekeeping or providing a rules reference, but XCOM uses its companion app to randomize events and limit player turns with a timer. It also makes great use of music and some sound effects to add a bit of drama.

In every iteration of XCOM, you are responsible for a defense agency trying to repel an invasion by aliens in flying saucers. The video game alternates between strategic planning including research and development and budgeting, and tactical missions where you equip a small team against an initially unseen enemy. Soldiers that survive get increased skills and improved equipment from R&D as you try to gain ground against the invaders.

The cooperative board game takes the same tack, with 1-4 players dividing four roles among them: Commander, Central Officer, Chief Scientist and Squad Leader. 

During the timed phase, the app directs each role, in a random order, to go about their various tasks - assigning scientists to projects, soldiers to base defense and other missions, satellites and interceptors to combat the saucers themselves, all while maintaining a limited budget. 

Sure, a deck of cards or a dice-table might accomplish the same thing, but having the app do it is not only faster, it is more dramatic. You must finish your task within the time allotted, or the next task will have its time reduced.

Some cooperative games lend themselves too well to "quarterbacking", where one player asserts themselves over the others, and their suggestions eventually become proxied orders, making hapless players wonder why they were needed at all. The timer pretty much precludes that as a possibility, and leaves each role-holder responsible for their portfolio, with just enough time left over for kibbutzing and groupthink.

"Ugh, both of these two crises are bad, which one should we take?"

"Doesn't matter; I am tasking two soldiers to Skyranger with this card and you can discard whichever one you do take!"

"Awesome, thanks!"

If the game has a flaw, I think it is in the tutorial, which quickly overloads the board with saucers, increasing global panic and eventually costing you the game. But when we played an actual game, we were able to manage the saucers much more effectively (especially once we developed Stealth Satellites that could kill one each turn without even rolling a dice). Honestly though, the tutorial should not discourage you from playing the actual game, right? Or is it perhaps meant to mirror the video game, where the first mission (with conventional military) goes so poorly (through no fault of the player) that XCOM itself is formed in the aftermath? Hmm...

Research, saucer destruction and tactical actions are completed using a simple but terrifyingly random push-your-luck mechanic and some custom dice. Each dice you roll has a 1 in 3 chance of generating a success, but if you roll a low number on the red Alien dice, you not only lose all the soldiers or Interceptors on that task, but the unlucky number gets larger as well - insidious!

At any rate, for a game that has so much resource management at the heart of it (hello again, Starfleet Battles!), XCOM is a surprisingly tense and fun game. With five different invasion plans that impact the types of attacks as well as the order in which they are presented to players, there is a ton of replay value even without increasing the difficulty level.

We had a great time earning our victory (even on the Easy level!) and look forward to defending our homeworld again in the future!