X-COM: Interceptor
X-COM: Interceptor
Game
Game2008
X-COM: UFO Defense
Developer MicroProse Software, Inc
UFO: Enemy Unknown (original title), also known as X-COM: UFO Defense in North America, is a 1994 science fiction strategy video game developed by Mythos Games and MicroProse. It was published by MicroProse for DOS and Amiga computers, the Amiga CD32 console, and the PlayStation. Originally planned by Julian Gollop as a sequel to Mythos Games' 1988 Laser Squad, the game mixes real-time management simulation with… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
331 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 6, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
95
LovedLoved
176 positive · 10 negative
95% range 90–97%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 176 | 10 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 9 | 4 | 120 |
| Mastodon * | 3 | 0 | 9 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Overwhelmingly Positive
2,863 of 2,991 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
95% recommend · 175 yes, 9 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 184 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Overwhelmingly Positive (3,809 of 4,008 positive).
Players praise the game as a timeless classic that remains addictive and compelling decades after its release. [1][2][3] Many recommend installing the OpenXcom mod to fix bugs and improve the user interface. [4][5][6] Some players criticize the game's dated interface and unforgiving difficulty, while others object to the publisher's updated terms of service. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [1]
i have been playing x-com since the days of the floppy disk, now l am 71 and still playing it, and would recommend it to all who like strategy games, it is an easy game to learn and can become addictive.
- [15]
I don’t know what I’m doing. I stumble through the interface like a lost tourist in a war zone, sending troops into battle without understanding how line of sight works or why half of them are panicking. I’ve built bases that make no strategic sense, launched interceptions that never return, and watched helplessly as my best soldiers fall to enemies I can barely see. Every mission feels like a slow-motion disaster, …
- [5]
X-Com doesn't need any introduction, but you should install Open X-Com before attempting to play. Everything is confusing in this game and Open X-Com brings many QoL updates to UI. The simplest example would be: you build radars to detect UFOs, but there is nothing in the UI that shows the coverage of the radar. Open X-Com fixes many such details, and makes the game actually playable. For those brave enough I can …
- [14]
If you fight the urge to savescum and embrace your soldiers are going to die this game is incredibly tense and satisfying. Very slow game but if you have the patience like me it's the best tactical game you'll ever play.
- [2]
This is one of the best games. I first played it back on a PS 1 in 1993,and I still am playing it in 2025 and it still plays good for a DOS game and by the way I'm 62 years old .
Summarised from 34 of the 311 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 12, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
95% of the 184 Steam reviewers we collected recommend X-COM: UFO Defense. The complaint that keeps coming up: dated interface and confusing UI without mods. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Critics, per Wikipedia
The game was released to very positive reviews and commercial success, selling more than 600,000 units (a large number at the time) on the PC DOS platform, not counting the later ports—for the Amiga platforms and the PlayStation—and re-releases. Half of the game's net sales were in the United States, a rarity for a European title at the time. Gollop has attributed the game's North American success to its title (X-COM), as the television series The X-Files had premiered a year earlier. More than 400,000 units were sold at full price, with little marketing from its publisher. Together with its sequel, X-COM: Terror from the Deep, its sales had passed 1 million copies by March 1997. The game…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 331 · most liked firstthis is pretty cool. the original X-Com was a 2D isometric game but the collision system itself was 3D. objects in the world would have collisions defined by vertical stacks of predefined patterns. this allowed the game to do accurate line of sight and hit detection. very cool!
positive · AI labelView post →I'm kind of disappointed this new turn-based tactics Star Wars game we're getting looks to be set in the Clone Wars. Small-squad tactics on the X-Com model is a pretty perfect pick for, like, rebel commandos. But I guess heaven forefend we get to play as actual straight-up rebels, huh?
neutral · AI labelView post →anyway if anyone wants to profile me I'm going to need you to acknowledge just how highly tuned the difficulty on my modded X-COM 2 game is.
neutral · AI labelView post →Seconding this. The OG X-Com has seen an ENORMOUS modding renaissance in the past few years thanks to the OpenXCom engine. The best way to play it vanilla, as it fixes a ton of bugs and improves the UI. Some of the biggest mods dwarf the original game by a factor of ten times the content or more.
neutral · AI labelView post →4) Battle Brothers. The second greatest squad level tactics game of all time, after X-Com 2. You lead a merry band of scum around a randomly generated map, fighting intense battles against everything from peasants to giant wyrms. Ideally played Ironman, like all such games, once you’re good.
neutral · AI labelView post →Daydreaming about a hero-based X-COM style turn-based strategy game with a cyberpunk setting and the characters are all furry hybrids a la TMNT/Elephantmen and they're all hot and you can kiss them.
neutral · AI labelView post →Star Wars Zero Company by @bitreactor.com will be available in a few hours, but I've already read several very positive reviews. A tactical SW game has always been my dream, ever since the days of UFO/X-COM. So if it's a great one on top of that...
neutral · AI labelView post →A snazzy installer for X-COM Apocalypse, the third game in the original series, which seems to have been a dreadful experience for all involved to have worked on. Has some cool ideas and vibes with its sprawling post-apocalyptic megacity setting that followed the events of Terror From The Deep.
neutral · AI labelView post →This was the first computer game I ever played and it has prior art for “summon creatures who will fight for you” *and* “summoning creatures you can ride”. It’s a direct ancestor to the X-COM games.
neutral · AI labelView post →“Hey, dork: would you like a Star Wars squad tactics game created by the makers of the X-COM reboot, using the social mechanics of Jaded Alliance, set in the dark underbelly of the Clone Wars?” “Fuck me up, please.”
neutral · AI labelView post →i have been playing x-com since the days of the floppy disk, now l am 71 and still playing it, and would recommend it to all who like strategy games, it is an easy game to learn and can become addictive.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I’m just gonna assume that X-Com is a AAA game and suggest that.
neutral · AI labelView post →@mikedrucker.bsky.social wrote about the X-Com video game novelization. It's your typical office romance, but with way more aliens. 1900hotdog.com/2025/08/nerd...
neutral · AI labelView post →It’s kind of fucked up that they have these big game shows every year and all the games aren’t X-Com or some type of game where Shrek must make moral choices
neutral · AI labelView post →Been replaying Dread dude I forgot that this game is kind of hard, especially when you're mostly playing unc games like total war and X-COM and other turn based stuff like me these days. Some of those boss fights need you to be LOCKED IN.
neutral · AI labelView post →Quasimorph (2026, PC) Enjoying this game quite a bit! Cool mix of X-Com and traditional Roguelike (DoomRL in particular).
neutral · AI labelView post →By the way if you're enjoying Star Wars Zero Company or X-COM, I gotta remind people about Marvel's Midnight Suns. This was a turn based strategy game in the Marvel universe. You play a customizable hero named Hunter, & get to have hours and hours of dialogue with Spider-Man/Blade etc. T'was fun!
neutral · AI labelView post →Decided to play X-Com 2 after many years away. Shit, it's brutal. I'd forgotten how unforgiving the early game is. Two hits and dead. Mind control that can only be broken by killing a tough enemy. It's certainly challenging.
neutral · AI labelView post →Some more fun trivia: Chris Eck who worked on Harebrained’s BATTLETECH game has also worked on this new Star Wars X-Com game that’s getting rave reviews right now - congrats to Chris and the whole team!
neutral · AI labelView post →Dammit Zero Company, now I wanna play X-COM again. I have no time for X-COM! Why can't I have a Hyperbolic Time Chamber to play every game in my backlog?!
neutral · AI labelView post →After a leak last week, EA officially announced the name of Bit Reactor and Respawns next X-Com like Star Wars game 'Star Wars Zero Company'. www.ign.com/articles/sta...
neutral · AI labelView post →Wasn't the X-COM reboot just made to drum up excitement for the FPS game, but ended up massively overshadowing it? I feel like I heard that somewhere, long ago.
neutral · AI labelView post →Remembering the Mario vs Rabbids X-Com game where Luigi was the dedicated sniper. Unprecedented foresight.
neutral · AI labelView post →I need an X-Com like game set in a fantasy setting where you run a guild and send parties out for missions and shit while using the gold and monster drops to expand and improve the guild.
neutral · AI labelView post →"I was baptised in a fire, these are merely hot coals" Sartha speaking on X-Com and X-com 2 after having been raised on the MS-DOS X-Com UFO defence game
neutral · AI labelView post →I don’t know what I’m doing. I stumble through the interface like a lost tourist in a war zone, sending troops into battle without understanding how line of sight works or why half of them are panicking. I’ve built bases that make no strategic sense, launched interceptions that never return, and watched helplessly as my best soldiers fall to enemies I can barely see. Every mission feels like a slow-motion disaster, and I’m just along for the ride. There is no hand-holding here, only…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really, really liked Xenonauts 2 despite bouncing off of the first one. Everyone who told me old X-COM was better was right, actually. www.pcgamer.com/games/strate...
neutral · AI labelView post →Defend the Earth from extraterrestrials so our governments can keep us enslaved and fighting amongst ourselves. WW3 ain't gonna start itself.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hi gamers If you see this GIF then I probably will most likely be arrested by X-com or something IDK We are live with X-COM: UFO defense (1994) cause I have never played an old xcom game before and I wanna try it out and die horribly. moogle.tv
neutral · AI labelView post →The board game Frosthaven is getting a video game with the designer of X-COM #Frosthaven #Gaming #PCGaming
neutral · AI labelView post →their new tactics game really does look great, haven't snagged it yet but it's very much a game made by people who obviously loved X-Com and Jagged Alliance 2
neutral · AI labelView post →🛸🛸🛸 🦀🦀🦀 🟥LIVE🟥 Im playing Phoenix Point! A tactical turn based Game like X-COM, but with WAY better Mechanics! Come Check me out, this game Needs more eyes on it! Viewers Get to Name Soldiers!! 👉 altstream.online/pank 👈 #vtuber #altstream #phoenixpoint #tactical
neutral · AI labelView post →Thanks for hosting #turnbasedthursday, @norsegame.bsky.social ! War on Wheels is a turn-based, physics-controlled car combat game. Think: X-Com meets Mad Max. store.steampowered.com/app/3768750/...
neutral · AI labelView post →This and its predecessor, Rebelstar Raiders, are where Julian Gollop cut his tactical game teeth, going on to design X-COM. You'll see many of the mechanics familiar to X-COM players being introduced here. It's still a solid game with an absolute banger of an in-mission tune.
neutral · AI labelView post →Discovered new PC game: Cyber Knights Flashpoint, kinda cyberpunk X-Com, slightly reminiscent of the Shadowrun PC games Missions are all heists of some sort, with an emphasis on balancing stealth vs combat, and hacking that integrates really well with core gameplay. Recommended. Could be a TTRPG.
neutral · AI labelView post →there is nobody in the history of the world that has hit by more 20% flinch chances and missed 80% hit chances than me and I've played this game for like 8 fucking hours, I am not kidding about having the X-Com copy of the game
negative · AI labelView post →Take-Two and 2K games have updated all their games Terms of Service, turning this game as well as all of their other games into literal spyware. Important Info in Terms of Service: • Mods are a bannable offense • Display of Cheats/Exploits is bannable • Forced arbitration clause and a waiver of class action and jury trial rights for all users residing in the United States and any other territory other than Australia, Switzerland, The United Kingdom, or The Territories of The European Economic…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If they really wanted to make a good Evangelion game, they'd rip X-COM off, and then have the other part be a management sim like the PS2 game, except for child soldiers who slowly wear out if they don't get immediately annihilated in the tac-sim part.
neutral · AI labelView post →the description "Star Wars But X-Com" is a real "there but for the grace of God go I" of video game addiction potential
neutral · AI labelView post →I was just looking for something else, but... the retro game world had XCOM in basement xD
neutral · AI labelView post →Thank you for hosting #TurnBasedThursday, @dotage.bsky.social ! ZodiacLegion is a game of tactical dungeon crawling with X-COM-like strategic elements: bsky.app/profile/gald...
neutral · AI labelView post →I played a bit of Zero Company and this game is scratching that feeling that X-Com2 unfortunately couldn't for me. Which is just removing turn limits in most of the missions. I think that ultimately killed my enjoyment of X-Com so fucking bad that I just couldn't play it anymore.
negative · AI labelView post →Phoenix Point is the best X-Com game
positive · AI labelView post →🚨BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani once savescummed a game of X-Com so he wouldn't lose his best sniper. Must credit the New York Times and Twitter Account: @CallofDutyBooty69. 🚨
neutral · AI labelView post →I know that the majority of people who are looking at this game in 2026 and beyond are likely vets who are revisiting a game they played in years past, so I wanted to give a new player's perspective to anyone who might be curious about that point of view. Simply put, as someone who is nearly a decade younger than the game, has never played it before, and has no emotional attachment to it, I was really impressed with how well it holds up. I was kind of intimidated at first, with all the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is one of the best games. I first played it back on a PS 1 in 1993,and I still am playing it in 2025 and it still plays good for a DOS game and by the way I'm 62 years old .
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →petition to replace X-COM style game hit percentages with words like, "no chance in hell, i mean if you squint a bit, oh definitely but ... maybe?"
neutral · AI labelView post →Ghost in the Shell action game or X-Com like. I would do terrible things for the specific vibes of it.
neutral · AI labelView post →amazing game, dont even bother starting without OpenXcom
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →OpenXcom with mods is one of the hidden gems only truly enlightened gamers know about.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →X-Com doesn't need any introduction, but you should install Open X-Com before attempting to play. Everything is confusing in this game and Open X-Com brings many QoL updates to UI. The simplest example would be: you build radars to detect UFOs, but there is nothing in the UI that shows the coverage of the radar. Open X-Com fixes many such details, and makes the game actually playable. For those brave enough I can only wish good luck...
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Impossible not to mention my lifelong love of the X-Com games, from the original series, the reboot, The Long War, and its imitators, boy I sure do love building bases, researching laser guns, deploying cool drop ships and such like. HELLPIERCERS, if I was being Like That, is very much X-Com In Hell
positive · AI labelView post →X-COM 2 was made insanely hard due to fans complaining the first game was too easy. What the devs hadn’t realised was that the first game had a bug that kept reverting difficulty settings to beginner.
neutral · AI labelView post →Total classic. Its a system crusher requiring 2 whole MB of RAM! I remember those days LOL!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →We need a Lego X-Com game
neutral · AI labelView post →Played X-Com the Board Game boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16...
neutral · AI labelView post →New post: dev.to/retrorom/x-c... X-COM: UFO Defense — the 1994 strategy classic that turned losing into a design system #retrogaming #gaming #retro #strategy #gamedev
neutral · AI labelView post →X-Com UFO Defence 1994. What an experience it was to play that game when it came out.
positive · AI labelView post →𝔾𝕠𝕥 𝕓𝕒𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕓𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕟𝕒𝕞𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕘𝕒𝕞𝕖... 𝕀𝕥 𝕤𝕦𝕔𝕜𝕖𝕕! I really wanted to love this one, but I ended up throwing in the towel. The atmosphere and concept are right not up my alley, but I still decided to give it a go because of the name XCOM (I love this universe) but the dated interface and brutally unforgiving gameplay made me feel like I was fighting the game more than the aliens. I often found myself scratching my head over what I was supposed to do, and the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hey X-COM (2012) friends. Some of you may remember what *really* made this game amazing was the "Long War" mod, from Pavonis Interactive, with the X-COM creators themselves stating¹ "We're basically a 20-hour tutorial for Long War, and that's okay." It was that good. Pavonis went on to create the incredible game Terra Invicta², but did you know that Long War continued to be improved upon by Ucross, as the Long War Rebalance project? It's good, like really *really* good, and continues to see…
neutral · AI labelView post →
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