No matter what I put down in this nifty little text box, it will come nowhere near doing justice to this game. With all the modern games we see today and all of the incredible presentation wrapped around them, X-com remains a game on its own. It has never been fully remade, and has been forgotten by most "gamers" today. This is a part of what makes this game so great.
I can't show this game to my friends and watch them get that same awe on their face that they get when playing Ghost Recon or Age of Empires III. The reaction is a bit more satisfying. They watch as my computer slips itself into dos and the game boots up with a "what in God's name is that?" look on their face. I can only keep their attention focused on the game for several minutes before they are utterly confused and turned away by the ugly graphics and sketchy sound. It's one of the greatest feelings ever to know that they will never be able to grasp the sheer awesomeness of this game.
This game really goes to show, it's not graphics, sound or even a good interface or any of these little things that really make a good game. What really makes a great game is something so simple we've nearly lost sight of it today. It's the game.
X-com marks a day that has come and gone. Back before gaming became such a valuable market and companies poured millions and millions of dollars into creating a single game. Companies were not afraid to experiment in those days. Just think about the kind of gameplay X-com has to offer. Do you see anything as "bizzare" as that anymore? We have our realtime strategy games, turn based games, first person shooters, RPGs, squad based games... Each one of the genres seems to represent a mold. Companies rarely tend to break this mold anymore. It's simply too risky. A game with the latest graphics and presentation is just too expensive to fail. Games' sheer popularity has begun to be their downfall.