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Tag: operation 100

THE MAN BEHIND THE GLASS: Operation 100 Part IV

Welcome to the latest chapter in my ongoing quest/self-help guide to unlock 100% of achievements in XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Between a full-time job, part-time writing career and a range of domestic commitments – is it possible for an average, grown-up gamer to max-out a modern title? As I post my progress, I’ll be discussing hints and tips; discussing the game’s design; and poking fun anything that comes within range. Catch the start of the journey here.

Time trundles on, seconds vanishing into an eternity of infinite possibility, never to be realised into any reality other than this one. And with each second goes another chance to unlock another of XCOM:Enemy Unknown’s achievements (and at the moment, most seconds pass by with the loss of another Soldier).

Join me this week as I pay homage to XCOM’s least celebrated hero.

The Man Behind The Glass

I’ve now sat through a great many hours being mercilessly ravaged at the hands of XCOM: Enemy Unknown’s Classic Ironman mode. The varied emotions of euphoria, anger, frustration and relief dovetail erratically, but at the end of each peak of pique there is one constant; a stationary reference point in the whirling maelstrom of war; a cool hand to soothe my fevered brow.

Win or lose, step forward or step back: one man is there by my side, whispering comfort and sage advice in my ear. That man is XCOM’s uncelebrated hero, the man behind the glass – always watching, listening and speaking, but never touching the chaos unfurling around him – Central Officer Bradford.

Central Officer Bradford – in all his glory

You’ll spend a lot of in-game time with Officer Bradford. He’s the voice on the radio guiding you through every mission; the firm handshake waiting in your underground base when you return from the field; the objective, patient debrief through each twist of the rabbit warren. He’s the man who greets you when you first arrive at XCOM HQ – playing the benign mother role within a faceless military patriarchy – treading a perfect line between comforting warmth and official competence.

For the first few play-throughs of the game, he’s a likeable-if-forgettable character. Blandly efficient, optimally neutral (warming to cagily protective where your soldiers are concerned). He’s ordinary in his appearance: his tall, stocky frame is obviously built to last, and, I like to think, impeccably well-maintained beneath those thick layers of official uniform. Any rough edges in his manner or personality are rounded-off by submissive conformance. As the single-player campaign wears on and you are subjected/treated to increasing exposure to Doctor Valen and Engineer Wotsit – characters who both play safe stereotypes to the letter – it’s easy to think that Officer Bradford has no personality at all.

But when you play as badly as I do for as long as I do, you start to see Officer Bradford in a very different light. You start to see the man behind the generic authority figure. You begin to yearn for his calm, commanding tone. You crave his respect and admiration, you notice his facade crumbling, you see the man beneath the well-oiled machine. His voice cracks ever-so-slightly when you lose a soldier; a barely-perceptible undertone of disappointment carried on his sigh. His crew-cut brow hangs, to better control the great surges of emotion coursing through his veins.

Sooner or later you find yourself craving his approval: an ugly perversion of Stockholm Syndrome in which the master desires to please the servant. You yearn for him to clap you on the back and say “Good job, commander”. You shake yourself off, raise your game, focus your mind – just to please Officer Bradford.

In between howls of frustration and burly hi-fives with friends who have long-ceased to pay attention, I find myself imagining what Officer Bradford does at the end of a 14-hour shift. I expect he returns to his small home, located just off the base, and wakes his sleeping wife. I imagine he makes love to her in his capable, dependable way: not too quickly, not too slowly, just a patient, controlled build up of passion. A restrained landslide, an unstoppable glacier of burning iron. He silently completes his final objective with a minimal of fuss, leaving his beloved gasping for air, completing one last debrief with silence and sweat.

As he strides around the base like a keen-eyed admiral aboard an ancient pan-Atlantic galleon, I find myself pondering strange questions. What’s in his wardrobe? I’m sure he has an immaculate, well-organised collection of dark green jumpers and white shirts for the working week; plus a couple of short-sleeved cream shirts and a navy blue jumper for his off-duty weekends. I imagine him fishing on his rare weekends off (probably while reading some kind of practical military magazine, like Modern Communications or Oil Monthly).

There’s just something so confident about Officer Bradford – even in defeat, he’s magnanimous and commanding. Sure, he’s not the most senior man on the base. Yes, he does have an ambiguous rank and uncertain official duties. No, he doesn’t openly appear to be the most explosive torpedo in the bay. But is there any other man, woman, alien or digital/spiritual/psychological entity from the whole spectrum of games that I’d rather have whispering into my ear as the Skyranger touches down onto the tarmac of yet another dangerous operation?

Probably not.

Central Officer Bradford – throwing shapes in Mission Control

Progress Report

Oh man, what a pitiful couple of weeks it’s been.

Between overtime in the office, a little too much time in the pub, and preparations for an upcoming holiday – my commitment to XCOM:EU has taken a beating. Just 7.5 hours over two weeks. Time enough to start and abandon a couple of doomed campaigns, but no time to make meaningful progress.

I’m sure I’m getting better – both at the macro-game strategy, when I’ve got a plan of how to develop both satellite coverage and scientific development – but I constantly find myself getting burned. Soldiers get hit while hunkered down in heavy cover; easy (but important) shots miss; hordes of aliens get pulled out of the fog-of war within a tiny mis-step.

Mutons have proved the greatest problem. Each one presents an epic battle: they tear through heavy cover like its paper, and their bonus to defense makes them really hard to hit.

But it’s clear I’m doing something wrong. I need to swallow my pride and get a little help. It’s time to hit Google, rinse out YouTube, ask the Russians and memorise the Wiki. The war against Classic Ironman is going to heat up as I hungrily begin to devour every tip, strategy and catechism I can to crack this beastly game.

I just hope that doing so doesn’t strip all the fun out of the experience. Over the next few articles, I’ll start to report back on what I find.

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This Week’s Stats:
Hours Played: 10
Operations Completed: 14
Aliens Killed: 177
Soldiers Lost: 51
Flawless Victories: 3
Total Wipeouts: 5
Achievements Unlocked: 0
Hours spent in the pub (and not actually playing XCOM): 14.5

Global Progress:
Achievements Unlocked: 41% (35/85)
Hours Played: 33
Operations Completed: 55
Confirmed Kills: 960
Campaigns Started: 18
Campaigns Won: 1
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September 16, 2013
COMBAT STIMS: Operation 100 Part III

Injecting new blood into XCOM – but at what cost?

Welcome to the latest chapter in my ongoing quest/self-help guide to unlock 100% of achievements in XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Between a full-time job, part-time writing career and a range of domestic commitments – is it possible for an average, grown-up gamer to max-out a modern title? As I post my progress, I’ll be discussing hints and tips; discussing the game’s design; and poking fun anything that comes within range. Catch the start of the journey here and the middle here.

The XCOM community is positively ablaze with excitement at the moment. From the release of sort-of prequel The Bureau (a lackluster and controversial entry to the series, but it at least created a talking point), to the very exciting announcement of an expansion pack entitled XCOM: Enemy Within – giving the game a very welcome adrenaline boost.

But for all the excitement coming out of the games press, I’ve been a little worried about the cynical side of Achievements. Are they just a marketing con, or do they genuinely enhance the game experience?

Perhaps my cynicism comes from a weakened emotional state. Friends, hold onto your butts: for I must announce the untimely and ultimately apocalyptic death of Thomas ‘Wardog’ Thomas.

The last five things Wardog ever saw.

New Horizons

I’ll start this Journal with my impressions of Enemy Within. In case you’ve been hiding under a Muton these past two weeks, you’ll be aware that Firaxis have announced an expansion pack (sort of a semi-sequel, really) to XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It presents an alternative campaign, letting us enjoy a new story-line. The hook lies in the changes Enemy Within makes to your barracks: introducing two rivaling tech-trees / pseudo-classes which enable you to further customize your soldiers – turning them into cybernetic chimeras. And there’s just the hint of a wider conspiracy story creeping in: could there be an element of human subversion, too?

A far wider range of maps is promised (thank goodness), as well as some minor gameplay tweaks and a new currency: Meld. This alien substance finances the new soldier tech trees, but it can only be collected from operation maps, and self-destructs after a few turns. I’m particularly pleased that the new soldier upgrades won’t stretch your finances any further – Solomon knows its hard enough managing air defense, satellites, base management, soldier recruitment AND great construction on a single (pretty meager) income. Giving us a new currency to let us play with the new toys without incurring a mental breakdown is a great idea.

I do retain some reservations, though. Meld promises/threatens to pick up the pace of XCOM by forcing the player to rush, introducing a time constraint to encourage more aggressive strategies. I totally agree that XCOM: EU is too biased towards defensive strategies, rewarding rise-averse play and slower expansion across the map. But I don’t think Meld is the answer to opening up new play-styles. If the aliens continue to regularly score unlikely – or even impossible – hits against soldiers in high cover, then players will continue to adopt a defensive approach. XCOM is really punishing to soldiers caught in bad (or even pretty good) positions. The risks are so high and hard to manage that I don’t think we’re going to be keen to gamble our soldier’s lives like that – not without ruining the fun of the game.

No, it seems to me like Firaxis should offer more defensive skills for soldiers, or perhaps just a fairer (perceived) difficulty model. Perhaps heavy cover should offer a stronger advantage – both to players and aliens. It can still be blown away, after all, plus it would encourage flanking strategies and diverse movement. Perhaps some hits could be “glancing blows”, dealing far less damage (but still risking panic). Maybe there could be more skills to enable soldiers to last longer under fire, or have a percent chance to dodge things like grenade attacks.

I love my XCOM, and I like it to be difficult (natch). But I’d prefer for it to feel a little more fair than it does currently – too often I lose a soldier under circumstances which make me angry at the game. I’m concerned that by encouraging players to play more riskily, Meld will only increase the feeling of unfairness which players so often experience.

Capitalism: Enemy Within

But what do I know? I’ve yet to try the new content and there’s every chance it will knock my space-socks off. I’m only a part-time cynic after all, and there’s another issue here which is more worthy of my ire. Are 2K Games using achievements to manipulate me into buying the expansion?

XCOM: Enemy Unknown comes with sixty-odd achievements built into the core game. The single piece of DLC, Slingshot, adds an extra five. Enemy Within introduces some thirty more. The difficulty here is that achievements aren’t bound to the DLC or the extension itself, they’re tied to the main game – and more to the point, the main game’s achievement list is expanded regardless of whether or not I own the expansion content.

So I can buy and complete the base game – but I’ll never be able to unlock 100% of its achievements unless I’ve bought the extra content. Does that matter? Does it seem fair?

It’s not, perhaps, a major problem – but it does show what achievements are intended for. Like bundling football cards in sweets, or little collectible toys in fast food packages, they incentivise the purchase of goodies (and bind the consumer to a particular retailer). Would you buy the extension from a different shop if it didn’t contribute to your achievement progress? Would you buy sub-standard DLC or an extension package you don’t really want just to unlock all the achievements? While there are a few die-hard completionists out there, I know that a most of my readers will instantly answer “no, don’t be silly”. But I’d argue the strength of achievements goes beyond conscious motivation, striking something deep in our psyche and compelling us to make one more purchase.

Publishers and marketeers know that putting a scorecard or completion rating next to each title in a gamer’s library is like waving a flanking position at a Thin Man. There’s at least a bit of a kleptomaniac in all of us: that’s why virtual commodities like trading cards are selling like hot cakes on Steam. We like to see “100%”, we like to do everything there is to do and have that accomplishment acknowledged. We like the numerical roundness, the bragging rights, the challenge. And my gosh don’t the shop owners know it.

The way we buy play and games is changing. Every few months there’s some new outrage, instigated by publishing houses and vociferously rejected by gamers. Using achievements or bundled incentives to sell products isn’t new; but perhaps we should be a little bit worried about the extent to which our playing and purchasing habits are being manipulated.

RIP Even the gingerest Wardog can be killed. RIP Thomas Thomas.

Progress Report

Alright, soapbox over. When not whining about achievements, I’m supposed to be unlocking them. So how’s that going?

Er, badly. When XCOM: Enemy Unknown is going well, it’s amazing. You feel on top of the world when your strategies go to plan, when enemies miss the shots they’re supposed to miss and you hit the shots you’re supposed to hit. Victory may be smooth as silk or hard-fought and bitter, but on Classic difficulty, each one is euphoric. And credit to the game – coming up to 100 hours hours played and I still fist-pump like an 80’s action hero every time I kill an alien.

But when it’s going badly – my giddy aunt, it’s a trial. Odd things can happen on the battlefield – rage-inducing, maddening moments. You feel like the game’s against you, like you’re climbing a mountain without a summit, like nothing you could have done would have saved that soldier. As a Terror mission plummeted into the depths of abject failure last night, I honestly just wanted to burst into tears.

So it goes just about every battlefield operation. It’s a bi-polar experience: the highest highs and the lowest lows. You lose a mission and face complete disaster – only to miraculously recover the next and hang into the campaign for another month, inching closer to the next milestone.

The headline news has been, of course, the sad death of Wardog. Yes, Thomas Thomas bought it on a doomed mission, pinned down against five Mutons, closing in on him from all sides. He went down in a blaze of fire and took two Mutons with him: but even he couldn’t do much against the cluster-fuck of Operation Red Shroud. Game 14 didn’t last long after: I limped into June with a handful of soldiers, no money and a Situation Room which looked like a communist’s wet dream.

Game 15 has been better – but at the time of writing, it looks like it’ll be over before July. The aforementioned terror mission has left me in a bad state, with few trained soldiers and an almost empty armory. I’ve got a Firestorm on order to help turn the tide – but when my problems are on the ground more than in the skies, will one shiny ship be enough to convince the Council keep my campaign alive beyond August?

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Hours Played: 14
Operations Completed: 25
Aliens Killed: 199
Soldiers Lost: 46
Soldiers Lost in Final Five Operations Game 15: 20
Flawless Victories: 4
Total Wipeouts: 6
Achievements Unlocked: 0
Thomas Thomas’s Killed: 1

Global Progress
Achievements Unlocked: 41% (35/85)
Hours Played: 14
Operations Completed: 25
Confirmed Kills: 783
Campaigns Started: 15
Campaigns Won: 1
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September 2, 2013
BEGINNINGS: Operation 100 Part II

A Working Man’s Guide to XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Part 1:Beginnings

Welcome to the first update in my quest/self-help guide to unlock 100% of XCOM:Enemy Unknown’s achievements. I’ve set myself the task of doing it all (the hard way) and posting regular journals with my progress. At the same time, I’ll be discussing hints and tips to guide others through this oft-torturous game; discussing the good, the bad and the ugly of its design; and poking fun at myself and the game in general.

It’s been a good/bad week. On the one hand, I’ve fallen in love with a flame-haired wonderbeast and unlocked two whole achievements. On the downside, though, my task just got a LOT harder: my completion percentage actually went DOWN.

Thomas Thomas

Thomas Thomas is sad because, in the genial surroundings of the XCOM barracks, he has 0% chance to kill

Sometimes, there’s a man. I won’t say a hero – ‘cause what’s a hero? But sometimes, there’s a man. A man who-

Aw, hell. Like The Big Lebowski’s mysterious, omnipresent cowboy narrator, I’ve rather lost my chain of thought. I have become infatuated with a single man, a man who bucks the tide of convention, hurdles the, erm, hurdle of destiny, and laughs in the face of flying plasma bolts.

The man is Thomas Thomas, AKA “Wardog”. As of this moment, he has completed four missions and recorded eighteen kills.

He’s an assault-class killing machine, tearing around the battlefield with his shotgun in a crazed hunt for fresh blood. His hair may be as orange as carrots, but his armour (and heart) is black as betrayal. He alone, of all of my unfortunate, loyal soldiers, has had the gumption, the bravado and (admittedly) the fortune to face up to the invading alien scum.

Everyone who plays XCOM: Enemy Unknown ends up with a favourite soldier; everyone discovers a hero at some point in the campaign. Wardog has been mine for the previous half-dozen missions. May the dice always be kind to you, Thomas Thomas!

Thomas Thomas lines up for a medium-range kill with his prized shotgun, who is probably called Martha.

The Achievements

I’ve decided that a sort of primer would be an appropriate way to start this journal: something to help those who either haven’t played XCOM, or who just don’t obsess over its achievements. Like most modern games, XCOM comes bundled with a set of so-called ‘achievements’, which are rewardless objectives you can complete for prestige. They are at once a ubiquitous marketing gimmick and an essential mod-con of modern gaming. And, occasionally, they can be the worst nightmare for the many obsessive gamers who see a rating and just have to max it out. I’ll talk more about achievements, about what they add and remove from modern games, in a later article.

Most of XCOM’s achievements are pretty straight-forward: playing through the single player campaign on normal difficulty should bag you around 50% of them. Given a decent run of the main storyline, most of them are outright inevitable. Indeed, with my single campaign victory I managed to unlock 60% without evening thinking about it (although the many restarts and mishaps on the way will have added a nice chunk to that total).

To really make this journal interesting, I’m going to proceed with Classic difficulty as my standard for the remaining achievements. Anyone with sense would try to unlock as many achievements as possible on the lower difficulties – for example, I have yet to complete the achievement for completing the game from each of the five continents, or to research the entire technology tree. These are trifling matters on Normal, requiring little more than a time commitment. But that’s not my style: I’m in this for a challenge and to hopefully produce some interesting stories. This is XCOM, the hard way!

Here’s a rundown of some of the more difficult tasks I’ll be trying to achieve:

No Looking Back

I know I’ll be able to crack this one: beating the game on Classic (or impossible) Ironman difficulty. This is my current short-term goal, completed by just 1.5% of players. It’s worth noting that beating this should bag me the Earth First achievement for free, for completing Classic without Iron Man (also working noting that just 5.22% have got this far. Ouch)

Xavier

This is an example of how achievements can actually tangibly change a gameplay experience. The goal is to mind-control one of the game’s toughest aliens: the psionically gifted Ethereals. These spooky, graceful creatures are the masterminds of the alien invasion, and have very high psi-defence. This is a challenging achievement on normal difficulty – but on classic? Sheesh, it’s going to stretch me.

Our Final Hour

This is one of the least-obtained achievements: complete the game on Impossible difficulty, unlocked by just 0.7% of players. I’ll permit myself to disable Ironman for this one (I may repeat the occasional important mission, but I’ll take care not to abuse it and avoid the dreaded ‘save-scumming’).

Ain’t No Cavalry Comin’

The final achievement which gives me cold sweats is to keep a soldier alive through every mission in a full game. EVERY MISSION? That’s a huge ask on Classic difficulty. Not only does my chosen soldier need to survive each mission he plays – they also can’t afford to miss one due to injury.

The Other Achievements

In exciting news for most XCOM fans (but rather daunting for myself), rumours are swirling about the imminent announcement for a new expansion (or possibly DLC) for XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Various leaks have been cropping up of late, but none more conclusive than the addition of (a frankly terrifying) 30 new achievements. Precisely what these achievements are, or how they can be unlocked, remains a mystery. I’ve got quite a bit of work to do before these extra mysteries become a problem – but I think it’s fair to assume that my road just got longer.
[Update: as of today, 21st August 2013, XCOM: Enemy Within has been officially revealed. Stay tuned for next week’s Journal, where I’ll share my thoughts]
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Progress Report

I’m only a week into a very long road, but with each update I want to post a set of stats which show how I’m getting along. These may or may not be interesting, but might provide some interesting analysis for regular readers.

In this first report, I’ll explain what I mean by each stat, and link back to this section in future journals for the sake of clarity.

Almost immediately after last week’s success, I blew my way through several single-player campaigns with a notable lack of dignity. I did manage to make a breakthrough in the multi-player game, however, unlocking two new achievements in the process.

Hours Played: 9
This is the approximate amount of time I’ve played the game, judged crudely against the clock and usually totalled up in half-hour intervals. I did consider using Steam’s “hours played” statistics – but that’s even cruder, counting time idling in menus and not including play while offline (which is surprisingly often at the moment, given a spate of connectivity issues).

Operations: 16
By “operations” I mean any time spent on the single-player battlefield. These include abduction missions, hostage rescue/escort, terror missions and UFO raids.

Aliens Killed: 84
Simple as: the total number of individual aliens (including robots) that I’ve killed. Aliens killed on a failed mission still count. As I’m playing ironman, there are no re-loads, so there’s no chance that any of these count twice. It’s worth adding that Thomas Thomas has accounted for 21% of these kills.

Soldiers Lost: 31
The shocking truth of how many XCOM soldiers are killed during operations. Thomas Thomas has yet to be counted among these statistics.

Flawless Victories: 3
These are are, despite last week’s success. I count a flawless victory as a mission where no soldier is killed or wounded. If a soldier is hit but only takes a single point of damage and is not wounded after the mission (ie, has to take time out to recover), I’ll count that as a flawless victory, thankyouverymuch

Total Wipeouts: 5
When things go wrong, they really go wrong. A total wipeout is a mission which I not only fail, but from which no soldier comes home alive.

Achievements Unlocked: 2
This is why we’re all here, right?

Overall Progress

Achievements Unlocked: 41% (35 /85)
Confirmed Kills: (500*) + 84
Campaigns Started: 13
Campaigns Won: 1
Hours Played: 79

* As I suggested last week, I’ve unlocked an achievement for killing 500 aliens – but beyond that, I have no way of knowing how many hostiles I’ve killed. I’ll assume 500 as my base for statistical analysis, though.

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August 21, 2013
INTRODUCTION: Operation 100 Part I
A Working Man’s Guide to XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Monday had been one of those tortuous, monotonous days that dragged on like a long goodbye to an unwelcome guest.

By the time I’d got home from work and cleared my evening workload, I was too wound-up to retire straight to bed. It’s a common problem: the day’s weight burdens one down, and a man needs a little tonic to take the edge off.

So, as I had done many times before, I poured myself a single-malt whiskey and powered up Steam, seeking the allure of escapism for a single unburdened hour.

I’d just recently started playing classic-difficulty XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

If you’re not in the know, it’s a slick turn-based strategy split into two parts. One sees you oversee the operation of your underground base, preparing against the sudden invasion of an alien host. At the same time, the other has you getting your hands dirty, playing out tense battles in the abandoned streets of Earth.

The franchise is almost as old as PC gaming, famous for its serious difficulty, high strategy, and high-fidelity multiplex management.

It’s at its best on the battlefield, where you give commands to your units one at a time and wait, often with bated breath, to see if your strategies come off successfully.

I’d finally finished the normal-difficulty campaign a few months ago and was (mostly) enjoying the increased challenge of classic gameplay. Enemies are more challenging, accurate, come in more significant numbers, and are more aggressive both on and off the battlefield.

Could this be my ticket to a late-night cooldown?

Unlikely. On a good day, I love XCOM – but it can be a punishing game. Luck isn’t so much a lady but a hungry wolf-pack that stalks you mercilessly, waiting for the worst moment to land a flurry of bad results and undo even the most meticulous planning.

It can frustrate with its non-intuitive line-of-sight rules and uncannily accurate foes.

Think your day in the office was frustrating? Try watching one of your units miss three 50/50 shots in a row before receiving a critical hit from your still-standing opponent, who, at best, should have had a 1/10 chance of hitting you.

The number of times I’ve quit in a fit of rage – oh, XCOM, how you’ve wounded me.

Worse, being a closet mas***st, I play the game in Ironman mode – which means the game autosaves my progress and doesn’t let me re-load at will. So there’s no replaying of bad missions, no second chances.

Any mistakes I make are permanent, haunting me through the entire campaign. This is how real men play XCOM – bare-chested, chugging neat spirits, and with Ironman enabled.

Complicating my decision was the fact that fatigue and XCOM tend to mix badly. The mystical one-unit superpowers bestowed upon players of darts, pool, and first-person shooters don’t apply here.

In a game where you have to weigh risk and reward, patiently plan attacks, and constantly assume the worst, a glass of spirits is enough to gradually inflate your confidence. Add an imaginary +10% to all probabilities (46% chance to hit? No problem!), and stoke your recklessness. That might encourage confident and aggressive play in many sports and games – but, in my experience, XCOM is often won by playing the percentages.

But my stock of options that night was running low, and I decided to trust XCOM to be gentle with my fragile psyche. And to my utter amazement, I sailed through two challenging early-game missions without taking a single hit. OK, so I got a couple of lucky breaks, but I also planned well and was in control more than I wasn’t. This Classic-difficulty campaign had slipped into gear and was running smoothly.

The experience left me with a warm, satisfied glow – it was probably the highlight of my entire XCOM career. And it sparked in me a really, really stupid idea: One that was to ruin that night’s sleep and many more since.

I wanted to grab XCOM by the horns and try to achieve 100% of its achievements – every ruddy one of them – and share my successes and failures with the world.

Now, that’s no mean task. At the time of writing (and according to Steam), just 0.7% of players have finished the game on its hardest difficulty level. I’ve never got 100% achievements on ANY game before.

I work full time and most of my spare time is taken up with various side projects – no to mention my girlfriend, with whom I have a sort of unspoken contractual obligation to see every now and again (ideally without intermittent twitches and bags under my eyes).

So is it possible for a (mostly) grown-up, part-time gamer to completely max out the achievements of one of the most famously difficult game franchises out there?

I guess we’ll find out. Stay tuned to these journals for commentary, tips, opinions, and abject failures as I try to 100% complete XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

For the sake of posterity, here’s a roll-call for my pretty meager achievements so far:

Campaigns Played: 11* (currently on my 12th)

Campaigns Completed: 1 (Normal difficulty)

Hours Played: 71

Achievements Completed: 60% (33 of 55)

Aliens Killed: 500+*
- All with ironman enabled.
  ** As I’ve not counted stats so far, I have no idea. But I have an achievement which says that I’ve killed 500 aliens – so let’s take that as a starting point
Kills: As I’ve not counted stats so far, I have no idea. But I have an achievement which says that I’ve killed 500 aliens – so let’s take that as a starting point

Proceed to Part 2 of A Working Man’s Guide to XCOM: Enemy Unknown
August 11, 2013