8. X-Com: UFO Defense (1994)
This statement may hurt my street cred - but the new X-Com is my X-Com. That isn't a slight against the original. Firaxis simply makes the kind of strategy games I want to play - incredibly deep titles that are easy to learn and difficult to master, with tons of re-playability. But there's no arguing that the original is an even deeper and more re-playable experience. But easy to learn. Oh Good Lord, no... I can't refute the argument from older gamers that modern games are too flashy, too simple, and too dumbed-down. That somewhere around Call Of Duty 4, game studios started catering to the lowest common denominator. To these gamers, the idea of spending a weekend reading a game manual the size of a Tolstoy novel and learning how to play a game through hours of trial and error are their own reward. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRAroTM4nU8&feature=share&list=PLD91BACF0E36EE427 Again, not for me. Each attempt at getting through the original X-Com leaves me feeling confused, belittled, and emasculated (X-Com fanatics would say that's half the fun). At this point, I'd probably be more useful during a real alien invasion than I am leading a bunch of little pixelated soldiers to their inevitable doom. But there's no denying how good this game is, how influential it is, and yes, how much more challenging and complex it is compared to modern games. A lot of turn-based strategy fans think that no one has topped the original X-Com. It's a dragon nerds have been chasing for years. Either way, X-Com shows how much scope and ambition you can cram into 256 colors and a few megabytes of data.