History VideoGame / XCom

* FiveRoundsRapid: Go ahead, try using ballistic ammo on a Muton.

* Reconstruction: The Firaxis games are basically reconstruction of the concept deconstructed by the original series as detailed in Deconstruction:

** The Sonic Cannon of ''TFTD'' is the biggest offender. It can firing snap shots or aimed shots and inflicts about 15% more damage than the Sonic Blasta-Rifle. However, firing a snap shot will take ''half'' of your time units, and an aimed shot requires ''75%'', meaning you have almost no ability to manuever. In addition, it has five fewer rounds per clip, and is so heavy you're limited in what else you can carry. The Blasta-Rifle is superior in every way ''except'' damage and, to much a lesser extent, accuracy, but since you can fire two snap shots ''and'' move with the Rifle, the slight damage increase the Cannon offers is negligible. Fortunately, [[ArtificialStupidity the computer will use the Cannon, and all it's attendant problems, exclusively about two-thirds of the way into the game.]]

* CrapsackWorld: [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160807170332/http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=31876257 All but stated.]] An unknown, but likely large portion of the galaxy is ruled by an AlwaysChaoticEvil HiveMind. Humans ''might'' be able to destroy the local node if they become TheUnfettered -- abolish every civil liberty and article of war. And there's another, unattached (albeit slightly less advanced) node in the Gulf of Mexico. And its destruction would reduce Earth's biosphere to the algae level. And there's an entire ''planet'' of Hive Mind aliens just one dimension over. And the best weapon against all these irredeemably hostile aliens are {{Half Human Hybrid}}s with PsychicPowers... who will eventually become a permanent underclass treated like parolees from cradle to grave and not allowed to breed without permission(which tends to be withheld between invasions). In short, not only is TheVerse irrefutably hostile, but it runs on FromBadToWorse.

* OrganizationWithUnlimitedFunding: ZigZagged; the Funding Nations[=/=]Senate are huge cheapskates, but once enough engineering facilities get going and start cranking out weapons to sell, X-COM can effectively go rogue. However, the better the player does at protecting a given nation, the more they'll increase funding. As the game only ends when the player is in the red for too long or if all nations sign non-aggression pacts with the aliens, it's possible to keep protecting a few nations at a time and building up their funding over time to replace the nations that drop out. In a sufficiently long game, it's not uncommon to have the US providing 14-20 million dollars a month to X-COM... as the only nation still funding it.

%%** And then subverted again in the reboot: [[spoiler:Turns out the Ethereals are [[WellIntentionedExtremist Well-Intentioned Extremists]]]].
%%** And then DoubleSubverted in ''XCOM 2 - [[spoiler:no they bloody well aren't!]]''
** ''Chimera Squad'' plays it both ways: The Ethereals were almost universally bastards, but their SlaveMooks were as much their victims as humanity was.
* AlienBlood

* TheGreys: The sectoids are the classic little grey aliens with the big heads. They're the weakest enemies in the game and have psionic powers.

* GunsAkimbo: Doing this in ''UFO'' and ''TFTD'' only gave you another weapon to fire from with penalties. In ''Apocalypse'', it greatly increases the fire rate of the soldier, but only pistol weapons can be dual wielded. However, it only works in Real-Time mode.

** The objective of any Base Defense mission. Can literally turn into Hold The Line if you choose to adopt such tactics, although in some cases it's not so much line-holding as shooting fish in a barrel with a BFG. This probably only applies if your base is attacked early in the game where aliens' psi attacks turn it into a nightmare. But, once you screened your recruits (and sack the weak minded ones) and researched alien weapons, even if you have poorly designed base, a defense mission is just a shooting gallery.
** Two early missions of ''Enforcer''. The first requires to defend against incoming waves while travelling on a hoverboat, and the second in the following mission where you defend four humans in a forcefield. A late mission requires you do destroy on an aircraft while defending the pilots. (Only "hold the line" missions have vulnerable civilians. In all other cases, they'll [[InvulnerableCivilians simply scream]] due to nearby weapon fire.)

* {{Hovertank}}: With your choice of Fusion Bomb launcher or Plasma cannon. Arguably, the Cyberdisc can be considered one of these sans turret.

* HumanoidAliens: Most of the weapon-using aliens you face are humanoid in appearance, and in some cases were human before being genetically modified. The rest, with few exceptions, are non-humanoid terrorists units that support their masters.

* ImportedAlienPhlebotinum: About 75-90% of gameplay revolves around the acquisition, understanding, and implementation of cool alien toys. Or in the RPG terms: Kill them, take their stuff, reverse-engineer it, repeat. Reversed in ''Apocalypse'': when you sell some of your stuff to a MegaCorp that's been infiltrated by aliens, the aliens will import ''your'' phlebotinum.

** The world governments tried to stop the alien threat individually, and failed (some had initial success, like Japan being able to shoot down a UFO, but failed to be good enough at everything to be effective). As a result, X-COM is given the best of ''everything'' from every country (people, tech, etc) and told that they're the last hope.
** ''Terror from the Deep'': X-COM was disbanded after the first war due to the lack of a viable threat, and went corporate. When the new alien threat emerges, the world governments turn to the company best suited to handling it: The X-COM Corporation.
* IWantThemAlive: When researching Alien Origins and latter item down the paths, the reports state that you need to capture higher ranked aliens.

* TheJoysOfTorturingMooks: If you can survive long enough to craft blaster bombs and flying suits, breaching [=UFOs=] turns into a turkey shoot. Until then, you may content yourself with setting jungles on fire, torching UFO interiors to cook aliens from inside the shell, leveling their sniper's nests with TNT...

* LawEnforcementInc: After the Second Alien War of ''TFTD'', X-COM becomes this to avoid underfunding. X-COM's more ambitious cousin Marsec started out as a replacement for the former in guarding the martian colonies so that they could concentrate on potential alien threats, but soon becomes a para-military corporation with a ruthless reputation. Megapol from ''Apocalypse'', in addition to being a police force, also operates other 24-hour services, the fire fighters and the hospitals.

* LetsSplitUpGang: A ''[[LemmingCops great]]'' tactic, in movies as well as computer games! Seriously, though, bunching up your squad isn't such a good idea, either, as they tend to attract grenades[[labelnote:*]]Except in the first game, where an AI bug means that aliens will ''never'' throw grenades. You're still vulnerable to Small Launchers and Blaster Launchers, though, so watch out[[/labelnote]]. A balance between the two is best.
%%* LightningBruiser: Mutons and especially the Lobstermen.

* MachineMonotone: ''Enforcer'' has various phrases normally said in an excited fastion, except that they're said by the Enforcer.

%%* MarathonLevel: The two-parter missions.
%%* MarketBasedTitle: The original game was called ''UFO: Enemy Unknown''.

* MeetTheNewBoss: Pretty much every new alien threat faced in the original series, when it comes down to how they act and their goals, are essentially same product new packaging of the original aliens: aliens want Earth, humans in the way, destroy all humans. ''Apocalypse'' throws a bit of a curve in that [[spoiler: the interdimensional invasion is from aliens desperate to escape their dying world.]]

** ''X-COM: First Alien Invasion'' (1999)
** ''X-COM: Enforcer'' (2001)

* GlobalCurrency: Everything bought and sold in the main games is apparently done so in [[WeAllLiveInAmerica U.S. dollars.]]