Let's Play: X-COM Enforcer

This was something of an experiment. I did genuinely want to show off Enforcer, given it's a little-known entry in the X-COM series and actually pretty good in its own right, but I was also trying to give the video LP format a try, see if it was something I did well and/or enjoyed. 'No' seems to be the answer, in both cases, and indeed in retrospect it's a bit frustrating how recording, uploading, and commenting on the videos was sufficiently time-consuming and exhausting that I ended up doing very little of the analytical style of writing I prefer. I start out talking about the qualities of different weapons and whatnot, and over the course of the posts increasingly forget to actually discuss new weapons, new powerups, new enemies, and so on. If I return to Enforcer as a Vigaroe topic another day, it will likely not be in video form.

For various reasons, these videos involve no in-video commentary from me, neither my actual voice nor textual commentary. There's just the posts and videos of gameplay. If you just want to experience Enforcer, they're fine at that job, but if you were considering watching them in hopes of hearing me talk about things, you're going to be disappointed.

You might also notice a general lack of music in these videos. That's just how Enforcer is, for whatever reason. I don't really get it, either.

Anyway, time for the index:

First run

This was a regular run on the basic difficulty level, and was played semi-blind, in that I'd played the game before these recordings but with a long enough gap I didn't remember the game very well. It's not representative of what a true first-time player might go through, but it's not as far off as you might expect.

Mission 1. I also discuss the first three weapons: your basic laser, the Flamethrower, and the Blade Launcher, as well as explaining Data Points.

Mission 2. Fall damage, BONUS Letters, Research Items, Damage Intensifier being a lousy purchase so early, and complaining about the 'dodge' mechanic.

Mission 3. A Bonus game, rescuing civilians, and ragging on the Shotgun.

Mission 4. Reapers (The alien, not the Metro homage faction), Hot Streaks, and smashing crates.

Mission 5. Chryssalids, the Mass Driver, the Lazarus System, and a very silly Bonus game.

Mission 6. The Worst Mission Of The Game, 7 years running champion.

Mission 7. The contender for Worst Mission Of The Game. Also the Fusion Rifle.

Mission 8. Jump height upgrades actually matter, and my thought process for why I made videos of Enforcer in articular.

Mission 9. Spiny boars and Pac-Man. That's not a joke.

Mission 10. Centaur Chryssalids years before Firaxis did them, literally hundreds of enemies killed becoming normal, and a damage-on-pickup powerup.

Mission 11. Grenade Launcher, getting turned around, and silly physics.

Mission 12. Freeze Gun being a bit underwhelming, mall level being nice, and civilians being confusing.

Mission 13. Stealth system, enormous melee enemies, and a nice little level.

Mission 14. Cyberbeasts, the Vibroblade XL, and technical difficulties.

Mission 15. Darkness, and a lot about how useful the Lightning Gun is.

Mission 16. Hot Streak decay, Enforcer failing to communicate important info, and a frustrating BONUS letter.

Mission 17. Non-obvious crypts, lack of clarity on what the aliens are doing, and a good-sized talk about Enforcer doing a poor job at giving a sense of progression.

Mission 18. The significance of mid-mission loading screens, iffy gameplay design, and a confusing and tedious boss fight.

Mission 19. Deadly platforming in a game not designed for such, the Rocket Launcher, and Mutons finally carrying weapons.

Mission 20. A gimmick my opinion is mixed on, melee enemies having significant knockback, and failure to leverage such.

Mission 21. Enforcer getting good, the plot starting to make its way into the game, and the Lightning Gun having a particularly good showing.

Mission 22. A short, quick boss fight, with a fair amount of talking about why it doesn't work very well.

Mission 23. The Psi Cannon, a very silly but memorable graveyard level, and continuing problems with the game not wanting the player to see things.

Mission 24. Fun farm level, Enforcer hitting its X-COM stride, and upgraded invulnerability.

Mission 25. My personal favorite level, for a lot of reasons.

Mission 26. Sectopods, the drone powerup, weapons changing relevancy, and the lack of a minimap hurting the game.

Mission 27. Many nice things to say, and also the Nuker entering relevance.

Mission 28. A sense of progression, the world making sense, and the game really coming into its own.

Mission 29. Beta Quadrant, Freeze Gun shining, and the game continuing to be good.

Mission 30. Delta Quadrant, my first combat death, and buildings everywhere.

Mission 31. Kappa Quadrant, the most indoors one. No relation to the Japanese mythological creature, pretty sure.

Mission 32. The Spider Mastermind completely original boss enemy, Stealth mattering, and arguably the toughest level f the game.

Mission 33. I'm genuinely not sure why this mission exists.

Finale. Not perfect as a game ending, but better than some I could name.

Xtra Spicy Run

'Xtra Spicy' is the game's highest difficulty, requiring beating the game to unlock. It's pretty obvious what you're expected to do is finish a run, unlock Xtra Spicy, and then New Game+ your completed run into this highest difficulty, running through old levels with all your weapons and upgrades but still getting something of a challenge out of the experience.

So naturally I did this as a completely fresh file.

I also cycled through Enforcer's alternate skins as best I could. Enforcer has a lot of alternate skins, for whatever reason. I's too bad the most interesting bits are usually at the front of the model, given you'll spend 99% of your time staring at Enforcer's hunchback.

Mission 1. Alarmingly accurate Sectoids, and basic explanations.

Mission 2. A relatively mild jump in difficulty.

Mission 3. A much more noticeable spike in difficulty.

Mission 4. Off-screen deaths, inexorable tides of reinforcements, and difficulty leading to actual thinking.

Mission 5. Iron robot needs repairs badly.

Mission 6. Surprisingly not painful!

Mission 7. Xtra Spicy's worst mission, bar none.

Mission 8. In which I have little to say.

Mission 9. Boars and little more.

Mission 10. The dawning realization this mission is actually poorly-designed, showing off Chryssalid goo, and Cyberdiscs being appropriately lethal.

Mission 11. Lethal pillars, Blade Launcher not cutting it, Mass Driver mattering.

Mission 12. A frustrating mission nonetheless leading to musings about how Xtra Spicy is a big boost in enjoyment factor overall.

Mission 13. Death and durability woes.

Mission 14. Strategic Cyberbeast combat.

Mission 15. Being pinned by melee in the darkness...

Mission 16. AUTOCANNON.

Mission 17. Xtra Spicy adding in changes to the enemy list. The weird thing is this isn't the start of a trend or anything.

Mission 18. A strangely easy Wargon fight.

Mission 19. Skyscraper central, now failing to deliver death.

Mission 20. Xtra Spicy once again making the unenjoyable enjoyable.

Mission 21. Shoot through groups if you can.

Mission 22. Seriously, are bosses running negative modifiers on Xtra Spicy?

Mission 23. Xtra Spicy remains fun now that we're past the early game.

Mission 24. In which bugs and bug-like aliens create problems for my recordings.

Mission 25. Still one of my favorite levels.

Mission 26. Sectopods being low-priority targets? What kind of X-COM experience is this?

Mission 27. Protect those pilots, Enforcer!

Mission 28. Why are Large Reapers so durable?...

Mission 29. Arctic 2: Arctic Harder.

Mission 30. Use strategy to not die.

Mission 31. Red cyclops Enforcer.

Mission 32. Spam Nuker to not die. Still nearly die anyway.

Mission 33. Turns out this mission is not only confusing in its existence but confusing in its design.

Mission 34. Final fight of the game actually being hard, nicely enough.

Xtra Spicy Finale. Surprise! Extra Spicy has a boss rush and enemy reel after the end of the game! I may in fact be the only person to have bothered to record any of it, so, uh, there you go, a reason to watch this video in particular.