3. UFO: Enemy Unknown

Probably one of the best games of all time; using a fixed isometric view point like Syndicate, UFO combined Theme Park style management, turn based squad combat and a host of enemies and scenarios to battle in. You command a team of international agents tasked with protecting earth from an increasing number of alien attacks. When the game begins you choose your base location on a big map of earth. Then you lay out your base and spend your initial cash on equipment for your team, an interceptor jet and a drop ship. At this point the waiting game begins for your first UFO sighting. There were three major types of attack: landings, crashes (resulting from your fighters shooting down an alien ship) and terrorism attacks. Dealing with each of these successfully meant extra funding from the worlds governments; failure especially during terrorism attacks, resulted in a severe drop in funding and eventually an attack on your base by the aliens.

At the end of a battle you also got hold of the sweet alien technology. Their weapons could be equipped straight to your team or put into research to generate your own equipment, bits of UFO could also be cannibalised into your own aerospace technology and armour and even dead aliens could be diced up for research. One of the primary goals, and most challenging objectives, was to capture aliens alive to learn to use their psychic abilities.

The action was turn based and each member of your team had a number of action points to be used during combat. Players quickly learned to use strategies such as one squad member opening a door and standing back while another tossed a grenade through while backup team members saving their points to return fire during the aliens turn. There were a number of aliens that attacked in various ways and required different methods to get rid of. Enemies were only visible in line of sight so the beginning of each mission was extremely tense before you knew what you were dealing with.

The original UFO: Enemy Unknown is available right now for download over Steam but a remake would make a lot of geeks delirious with joy. The gameplay itself was just about perfect but a serious rejigging of graphics and improvement of some elements, such as actually shooting down alien ships which was an awful mini game, could put UFO: Enemy Unknown back where it belongs, on top of the list of greatest games of all time.