Quake II is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake series, following Quake. The game's storyline is continued in its expansions, including one tying in Quake II and the first game, and Quake 4.
StarCraft is a real-time strategy video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment for Microsoft Windows. The first installment of the video game series of the same name, it was released in 1998. A Classic Mac OS version was released in 1999, and a Nintendo 64 port co-developed with Mass Media and published by Nintendo was released in 2000.
XCOM is a science fiction video game franchise featuring an elite international organization tasked with countering alien invasions of Earth. The series began with the strategy video game X-COM: UFO Defense created by Julian Gollop's Mythos Games and MicroProse in 1994. The original lineup by MicroProse included six published and at least two canceled games, as well as two novels. The X-COM series, in particular its original entry, achieved a sizable cult following and has influenced many other video games; including the creation of a number of clones, spiritual successors, and unofficial remakes.
Allegiance is a multiplayer online game initially developed by Microsoft Research. It is notable for providing a mix of real-time strategy and player piloted space combat gameplay.
Half-Life: Opposing Force is an expansion pack for the first-person shooter game Half-Life. It was developed by Gearbox Software and published by Sierra On-Line for Windows on November 19, 1999. Opposing Force was the first expansion for Half-Life and was announced in April 1999. Lead designer Randy Pitchford noted that he believed Gearbox was selected to develop Opposing Force because Valve, the creators of Half-Life, wanted to concentrate on their future projects. Over the course of development, Gearbox brought in a variety of talent from other areas of the video games industry to help bolster various aspects of design.
Ground Control is a real-time tactics video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Sierra Studios. It was first released onto the PC Microsoft Windows in 2000. The game focuses on a conflict between two factions vying for control of a planet and a series of alien artefacts contained on its surface, in which players take the role of an officer for each faction, working to achieve their objectives through using a variety of futuristic style of troops, engaging different tactics that make use of their units, the terrain and careful planning.
UFO: Enemy Unknown, also known as X-COM: UFO Defense in North America and as X-COM: Enemy Unknown, is a 1994 science fiction strategy video game developed by Mythos Games and MicroProse. It was published by MicroProse for DOS and Amiga computers, the Amiga CD32 console, and the PlayStation. Originally planned by Julian Gollop as a sequel to Mythos Games' 1988 Laser Squad, the game mixes real-time management simulation with turn-based tactics. The player takes the role of commander of X-COM – an international paramilitary and scientific organization secretly defending Earth from an alien invasion. Through the game, the player is tasked with issuing orders to individual X-COM troops in a series of turn-based tactical missions. At strategic scale, the player directs the research and development of new technologies, builds and expands X-COM's bases, manages the organization's finances and personnel, and monitors and responds to UFO activity.
Battlezone is a first-person shooter real-time strategy video game, developed and published by Activision. It was released for Microsoft Windows in 1998. Aside from the name and presence of tanks, this game bears little resemblance to the original arcade game of the same name. Activision remade it into a hybrid of a tank simulation game, a first-person shooter and a real-time strategy game. In Battlezone the player is controlling everything on the battlefield from the first person view.
Close Combat is the name of a series of real-time computer wargames by Atomic Games. In the Close Combat series, the player takes control of a small unit of troops and leads them in battles of World War II from a top down 2D perspective.
Laser Squad is a turn-based tactics video game, originally released for the ZX Spectrum and later for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Amiga, Sharp MZ-800 and Atari ST and PC computers between 1988 and 1992. It was designed by Julian Gollop and his team at Target Games and published by Blade Software, expanding on the ideas applied in their earlier Rebelstar series. Laser Squad originally came with five mission scenarios, with an expansion pack released for the 8-bit versions, containing a further two scenarios.
Julian Gollop is a British video game designer and producer specialising in strategy games, who has founded and led Mythos Games, Codo Technologies and Snapshot Games. He is known best as the "man who gave birth to the X-COM franchise."
The Rebelstar games are a series of turn-based tactics video games designed by Julian Gollop. Rebelstar Raiders was published in 1984 by Red Shift for the ZX Spectrum. It was reworked in machine code as Rebelstar, published by Firebird in 1986. A sequel, Rebelstar II, was published in 1988 by Silverbird. Rebelstar, but not its sequel, was also adapted for the Amstrad CPC home computer.
Rebelstar: Tactical Command is a turn-based tactics video game developed by Codo Technologies and published by Namco and Atari Europe for the Game Boy Advance in 2005. It's the fourth game in the Rebelstar series. The game was created by Julian Gollop, who previously designed X-COM: UFO Defense, Laser Squad and the original Rebelstar games.
A man-to-man wargame is a wargame in which units generally represent single individuals or weapons systems, and are rated not only on weaponry but may also be rated on such facets as morale, perception, skill-at-arms, etc. The game is designed so that a knowledge of military tactics, especially at the small unit or squad level, will facilitate successful gameplay. Man-to-man wargames offer an extreme challenge to the designer, as fewer variables or characteristics inherent in the units being simulated are directly quantifiable. Modern commercial board wargaming stayed away from man-to-man subjects for many years, though once the initial attempts were made to address the subject, it has evolved into a popular topic among wargamers.
Turn-based tactics (TBT) is a video game genre of strategy video games. They are turn-based simulations of operational warfare and military tactics in generally small-scale confrontations as opposed to more strategic considerations of turn-based strategy (TBS) games. Turn-based tactical gameplay is characterized by the expectation of players to complete their tasks using only the combat forces provided to them in a generally realistic manner.
World in Conflict is a 2007 real-time tactics video game developed by the Swedish video game company Massive Entertainment and published by Vivendi Games for Microsoft Windows. The game was released in September 2007, receiving generally favorable reviews and several awards. The game is considered by some to be the spiritual successor of Ground Control, another game by Massive Entertainment, and is generally conceived by its designers to be a real-time tactics game, despite being marketed as a RTS game.
The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge is an unreleased video game for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 2 by Mythos Games. Developed by the team which produced X-COM: UFO Defense, including lead designer Julian Gollop, the game was planned to be "a remake of the first X-COM with 3D graphics," as the first of four games planned in the new series. Cancelled in 2001, the unfinished game was later bought and partially turned into UFO: Aftermath by Altar Interactive, which was in turn itself followed by two sequels. Some elements of the game are also present in Gollop's own Phoenix Point.
Frozen Synapse is a turn-based tactics video game developed by independent game developer Mode 7 Games, in which players plan their moves at their leisure and turns are resolved simultaneously. Players attempt to win by giving orders to a small squad of armed combatants, most commonly with the goal of eliminating all enemy units.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a 2012 turn-based tactics video game developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K. The game is a "reimagined" version of the 1994 strategy game X-COM: UFO Defense and a reboot of MicroProse's 1990s X-COM series. Set in an alternative version of the year 2015, the player controls an elite multinational paramilitary organization called XCOM during an alien invasion of Earth. The player commands troops in the field in a series of turn-based tactical missions; between missions, the player directs the research and development of technologies from recovered alien technology and captured prisoners, expands XCOM's base of operations, manages finances, and monitors and responds to alien activity.
Gears Tactics is a turn-based tactics video game developed by Splash Damage in conjunction with The Coalition and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is a spin-off of the Gears of War franchise and a prequel to the first game. The game was released first for Windows on April 28, 2020 and subsequently for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on November 10, 2020.
