Today my 12 year old nephew played his first game of XCOM!

 

I told him that the game was like chess with laser weapons (I taught him chess) and just placed him in front on the computer and started the tutorial on Normal difficulty. He became completely gazed for two hours playing it, I would watch and explain some things from time to time and he managed to get to the extract Hutch museum, although he failed it because Thin Men poisoned and killed the UN diplomat.

 

His comment to me at the end: addictive

Well done, you ruined his life.

One of these days, the kids will go out to play, and we old men will sit and grump about the good ol' days when computer games were good enough for us.

 

(Do the aliens ignore the diplomats until you reach them? Sorta get the impression they do.)

So far I've seen no sign they touch any of the people you're sent to rescue until you get to them...but I'm being cautious and playing on the easiest difficulty for now.

@Hobbes:

 

Oh boy, there's no turning back now!

 

::

 

And, well played, Cool Uncle. You'll always be remembered as the one who showed him the devious ways of XCOM. All else will pale by comparison.

Haha, that happened to me once. The guy was poisoned, and one turn away from reaching the LZ... and the poison wore off! Sooooo lucky that it only lasted two turns, since I've found it usually lasts for around three turns.

So far I've seen no sign they touch any of the people you're sent to rescue until you get to them...but I'm being cautious and playing on the easiest difficulty for now.

 

Watch out for the aliens triggering overwatch shots near the person you're supposed to extract. I lost missions to stray shots exploding the vehicle and killing him by accident.

True. Approach the person last and move him last in turn, never over the line of sight of the squad. Thin men are very good shots even in overwatch.