Absolutely loved both of them! I think UFO Defense was the first pc game I played on our first 486. It was one of the first games I ever successfully hacked.
Not sure how many people know, but there's another game from Gollop, Rebelstar Tactical Command for Gameboy Advance. It's part of the Rebelstar series dating back to the ZX Spectrum. It plays pretty much the same as the original XCom games.
X-Com - UFO Defense and TFTD are definitely my favorite. Fallout 1&2 are a close second and I've been meaning to play through them again. Ogre Battle is a distant third, with Front Mission right behind it.
Everblue 2 for the PS2 is one of my all-time favorite games. I play it about once a year. The original was an EU only release thst I didn't get to play until a few years ago. It also had a sort of spiritual successor with Endless Ocean 1 & 2 for the Wii, made by the same developer. However, the first one didn't have any of the treasure finding mechanics and there was no real threat to the player at any time. Neither series really let you walk on land, so to speak. The Everblue games do have above water parts, you return to the island between dives to talk to people, sell treasure, sleep and such, but they're prerendered images that are more like a point and click adventure. There were a couple pc games I played around the same time that were made by independent developers that never really took off.
If it's anything like his lawyers presenting papers written by chatgpt, they should check pictures for weird looking people and odd non-letters/words on protest signs.
That was kinda my thought too, "How would I describe something that is so foreign to anything I've ever experienced that I'm entirely overwhelmed by the sheer realization of it's existence. So much so that I can only describe the fear felt when seeing it?" The focus would first be on primal instincts before your brain could even begin with physical characteristics.
"This horror that stands before you is no man, nor it anything resembling man in any facsimile other than it stands upon two appendages that could be mistaken for feet. The realization of it's mere and miserable existence finds you stricken with a cold sweat akin to the feel of a pale and slimy fish at the market. It's visage strikes in your being a fear that cores your stomach deeper than any forgotten, but suddenly realized promise. "
No... It's not one thing and another, it's just one fucking thing, ignoring due process and throwing people into a foreign gulag! We may as well just start making oubliettes a real thing and tossing people in...
Intellivision did actually have a Kool-Aid game, but you didn't play as Kool-Aid Man. You played as a couple kids trying to find the ingredients to make some Kool-Aid. It still had the Thirsties in it, but the gameplay was very different.
Also, I'm pretty sure that, aside from the games, the Thirsties were exclusive to the official Marvel Kool-Aid comics. I remember them in commercials, but I'm pretty sure I'm Mandela-ing myself and what I'm actually remembering is Pilsbury's Goofy Grape and the rest of the Funny Face characters.
The funny coincidence is that almost all of the Funny Face characters are depicted drinking from straws on their packages. Which kind of makes me wonder if the 2600 game wasn't a subtle dig at them.
I'd assume the second was a reference to the song...
The third obviously a pun on "New Beginnings." It's a reference to it being both the first episode of the first season but also the re-opening of the restaraunt.
It was totally fine all those times Israel targeted Americans though... Just sayin'