X-Com enforcer gets a bad rap, and its easy to see why. Not only did the pre release suffer from "Bullshot" and a ridiculous level of over promise, but much of the content that was delivered was either kinda garbage or locked behind multiple playthroughs. But in it's defense, it's quite a fun boomer shooter IF you know how to bypass the worst content and get to the meat on its bone.

This guide is designed to get you to that delicious, meaty content without falling for the built in traps that can make the game an utter misery. So Buckle up enforcers, as I take you through some concepts you will need to know, and the ultimate list of upgrade priorities and weapons explanations

Enforcer has a few built in concepts that make it differ from other games coded in the Unreal Tournament Engine. Understanding them is essential to getting through the game with the least amount of annoyance

Transport Vs Location/quantity/time spawn. Enforcer has two basic forms of spawning enemies. Transporters, which are objectives to be destroyed, and Location/quantity/time spawn
Transporters will continue to spawn enemies at set intervals until they are either destroyed or (in some rare cases) they reach a pre set total aliens spawned cap. These are easily dealt with, just blow the hell out of the transporter. In higher difficulties transporters CAN AND WILL spawn enemies out of line of sight of the actual device. If you see golden lightening bolts when an enemy spawns, its a transporter spawn

Location/quantity/time spawn is an ugly phrase to describe some ugly content.. This mechanisim works as follows
You enter a specific map location. Monsters will begin to spawn. The monsters will continue to spawn at a set rate until all the monsters have been spawned at which the spawn will endf, UNLESS there is a timer involved, in which case a new pattern of monsters will begin to spawn. In missions where a timer is involved, monsters will continue to spawn until the timer expires. There are two ways to deal with the general form of this. The first is to pay attention. When you see monsters appear without the lightening bolt on the floor, you can simply hang back and shoot into the spawn location. This is excellent for farming resources and your hot streak bar. Or you can just run like fun through the zone. This will give you a lengthy train of enemies you can combo down for fun and profit, and if you get far enough from the spawn zone enemies spawned at the tail end of the timer are likely to just sit there numbly. They can then be subjected to CC or AOE when you inevitably backrack to find a missed BONUS letter or similar

Weapons in enforcer fall broadly into 3 categories. Direct Damage, Area of Effect, and Crowd Control. While ALL weapons are effective and enjoyable in easy and normal modes, crowd control weapons are ironically completely useless in hard and Xtra Spicy modes.

Remember our second spawn type? Spawn intervals and numbers are NOT effected by crowd control, requiring you to re-apply them every time the spawn counter ticks. Certain types of spawned enemies become immune to crowd control effects. As Crowd control weapons have a narrow field of fire and are also slow to afix, they are NOT recommended

So, now we've considered the way the game will span enemies on you, and they types of weapons, lets discuss weapons in the order they appear on the sphere grid. I will provide a brief description, any notable effects, and how quickly the weapon should be prioritized in up-grade, and how much of a priority it is to pick up

Default weapon. Basic direct damage. No matter the upgrade level it's going to suck at higher levels. The only reason to put any points into it is because Teir 4 of professor's choice is literally essential

Blade launcher (beginning unlock) Homing direct damage. With the sheer volume of enemies spawned in the higher difficulties, the blade launcher is WONDERFUL. further unlocks include bouncy shots, tracking and research points pickups. You really can't go wrong with this except on boss fights. In most circumstances, only the Nuker or Rail Gun should be picked up over this. The only real weakness is lack of ammo and lower DPS. This is made up for by being the most accurate weapon in the game

Flamethrower (beginning unlock) UGH. If it was possible to play through the game without this weapon unlocked I would recommend you never unlock it. It attempts to provide AoE with a from of crowd control by setting areas of the ground on fire, but fails miserably at both. HOWEVER. It's still better than the default weapon AND as you cant NOT take it, upgrading it as fast as possible to be the "best worst" it can be is highly recommended, and you;re guaranteed to walk over one at an incontinent moment .

Shotgun. Basic AoE. Actually surprisingly good. Particularly useful on flying enemies as the automatic targeting works pretty well. Consider only upgrading to level 3 as the wide spread pattern can be your friend. Medium priority

Freeze gun. Basic crowd control. Literally the worst gun in the entire game. Upgrades make no difference to the fact that its slow and ot applies its effect erratically. But to make it worse, you have no idea if you've actually killed an enemy or not until the CC effect expires. CCed enemies will continue to absorb blasts until the initial effect expires art which point they will either die or attack once more. Some enemies are immune to the effect and so take less damage than even the basic weapon. Don't even unlock this at higher difficulties because picking it up will ruin your day.

Mass Driver. Advanced Direct damage. Nails everything between you an the nearest wall in, well quite a broad line actially. One of the two best guns in the game. The nuker goes more damage, but the fully upgraded mass driver has an incredible number of shots in its mag, and it;s auto targeting is as good as the shotgun. It's also ridiculously cheap to upgrade. Once you've upgraded the two automatic unlocks this should be your number 1 priority.

Fusion Gun. Ah. the ultimate room broom. Fully upgraded the fusion gun's massive spread and bouncy shots make quick groups of enemies, but its not a true AoE weapon as each individual shot is calculated all by itself. Unfortunately, even with the fully upgraded mag its here for a fun time, not a long time. Particularly useful in boss fights with add spawns as simply holding down the trigger till it;s empty deletes the adds.

The grenade launcher (short range AoE) is a magnificent device in the right circumstances. Particularly inside of buildings you can do a lot of damage very quickly, but its lack of range really hurts in the streets or open fields. Medium priority

XL Vibroblade (zero range semi AOE melee) This hurts to write, given how much i love this thing in normal, BUT OH MY THIS SUCKS. In hard or Xtra spicy, even the most basic of aliens can and will out DPS you through this thing in melee. Even Sectoids. Regular Melee enemies in packs will give you trouble, and Melee bosses will kick your ass and call you charlie. And if its unlocked you WILL pick one up when a mega raptor is charging you. DO NOT UNLOCK

Lightening gun. Semi decent crowd control. The requirement to drag the reticule onto each enemy you want to CC is a major drawback. Unlike the Freeze gun or the vibroblade ,picking one up wont instantly ruin your day, but it's generally more effort than its work. Priority: only if you REALLY WANT TO, I prefer to keep my pool of available weapons smaller, and this one is an easy pass for me

Box O Rocks (aka rocket launcher) Reasonable at both direct and AoE. Bit better at straight line targeting than the nuker, better AoE than the mass driver. A nice middle ground weapon. It's my fourth unlock after the mass driver, nuker and fusion rifle.

Psycannon. Great direct damage bouncy enemies for quite amusing crowd control. Unfortunately the enormous explosive graphics really mess with your ability to see and/or hit anything, and the rate of fire is glacial compared to the mass driver. I;ve gone entire playthroughs without unlocking it and haven't missed it. I consider it not worth the extremely high cost to add an only occasionally useful weapon to the pool.

Nuker. Big boy. the BFG the ASMD explosion and the redeemer all rolled into one package. When Xtra Spicy transporters decided to double or even triple the spawn sized, hit back with the nuker. Unlocking this should be the VERY FIRST thing you do after your passives.

SO. You;ve just unlocked Xtra spicy and you have a few points left over from hard mode. First, unlock passives. Speed and jump are also extra life in hard mode, to quote old Deadeye, if you go slow you die. Them ammo capacity and professor's choice, and then armor and max health. Really you probably have enough points if you avoided the crap weapons in hard mode to do all of the passives in one hit.

The powerups are a bit interesting... so lets talk about what NOT to upgrade and when to pick certain upgrades

DO NOT upgrade speed boost! But Rant, you just said speed is life. Well, yes, passive speed, but the physics engine under hard or Xtra Spicy loves to throw you off cliffs and directly through reaper flame patches, and the speed boost exacerbates this, with the addition of you can't possibly avoid picking up the wrong weapon even if you're only vaguely heading in that direction. Not to mention it makes the pitfall bonus level utterly impossible. Dont do it

Biomagnetic pulse. Its a completly indifferent item. Not worth the points to unlock it, nor worth removing the chance of something useful to spawn

Status generator. NOT worth it UNTIL. Freezes enemiers, shots and delays all spawn timers, making it more of an annoyance than a help until you reach the antartic levels. Where bosses regularly spawn. and delaying that timer can be the difference between one and 4 mega reapers at a time..

I generally spread my initial points between hot streak helper, damage amplifier, missile strike and stealth until maxed, then add the others.

IF you made it this far, thanks for reading, and enjoy the Xtra Spicy ending