XCOM: enemy unknown.

[Vindekarr]

Well, what can I say other than it's been a long time between drinks for XCOM, but now there's a new one out, and I just had to give it a try. I have to say-it was worth the wait. My experience of stratergy games comes from "ants dance" games like SUPCOM and CnC, so it took a while to get used to it; XCOM is a very different game to most stratergy games; you don't just plonk down a Barracks, train 10 Marines, and then attack-move to the enemy base, do some damage, make 10 more marine, attack move, do some damage, marines, move. Here, it's about deploying your guys, placing them where they have a good line of sight but strong cover, and then keeping up with the changing situation while engaging the enemy.

 

Combat here is just fantastic, it's one of the game's highlights, in that instead of simply attack-moving, you've got to juggle the sight-lines, ammo, health and situation of 4-6 soldiers, at once, while making sure you're not being flanked or missing a better oppertunity, and depending on the objective, possibly while kiting like a maniac to escape zombies. The stakes are high too; if one of your men dies, he's gone forever, which makews taking casualties genuinely sting. Veterans are extremely powerful, but also extremely valuable; lose a Major, and you'll need to work for hours levelling up an RK to replace him, lose a Colonel, and you may aswell find a cliff.. . It's also important to know when to deploy your veterans; sometimes it's better to send greenhorns and build up the next generation. Your basebuilding is also fantastically involving; it's called the antfarm, a multi-layer interface showing a cross-section of your underground HQ. It's a more oldschool approach to basebuilding and one XCOM vets will remember well.

 

The game also wins praise for it's approachability, there's a good tutorial, and I never felt like I didn't know what to do. The combat system is sophisicated, but intuitive; and while you will make mistakes, once you learn it, it's very user friendly, and you'll soon be moving your soldiers like a well oiled hive-mind, hopping from cover-to-cover, laying down fields of coverfire, ambushing ambushes, and running from Mutons. There are difficulty spikes, and the stakes are high, however, I can really recomend turning on the "ironman" feature, which removes the ability to panicsave, instead keeping an ultra-up-to-date autosave for login purposes. It's a bit rough when you lose your A-team(like I did in my first Muton fight they a.ll threw grenades) but the permanence of every decision gives the game an odd emotional involvement I've never felt in a stratergy game, and very few FPS games. Your soldiers become kinda precious to you, and while losing a rookie costs you very little, losing a dude you got in your first starter squad when you began the game who's a colonel and has a big-ass laser rifle BFG and over 100 kills, makes you feel genuinely upset. It even marks a memorial in honour of your fallen guys, even the noobs get mentioned.

 

All in all I can really recomend it, since it's so cheap, if you like Stratergy or good scifi, I think you're gonna love it. I do.

Edited October 19, 2012 by Vindekarr

[Yoshh]

Wouldn't call 49,99 eur cheap... Hence why I haven't gotten it yet :armscrossed:

[hoofhearted4]

while you have me interested, as Yoshh said, $50 is hardly cheap. when you said cheap i was thinking $15. so as nice as the game sounds, it shall be waiting to be bought until its at least that cheap.

[Vindekarr]

I got it for about 40 Australian Dollars, which is about 20-ish Euros. EB Aus and their deals.

[Beriallord]

I liked the game for the most part, but the problem is that there isn't any replay value. I already beat the game and there isn't much left to do. Ended up losing 3 countries, and it seems more or less guaranteed that you will lose a few at some point. I'm not saying its impossible to keep them all, its just really hard, and you probably wont pull it off on your 1st playthrough. You would have to choose all the right abduction missions, shoot down every UFO that shows up, win every mission, and time a certain story mission at a clutch moment which lowers panic for all countries by 2 and be launching up satellites as fast and as many as you can.

 

I ran with 3 assaults, 2 snipers and 1 support. The game gave me a ton of assaults, so if one got injured I had another to replace them. Sometimes I brought a SHIV unit in place of a sniper if the mission was going to be indoors like a big UFO crash, and there were aliens that could mind control. SHIVs are actually really good vs Etherials, which as some of the toughest enemies in the game. And if you lose one its not a big deal like losing a top soldier.

 

Assault is probably the best class, they are good in any situation, indoors, outdoors, hallways. Run right up on stuff and shotgun to the face, usually 100% to hit and 100% critical at Colonel rank using a scope and with the right perks. The shotgun meets face strategy never fails to take your enemies down. The way I play doesn't rely on getting lucky to land a low to mid % shot in a clutch situation. Although early on you are forced to take some shots like that.

 

The hardest part of the game is the first 2 months. That is when panic levels can get out of control if you don't do everything absolutely perfectly, and Chyssalids can chew your face off 1hko you if you don't have at least carapace armor, and they throw those at you fairly early in the game. I actually had to restart my first playthrough because I had that particular mission and all my characters only had starting gear. It was unbeatable for me.

 

Oh and I don't take losses, if I lose one of my dudes, I just reload the game. Save before every mission, and keep your in game save separate from the base save. Some missions take 2 tries, just to get familiar with the layout and where and when the mobs will pop up. Especially those missions with civilians. I usually move around to get a good look at the map and the spawns then reload and go in with a game plan on the missions where you have to save civilians. Those are the hardest missions for quite a long time.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Beriallord