XCOM Enemy Unknown (PS3)

Hats off to Captain Larry, nickname 'GungHo'. She was amazing. A shotgun surgeon, the vanguard of my squad, charging bravely across war torn cityscapes burnt asunder by alien fire. Her bright pink armour and shock of electric blue hair a bastion of hope to all. Not for the Muton who stomped on her like a bloated, squishy bug obviously; the brutish alien wore her guts like a scarf and preceded to rip through two rookies as if they were made of tissue paper. And years after playing X-Com on my Playstation i am again shedding a nerdy tear for my digital soldiers. On a strategy game for a console no less.

For those who are unaware of the linage of XCOM or don't care it is a game of turn-based tactics at squad level wrapped up in a strategic layer that involves research, development, managing your soldiers and base, plus choosing which alien threat you can or will respond too. During missions you play on one the games many maps and guide your troops turn by turn in and out of cover, through buildings, along rooftops and deep into the control rooms of crashed UFO's; searching for aliens to kill or stun based on percentage shots worked out by a soldiers Aim skill, distance and cover. The aliens by contrast want you dead...in the case of the Chryssalid's something much worse. Mostly they want you dead though.

A tutorial holds you firmly by the hand for the first few hours and makes a thorough job of explaining game concepts.

The approach Firaxis seem to have taken with XCOM is that of a board game. There are certain mechanics in the game that may not work thematically but do a great job of creating tension by forcing the player to make choices that can have immediate and far reaching consequences.

The most obvious of which are the alien incursions and the panic level of nations. Outside of story-based missions there is never a singular choice when the aliens attack, you can choose to respond to only one nations plight (or none if you wish) and must abandon the others. Those nations you turn your back on have their panic level raised up a notch, and once it hits critical they will leave the XCOM initiative and go there own way, taking their monthly funding with them. Panic levels can be decreased by use of satellites which are expensive and take time to build as well as completing missions. Later in the game the whole concept works like a side game of plate-spinning, hard decisions have to be made and sometimes juicy rewards abandoned (each mission has its own sweetner) in an effort to keep hold of a high funding nation.

The idea of hard choices or at least meaningful ones is a constant throughout the game. When soldiers level up they are arbitrarily handed a 'class' which they are locked into for the remainder of their hectic lives. Have too many snipers and need a support class? Then you have to make the decision to field rookies on the next mission and leave the more experienced guys at home and hope they level up into a class you want. Equip a grenade or med pack? Without the corresponding perk you can only take one. The same with research and base building. Time is precious and high level research and base building eat it up as well as your credits.

On the ground the combat missions are fast paced and exciting. Each soldier can move and perform a combat action, or move twice in a 'dash'. Higher level characters have access to more abilities, which stack up to an impressive amount of tactical options, with some abilities aiding teammates when they in turn use their own special abilities. The aliens too have there own skill set which they use to great effect. Each encounter with a new species becomes a cautious affair of probing attack and retreats as you try and work out just how a new threat can hurt your team. I don't want to drop spoilers but some of the alien abilities can hit hard and fast, again reinforcing the idea of a 'board game' balance to XCOM that might infuriate those demanding greater ingame realism to their skirmishes. The first time panic rips through an entire squad because one member fell prey to an alien special ability can cause huffy sounds and eye rolls but then slim chance critical hits that save the day and your own well timed special abilities can equally turn a lost cause into a win.

The missions are mostly shooty shooty but VIP and civilian rescue, bomb disposal and other objective based missions are put into rotation along with live alien capture; think pokemon but with more goo and torture. Research via alien autopsies can only go so far and capturing live aliens (at your own discretion and peril) adds another factor to XCOM's battles, with the big bonus that you only retrieve alien weaponry from stunned aliens.

Graphic wise the game is decent and well put together but not without issue. The camera can be a pain, providing a close up view of the back of a soldiers head during the cinematic close ups of shots hit or missed and has trouble in tight environments. There can also be occasional frame rate jerkiness when a map gets busy with aliens, civvies, smoke and rubble. Soldiers appear to sometimes shoot through walls and floors at aliens, especially during overwatch when they react to enemy movement they obviously shouldn't be able to see and there will be other times when you and the game will disagree as to a soldiers line of sight.

The music is nice if a little subdued, i would prefer something more bombastic as my guys gear up for battle and eerie as we explore a map waiting for alien contact. And your multinational squad of soldiers are all voiced by similar sounding American voice artists. [EDIT] Actually the deployment theme has wormed its way into my head and is really pretty good.

Overall XCOM provides a minty breath of fresh air to the playstation roster and is a well thought out and engrossing strategy game in its own right. Multiple difficulty levels provide a hefty challenge if you wish it and the solid gameplay is loaded with so many tense moments, choices and is sprinkled with great touches. Your customised squad for example you will see in the rec room or gym of your base and there is a page of remembrance to your fallen soldiers, complete with forlorn bagpipe accompaniment that just begs for your own Shantner-like eulogy to your personal favourite, (best wait until your significant other is out the room for that though). And there is always that next alien weapon to research, item to build and country that is on the verge of tipping into all out panic. Much of the scope and bloat of the original is gone, if that is not an issue and you are looking for a different gaming taste than what is usually on offer, then XCOM is definitely worth a look. Check out the demo on PSN store.

(TIP: Play on Ironman, it makes the game 26.7% more fun.)

As a fan of the original, I have been waiting for this for a long time, and in most ways I am not disappointed.

XCOM is/was the grandfather of all turn based strategy games. It defined a genre, and so this title has a lot to live up to. Coupled with this is the fact that there are so few decent turn-based strategy games on the PS3 - Disgaea can get a little silly, Agarest is spoiled by an over-abundance of fan-service, which leaves the brilliant (but sadly under-rated) Valkyria Chronicles. The new XCOM is a worthy addition that sits right up there.

Basically, XCOM is split into two parts, these being squad based tactical combat and Sim-City style base building and resource management. In combat, you manage between 4 and 6 troops in an isometric turn-based strategy to hunt down and destroy alien invaders. Outside combat, you have the job of maintaining workshops and research labs, along with building satellite surveillance networks and interceptors to make sure that E.T. is well and truly blown home.

The difficulty level is steep from the start, requiring you to be as good at managing the accounts as you are at keeping your squad alive. Fail to manage each country's panic level or neglect putting boots on the ground in their territory and they'll eventually withdraw funding, and if over half of the nations pull out, it's game over.

It's testament to how things have evolved for the "casual" gamer that the (very) Hard difficulty level is actually called "Classic", as this represents how brutal the original game was. Even on easy and normal levels it's easy for things to get out of hand and have countries panicking all around you. A further Ironman option restricts you to a single, automatically updated save that records every action if you really want to torture yourself as you can't reload after your entire squad dies in one turn. There's a tutorial that holds your hand for the first few hours, but for those that don't like to be constrained, it can be skipped as it does force you down certain paths. For true brutality, play on Classic Ironman and see how long you last.

It's important to note that this is a re-imagining of the original and not a remake. For long-time XCOM fans you'll see a number of differences. Unit classes have been introduced, which add a new tactical depth, along with an RPG style unit development system, so you feel more attached to each trooper before the game brutally rips them from you. This also streamlines the inventory system, which was unwieldy in the first, requiring every squad member to be equipped individually before every mission - now the squad member automatically takes everything he needs, but there's no putting rockets in every pocket, as like in the real world, troopers are limited to one or two rockets/grenades/med-kits.

A few aspects have been stripped out, such as the ability to make more bases around the world, but this isn't a noticeable loss, as in the original most of these were interceptor bases or an Antarctic research base. This time, you can site interceptors in a continent regardless of whether you have a base there, and science doesn't take up quite so much space, so there's no need for other bases. Coupled with this, the base defence missions have been removed, which is a small loss as these were some of the most tense battles in the original, but with only one base it wouldn't be fair as losing it would be an automatic loss in this version.

The squad size is down from 12+ to a maximum of 6, which rather than limiting options actually forces you to think more about your tactics, as the loss of a single individual can jeopardise a mission. Later on in the original, I'd end up with half my squad still in the Skyranger or wandering the map aimlessly anyway, so focusing on fewer soldiers is actually a good thing.

In combat, facing and Time Units have been replaced with a greater focus on cover and a more intuitive input system of Move/Move, Move/Action or Move/Overwatch, which allows you to focus on the tactics themselves. Missions are more fast-paced, and you'll no longer be forced to mindlessly wander the map searching for that last panicked/dug in alien. On top of this, special requests have introduced escort and extraction missions, and responding to alien abductions forces you to choose between three possible countries - the one you choose will reward you, but panic will rise in both the other two and their neighbours. Terror missions are, if possible, even more brutal than the original, forcing you to defend civilians to get a good score.

Graphically it does the job. It's not going to win any awards, but that's not the focus of a game like this. The Unreal engine has its glitches, however, and on many occasions you'll see textures not loading correctly, frame-rate stutters and troops trying to shoot through solid objects while on overwatch due to bad clipping (and sometimes succeeding). For the sound, there's a decent array of sinister alien gurgles, screams in the dark and mood music. The voice actors on the main characters are well done and do a lot to make your staff endearing, but the voices on your squad are somewhat lacking, as regardless of what nation your troops represent they are all voiced by Americans, which combined with the generic nature of the character models (hulking male body-builder or slim female,) gives a very bland feel to the squad. You can customise colours somewhat though, but some extra attention here wouldn't have gone amiss.

One thing to note is that, compared to the original, this game is very, very short. You can probably complete the entire storyline in 25-30 hours, which for a generation raised on the likes of Clone of Duty. Modern Borefare is considered epic, but when you've put hundreds of hours into the original it's a little disappointing. Of course, you can string things out by not taking the final mission, but when there's nothing left to build or research by this point, there's little to be gained by this.

Overall, this game is a worthy successor despite being a little buggy in places. Yes, it has been streamlined to appeal to a more casual gamer, cutting out much of the complexity and shortening its length considerably, but for the most part the changes are either a good thing or can be lived with. Only the bugs (which are these days sadly to be expected in a next-gen console release,) and the shortening of the game loses it points for me.

At the end of the day, if you're pining for the classics so much then download and play the original as it's very cheap these days, along with the Terror From the Deep sequel. If you're looking for a modern game with a level of strategic depth you rarely see in today's shooter clone age, then you'd do worse than to look at both this and quite possibly Valkyria Chronicles as well.

I have been gaming for a long time (20+ years) and it's rare to find a game that takes over your world, whan i'm at home all I want to do is play it and when i'm away all i'm doing is couting down the time until I play it again. Yes folks XCOM Enemy Unknown really is that good!
Its a brutal game that never lets you get too confident, just when you think your winning and your squad is invincible you will go on a mission that rips the rug out from undernaeth your feet and leaves your invincible squad decimated (this happens alot and im only on normal diffuculty). One of the best parts of the game is how attached to your squad you become, when you lose one of your favourites it leaves you feeling emtpy as well as severly limits your options in battle.
On a minor negative the game has crashed a few times :( hopefully this is just a bug that the developer can iron out in the near future, but saying that when it does happen it reminds you that 12hrs have gone by and you really should eat/sleep.
In summery this is a beast of a game and anyone who likes a challenge should give it a go.
Im off to play XCOM Bye!