Customer Reviews

XCOM Enemy Unknown (PC DVD)

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I was a big fan of the original Microprose XCom release, and keen to see what the 2012 update would bring to the table. As with a lot of games, this is a mixed bag. The tactical RTS side of XCom has been massively face-lifted, and remains a difficult and absorbing sub-game in its own right. Most of the tactical skills from the original are transferable, but there's also been some notable changes. As noted, a lot of the "micro-management" has been removed, and it's not all for the better - e.g. if I wanted, I could load up a trooper with any combination of weapons they could carry. 12 grenades ? If you want. Throwaway 1-shot rocket launcher ? Sure. This is all gone in favour of pre-selected loadouts with only moderate customisation. For example, only "heavy" soldier classes can carry heavy weapons, and nothing else. Support classes carry assault rifles & pistols, and nothing else, and so on. If I want to load-up on grenades, well, you basically just can't, and only the support-class can carry more than 1, and then, only with the "deep pockets" perk after several promotions. If you want to pack a med-kit or a stun-gun, you can't carry grenades anymore - and so on.

Base management is also very different. You no longer have total control over the base's inventory (largely because this is no longer needed with the aforementioned pre-selected weapon loadouts). If you want more engineers, you simultaneously need to build workshop space for them and they come bundled with the facility, and, if necessary, build power generators beforehand to power the workshop, or you can't build the workshop at all and- it can all get rather needlessly complex. Further, early in the game, it's very easy to find yourself chronically short of cash, which has knock-on effects later. The tutorial also doesn't help much here, largely forcing you down a particular path to potential financial ruin early on (i.e. it doesn't emphasise that you earn cash by building & deploying satellites over supporting nations, and instead forcing you to build an alien containment/interrogation facility which is kinda useless early on - you don't have weapons or armour to safely try capturing bad guys.).

With that said, the tactical combat is difficult (as a veteran, I started on the "classic" difficulty level) which makes winning all the more satisfying. There are also some new twists to the combat. Weapons are tied to their alien owners, so if you kill an alien, whatever weaponry they were carrying self-destructs, leaving you only with fragments to research more slowly over time. Getting an intact weapon requires you to stun and capture it's wielder, and that's stupidly dangerous early on in the game. On the plus side, while weapons still need to be reloaded, troops now have infinite ammunition (except grenades & rockets) and you don't need to worry about supplying it in the loadout. Another huge change is that your squad is limited to at most 6 troops on any mission, whereas in the original game, you could have as many as would fit inside your Skyranger and you could be bothered handling.

In all, thinking about it makes you consider it to be a mixed bag, but, I started playing at the weekend, blinked, and a couple of hours had gone past in what felt like minutes. I'm enjoying it, anyway.

EDIT : Finished this, playing on and off since the original review was posted. I'd be surprised if I've put less than 20 hours into a single campaign, but I did feel it was all becoming a bit of a chore towards the end, so replayability will probably be limited. In all, I can see how some people feel it's been dumbed-down, while I think that to some degree it's been streamlined in some ways. I encountered a few bugs over the whole playthrough, only one of which was semi-fatal. The game needs some rough edges filed down - there needs to be an "overwatch all" button, and the graphics go annoyingly mental on the multi-level UFOs, changing your vantage point and sometimes, where you think you're pointing. The semi-fatal bug occurred on the end-game level, where I couldn't progress until I found & killed the last bad guys, which was tedious. The end-game itself as a whole is pretty disappointing too. Terror From The Deep, anyone ?

As with many reviewers here, I grew up with the original XCom, playing it on my Amiga back then. It was amazing and I have been hooked ever since. As no real update for the original ever arrived until now I salved my need to play it by playing games like UFO: Aftermath and its two follow ups. They were pretty good, and very close to Xcom's legacy.

Now we have the updated, 21st Century vision of XCom, and its not to bad really, but far from perfect. After reading all the current reviews here I have to agree with most opinions, although I have to say Steam wasn't an issue for me and after all this time I wish people would simply rate the game play, not the Steam. Everyone knows Steam sucks, we don't need to keep hearing it, nothings going to change so get over it.

The game has been simplified, it has to be said. Whether to accomodate the new surge of young teen game system enthusiasts who can't seem to handle proper PC games with a little thinking required, I don't know. But its a shame developers seem to think they have to make games that Wii and Xbox players can manage rather than us PC gamers.

As for the game itself? The downside first. I really miss the inventory for soldiers because this games inventory is terrible. You have four spaces, armour, main gun, back up gun, and extra. The armour and weapons choices upgrade as you research new tech, so no problem there. But where are the spaces for extra ammo? Why can I only have one extra item? And why are the extras so stupidly listed? I mean you can have one grenade, a medkit, a sight for your gun, extra body armor, but they all go in the extra slot rather than upgrading existing items, so you can only have one at a time. You can't have a sight, extra body armour and a grenade. Why can't the sight go on the main gun? Why can't the extra body armour upgrade your current armour? Why only one grenade? Also, as someone else mentioned, you are now told what your soldier has upgraded to rather than having the choice. I want to be able to choose if soldier A has the skills to be a sniper and not have my game tell me thats it, no choice allowed. Also once that soldier has been pigeon holed into his class, his main weapon is immediately changed to that class and you can't change it back. So if a sniper he gets a rifle, if a heavy he gets a light machine gun, etc, etc.

Also you only get one base. You can send satellites to watch over other countries, and even a couple of interceptors to be stationed there as the ones at home base won't reach most other countries, but thats it. You'll get alerts occasionally that always list three emergencies, but you can only ever respond to one! So the other two countries suffer and their opinion of you drops accordingly. I was hoping this kind of thing would be handled a lot better for this game. Why not be allowed to have more than one team? You could respond to a number of emergencies then as long as you had the money and resources to accomodate all those soldiers and aircraft. Also the storyline is very rigid. Things seem to happen at set times no matter what you do which gets a little boring as you don't feel in control.

Lastly on the negatives, the learning curve for difficulty seems higher on this game, even on easy. I might be looking back with rose tinted glasses at the original XCom, but I don't recall massive alien invasions so soon into the game. I remember many enjoyable hours of shooting down UFO's, stopping abductions, doing enough research to actually stand a good chance at fighting off the oncoming hordes. Not so here. About an hour in, after completing a few pretty easy site recovery op's and 'stop the abductions' op's, I get notified that a major alien incursion is occuring and I have to immediately go stop it ... with my five soldiers. So I get to the scene and immediately am set upon by about ten aliens, of different types. I hardly have time to do my first few moves before my guys start dieing around me. I don't know if there were more aliens past those ten, I guess so, but as I died so fast I don't know. Also I should quickly point out, I'm no newbie to strategy games, I know how to move soldiers around a board.

On the good side, however, the tactical battles are still as gripping as the original XCom to my mind. I love the two stage movement, the way cover is handled, the little mini movies thrown in occasionally when a soldier moves. The graphics aren't incredible, not when you consider whats possible these days, but they easily handle the job at hand. Being able to climb a drainpipe to send your sniper to the rooftop for maximum overwatch is great to see. The story is just as captivating to, researching all the cool alien tech, cutting them open to see how they tick, its all there from the original game.

So, to close this rather long review, yes, its XCom, but its also suffered the curse of the console playing community. Gone is the cool and indepth micro-management, in is the streamlined, compact gameplay that significantly reduces the length of the game, and to my mind, the replayability. Its a shame that XCom's rebirth seems to have been handled in the glib manner most of our golden oldie games that have resurfaced recently have been. For my money? Glad I bought it, fun to play, but I think I'll go back to UFO: Aftermath for a proper XCom fix.

I cant deny that XCOM: Enemey Unknown is fun to play. But like Firaxis last release of Civilization V, this game has been heavily "streamlined". This is a term I am begining to become very wary of, as all too often it is a double edged sword.

With XCOM the game has been radically simplified in both the tactical and strategic gameplay. Whilst this speeds up game play and removes some of the frustratingly slow bits of the old game, I am left feeling like I have less control over events and the result is perhaps more exciting action, but a less overall satisfying experience.

The fixed character classes, limited inventory (you can only carry one bit of extra kit), inability to swap equipment with characters in the field, unlimited ammo all seems to remove an element of the game I actually liked - ie micromanaging things! Great moments when characters ran out of ammo, and someone throws them cartridge; or characters pick up their dead or incapacitated comrades equipment are gone...
The base management is stripped back now your no longer managing several bases, tessellating rooms into a limited floor plan, or designing bases against outside attack - you're limited to placing rooms next to each other for bonuses. Equipment is made instantaneously, but research still has lead times which is weird. The "ant farm" representation looks great but adds nothing to gameplay.

Dispite people claiming this game proves PC gamers have not been forgotten, I actually think it shows the opposite. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a fun fast moving game, but the gameplay feels like a made for console casual tactical action game, fun and fast moving, but lacking the depth of control which I for one like in my strategy games. This may appeal to a wider audience but is not what I was hoping from the new XCOM game.

Ok lets get one thing straight from the get-go, XCom is on of the games I was looking forwards to most this year.. I was a HUGE fan of the original (I had it on the Amiga and then on my first PC), and was virtually salivating at the potential that the New Xcom could offer.

Did it live up to my (admittedly very high) expectations?

well.... No, but its not all bad so lets break it down a little.

The Good.
I have to say that the graphics in this game are first class, as is the movement and the streamlining of the movement (being able to jump through windows and over obstacles is an often overlooked movement option in games). The tactical missions play well, with a decent variety (but not huge amount) of well detailed and designed maps, featuring destructible terrain. The updated aliens are also modelled very well, with unique "intro" movies when they are first spotted on the map. The introduction of a skill tree is also welcome, but a little limited in application.
The sound effects and voice acting are also top notch.
I have to mention the "Ant Farm"... the fact that you dig out your base and build position your labs is just cool (though how a satellite uplink works not only underground, but beneath 2 powerplants is a little baffling)

The Bad.
The new version has somehow lost some, but not all, of the sense of atmosphere and tension evident in the original, also the research options are limited, and not as well executed as in other similar titles such as the UFO series. The manufacturing of some things takes a blink of an eye, which just doesnt make sense. (whats that? you would like 5 brand new Heavy Plasma rifles that the research is so new that the ink is still wet on the blueprints.???? Buzz....click....whirr.... well there you go sir, enjoy)
The intro movies for the aliens, while good (see above) get a little tedious after you have seen them the umpteenth time.... and no option to disable them.... also the aliens always seem to appear in set numbers.

The Ugly.
1 skyranger... you can have 99 soldiers, but are only ever allowed 1 transport craft... so can only ever respond to 1 of the 3 events that randomly trigger... I realise this is a conscious decision to make you choose who you help.... but come on.... its just poor.
Movement (yes I know this was in the good too)....occasionally maps are a little difficult to navigate, due to the PC switching between levels automatically depending on the placement of your characters. Also movement is divided up into 2 sections... you can move anything between 1 and 6(ish) squares, then fire or go into overwatch or move again etc.... however you cannot move 1 square, then use the rest of your 1st move, it has to be done in 1 block and 1 block only if you want to do anything else.

Ufo's....... where are the UFO's? the original game had lots.... if you couldnt shoot them down, then you could wait for them to land then try to get them in a ground assault..... they are very rare in this game.... so much so that in the first run through of my game i think I only encountered 10-12 of them.... kinda makes the Geoscape and interceptors redundant.

Finally but most importanly, the game feels scripted. The programmers seem to have decided to stop people saving and reloading to try and change the outcome of a battle..... your sniper missed an important 95% shot? well reload, try it again and he will ALWAYS miss..... OK i understand they want your decisions to matter, but forcing this onto everyone is just wrong (there is a perfectly good option for people that want to play this way called Ironman mode)

So the final verdict is this... I do like this game, parts of it are brilliant, but some of the decisions on what they decided to keep and cut out are just mind boggling.
If you dont have a huge fondness for the original, then you may get more from the game than me.... other than that it might be worth waiting a while to see if they patch the game to smooth out some of the rougher edges.

Being a massive fan of the original series of XCOM I was looking forward to this long awaited release. But the game seems to be cut down far too much, few too many variations of aliens, technologies, buildings and no use of the alien space craft parts. I 'completed' the game in around ten hours of play, hardly worth the money. Seems the makers started making a fantastic game but cut it short on far too many aspects. Pluses, great graphics, a promising start to the next release, 'hopefully ' that will be given a more expansive, interactive game.

Fairly certain that, outside of Chess, this is the only turn-based tactics game I have played, although I have been playing Civilization (a Firaxis property for several years now) since I was about 12. I agree with a lot of what many other reviews have said - the combat side and the base management side complement each other fantastically, with neither feeling tacked on to the other. The gameplay all works very well, and is great fun - even though there are only so many maps in the campaign, the dynamic placement of enemy units means no two battles are the same.

The only two gripes I can think of are the occasional incredible arbitrariness of the shots - the percentage system usually makes a great deal of sense, and getting a lucky hit on a 35% shot is immensely satisfying, but conversely, there is nothing more infuriating than somebody being in an adjacent grid square to a target and missing a 96% shot. During the firing animation, the barrel of the rifle is literally pressed to an alien's temple, and yet somehow the shot goes wide. As Pratchett said, 'million to one chances crop up nine times out of ten'. It always seems that the assault is the only class which gets a 100% chance to hit from an adjacent square. I guess everyone else is nervous being up close and personal to bizarre creatures from another planet.

EDIT: SECOND COMPLAINT REMOVED (Firaxis did indeed patch the teleport bug out of the game).

So overall, an excellent game that I would thoroughly recommend to people who enjoy games with a bit more 'stop and think' big picture stuff. The small RPG-esque elements are also good - naming and customizing your troops turns them into individuals rather than the mass of identical units you get in other strategy / tactics games, so there's more attachment and distress if they eventually buy the farm. Just don't mention dismissing troops based on nationality so you can build a squad based on your friends - some internet warrior will undoubtedly accuse you of racism and xenophobia, which is kinda funny in the context of a game about an alien invasion.

TL;DR: great game, but I'd advise either waiting to buy or not playing with Ironman (all moves are canonical as the game autosaves and cannot be reloaded) active until the teleportation bug is sorted out.

It took me 33 hours to play through, and it is a game i will return to.

You have to be a fan of turn-based tactical games in order to enjoy XCOM, but in that case you will not be dissapointed. You start feeling responsible for your troops, you get excited when you develope a new weapon and try it in the field for the first time. And with the Ironman setting your tactical sense is being tested. Your choices may have dire consequenses for your team. Lock and Load Commander

++ Feeling / Spirit of the original succesfully capture
++ Tension held high throughout the planning / strategic phases, with successive developments giving the feeling of constant progress. Whilst I found myself wishing for a period of consolidation, this would not really have fit the scenario - every step forward technologically or equipment-wise is followed by 0,9 steps backward because of tougher enemies.
+ Graphics (a fair bit of eye candy, nice kill-shots etc.)
+ Sound / Music
+ Replayability: this game really needs to be played at least twice through
+/- Variety of soldier skills - good, but could be even better
- Variety of tactical maps is too small
-- Tactical missions are fun but some, along with the repeating maps, are too repetetive -> repeating missions should be shorter

This game sucks you in and you keep coming back for more. The turn based combats are brilliant - on harder difficulties you often find yourself saying "hey, that's not fair" out loud:-)

Having spent (wasted?) several weeks if not months of my life on the original I had to buy this. It is very good, even fantastic first time through, but having completed it now twice some of the love has gone. There is a lack of options during loadout and during combat. The cover system is a bit rubbish and the tactical skill kind of goes out of the window once you've got fully specced up troops. I found it very tough at the start but once you've had one play through a lot of the combat maps are very similar if not identical with only the slightly randomised positions of alien troops to provide variety. Great game but really needs some mods/new battle maps.