Took me some time to finish this.
Anyhoo…I was also busy playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which is sorta like an updated game of UFO: Enemy Unknown, also known as XCOM: UFO Defense. Now, I’ve played the
first game long, long, loooooooong time ago (back in 1995), and it was fun but punishingly
hard at times.
Since I’ve always been a fan of turn-based strategy games,
especially if coupled with RPG elements, I thought I would give it a go.
When you start the game, you are given a few difficulty
options. For newcomers, I suggest either Easy or Normal. Classic difficulty is slightly
tougher than the original game, while Impossible really lives up to its name.
There’s also Ironman mode, which saves automatically for you
after every single action you take, so whatever mistakes you make…well, you
gotta live with it. Definitely not for the light-hearted.
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| Pic unrelated. |
Storyline wise, XCOM
does not have anything too spectacular. It basically goes like this: Aliens are
attacking Earth, you are given a task force to deal with them, you go from one
big bad to the next, and eventually culminating in you defeating the leader and
then you win.
Yea, not much points for that.
However, to be fair, the meat of the game lies in the
gameplay. WHICH IS FREAKING ADDICTIVE.
Whenever you go on missions, you a team of 4-6 soldiers and
shoot the ever living crap out of whatever alien scum that stands in your way.
On the battlefield though, it’s not that simple, you have to
take into account cover, flanking, elevation, line of sight, obstacles, your
troop’s movement, aim etc etc. It can be quite overwhelming at first, but after
a few battles, it was pretty easy to take everything into account within a
split second.
At first, your troops are frankly, rubbish. While your alien
enemies are packing psionic abilities along with plasma weapons, your troops
walk around with bulletproof vests and lead-spewing guns.
Seriously, World Council? You guys are stingy.
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| Well, fuck. |
However, as they level up through kills, your troops will
gain powerful abilities and become tougher soldiers.
Each soldier has 8 levels, or ranks, to attain, and each
rank gives the soldier a new skill. Most of the ranks have two to choose from,
and you can’t retrain soldiers, so make your choice carefully.
Most importantly though, if your soldier dies during a
mission, they die permanently, so no reviving with phoenix downs or whatnot.
Though, if you’re lucky, instead of dying, they end up in critical condition
instead and can be revived within a limited time.
So, what is it that makes XCOM so addictive? There’s just so many things to do.
The combat is certainly fun, the amount of strategy and
tactics that go into each battle situation is enough to keep you entertained
for hours. Due to the random-ness of each battle, not one battle is the same.
The environments however, are more or less the same few
battlefields used over and over. But that does not really make the battles any
less fun. As you and your troops become more experienced, the dastardly aliens
start fielding more powerful troops as well: the dreaded Sectopod made me shit
my pants the first time around.
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| Sir? HQ? We need some new pants. |
Another thing I loved about XCOM is the dedication to environmental damage: you can take out
any cover your enemy is hiding behind and force them out into the open instead.
Of course they can do the same, so watch out. Enough firepower will blow a hole
open in any wall, enabling you even more tactical options to give the aliens a
taste of hot lead/laser/plasma.
And exploding cars. Seriously, don’t stand next to a burning
car, or your soldier will get a face full of burning metal chunks.
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| This job does NOT come with car insurance. |
Then, there’s the research and base-building aspect whenever
you are not in combat. To make your troops more effective in battle, you need
to gather resources from combat (the best resources come from downed
aliencrafts), then research new tech to arm your soldiers, such as psionic
training, new weapons, new armours, upgrading your weapons and armours,
You also have to build infrastructures in your base, some
are plot-important, but most of them are up to you to place. Putting similar
type of buildings next to each other confers bonuses, so that’s another level
of strategy you must think of. Thankfully, unlike the original games, you only
need to worry about building one base, and not take care of multiple bases.
To pass the time while research/building is underway, you go
to Mission Control and scan for alien activity. And this is probably where the
addiction starts.
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| Goodbye social life. |
Scan.
Oooo…Terror mission, I must save Paris!!
*Saves Paris from alien scum and zombies*
Whee!! Oooo…two more days till the Laser Sniper Rifle research
is done. I should probably finish that off first.
Scan.
Laser Sniper Rifle research done!! Just in time for my
planes to shoot down this alien patrol craft!!!
*Interceptors goes pew-pew against alien UFO*
The UFO crash landed in Russia!! Time to launch the team!!
Wait, what do you mean it’s now 4am? Ah crud…
Be prepared, that actually happened a few times. It’s like Civilization, where you just want to go
for one. More. Turn.
Not surprising, since it’s made by the same studio…
Alien abductions in Mexico, Brazil AND South Africa!! Oh sh….
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| One of the hardest decisions in the game: who to save, and who to ignore"? |
To summarize XCOM: Enemy Unknown
The good:
- Excellent, addictive gameplay
- Graphics are pretty good on the getting-old Unreal engine
- A rare occurrence where the developers took out the bad aspects of the original and enhanced what was good. Seriously, damn rare to see something like that.
The bad:
- Well, mostly that the campaign is a bit too short, and there’s not much weight to the storyline. A better, less generic storyline would’ve made this game perfect.
- Difficulty, especially at higher settings, can be a bit of a turn off.
Truth be told, I didn’t expect this game to be as good as it
is. This comes as a pleasant surprise for this year, especially after Diablo III disappointed the crap out of
a few million players and Mass Effect 3’s
stupid ass (original) endings.
This should be a contender for Game of the Year.
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| GREAT. As if I was not paranoid enough. |
