XCOM is a turn based strategy game, something we haven't seen in ages. The 2 main focal points of the game are the actual combat, and then the resource management back at the main base. Will you put your money into armor and weapons or focus on building more laboratories? Will you go to help out Africa or Asia? What kind of group makeup will you have? This is what customizes your gameplay experience.
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Story is pretty simple. Aliens attack and XCOM is the international GTFO-bitch manufacturer. You play the commander of the XCOM force. The story progresses from simply repelling enemy attacks to trying to find out why they're here in the first place as they're not just out to nuke the world. Story doesn't really do anything compelling to the end. A lot of the time you end up going to randomly generated maps and on main missions (I think like 2 or 3 for me?) you go through a long UFO level, without anything remarkable there either. The story has a neat twist near the end though, and a good ending. It's nice to have an ending that's just normal, and not something retardedly overthought and failed like Mass Effect 3.
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Graphically the game does well on it's own. Nothing to write home about, but I won't say anything bad about it since the details stay pretty decent even at home base when you can zoom strangely close to see your soldiers running on the treadmill or knocking back some beers. Only problem I really had with the graphics were that the game was very dark, I feel the fog of war was VERY thick which darkens everything else, which dulls out the color.
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| Every soldier is completely customizable. |
Gameplay is where the game makes it's money. Combat is well thought out and strategic. Take your party of 4 to 6 soldiers and outfit them how you like. I personally loved the Sniper; he was almost unfair. Everything seems well balanced. It is hard to describe the feeling of satisfaction you get from playing a turn based strategy game, it's something you have to do yourself. Personally I felt great after setting up a nice flank and rolling in on the baddies giving them no exit. Fucking dead son.
I have 2 complaints with the gameplay though. The first is that the targeting system feels pretty broken. I had to take a break after I missed 5 shots in a row with the LOWEST chance to hit at 90%. Sometimes it just feels like the game is fucking with you. It seems like an odd choice to add percent chance on your attacks on a game where it's so strategic and the death of your allies is permanent. Soldiers rank up in this game and the closer to Colonel rank they get, the more exponential the difference in combat.
The other problem is that discovering your enemies in the fog of war allows them to move about, which really discourages exploration and scouting in favor of waiting for all of your allies to reload and move up at once, and saving every turn. If they didn't get a free move when you encountered them for the first time, you would be able to set up ambushes, which would rock. Minor gripes though, they're gameplay decisions I don't agree with but don't break the game.
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| Cover and height play huge in that game for shot advantages. |
Sound is good with some minor gripes. The music is pretty well suited to the game, something you'd expect from an epic action movie like Lord of the Rings (except with a lot more violins and no flutes). The voice acting is hit or miss. 2 of the 3 main characters at the home base are done very well, while the engineer just sounds like something from the old days of Sega CD or something. The soldiers voices respond well to the combat, but the variety is lacking. For such an international game it's a shame that there are no dialects or accents between any of the characters no matter what nationality, and for that matter no unique dialogue for any classes either. A small gripe, but it wouldn't went FAR on the polish if ya ask me. Weapons sounds are great, and all sound effects are just spot on.
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Replayability is probably the best part of this game. The combat is pretty addictive on it's own, and if you're an achievement whore you'll be beating this game a minimum of 5 times. There are such ludicrously hard achievements in there I'm not even gonna try. One of them was beat a mission with 1 soldier on the hardest difficulty. Yeah, that'll work. There's a great online component as I'm told, and Firaxis seems focused on making the online scene nice and competitive. Unfortunately I no longer pay Xbox for their online service so I can't test it out. Silly Microsoft.
Otherwise just playing the game different ways will keep people coming back. I honestly want to give a run through with all snipers if I could lol.
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| Monthly report cards dictate your funding. Lose 8 countries and it's game over bro. |
Overall: 9/10
Game's a pretty good time. There are cheap moments in it but it's not a major detraction. The game is decently polished with no noticeable bugs in it, which is a relief after games like Red Dead, AC3, and anything Bethesda looks at. There's a ton to keep you coming back for more if you like it, and that's bang for your buck. Download the demo, if you like it, buy it. It's a shallow game in terms of what you see is what you get, you just get a lot of it.
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