XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Blog Post: The Real Enemy is Boredom

Doctor Apozem — Thu, 09 May 2013 22:18:00 GMT

This game baffles me. It should be a slam dunk. Take a classic strategy franchise, add a great developer and you should get something amazing. Instead, we got XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Concept Mesh long-term and tactical strategy into an uninteresting mess	Graphics Muddy and bland, although character models look nice	Sound The voice acting is good
Controls Solid. The game never gets in the way of the action	Technical I encountered a lot of graphical glitches and clipping. Lots of environmental issues	Replayability Moderate. You can replay the campaign or try multiplayer

The player leads a mysterious international organization called XCOM. S/he must repel oncoming alien invaders and save earth. There's no real story, although the voice acting is excellent.

The real point is the strategy. As XCOM commander, the player manages resources and troops. Time, material, soldiers- everything is limited. This forces hard choices. When the aliens attack multiple countries simultaneously, which do you save? The rich country that can reward you with advanced technology? The developing nation that can send recruits?

Salvaging a situation is where XCOM: Enemy Unknown shines brightest. At its best, the game makes researching alien tech, training new soldiers, and expanding the base into a compelling race. Every action requires time to complete. Productivity requires good planning. Fall behind the merciless difficulty curve and perish.

However, those plans change around periodic alien attacks that require XCOM intervention. The player deploys a squadron of soldiers to handle intrusions from E.T., and the game switches to a local tactical battle. S/he explores the area, eliminates hostiles, and rescues civilians.

Battles are fun and frustrating. Moving troops around the field and taking down aliens entertains. I enjoyed building a resilient team of scouts supported by two lethal snipers. When everything goes according to plan and the aliens explode into mist, XCOM feels great.

When something goes wrong, it's often because of bad luck. Each shot fired in XCOM has a chance of hitting. This chance changes with distance, weapon, soldier skill, and elevation. Good tacticians take advantage of it. An elevated sniper works wonders.

This system frustrates, though. It bonds random chance to the game. This devalues skill. Careful planning means less when success leans so heavily on die rolls. Losing a high-level operative to bad luck is infuriating.

The real problem with XCOM: Enemy Unknown is it's not that fun. It lacks the depth of a serious sim and the entertainment of a good strategy-lite. The result is something less amusing than Halo Wars but without the complexity of Civilization.

After the first few honeymoon levels, XCOM turns into a slog. Too few resources plus uninteresting upgrades equals endlessly grinding battles, hoping that bad luck won't kill off your squad leader. Planning research and upgrading the base becomes tedious. The exciting race against the aliens becomes a tiresome cycle of upgrades.

Nothing about XCOM is special or interesting. The game isn't unique, entertaining, deep, clever, or original. It bored me, and I love strategy games. This should have been great. It's a shockingly mediocre effort from a talented developer.

Better luck next time, Firaxis.

Blog Post: XCOM: Enemy Unknown - An Invigorating Reboot Of A Classic Franchise

Bryan Timm — Wed, 08 May 2013 02:06:00 GMT

The doomsday scenario of an alien invasion is one that's been portrayed in almost every media format. While most titles focus more on the combat side of these stories, the original XCOM: Enemy Unknown took a different approach and focused more on the behind-the-scenes tactical aspects of such an event. Now, 18 years after the original's release, the series has been reinvigorated with a remake of that classic title that manages to both hold true to the series' strategic roots while helping the title feel fresh in today's gaming world.

As the extra-terrestrials arrive, you play the role of the commander of XCOM, a secret, multinational organization designed to combat the alien invaders. The game makes it clear very early on that there's much more to winning the war than just telling your soldiers which piece of alien scum to shoot at. You must also train them, arm them, research and create new pieces of equipment, build new structures in your base, maintain a fleet of satellites and fighter jets, track alien ships, and keep the people funding your organization safe and confident in your abilities to lead.

As fun as the actual combat is, I found myself more excited in these areas of the game. There always seemed to be multiple urgent items I needed to focus on, making micromanagement of your resources a huge priority. This also is where a large portion of the game's difficulty comes from, as I had to abandon some of my earlier playthroughs simply because some of the decisions I made early on for my base made it impossible for me to win future segments. But I had absolutely no problem starting over, as each new game felt like a unique experience because of different situations that were thrown at me.

As you wage your war, you'll also start to build a connection to the soldiers under your command. Each one is given their own identity, including name, gender, appearance, country of origin, and even code name. There are multiple classes of soldiers that each has their own benefits and uses in battle. Classes also have a skill tree that lets you choose which abilities you want your soldier to learn as they level up, allowing you to customize each one to fit any particular role you want. After all the time you spend analyzing each soldier, you really start to find your favorites that you care about and will do anything to try to protect them.

Even though I preferred the segments between battles, the combat system can also be lots of fun and very challenging. The game does a fantastic job of letting you know that you have to think about what your next action is, as not doing so can be disastrous. During your turn in battle, you're allowed to move your soldiers and then either perform an action, such as fire their weapon or heal an ally, or have them move again. The game also rewards you for placing your soldiers behind cover and keeping them on higher ground then your enemies. Soldiers that get hurt in battle will have to rest and heal a number of days before that can go on another mission, assuming they aren't killed and lost to you forever. There are also multiple ways to take down enemies, with the more difficult approaches rewarding you with new items to research or more crafting materials.

Unfortunately, the thing that keeps the combat from being the best part about the game is the user interface. During my playtime, I had lots of trouble moving my soldiers around the map, especially between different elevations. At one point, the game simply would not let me move my sniper to an over watch position because it continued to think I wanted to move them to a lower level. The camera was also finicky to deal with when trying I tried to aim certain items like smoke grenades and rockets .The game includes a multiplayer component, but it contains none of the between-battle segments that I enjoyed the most from the single-player game. This seems like an enormously wasted opportunity. Why couldn't I have a base "hub" that I could grow and maintain as a reward for playing and winning more multiplayer battles? Had it incorporated something like this, I probably would've spent far more time in multiplayer than in the single-player.

Despite all this, when everything during the single-player campaign clicks, the game becomes an immensely satisfying and enjoyable experience. Few other titles, including other tactical strategy games, give you that feeling that the entire fate of the world rests on your shoulders as your fight these alien creeps. For me personally, it's one of the few titles where, after finishing the campaign, I immediately jumped right back in and started a new one. XCOM: Enemy Unknown's near-perfect balance of careful, methodical preparation and nerve-wracking battle sequences create an incredibly rewarding title that few gamers should miss out on.

Final Score: 9/10

Blog Post: Don't get the PC verison

Paradigmthefallen — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 03:48:00 GMT

I'm keeping this short and to the point. This is the most awful, buggy, unpolished PC port I think I've ever played -- I've played movie tie-in games with less bugs. The game glitched out nuts both just randomly in a mission and when I tried to change the resolutions. I tried it on two different PCs, and in both cases, it refused to save any progress, at least until suddenly Auto Save started working again, sometimes. The balance is set towards mid-to-end game gameplay, and the game lacks genuine immersion by logic breaking strategies that would -never- work in the real world. Graphics are basic at best, and the story is horrible by comparison to recent strides in improving game narrative. Cutscenes are far too frequent for a game supposedly about making your own story. Squad customization is both randomized and limited, and the campaign is less than impressive. The multiplayer is decent, but rather last minute and doesn't really add anything to the game besides a genuinely intelligent opponent. Too many times I've lost soldiers not due to lacking tactical sense or knowledge of the map, but because of a random dice roll that wouldn't play out that way in -any- real world combat situation. The UI is likewise horrid on PC with grenades and rockets misfiring because you're a millimeter off target. The only times the game gets good are rare, and even then, they aren't anything like what a genuine XCOM game would be like. I find it hilarious supposed hardcore XCOM fans wanted this game over the FPS, as the FPS actually has more in common with the original series than this trite piece of crap. I feel bad that 2K had to go to Firaxis and approve this to appease the. I wanted to love this game, I spent over 29 hours -trying- to love it, across two playthroughs, on two different PCs, with increasingly lowered expectations as time went on. Instead, it's just horrible, buggy, and badly handled. It's a hot mess, not worth even twenty dollars. I've heard reports that console versions are better, but even so, doesn't that say something? Firaxis is a predominantly PC-centric developer, yet their new XCOM game is made to run better on consoles? And the UI is designed around console controls, have no doubt about that, as I tried the PS3 demo and not only did the game run smoother, it also had better graphical clarity and lacked number of UI bugs. But that still leaves the questionable balancing, horrible story, and lackluster campaigns. You can unlock almost everything in research right away, and you progressively get ridiculous amounts of resources as time goes on. Permadeath is present, but only has a real effect if you're playing on Iron Man mode or are screwed like me and have to reload autosaves at the beginnings of missions just to try again. I cannot recommend you stay away from this game strongly enough. Go get the original games in the 15 dollar downloadable pack on Amazon. Go get a board game. Go get Civ 3. Hell, go get an indie XCOM inspired game off of Steam/Desura. Don't buy this game.

Wiki: XCOM: Enemy Unknown Guides

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 10:56:00 GMT

Guides for XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Wiki Page: Know Your Enemy: XCOM Enemy Unknown Strategy Guide

Eric Watson — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 04:01:00 GMT

XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a surprise hit for me. After reading lots of glowing reviews last fall I took a chance with it and never looked back. Nearly 100hrs later I still haven't tired of the awesome tactical gameplay, and it's one of the few games single player games that I've played enough to improve my game immensely. It's a good thing to as the higher difficulties are absolutely brutal and unforgiving, and Ironman mode strips away your ability to reload when things get well and truly bad. After my first successful Classic Ironman playthrough I've decided to put down my own thoughts and feedback on how I was able to survive the alien invasion. I've broken it up into four parts: Base Management, Squad Management, and Combat Tactics; each area is vital to success, with base management easily being the most un-intuitive.

Note that I played the Xbox 360 version.

This guide assumes that this is not your first time with XCOM. Only venture into Classic once you've mastered Normal, and only venture into Ironman mode if you're willing to start over if things go horribly wrong. Also it should go without saying, but definitely turn off the tutorial. It helps explain some aspects of the game but really screws up your early game.

Base Management

Starting Country

When you first begin the game you get a choice of five starting locations:

Africa - 30% bonus to monthly earnings
Asia - Halves the cost of Foundry and OTS upgrades
Europe - Halves construction and maintenance cost of Labs and Workshops
North America - Reduces all aircraft costs and maintenance by 50%
South America - Autopsies and Interrogations happen instantly

Africa is just too sweet not to pass up. Sure the bonus isn't that big in the very early game, but by taking Africa you can lose the other two countries within the continent and still get the bonus. If you don't take Africa, I'd recommend North America and go after satellite coverage for Africa immediately. North America's bonus isn't all that useful until you need Firestorms in the late game, but USA alone gives a huge chunk of money that's useful in the beginning.

Remember, on Classic mode you WILL lose some countries to panic, so it's important to know which bonuses are crucial and which countries you can lose. Africa and North America are critical, South America is completely worthless but it's only two countries. Out of Europe and Asia I would always try and get Europe's bonus. Not only are the countries generally better payouts but reducing the cost of Workshops will help immensely in the long run. You don't need to build Laboratories at all, and I'll get into that later. If you manage to get Asia's bonus as well, good on you, but by the time you've got it covered you've probably already got plenty of money to use on the Officer Training School upgrades and Foundry. For some reason I end up losing Australia in every game I've played...

The Layout

After your initial mission (which you should be 100% perfect on, otherwise just start over now), check your base layout. You need at least one steam vent that's not on the bottom row. If you have two near each other, great, but only one is really necessary. If it's too close to your initial uplink, i.e. within the 2x2 grid you're going to build of satellite buildings, just start over.

It's incredibly important that you build your base correctly, and the game doesn't emphasize this enough. The adjacency bonus you get for many building types is crucial; specifically your Satellite, Power, and Workshop buildings should all be adjacent to each other. Since you start off with only a Satellite Uplink to the left of your initial access lift, this means creating a 2x2 block right there. To your right you can eventually build some one-off buildings like the OTS, Foundry etc. On the second level you'll want a 3x3 grid of workshops. Yes, 9 workshops in total. Why? Well they reduce the cost of damn near everything, they give you more engineers which you need for additional uplinks, and their adjacency bonuses gives you money back from building stuff. On the third level you'll want to start your power generators, ideally beginning with a thermo generator over the steam vent. Eventually you'll have a 2x2 grid of Thermo, Elerium, and Power Generators. However, you'll need more power just to tunnel that far down so you will need to build a power generator or two at the top. They can be removed later for late game buildings like Psi Chamber and Gallop Chamber.

As you can see, you never need build Laboratories, which is an odd bit of imbalance in the game. Labs and scientists will reduce research time, which seems great but you need money to build anything you research anyway, so it's pointless to research faster when you can't afford to build the new items. This is where getting Europe's bonus comes in handy, as the Expert Knowledge bonus really renders any Labs obsolete.

The Fist Months

How the first four months of the game go will ultimately determine whether or not your brave men and women of XCOM come away as heroes, or coffins.

First, ignore the storyline and the terribly annoying Dr. Vahlen. Don't even worry about building an arc thrower or Containment Lab for the first few months, you've got enough to worry about. Only after you've got a decent economy going and some promotions should you even think about capturing aliens alive. I waited all the way until I had full satellite coverage on each country that hadn't pulled out before I ever captured an Outsider.

Your priority every month should be to build a Satellite Uplink and 2-6 satellites depending on which month it is.

Month 1 - Build and Place satellite, preferably USA for the biggest cash boost.
Month 2 - Build Satellite Uplink and 3 Satellites. Get Africa covered if you didn't start there. Build Power Generator, Access Lift, start a workshop or two, maybe OTS.
Month 3 - Build Satellite Uplink and 3 satellites. Work on getting continent bonuses, and manage panic levels as best you can. It's ok to lose 1-3 countries. Should have OTS by now. Get a thermo generator. Make sure you'll have enough engineers and power to build a Nexus next month.
Month 4 - Build Satellite Nexus and as many satellites as you need to get full coverage. This will essentially lock down panic levels for the rest of the game, and also prevent any further abduction missions.
Month 5 - Money Money Money! Enjoy getting about 1500 a month, go a little crazy on OTS upgrades and some Foundry projects, but make sure to keep building workshops as well. Remember to always save some money to buy any new toys you research.

Note that you can purchase satellites even while the Uplink is still building. This is a critical piece of information that the game does not telegraph. It warns you that you cannot launch them, but you can still build them and have them ready to go once the Uplink is finished. Be very aware that Uplinks take 20 days to build, and satellites take 14. Excavating takes five. Timing is everything!

Always wait until a few days before the end of month Council Report to launch any satellites. Especially in Months Three and Four when you're going to be worried about Panic Levels, you could always get a mission that could reduce the panic level. Since launching a satellite automatically reduces a countries panic level by two, you can use satellites to save a country before the end of the month, but only if you don't get a mission there first.

Technically if you lose less than two countries, it would be better to build 2 Nexus, but you would have to be really lucky with panic levels, and frankly you're probably screwing yourself on getting continent bonuses. With three Uplinks and one Nexus you can cover up to 14 countries, which should be plenty. In my most recent Ironman run I lost three countries so just the one Nexus worked out fine.

The difficult part of the initial few months is that you'll be spending about 80% of your cash on satellites, uplinks, and the necessary preqs for them (workshops for engineers, generators for power). Do not waste what little money you have on expensive upgrades. Getting on OTS in month two or three is fine, as the Squad Size upgrades are obviously huge and incredibly cheap.

If you follow this schedule, you should reach Month five with about $1500 in monthly income and you can really start digging into Foundry Projects and OTS upgrades. Many Foundry projects are superfluous but taking a SHIV along once you reach a six man crew can be quite useful.

In terms of items, always go after armor first and weapons second. Research alien materials in the beginning and get carapace armor for everyone when you can. Remember that the vests take up a backpack slot and many times in the beginning having a grenade is the difference between life and death as they can one-shot the little grey Sectoids.

Remember to only buy what you need for any one mission. Although the game makes it kind of a pain, you can and should strip down any soldiers you're not taking on a mission (the game does do this automatically for any injured troops). In the beginning every dollar counts, so never buy more than what you need for a single mission; it's pointless for someone to wear carapace armor if they're sitting in the barracks.

Make sure you keep up with building interceptors along with your satellites. One interceptor per continent is really all you need. I like to upgrade them with laser weapons then plasma as they become available (though once you have plasma you should be fitting them onto your Firestorms) but it should never take priority over your own troops or economy. The one-offs you can purchase for the little aircraft minigame vary in usefulness, but the dodging one is way too expensive to ever bother. The tracking one can come in useful for the later game scouts, and the target one I usually have a few of simply because they're very cheap and can sometimes make a difference.

Missions and Panic Level

Initially you'll get three country locations for abduction missions, the most common type of mission in the early game. Whichever country you choose will have its panic reduced by two blocks, while the other country's panic will go up two blocks. Also, every other country on the same continent as those countries will raise one block. It won't take long before you're staring down the barrel of orange and red panicked countries, so managing panic levels becomes extremely important.

When choosing missions based on rewards, always prioritize engineers early on. It's a boring reward, but since each progressive uplink requires more engineers to build, it's absolutely vital. Look into what your monthly engineer bonus is, and calculate how many more you'll need to get your next uplink. Remember that workshops provide five engineers each as well.

If you're doing well on engineers I would go money next, as $200 goes a long way in the early game. Getting an early high ranking soldier can help a lot as well, especially if you only have one of that class. I usually get offered mid-rank Assaults and always grab one. Since research speed is your lowest priority you should never take scientists if you can help it.

Sometimes, especially in the third and fourth months, panic levels will dictate which missions you take rather than rewards. Remember it's perfectly normal to lose some countries, but be selective. Try not to lose any countries that pay $100 or more, and be mindful of which bonuses you want. Also remember that whichever country you start in you automatically get the bonus, so you can ironically let the other countries on your continent withdraw. This is easiest starting in Africa or Asia where the other countries don't pay very well. You can and should also manage panic via launching satellites at the end of the month as a last resort. Regardless you're going to launch them anyway, and it's up to you whether you want to use them to save panicked countries or to get your continental bonuses earlier.

Note that the major early-midgame mission assaulting the Alien Base reduces panic worldwide, so it could be useful to try and time your Assault until the end of the month to save additional countries if needed. Also, frequently check the Grey Market after any UFO missions and especially the Alien Base mission. You should end up with a ton of damaged or useless items that you can sell. Why the game can't automatically sell these at the end of the mission I don't understand, but remember to dig in there and get yourself a few hundred bucks as a nice reward.

Squad Management

Whom you bring on any given mission is largely a personal matter depending on what is your preferred play style. That being said, I will run down each class's strengths and weaknesses, as well as which skills I prefer and finally the team combinations I like for each mission type.

The Assault

The Run 'N Gun class is your classic risk reward archetype. Think of them like a Rogue: they have to get up close and require some maneuvering, but the payoff can be huge. Interestingly, the Assault is the only class that can equip two different weapon types: the shotgun and the assault rifle. For this reason I enjoy eventually running two assaults once I reach a six person squad, one a kamikaze style with a shotgun while the second more of a tactical flanker with the rifle.

Tactical Sense vs. Aggression: Defense all the way, every bit helps. The shotgun wielding assault will usually have a ridiculous crit chance anyway.
Lightning Reflexes vs. Close and Personal: The Assaults are my flanking troops, so getting around a bunch of overwatching aliens is crucial. Reflexes can also save your life if you didn't notice someone overwatching you.
Flush vs. Rapid Fire: Easy choice, Flush doesn't seem to work correctly as often enough the target will just run to another cover location. Rapid Fire meanwhile you will use almost every turn you can, especially if you're performing a risky, up close shotgun blast. Causes agonizing decisions also: Go for one 70% chance or two shots at 55%?
Close Combat Specialist vs. Bring 'Em On: CCS is super awesome, and can allow you to obliterate chryssalids and berserkers for free as you don't even have to be in Overwatch.
Resilience vs. Killer Instinct: See the first skill choice. I always take defensive perks over offensive. Assaults are awesome enough, but they stop being quite so awesome when they die terribly to an awful critical hit.

Your Assault is typically getting shot at the most, as Run 'N Gun gives you a huge advantage with running around the map, flanking enemies, and scouting ahead. Always give them the health boosting items: Nano vest at first then chryssalid armor. They should always have the best armor, and eventually I like to give my close up shotgun wielder ghost armor, further reaffirming my Rogue analogy. Assaults can be amazing, but don't risk their lives unnecessarily, and always be wary of what they could reveal ahead.

The Heavy

My least favorite class by far. Heavies have poor aim and poor movement and try to make up with that by having a one-time use rocket launcher. Ignore Dr. Vahlen's comments about using explosives. By all means, use them! If you can kill two or more aliens with a blast, whip that rocket launcher out but be wary of civilians on terror missions. I never roll with more than one if I can help it. The Heavy also has the hardest choices to make when assigning class skills.

Bullet Swarm vs. Holo Targeting: A tough one; both are incredibly useful all the time. With Holo Targeting your Heavy becomes more supportive, while Bullet Swarm makes them more of a one man army. If you use multiple heavies, one should definitely have holo targeting to give the other a chance to hit the target. As it is, I go with Bullet Swarm and take advantage of either shoot and retreat or shoot twice.
Shredder Rocket vs. Suppression: Suppression is kind of interesting, essentially making a target harder to hit and getting a free hit if it moves. But it drains a ton of ammo, and in the first half of the game before you research Ammo Conservation in the Foundry, it necessitates a reload pretty much right after. If you like a supportive heavy go for it, but I use mine as walking rocket launchers, and shredder rocket gives you one more rocket to use. It does less damage but importantly debuffs all the enemies caught in the blast, so it's actually more useful in the mid and late game.
HEAT Ammo vs. Rapid Reaction: If only RR didn't require you to actually hit the target first, it would be pretty awesome. As I do use overwatch a lot it seems like a great choice, but heavies suck at hitting anything, and everyone gets a penalty in overwatch. HEAT Ammo is something that might not seem worth it in the early game but becomes invaluable once you're facing Cyberdiscs and the ultimate late game unit, the Sectopod.
Grenadier vs. Danger Zone: I like my rockets, and I use them a lot. Danger Zone lets you blow things up easier, but it can be a lot trickier not to hit your own troops in a small area. I make all my heavies carry SCOPEs to help with their awful aim, so no grenades.
Rocketeer vs. Mayhem: More uses or more damage? I can see the advantage of each. Without suppression or grenades however, Mayhem's usefulness diminishes so I go with Rocketeer. More rockets!

As I mentioned, equip your heavies with SCOPEs to help alleviate their terrible aim. Never move your heavies first as you never know when you need to fire off a rocket. With their terrible movement you can let your supports and assaults get around enemies while your heavies typically park behind some full cover and take potshots. Bullet Swarm can give you two shots/turn if you park them in a good spot. Don't save those rockets: as soon as you get a good chance to damage or ideally kill multiple aliens, take it.

The Sniper

Ah, the sniper. The elite assassin of any XCOM outfit. Any time spent playing the game will quickly familiarize you with how much of a killing machine a sniper can be. Your highest ranking sniper is almost always your most decorated soldier in terms of kills, and since they should always be in the back, they also have the highest survival rate. Still, my games always seem stingy about giving out Sniper designations, and you definitely want 1-2 on every mission you go on, regardless of type, so it's important to have backups in case of injury and death.

Snap Shot vs. Squad Sight: You might be annoyed that the sniper can't fire her main weapon after having moved. Well calm down, because Squad Sight is what you're picking, every time. Squad Sight is ridiculously overpowered as it allows a sniper to murder any alien that the rest of the squad can see, provided there's a clear line of sight. Give her skeleton armor for a higher vantage point when buildings are present, later don the amazing archangel armor and just fly up and meat out justice as an angel of death.
Gunslinger vs. Damn Good Ground: While it's true your sniper can and should have elevation bonuses versus her targets, she'll also need to whip out that pistol any time you reposition. You'd be amazed what at overwatching sniper with just a pistol can kill from across the map. You are giving your snipers the best pistols, right?
Disabling Shot vs. Battle Scanner: Your snipers are so good at alien killing that having to use them to disable one seems rather pointless. Now I'm not too crazy about the scanner either. In theory it's awesome, but since your sniper is typically playing catch up to the rest of your squad if moving at all, it only ever gets use in the very beginning of a mission, or maybe during story missions like the alien base. YMMV but I go with the scanner for those situations.
Executioner vs. Opportunist: You should be overwatching constantly. With opportunist your sniper will typically straight up murder any aliens that dare move within her squad sight.
In the Zone vs. Double Tap: In the Zone requires two things to work: 1) the target must not be in cover or be flanked by one of your soldiers (their cover symbol turns yellow) and 2) you must kill the target. You can especially mow down enemies that don't use cover, like drones and chryssalids. Double Tap, meanwhile, turns your already amazing sniper into a brutally unfair killing machine. While you can still only headshot once, you can fire twice with the sniper rifle and typically eliminate most targets. At the end of my recent Classic Ironman game, I entered the final room, fanned out ever so gently, and the turn after I revealed the boss Ethereal, took two double tapping shots with my sniper. Boom, dead Ethereal, everyone in the room dies, game won. Seriously, Double Tap, is freaking amazing.

Your snipers are your true killers. Each rank up gives them better aim and better perks. A Colonel ranked Sniper is practically a one man army, especially with archangel armor. Like the heavy, never move your sniper before other troops, you never know when new enemies get revealed and a squad sight sniper can easily kill at least one of them. Should be obvious but your snipers should always have SCOPEs. You can roll with skeleton armor if you really want to get some height advantage, but I don't like moving my snipers all that much. With archangel armor and a plasma rifle, you've pretty much already won the game. Just be wary that they are exposed up there, never just fly them around. You should always have at least one sniper on every mission, but remember to rotate at least two to have a backup. Protect your snipers, and they will win you the game.

The Support

The support is easily the most important class, as most of the perks involve making your medkits do more and get more uses. In ironman mode you'll want two supports in your squad with medkits at all times; ideally you want three so you can rotate.

Sprinter vs. Covering Fire: In Ironman especially you are playing much slower and careful than normal, inching along and taking advantage of Overwatch constantly. Sprinter therefore is not all that useful. The one time it would come in handy is if another squaddie falls in battle and you need to revive with a medkit. But ideally you should have two Supports at all times covering your squad.
Field Medic vs. Smoke and Mirrors: Field Medic always and forever. 3x medkit use is absolutely vital, with two field medic supports you've got six medkit uses, and in the end game you'll need them all.
Revive vs. Rifle Suppression: Revive allows you to bring soldiers back into the fight instead of just stabilizing them when they go down. During the final temple ship mission my sniper went down as I underestimated the range of sectopods. That same sniper was the one I mentioned earlier that single handedly won me the game. Your supports are your medics and they need revive.
Dense Smoke vs. Combat Drugs: The first real choice you have for a support. As I've mentioned several times, I always go defense over offense. Combat Drugs could prevent your squad from panicking, but the additional defense from Dense Smoke can help prevent them from getting shot at all.
Savior vs. Sentinel: You see Heavies, the supports totally get the better version of your Rapid Reaction skill! Still, my supports are my medics, and it allows your medkits to work better. It's a tough choice as two overwatch shots do make a huge advantage, and you should be overwatching a lot, but in the late game I typically need most if not all of those six medkit uses, and that's with savior.

Supports are your most important class to rank up, as those healing perks (especially field medic) are absolutely vital to your squadmate's survival. Your supports will probably have your worst kill-to-missions ratio, but you should run with two in every mission and rotate in backups when you can.

Team Alpha

In the beginning you have only a paltry four person squad and a bunch of rookies. Much of your initial composition will depend upon your early promotions and designations, but usually the game is pretty good about spreading out the classes. Despite my general disdain for the heavy class, their rockets can easily kill the little grey sectoids, thin men, and floaters with one blast. You'll high ranking members of each class, so go ahead and run with one of each until you get that magical fifth slot. Classic difficulty means you don't automatically start with an Officer Training School, but luckily it's not that expensive. Try to squeeze it in AFTER you've built your uplinks and satellites for that month, then go after the cheap and incredibly useful Squad Size upgrades.

At five members I like to use 2 Supports and 1 each of the rest. Since you're ignoring the main story don't jack around with the arc thrower. Give your sniper and heavy a SCOPE, your supports medkits and your assault the vest. You'll take a lot of injuries and need to rotate in rookies a lot during the early game, so feel free to use those grenades as they can offer some easy kills.

At a full six member squad your options really open up. I'd still roll with the above members, but the sixth slot could really depend on the mission. If it's a terror mission, a second assault could help your team move around better. Small UFO missions could use another sniper as there's a lot of open space to work with. Council missions full of Thin Men could use a SHIV to absorb a lot of the hits, scout ahead, and it's immune to their annoying poison. Of course it's always idea to rotate in rookies when you can, as your goal should be to have at least one backup to every member of your Alpha squad (your best team). Once you get the Rapid Recovery upgrade at the OTS (which should be the third one you buy after the two squad size upgrades), you won't have to worry about injuries near as much.

SHIVs are kind of spiffy, but they require a foundry, are reliant on upgrades, and don't gain experience. Useful in certain situations or when you're really reeling from injuries, but I never purchase more than one or two in any give game. If it's a hard mission and you're between a SHIV and a rookie, go with your robot buddy, but don't neglect your rookies completely. SHIVs do make excellent scouts as they can't use cover (and they actually provide cover for your other soldiers) and are more expendable than people. Sorry robot buddy.

Combat Tactics

All the perfect base building, detailed squad managing, and panic reducing will be for naught if you get all your soldiers killed every mission. I'm going to list a lot of general tips as with random maps and enemies the individual tactics will vary greatly from mission to mission. Remember that once you've accepted a mission you can still back all the way out to purchase another medkit or check panic levels in the situation room, etc.

Double check that each soldier has all the right equipment. If your star assault was injured and you used a backup, you'll need to manually swap equipment back. NEVER just buy additional equipment; it's a waste of precious money. It can be a pain, but swap equipment constantly so your away team is always using the best stuff. Note that any soldiers in PSI testing need to have all their equipment unequipped manually (assuming you need it).
NEVER dash unless you're moving a soldier in the back up to the frontlines. Even if you plan on dashing forward anyway (you fool!), just stop first after your first move and see if anything was revealed. Then you have the option to run into cover. If you just dash forward, you have no options (Run 'N Gun being an exception, obviously).
Overwatch is your friend, probably your best friend. It's best to pretend that your soldiers can only move once, then overwatch. Oftentimes enemies just off screen will run into my view, and be completely obliterated by my waiting troops. Certain perks will let some classes be absolutely beastly on overwatch.
Always seek full cover. You'll know it's full when the shield icon is filled in, rather than only half full. Your soldiers will get murdered in half cover. They can still get murdered in full, but at least you've got a fighting chance. Note that the sniper perk Low Profile lets your snipers use partial cover as if it's full.
Flank enemies when you can. Flanking means that you position your soldier to where the enemies' cover is no longer between you two. Look for when the cover shield symbol turns yellow. Assaults are best at flanking since they can Run 'N Gun and quickly move around the map, but be careful not to reveal additional enemies or you'll have all new problems.
If there's only one enemy in a specific area left, use that shotgun toting assault to run right up next to it and blow its face off. It's both satisfying and much better than trying to trade shots back and forth.
Speaking of trading shots, don't do it. On Classic the aliens will usually prevail (and usually always find full cover). It will be necessary at times but don't prolong it and always have a plan, even if that plan is just to retreat and overwatch.
PSI abilities can be very useful; it's a shame you get them so late in the game. Even just mindfray can come in very handy as you'll typically be faced with a 70% chance to shoot but 90% chance to mindblast and do a solid five damage. It's important to note that the only way to advance your psi abilities is to use them, and you need a max ranked psi soldier to approach the final mission. The second tier of psi abilities is largely a matter of preference, but for the third tier I love mind controlling the aliens and using them against each other, or as scouts.
A panicked soldier is a scary situation, but hopefully manageable. On Classic soldiers panic much more often, but typically fire at the aliens first. As they rank up and you get the Iron Will upgrade, panic will generally become a thing of the past until someone dies in front of them.

Know Thy Enemy

Sectoids - Killing the one doing the mind controlling will result in a double kill, as the one being mind controlled will always die from the feedback. That can be tricky though, as the controller likes to stick to the back. With such low health, the grays are perfect for grenades.

Thin Men - That poison can be awful, and what's worse it tends to set off a chain of panic. Don't underestimate them. You'll continue to see Thin Men even into the late game as they appear en masse as the exclusive enemy during council missions. They tend to bunch up and usually spawn in threes, perfect for a rocket.

Outsider - Only found in UFOs early on, the outsider is important to the story as you need to capture one "alive" with the arc thrower. Don't feel pressure to do this any earlier than you feel comfortable. You should already wait a few months to even build the arc thrower and containment lab. Since you know where they are in any give map, take care to not approach the UFO until you're ready to deal with it, ideally as the final enemy left.

Floaters - They have an annoying ability to magically float up into the air and reappear right behind your sniper, but thankfully it takes them a full turn to accomplish. Murder them for it. They get a constant elevation bonus but don't use cover, so quickly kill them before they can flank you.

Chryssalids - Ugh. UGH. Chryssalids can absolutely ruin your day, and your playthrough. If you get a terror mission early on with nothing but chryssalids, I think you're just screwed. Hopefully you only ever have to deal with a handful. Do not under any circumstances let them get near you, and realize that they can always move much farther than you think. Retreat and use overwatch, or if you can kill them in one turn, rush them and plant some shotgun shells into their chitinous body. Rockets can work wonders as well, but as you usually encounter them on terror missions, be wary of friendly fire.

Zombies - Kudos for Dr. Vahlen for actually calling them what they are - that always bugs me in every zombie fiction ever. Anyway, where there's chryssalids there's bound to be a zombie or two as they transform the civilians you're supposed to save into a whole new enemy. Despite the slow animation of their gait, zombies can move surprisingly far and do a ton of damage. Treat them just like chryssalids, but prioritize their progeny first to prevent more zombies from rising.

Mutons - The first real game changer, the Muton comes equipped with a plasma rifle, alien grenade, and blood call ability. The first time you encounter them expect to take heavy damage and probably some losses, as they usually come in groups of three and have enough health to take a couple successful hits to down. If you group your soldiers up they will use their grenades, so make sure your troops always have more than five health. Flank them when you can but don't risk your soldier's life doing it, and whatever you do, don't reveal any new areas to add new enemies to the fight.

Drone - Small and weak, the drone's real threat is as a healer to nearby Cyberdiscs and sectopods. You can try to capture them yourself using an arcthrower, but seeing as how they're usually near these formidable enemies I never mess around with that. Should target them first unless you can kill their bigger ally in one turn.

Cyberdisc - A frightening enemy when you first see it transform, the CD has impressive flying movement but doesn't seem to move around near as much as floaters do. They do come equipped with an alien grenade, and up close can perform a powerful AOE attack. Perfect fodder for snipers and HEAT heavies. Try not to use a shotgun assault to deal the final blow, as they create a small explosion when slain.

Berserker - You might be wary of their beefy health, but they don't move near as much as the dreaded chryssalid. You'll quickly learn that every time you attack, it gets some bonus steps to close in on its attacker. Use this to your advantage to draw it into your waiting troops. Perfect for finishing off with the arc thrower as well.

Sectoid Commander - Kill as quickly as possible, as they will mostly mind control one of your squadmates on their first turn. Luckily you usually encounter them at the end of a UFO, in their own little room, so you should have everyone ready to burst into that room and unleash hell. There is no excuse to let them live long enough to use your own troops against you.

Muton Elite - Beefier but otherwise unchanged from normal Mutons. You should have high ranking troops with plasma weaponry, so they should be much easier than when you first saw Mutons

Heavy Floaters - Same as the Muton Elites, just a straight upgrade healthwise. Double Tapping snipers should down them easy.

Sectopod - The first new alien threat to give you pause in the late game, the hulking bipedal sectopod can fire two shots in one turn, including an AOE volley attack and a devastating laser blast that if it misses, will destroy any cover you're cowering behind. They are classified as robotic enemies, though, so make sure your HEAT heavies are firing on them and racking up the damage. I believe Classic mode allows them to fire twice without having to first paint their target like on Normal mode, as I'm pretty sure they weren't nearly as devastating on normal. Like the CD, kill any drones first or they'll just heal it.

Ethereal - Pretty much an upgrade to the Sectoid Commander, as these mysterious beings will also like to mind control your troops. Like the commanders, you'll typically encounter them in their own room in a UFO, but they could easily have a Muton or two along as guards. Feel free to be overly aggressive in these final rooms and take out that Ethereal before it can wreck havoc with mind control.

Blog Post: XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Blending New and Old

markus1142 — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 01:35:00 GMT

Some time ago, 2K Games announced an FPS reboot of the classic XCOM franchise. While that title was slipping into development limbo, Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown took center stage, staying true to the original's turn based gameplay and punishing difficulty. Shunning the ever popular shooter format in favor of a strategy title may have sounded like a gamble at first, but the final product turned out to be a Game of the Year contender, and with good reason.

Graphics: Character models are brightly colored and slightly cartoony; the player's oversized weapons especially add a charming, campy feel to the "aliens vs humans" setting. The models look less impressive when up close during cut scenes, but the game is never unattractive.

Sound: A few major characters at XCOM headquarters have several lines of recorded dialogue. Outside of this, your squad had numerous smaller lines in-game, such as asking for help or calling out a confirmed kill. A subtle yet effective score adds ambient music, instead a full blown soundtrack.

Controls: Easy to pick up during the tutorial, players will be capable of handling strategic combat within minutes.

Replayability: Four difficulty modes and the optional, brutal Ironman mode make the game approachable to new players and XCOM veterans alike. Several options unlocked after completing the game once and a multiplayer mode add even more depth to the game.

Innovation: While it may be a current gen reimagining of the classic, the adherence to the original's turn-based gameplay and unforgiving difficulty certainly let it stand out amongst countless FPS shooters with short campaigns and constant hand-holding.

Overall: 9/10

XCOM: Enemy Unknown certainly stands out from the rest of the crowd. I had only vague memories of the original, mostly from watching a college roommate suffer through countless deaths. I dove in not fully knowing what to expect other than bits and pieces gleaned from my Twitter feed, from friends celebrating every narrow victory or cursing every crushing defeat.

Almost immediately, the game lives up to its "Enemy Unknown" tagline. XCOM will throw all manner of curveballs at the player; you need to be on your toes at all times, and plan ahead. Many research and construction projects can take several in-game days or weeks to complete, so you constantly have to weigh the future payoff against the chance that you might need funding immediately to upgrade your equipment, or replace lost troops.

Keeping your barracks populated with soldiers - and the right mix of soldier classes - is paramount to your ability to succeed.

XCOM offers a surprisingly deep upgrade system across several fronts. Players can assign various research projects, unlocking new facilities, weapons, or equipment to be produced. Construction of new facilities can speed up research time, reduce the cost of building vehicles, or allow satellites to be placed in orbit. Placing satellites in orbit over a nation will reduce their panic level; covering all nations of a particular continent adds a major bonus, such as increased funding or reduced aircraft cost. Unsurprisingly, some of the most prominent upgrades involve the weapons and armor available to your squad.

You'll need to keep your scientists busy if you want to keep up with the alien threat, let alone stay a step ahead.

While a "conventional" loadout of ballistic firearms and frag grenades are always available to your team for free, costly upgrades to laser and plasma weaponry provide a major boost to your offensive capabilities. Similar upgrades allow you to acquire better armor; early models offer meager protection, while later armor suits offer superior defense as well as abilities, such as cloaking or limited flight. The game scales nicely, and as long as players make smart decisions, their upgrades should keep pace with the confrontations of ever more powerful aliens.

Making steady advances in weapons, armor, and equipment alike is crucial if you want your soldiers to stay alive in the battlefield.

While XCOM does offer a set sequence of events that have to be played through in order, the majority of the game is dynamically generated. Players do not always have a mission available, giving them plenty of downtime to follow up on weapons purchases or research projects. The command center's "scan for activity" option speeds up in-game time drastically, pausing for any completed upgrades or other noteworthy events, including alien activity.

Most of these random missions fall under the category of "alien abductions," with the player's squad being deployed to clear an area of all hostiles. However, there are some other unique mission types, such as locating and disarming a bomb in a set number of turns, rescuing civilians under alien attack, or securing and extracting a VIP from a hostile zone. These special missions, while less common, are a welcome change of pace, and require players to adapt their techniques to the situation at hand.

Your squad will see plenty of action around the world before - if - you achieve final victory.

Despite what could easily have been a B movie setting, XCOM's overall plot is surprisingly coherent. It may feel like the cliched "kill all the aliens" at first, but it's fleshed out nicely as the campaign moves along towards a satisfying conclusion. Although the ending cinematic sequence feels a bit short, it's hard to not walk away feeling like Firaxis left it as is with the intent of setting up an eventual sequel. Given the game's almost universal praise, it's likely this isn't the last we've seen of the XCOM crew.

Blog Post: XCOM: Enemy Unknown Review- A love letter to strategy gamers

Andrew Marcos — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 13:59:00 GMT

In this day and age where games cost more than ever to make and titles like Call of Duty and copycats take the market by storm, you won’t often see publishers taking chances with new games or reviving old franchises in a modern market. Reboots of classic games like Syndicate pop up occasionally to remind us of the changing landscape when we see a classic strategy game turned into another corridor shooter to turn a profit. While gaming today is arguably much more diverse than ever before, many of the most unique titles tend to be made by indie developers with big budget publishers sticking to “safe” formulas. To see a big publisher like 2K Games take a chance on remaking a classic turn based strategy series like XCOM is rare in this day and age, and it’s even rarer that such a gamble could turn out to offer such an incredibly refreshing and fun experience.

A reboot of sorts for the classic XCOM series (and UFO: Enemy Unknown to some extent), XCOM: Enemy Unknown is set in the near future during an alien invasion event. Players are tasked with managing their XCOM units in turn based combat against the alien invaders, as well as managing resources at their home base. The game keeps things simple, so cutscenes and story background tend to be sparse in favor of gameplay. While this does a great job of keeping the player hooked on the gameplay, it means the story ends up being rather lackluster and by the numbers. All you need to know is that there are aliens, and you are in charge of taking care of business. Luckily, the variety in alien design and constant set of goals throughout the campaign will definitely keep players pushing through just to see what comes next.

The two main layers to XCOM (base management and combat) both exist to complement each other and do a very good job of keeping you invested. Players will want to spend time tooling around in their base to figure out how to best use their resources and find ways to improve their combat performance, while in combat you’ll come across interesting loot that will keep you thinking on how best to use them back in the base. It’s a cycle that makes it very hard to put XCOM down, especially since the game does such a great job of constantly evolving and giving you a feeling of progression.

With the scarcity of resources and wide range of abilities at your disposal, players will have a lot of decisions on their hands, and to the game’s credit most of these are explained well. I say most because while the game makes combat a case of being easy to get into and hard to master, the base management isn’t explained as well as it should be. New players might end up going far longer than they have to without necessary gear to fight an increased threat, while certain highly important abilities and resources (like satellites) aren’t given the attention they deserve. The developers end up leaving the players to fend for themselves, and while it’s nice to see a game allow the player to find things out on themselves, it can be daunting for newcomers.

To keep things interesting, XCOM: Enemy Unkown also has randomization down to allow for different experiences in multiple playthroughs. From random attacks and UFO sightings in varying locations and difficulties, to the percentage based combat system, the game tries to keep you on your toes. It can sometimes be a hindrance when you end up waiting several in game weeks for an event to happen to no avail or miss a 95% shot at point blank range, but this kind of randomization does add a lot of tension to the events of the game.

The difficulty and unrelenting nature of the alien menace certainly is something to keep players on their toes on its own. The game offers several difficulty levels (including an Iron Man variant to all normal difficulty levels), and on normal without Iron Man I still ended up straining my brain and surviving by the skin of my teeth one too many times. The randomized elements and occasionally cheap AI caused me to reload my save more times than I’d like to admit, but I did make quite a few big mistakes. Much like with Dark Souls, XCOM punishes mistakes very heavily, and on Iron Man players won’t have the luxury of reloading a save to bring back a squad member since Iron Man only allows players to have one save per playthrough and automatically saves the game for you.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is highly polished and extremely fun, but it does have some wrinkles. The multiplayer for starters, isn’t particularly engaging and is just a basic 1v1 battle of wits with one side taking control of the aliens (which unfortunately cannot be taken control of in any single player instance). The randomization means that map design is limited, so regardless of where the mission takes place (whether it’s Nigeria or Chicago), you’ll still run across the same few bridges, train stations and cityscapes over and over again, with only changing spawn points, goals and aliens to shake things up.

The hit chances also feel very off, especially in Iron Man where a 95% chance to hit may as well feel like 50/50 in some situations. It can feel very unfair to lose an entire squad because of factors that were completely out of your control despite heavy planning and preparation. Enemies also have a habit of turning invisible despite being in full view of your teammates, or occasionally dropping some IQ to run into an open space right in front of several heavily armed XCOM troopers (though in the game’s defense I only noticed these rare instances because the AI is so deadly smart otherwise).

XCOM is proof that you don’t need to play it safe to make an amazing title that anyone can appreciate. As someone who only occasionally enjoys strategy games, I can safely say that XCOM: Enemy Unknown is one of my favorite titles from 2012, and for anyone suffering fatigue from modern games that hold your hand and string you along, I can gladly recommend XCOM: Enemy Unknown as a game that will force you to think and change the way you play games.

Blog Post: Decisions with Lasting Consequences

Orochisama LEVON, Spectre — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 04:02:00 GMT

I've just visited the Memorial in the Barracks of the XCOM headquarters. I pause as the music plays to honor the soldiers that have passed in the war for Humanity's survival, and reminisce on my memories with them, however long or short. One of them is a Russian Corporal who specialized in Assault tactics, a daring woman by the name of Natalia. She'd accompanied me on dozens of missions before taking a fatal barrage from an alien Cyberdisk, an intimidating creation of the alien forces that completely changed our romanticized view of the alien saucers we'd conjured in our classic UFO fairytales.

Carlos, on the other hand, was a hothead rookie who died too soon; an ambush with several Thin Men claimed his life. Olga, a high ranking support, died saving a hostage from a Cryssalid, terrifying aliens that put the xenomorphs of the Alien franchise to shame. Their deaths are both the result of my decisions, and as the aliens unveil their latest forces, now capable of mind control, the list of casualties I mourn grows larger. I could always hire more and toss them blindly into the fray, but this war demands precision, foresight, patience, and yet, immediacy.

The aliens are winning, countries are losing faith in the XCOM project they've invested their time and money in, and cities are falling. But we've got our will, and that's where the aliens have made their greatest mistake. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a game filled with tough choices, punishing difficulty, and surprisingly approachable gameplay, filled with tense and suspenseful missions that push the player's resourcefulness to its limits. A cleverly designed narrative that capitalizes on our greatest fears about extra terrestrial life in addition to its surprising depth and possibility in terms of gameplay value proves that strategy games can adapt their formula to remain relevant as gaming continues to evolve. In addition to its unpredictable and stellar presentation, XCOM stands out as a near perfect reboot of the franchise gamers fell in love with.

Enemy Unknown places you in control from the beginning, as the Commander of the titular XCOM project, a multinational organization created to address the sudden threat created by invading alien forces. You'll establish the country where your headquarters will be located - more will unlock with repeated playthroughs; manage as well as hire new soldiers; authorize various research and engineering projects; choose locations to investigate while commanding your squadron; even handle international affairs with your XCOM allies by monitoring their stability - shown through individual panic levels.

However, with this wealth of choices at your disposal will come the responsibility associated with them. You'll need to carefully manage the monthly income you receive by allocating the funds wisely to the right projects. Missions will become available in several nations simultaneously, forcing you to choose from one of them while neglecting the others and raising the panic levels in those places. Increasing your network coverage in addition to researching alien specimens and equipment are a must to stay on top during a rapidly evolving battlefront, but nothing feels quite as critical as making sure your squad completes their missions competently.

XCOM has a markedly cartoonish aesthetic that feels nostalgic in comparison to other titles, but this only masks the complexity and risk involved on the battlefield. The maps- while randomly generated - do lack an aesthetic that feels authentic to the different countries you'll be visiting and will feel somewhat generic over time, but the action and mystery contained within them never loses your interest. Certain areas of the map will be obscured until your characters move within range, although there are a few times when your squad will be abruptly ambushed by enemy forces. When the actual battles do begin, you'll need to protect your squad by carefully positioning them in each map. Different positions will either grant limited cover, full cover, get your squadmember out of the enemy's line of sight, or leave them exposed - which can increase the chances of that soldier taking critical damage if they're hit by the enemy. Climbable objects and buildings will grant some of your squad tactical advantages in the form of offensive and defensive bonuses as well as inject needed variety into each encounter, and destructible areas in each environment, from trees in a forest to buildings, vehicles, and other stationary objects add to the tension. The eerie science fiction score sets the tone for each mission perfectly.

Several basic classes are available in the game, but each of your soldiers - who start out as rookies initially - will have predetermined classes once they gain enough experience, allowing them to gain a rank. Class-specific abilities unlock with each promotion, from the mandatory "Stabilize", which allows your support to prevent critically-wounded soldiers from bleeding out, to the "Disabling Shot" skill, which allows your sniper to deal a low-damage blow to enemies that drastically reduces the effectiveness of their weaponry for a turn. "Lightning Reflexes" allows your Assault class soldier to immediately dodge the first reaction shot that an enemy fires at them, which will prove invaluable when you find yourself in tight spots. Each class has also its own unique perks, and by the time you've fully promoted your soldier to Colonel, they'll either be wreaking havoc on the battlefield or providing your squad with the necessary defensive support. Special perks can be purchased once you build the Officer Training school that also grant you the necessary bonuses to maximize your squad's potential.

You can also customize their appearance, name them, as well as change their loadout and equip them with one additional item. This will naturally become important later on once you've reaped the harvest of all those upgrades you've been researching and finally manufactured them, from better armor to raise the defense and hit points of your soldiers, to attachments that raise your character's accuracy, even the ridiculously powerful plasma weapons. Don't however, take the wealth of resources your soldiers have for granted; the enemy ranks are just as varied. From the scout-like Sectoids to humanoid Thin Men, capable of poisoning your squadmembers with a cloud of venomous gas, your combat skills will be tested in multiple ways.

Mutons and their evolved counterparts will employ their powerful attacks and tank-like bodies to soak up damage while keeping you on the edge; Floaters can rocket up to higher positions on the field, making them harder to hit; then, there are the terrifying Sectopods, that oddly resemble miniature Reaper Destroyers and pack just as much of a punch, often capable of wiping out multiple squadmembers in a single hit. I didn't even count the Sectoid Commanders and the Ethereals, who can use their psionic abilities to take control of your characters as well as deal them damage. Knowing who you're sending into the battlefield becomes even more important as you become acquainted with the enemies they'll be facing.

The inclusion of permadeath in the game raises the stakes; make foolish moves and the expertly-crafted AI will waste no time taking advantage of them. Go into tough battles with characters with low willpower and you might find them panicking and wasting a turn, even injuring and inadvertently killing squadmembers. As a result, Enemy Unknown rather overtly discourages players from becoming too comfortable with their soldiers and encourages the player to experiment with others. Nonetheless, when you do lose a character you've invested a lot of time in, it will hurt. You might even find yourself trying to reset your console in frustration, but I'd advise against it, so that your gaming experience will have lasting emotional depth.

There are several main types of missions that players will engage in: the basic scouting mission where players investigate alien activity; abduction missions; missions where players investigate alien landing sites; terror missions where players attempt to rescue as many hostages as possible; then, there are extraction missions where you rescue key political figures and even missions that have players defusing alien bombs. Occasionally, your satellites might detect a UFO, requiring you to send out a ship of your own to intercept it and clear any alien presence at the crash site. You'll reap resources from your missions that can be researched and used to build stronger weapons and armor, improve your aircraft, as well as build better facilities; building similar ones adjacent to each other grants you extra bonuses. Capturing enemies - which will become integral later on - and interrogating them will also provide the necessary insight players need. While its depth isn't quite to the level of the original XCOM - the wickedly awesome psionic abilities are inexplicably limited, for instance - it's nonetheless addicting.

The main campaign is fairly lengthy and each arc of it is objective based, with plot points not progressing until certain criteria are met first, from capturing enemies to investigating alien ships. Players therefore won't feel rushed by the game and will have ample time to adjust as they learn to master the ropes. However, mastery of this game will not come easily. To say Enemy Unknown has a sharp learning curve is an understatement. Each month, you will also be evaluated by your superiors and graded on your overall success. If you haven't been supporting other nations in the project enough don't be surprised when they withdraw support from you. In the short term it might not seem like much, but in the long run these sacrifices will take a toll on you when you realize you're not getting enough funding to buy the supplies you need.

Keeping the panic level of each nation stable as well as monitoring alien activity is heavily reliant on the satellites you have uplinked, and those in turn are limited to a certain number per uplink, requiring you to build more if you want to deploy additional satellites. Expect to lose a country or so your first time through, but be careful, if you lose too much support you will fail. Choosing which nations to support can also be tricky: do I help Argentina for that $300 reward, or do I assist Japan to gain those engineers I need to build more facilities at the headquarters? Do I share x amount of resources for that hefty bit of money, or do I sell them on the Grey Market instead? Players will painfully learn the importance of long term thinking, as every aspect of the game feels like a tense chess battle.

If there are any truly wasted opportunities, it comes in Enemy Unknown's vanilla multiplayer that pales in comparison to the single player campaign's depth. Graphical glitches will occur on occasion, in addition to problems dealing with the game's field of vision for your characters: enemies that your characters detect for instance, might actually be too far out of range for you to see them, or just plain invisible all together for some inexplicable reason. Textures might have problems loading as well. I've had moments where aliens randomly spawned directly beside my squadmembers, prompting an almost immediate retreat. These and other minor gripes prove to be annoying, but not enough of a problem to outweigh Enemy Unknown's positives.

After playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown for dozens of hours, I finally beat the final mission and was treated to an ending that literally reminded me of the game's most prominent theme: sacrifice. Mankind had advanced further than possibly expected and nearly sacrificed its soul in this war, and when the tumultuous final events came to a close, I was undeniably excited for the future that XCOM hinted at. The sacrifices of my comrades weren't in vain, and I was treated to one of the best strategy game experiences in a long time. Firaxis had an incredible task ahead of them, and with this game, they succeeded in reviving a beloved genre while keeping it accessible to a new generation.

9.5 out of 10

Blog Post: The Rebirth of One of the Greatest Strategy Titles of All Time

BRAV0 F1VE — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 23:15:00 GMT

I can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of the strategy genre. Sure, I have fond memories of a few select titles, but until I killed my first sectoid in XCOM:Enemy Unknown, I never experienced such a great, wholesome strategy game in my time as a gamer. The tough choices you make on and off the battlefield define XCOM and set it apart from other strategy games in recent memory.

Succeeding with the XCOM project requires strategic management both on and off the battlefield. Managing your base well in XCOM is essential, and players will have to make do with the limited time and money to make sure each XCOM soldier is outfitted for combat and that each member country’s panic levels are low. Controlling panic levels are also a key component to the game. Once panic levels rise too high, a country will drop out of the council, taking their money and supplies with them. Losing too many countries means the cancellation of the XCOM project, forcing players to start anew. Purchasing satellites and uplinks help alleviate panic and are one of the most critical resources in the game.

While keeping your tech up to date is critical for success, your project will go nowhere without highly trained soldiers backing up your arsenal. Recruited soldiers are divided into 4 distinct classes, being the heavy, support, sniper and assault. A balanced mix of classes are crucial to victory on the field, support soldiers are vital for reviving and healing your troops, heavies are great for breaking through cover and suppressing fire, assault soldiers act as offensive vanguards, and snipers are masters at pulling off those ever satisfying one-shot kills. As your grunts level up, soldiers unlock class tokens which allow players to customize each soldier to their liking. These tokens allow for even more experimentation with your fire squad, I found that medic support soldier and a support soldiers with suppressive skills work in tandem. As my time with the game progressed, my skills improved at a tactical level, rather than having to struggle with internal components present in other strategy titles. The AI in XCOM is intelligent and doesn't make any poor decisions for the most part, and skirmishes between you and the AI feel like you are battling an actual person. The game balances all these key components components into minimal, yet informative interface. Never once did I feel like too much information was thrown at me, while at the same time the game gives the player enough stats so that they don’t have to play a guessing game with internal math.

I did however, run into a few bugs during my initial playthrough. During a few sequences, I experienced some texture pop-in, but this glitch is little more than cosmetic. Other glitches are a bit more severe. On a few occasions, aliens would appear almost out of thin air, in the middle of my soldiers, leaving most of them flanked. I’m not sure if these enemies were the product of an untimely glitch or were “hiding”, and popped out of cover. If the latter is the case, this was not well explained during the course of the game. Luckley, my XCOM unit suffered no significant losses from these events, aside from a few plasma burns. These glitches are fairly uncommon and leave little impact on XCOM’s solid technical performance.

While most players will spend their time in the excellent single player mode, XCOM also offers a multiplayer component, albeit with much less success. Multiplayer consists of a basic deathmatch mode with a few maps for you and a friend to toy around with. XCOM’s multiplayer comes off as a little bland and uninspired, and is redeemed only slightly by the ability to customize your squad and control a team of aliens. These two features are cool, but do little to change the mode too drastically. Controlling your own aliens is cool for a go or two, but I don’t see any reason to stick around for more than a few matches with a friend.

Possibly my favorite part of XCOM: Enemy Unknown was my emotional attachment to my soldiers. While my XCOM squad displays little signs of emotion or personality, creating my own stories for my squad was a high point during the game. XCOM is the ultimate water cooler game, as every playthrough is bound to play out differently. While you may tell you friend about the tragic death of your best squaddie, he may mention the new research project his team recently uncovered. Whether I was describing the valiant sacrifice of my best assault trooper or mentioning the multikill my heavy scored, I always had something to talk about with XCOM.

Few games can make you rack your brain like XCOM. Whether you are deciding where to spend your scarce resources or deciding if taking that 30% shot is worth the risk, there are no right choices in XCOM. Rarely does a game pull off such a high level of tension and execution, making XCOM a title you won’t want to miss.

Blog Post: A well-executed turn base title

DarkKnight401 — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:24:00 GMT

When I first put this game in, I honestly didn't expect much. I thought it would be a stereotypical alien game with little green men and stuff like that. Not to mention that the whole turn base thing sorta scares me off. I got it because people were ranting endlessly about how it was so good. So I put the disc in and I was blown away by all of the possibilities this game holds for players. The aliens were original, unlike anything I had ever seen before. And the concept was fresh as well, because you aren't just shooting aliens all over the place, you have to monitor the alien activity around the world with satellites, manage research and engineering teams, and keep your soldiers well equipped to take on the invaders. There are many things you can do in between missions, such as using your team of scientists to dissect a dead alien so you can find out their strengths and weaknesses. You can have your engineering teams design new armor or weapons for your soldiers. You can scan the world for aliens using your satellite uplink facilities. It just amazes me how reactive this game is to your decisions. If you don't respond to alien activity or maintain your satellite coverage over a country, they will withdraw from the council of nations that fund the XCOM project. Panic levels will go down in countries that you help by purging them of aliens. You can sell other countries some of your technology to get additional funding. There are so many things that will keep you busy in XCOM. One bad part though, is that this game makes it seem like you are literally running the world. While this may seem like a good thing, it is not. If you dont help a country by sending troops to get rid of the aliens, they are completely helpless. The countries seemingly cannot do anything without XCOM's help. Regardless, this game is definitely worth the money and will keep you entertained for hours on end

Blog Post: DownPlay Reviews #5 - XCOM: Enemy Unknown

ManManDoo — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 19:23:00 GMT

Honestly, I’m feeling kind of at a loss here, this being the first strategy game I’ve played in about three years. But with the last being Civilization V, and with XCOM: Enemy Unknown being made by the same people, I can say with confidence that XCOM has some pretty hefty talent behind it. Hopefully, Firaxis’s legendary strategy game-building reputation has continued. Short answer, yes. Long answer, YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES. If you didn’t catch my point in the last sentence, XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a fantastic game. It manages to introduce the classic feel of turn-based strategy with a modern presentation without having to cut any corners. As it turns out, all you need to do is give the camera a new pair of shoes and mop up the interface to something a little less than the United States healthcare plan. But I’m a reviewer, so it’s my job to go a little more in-depth than that. XCOM: Enemy Unknown puts you in the shoes of a faceless, voiceless, military commander designated to rid the world of an increasingly persistent alien threat. You are in control of both the organization’s field operations and operations at the base. And when I say you’re “in control”, I mean in control to the point where the schlubs down in R&D will sit around scratching their scientific butts until you give the order to do something. Literally every aspect of the game is under your control, and this creates a sense of immersion like no other. The only thing in this game that is automatic is the reactions of the soldiers which requires you to plan out your moves to ensure the job is done correctly. You can even control the names and appearances of the soldiers and I’m deathly positive this function is in here so that the player would name the soldiers after their friends and family, creating a powerful band between player and soldiers despite the fact that they have no personality whatsoever. Now let’s get down to the gameplay, because that is where XCOM: Enemy Unknown truly shines. They’ve taken everything that made the original XCOM so engaging and perfected. The camera is positioned beautifully in a birds-eye view with the complete freedom to see every part of the battlefield that you need to see. The tactical interface has been cut down from hotkeys filling entire halves of the screen World of Warcraft-style to a measly one unit selection tool and five or six function keys. But honestly, that’s all you really need. The minimalist approach makes everything so much easier to handle and your not left scrambling around to figure out which unit is doing what. It makes the turn-based combat more approachable and easier to learn. Which brings me to the second half of the gameplay, the base management. Between alien encounters, you as a commander are in charge of everything going on at XCOM headquarters. Using their trademark “ant farm” viewpoint, you are in charge of research projects, construction, and managing relations which member nations. But what really boggles my mind is how well the two halves of gameplay go hand in hand. Your actions in the base directly affects your soldiers’ performance in the field and your soldiers actions in the field directly affect the performance capabilities of the organization back at HQ. It manages to be completely balanced in both aspects without one mechanic feeling tacked on to the other. Fortunately, the game starts of small with just tiny baby aliens during the first few missions with more advanced units later on to somewhat mirror your capabilities, so as long as you’re prudent, it stays fairly evenly matched throughout. And the randomness of the alien encounters requires you to be ready for anything which builds a great atmosphere of tension as you never know which units you may see next. But sooner or later, the aliens begin unleashing the giant spider droids that can decimate your entire squad in one turn and they’re not around for you to put your big boy pants on. So the game’s difficulty increases regardless of your performance, meaning that if you don’t put enough time in at the base, you could become mincemeat later on. Overall, the staggering amount of atmosphere and immersion in XCOM: Enemy Unknown creates one of the best strategy experiences of all time. It’s a worthwhile addition to any veteran strategist’s library and for an introduction to the genre, accept no substitute. XCOM is the apex of what the strategy genre can achieve Final Score: 97/100 Next Week on DownPlay Reviews: Sine Mora Also check out my blog for reviews and more! Sincerely, DownPlay Reviews

Blog Post: Easy to become attatched!

WeissGyr — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 23:43:00 GMT

As the title says, it is easy to become attached to this game-- and more importantly, the soldiers/characters you create.

I went in to the game thinking that it would be relatively easy to keep my favored soldiers alive, oh boy I was wrong! Losing people left and right on what would be deemed an easier difficulty. I wanted these soldiers to live, to bring each and every one of them home. In the first days that I owned the game I dumped so many hours in to it; honestly I forgot that I had dinner on my desk and by the time I realized this, I was already heading off to bed!!

After restarting my play-through multiple times, I had assembled a full team of colonels (highest rank) and built robots as a backup in case of injury. I beat the game, with some difficulty, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

The only reason that I didn't give this game a higher rating is that I personally love a good story line-- this game has about ZERO story, aside from the rough voice actors that scratch at making it dramatic..

9 outta 10.

File: XCOM Slingshot DLC screens