XCOM: Enemy Unknown Review

[Slycne]

I wish Steve Butts were still with the Escapist. He's gone on record stating X-Com: UFO Defense is his favourite game of all time and I was long looking forward to his review on it.

Justin's review was solid, but I don't know his prior experience with the series. It could be a fun game, but is it really an x-com game? That's what matters to me, and what determines buying it now or buying it in a year.

Some, but certainly not as much as other people. The 90's was mostly flight sims and fantasy RPGs like Baldur's Gate for me. I actually tried to avoid overly elaborate comparisons between this new remake and the original game, because most of the audience isn't going to be familiar with it.

That said, I did try to include a few "yeah, it's still XCOM moments" like chryssalids still being total BS and my soldier panicking and blowing away the VIP. I might not agree with every single change (lack of random map layouts, for example), but I do think that on the whole they are mostly removing tedium.

 

[Legion]

Dishonored is also out this week, so it'll have to wait. Probably a good thing as it means it'll be cheaper when I do get a hold of it.

 

[Nurb]

I like how this is going to outshine the FPS money-grab on the name

 

[Rad Party God]

Woohoo, can't wait. I'm glad to see Sid Meier back doing something else than Civ games. I've been a huge fan of his since his days at Microprose (about 60% of my game box collection still bears their logo, I'm a hipster, I know). I loved XCOM back in my 486 days and I'll have a ton of fun playing this one. Thanks Sid!

I think that Sid Meier wasn't involved in the proyect at all (I might be wrong), the Lead Designer, was Jake Solomon, although I can understand that the Firaxis name is heavily tied to Sid Meier's, but still, it's a damned good and respected name throughout the strategy genre and for that, I can't wait to get my hands on this game

 

[Murmillos]

Woohoo, can't wait. I'm glad to see Sid Meier back doing something else than Civ games. I've been a huge fan of his since his days at Microprose (about 60% of my game box collection still bears their logo, I'm a hipster, I know). I loved XCOM back in my 486 days and I'll have a ton of fun playing this one. Thanks Sid!

I think that Sid Meier wasn't involved in the proyect at all (I might be wrong), the Lead Designer, was Jake Solomon, although I can understand that the Firaxis name is heavily tied to Sid Meier's, but still, it's a damned good and respected name throughout the strategy genre and for that, I can't wait to get my hands on this game

While Jake Solomon had the final word on what aspects of the game made up xcom, many of the interviews Jake noted he spent many days/hours/weeks hashing with Sid over many game design aspects. So in a way, Sid did have a major help, but yea, its not Sid's game.

 

[Frost27]

Can not WAIT for this! The demo was all I needed.

Going to pass on dishonored though until it hits the bargain bins. 5 - 10 hours is not even close to justification for paying full price.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

That was unexpected. I tip my hat!

 

[SomeLameStuff]

And I'm stuck in a military camp until Saturday afternoon...

And I've pre-ordered both Dishonored and XCom...

WHERE DO I FIND THE TIME?!

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Sounds pretty awesome! However, I have a couple of questions:

Does it have cheats? And if not, does it support mods?

You can also summon various 'hero' units by changing solider names, for example naming a solider Sid Meier will turn the unit into a super psi unit with a plasma rifle, psi armour and all psi powers unlocked (all powerful end-game items/abilities) but achievements are disabled)

People over at the 2K forums have already modded the demo so even if there isn't any official support (which I doubt) you could still fiddle around with it.

 

[Hannes Martinsson]

also apart from rockets and grenades there is no free shoot mode where you can shoot at terrain. apparently a trade off for the console version and kept for the pc unfortunately.

This is utter uninformed nonsense. The choice to not have free aim has nothing to do with consoles. The reason is simply that now that soldiers cary "enough" ammo to get through the mission then people would could just free aim at all the walls an cover and blast it all away, this would not make the game a good tactical game.

 

[Henriot]

Pre-ordered, preloaded, ready to play... and Friday afternoon can't come sooner!

Great review. I have to say, I'm glad reviewers aren't going into the "story" of X-COM too much, but having played the original I can't see too many curveballs as far as plot goes.

I've heard on the wire that you only get the one base. Does that by extension mean you only have the one transport vehicle? Or is there never a time when two ships come down?

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Pre-ordered, preloaded, ready to play... and Friday afternoon can't come sooner!

Great review. I have to say, I'm glad reviewers aren't going into the "story" of X-COM too much, but having played the original I can't see too many curveballs as far as plot goes.

I've heard on the wire that you only get the one base. Does that by extension mean you only have the one transport vehicle? Or is there never a time when two ships come down?

I think it's more of a case that you deal with specific cases, the armies of the world etc do the heaviest lifting in terms of big conflicts, but you strike hard at the crucial points like a special ops group.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

I wish Steve Butts were still with the Escapist. He's gone on record stating X-Com: UFO Defense is his favourite game of all time and I was long looking forward to his review on it.

Justin's review was solid, but I don't know his prior experience with the series. It could be a fun game, but is it really an x-com game? That's what matters to me, and what determines buying it now or buying it in a year.

Some, but certainly not as much as other people. The 90's was mostly flight sims and fantasy RPGs like Baldur's Gate for me. I actually tried to avoid overly elaborate comparisons between this new remake and the original game, because most of the audience isn't going to be familiar with it.

That said, I did try to include a few "yeah, it's still XCOM moments" like chryssalids still being total BS and my soldier panicking and blowing away the VIP. I might not agree with every single change (lack of random map layouts, for example), but I do think that on the whole they are mostly removing tedium.

Do you have any idea what Greg Tito thinks of the game? I've heard him several times on Three Moves Ahead and he seems like he loves some strategy. Would be interesting to know.

That aside, I liked your review and you covered the bases, ahaha, nicely. We'll see if I like the game on Friday when they actually bother to release it.

 

[Drejer43]

Thanks for spoiling what happens if you lose, that scene would probably have been pretty emotional the first time around, but now it is ruined.

 

[tmande2nd]

I just got my email from Futureshop saying that they are going to be mailing my copy out tomorrow!

This weekend shall be good.
For XCOM returns!

 

[GTwander]

I have one single issue with this game (well, beyond the RNG bias I seem to run into constantly):

All voice actors be Amurrican.

You assemble a crew of folks from around the world, they have their nation-of-origin's on their armor, and none of them can act the part whatsoever. I feel the game could have done much better to have the choice of voices per-character during customization be drawn from a lot dependent on their nationality. Would bring a *lot* more to the game, in my eyes.

As is, the members of the frontline crew all feel fake.

~I mean, Civ 5 went all out and voiced the civ leaders in their native tongue to an incredibly believable degree... but they seemed give zero shits about that for this title.

 

[KillerRabbit]

2 questions
1.Can you sell stuff to governments, PMCs and organized criminal organizations?
2.Is laser cannon mass production still a viable business solution?

1. Yes, there is a "Grey Market" that will buy alien artifacts, technology and corpses to. You will also occasionally get requests from nations for specific manufactured good or items, generally at a greater value. However, you can't sell everything at any time though. Most of your researched items, like say laser weapons, can't just be sold to the Grey Market.

2. See above, but no.

So selling alien corpses to McDonalds is not an option anymore?
That's sad

Also, how humanity can fight alien invasion without every person being armed with laser cannon?

You can sell corpses, re-read answer 1 again

 

[blackrave]

2 questions
1.Can you sell stuff to governments, PMCs and organized criminal organizations?
2.Is laser cannon mass production still a viable business solution?

1. Yes, there is a "Grey Market" that will buy alien artifacts, technology and corpses to. You will also occasionally get requests from nations for specific manufactured good or items, generally at a greater value. However, you can't sell everything at any time though. Most of your researched items, like say laser weapons, can't just be sold to the Grey Market.

2. See above, but no.

So selling alien corpses to McDonalds is not an option anymore?
That's sad

Also, how humanity can fight alien invasion without every person being armed with laser cannon?

You can sell corpses, re-read answer 1 again

Yeah, but it's more like government request rather than selling at any time to unknown forces (well I knew where my muton corpses were going )

I have one single issue with this game (well, beyond the RNG bias I seem to run into constantly):

All voice actors be Amurrican.

You assemble a crew of folks from around the world, they have their nation-of-origin's on their armor, and none of them can act the part whatsoever. I feel the game could have done much better to have the choice of voices per-character during customization be drawn from a lot dependent on their nationality. Would bring a *lot* more to the game, in my eyes.

As is, the members of the frontline crew all feel fake.

~I mean, Civ 5 went all out and voiced the civ leaders in their native tongue to an incredibly believable degree... but they seemed give zero shits about that for this title.

Maybe it's even better this way.
Stereotypical depiction of non-american english is achieved by using some hilarious accent and occasionally using some non-english words.
And that feels more fake than simply voicing them all by correct english.
I always felt that X-Com operatives are well educated, and it is complicated to depict non-english educated in english speaking english.
It isn't accent or occasional non-english word that shows that person is non-american, in most cases there are more subtle indicators.
For example- can someone (with english as native language)check what have I wrote in this comment and note the mistakes I have made?
Hint: articles

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Is the X-COM Tall Man the original Slenderman? They seem very similar. I don't remember him in the original X-COM though, maybe because I played Terror From the Deep more.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Thanks for spoiling what happens if you lose, that scene would probably have been pretty emotional the first time around, but now it is ruined.

They didn't.

Trust me on this, I found the complete lose campaign ending on youtube and trust me they edited it amazingly well.

The bits they didn't include...