Killer performance, addictive gameplay, and tactical turn-based goodness. XCOM: Enemy Unknown faces the CHAIRQUISITION!
Game: XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/200510/
Devel: Firaxis Games (2012) / Feral Interactive (2014)
Engine: Unreal Engine 3
Price: 19.99 base game, 29.99 complete pack
Wazzat: XCOM: Enemy Unknown places you in control of a secret paramilitary organization called XCOM. As the XCOM commander, you will defend against a terrifying global alien invasion by managing resources, advancing technologies, and overseeing combat strategies and individual unit tactics.
US Disclosure: Feral gave us keys.
CHAIRQUISITION:
Makes with the working
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- Holds a steady 60 +/- 10 @ 1080.
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- I played this game, top to bottom, on the Calculator using the Open sauce drivers!
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Shiny / Sounds
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- For a game that was released in 2012 it holds up well enough.
- Character models are not only well done they are also hella customizable.
- This is an important feature that will save you from cycling through your squad looking for that one FKR with the Ark zappy thinggie.
- The transition from faux isometric to 3rd person shooter looks neat and gives you good look at the surprisingly detailed environments.
- Said environments vary from dark cities, to dark deserts, all the way to the ever elusive dark interior of building X.
- Voice acting is top notch and completely sells the experience.
- The only background music I noticed was the bog standard “baddies are around” track.
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- It’s a AAA game, so you get the standard gorgeous AAA cinematics
- And the voice acting done by *gasp* actual actors!
- The alien designs are far from original, but that is kind of the point
- Like Venn Said, the maps can be lacking at times.
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- The characters all look like they fell face first into the uncanny valley!
- They do seem to be trying to climb back out from it, but they didn’t get very far up by the time the game came out.
- They all look like they’re related, too. Thankfully you’re not really worried about when you’re quite literally being munched on by Chrysalids.
- The sounds are alright. But by the end I had to mute all of the voices because 37 hours of Dr. Vahlen shouting at me for using explosives… That’s quite enough!
- The background music is very subtle.
- Like Venn’s already hinted at, you only ever notice it when you’re slowly creeping up the map. There’s more I can say about this, but you’ll have to stick around for the fun.
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Control
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- Picking a nit here but I don’t like the 4-step camera rotation.
- The real issue is the camera flipping the hell out while aiming rockets/grenades
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- The camera bit can get a wee annoying, but it doesn’t really detract from the game too much
- Everything else is sanely done
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- You click things and things react as though they were clicked on.
- You can also use the board of keys to facilitate some of the clicking.
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FUN?
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- After the first hour I already felt like a commander… surrounded by a bunch of needy bitches.
- You spend the majority of the first hour watching cinematics and playing the occasional on-rails tutorial.
- During which you learn the turn-based bits then dive into the world of construction, research, and resource management.
- On top of all this you also need to keep an eye on each country’s bitch-o-meter.
- They nope when panicked and that takes away shekels.
- Alright, let’s talk about the turn-based strategy because boy do I love me some turn-based strategy. I’m also a huge fan of the movie Spice world, organized religion, and steak.
- Welp, if X is, in fact, going to give it to me the maximum amount I would request would be 2.
- Combat is relatively straightforward with an emphasis on duck-and-cover A.K.A. the blue shield of false hope.
- You have your standard classes that do the standard things.
- Overwatch and suppression help mix things up.
- At the end of the day I rather liked it. Hell, 6hrs in and I’m about to unlock fk mothering robots!
- That, and it brought out my inner sociopath by allowing me to build up my team, care for them, and use them like the meat shields they were.
- The only thing I’m dinging it a chair for is the amount of time spent waiting for the AI to sort the next move.
- P.S.
- Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh HTH do you keep missing 99% shots!?11!
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- Good ol tactical turn based squad shooter
- One of the things that makes this game better than, say, massive chalice is that your doods don’t grow old and die. As long as you keep them alive, they keep getting stronger
- And dear lord do you get attached to them. I gave fancy hats to all my top ranking dudes
- Build all the satellites
- Hours melt away while playing it and that’s a good thing
- And holy moley, this is a timesink. Don’t start playing this game unless you have a few hours to spare
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- I like this game, a lot!
- It’s really hard to keep countries from leaving the XCOM project. It makes no damn sense either. Why are you pulling support from the one chance you have against technologically superior alien race?
- If you’re just picking up on the game, I highly recommend you play Enemy Within.
- There’s a few more mechanics when compared to the regular version. Including genetic and cyborg modifications for your soldiers.
- In this current run I’m doing (chances are you are seeing it in the video), I have a big mechwarrior type guy which has an absurd amount of HP for the start game.
- It’s biggest weakness is that it can’t go into any sort of cover.
- One gripe I do have with the gameplay is that, for a tactical turn-based action game, Stealth is not a thing.
- The moment you move into view from a group of enemies immediately run into cover and you’re immediately on the defensive.
- That’s something they fixed on XCOM 2, but we’ll talk about that next week.
- My biggest complaint is that Feral never went back and added cross platform multiplayer.
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