Confession: I've been bored as hell with all this XCOM talk. Saw the first-person shooter years ago and wasn't impressed. Proofread IGN Editor Anthony Gallegos' XCOM: Enemy Unknown March preview and didn't give it a second thought. Got assigned to see XCOM: Enemy Unknown at a pre-E3 event and wasn't all that excited.
Then, I played the introduction. Now, I can't wait to get my hands on the final product.
My problem leading up to playing was simple: I just didn't know anything about this franchise. A PC gaming staple, the original XCOM is known as one of the best strategy games around and as IGN's greatest PC game of all time. Nice accolades, but not something that means a lot to folks buying consoles in 2012.
Firaxis and 2K are counting on that. The E3 demo I played is the optional training folks can jump into -- it's built for the un-indoctrinated and walks you through deploying your four-person squad, navigating the Shadow Complex-like map that acts as your homebase, and how to fund research projects. The minutia of being able to dedicate resources to one add-on over another, to name the individual members of your squadron (who can then get killed in action never to return), to tackle missions exactly the way I want to: this stuff intrigues the hell out of me, and I know from titles such as Valkyria Chronicles and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker that it keeps me playing for dozens of hours.
The intro mode also doles out the story. Alien ships have smashed into Earth and are disintegrating the public while moving in their forces. Your four-person team is dispatched to a crash site, and you soon find a group of aliens packing mind control and laser guns.
Now, Anthony's already broken down how gameplay works and the details you'd want to know, but I actually got to play it on a PC -- with a controller. As a game that's also coming to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the controller's a big deal, and it works really well. Remember, there are no more "time units;" now, you get two actions like moving and attacking for each squad member each turn. When it's time to control a character, a movement grid pops up, you move the cursor, and you see the path your soldier will take. You can move them into cover or right into battle.
It was easy to wrap my head around, and it didn't feel like I was playing something that was meant for a mouse. Triggering an attack, tossing a grenade or firing a rocket was a cinch.
Yes, yes -- loot the gas station.
If there's a downside to XCOM: Enemy Unknown right now, it is the fact that it doesn't look that great. Environments are fine, but character models are a bit vanilla and not packing much detail. I think that might be because upgrading and outfitting is so important (a fully decked out dude was shown fighting a "Sectopod," which I hear is a big deal), but I won't know until I get more time with.
What I do know is that Firaxis is targeting a new audience with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and it's working because all I want to do is play more, and this is from a guy who couldn't even tell you what this game was about a week ago.
Source : http://www.ign.com
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