XCOM: Enemy Unknown

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XCOM: Enemy Unknown; The end of Civilization as we know it?
Tweet Topic Started: Aug 30 2012, 02:28 PM (189 Views)
Cy-Fox	Aug 30 2012, 02:28 PM Post #1
We are still watching Posts: 3,486 Group: =SB= Kings Member #3,975 Joined: November 29, 2007 Gender: Male Country: United States of America Steam ID: cy-fox	Genre: Hybrid Strategy (Turn Based & Real Time) Developer: Firaxis Games Publisher: 2K Games Players: Single Player Campaign, Multiplayer Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Microsoft XBOX 360 and Sony Playstation 3 Release Date: October 9, 2012 (North America), October 12, 2012 (International) ESRB Rating: M for Mature In an earlier retrospective, I introduced the community to the first X-COM game, UFO Defense, which was released in 1994 by Mythos Software and Microprose. A cult-classic, UFO Defense (called UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe) spawned sequels Terror From The Deep and Apocalypse and spinoffs Interceptor and Enforcer. At E3 2010, a first-person shooter simply called XCOM appeared and has yet to be released next year. The X-COM fanbase reacted rather negatively: Rightly so. In anticipation of another franchise washed out by poor decision making, we were biting our teeth. Then came along a new GameInformer issue in January 2012 that showed a familiar looking alien in the headlights of a taxi cab. Along with a familiar franchise name. Since 2008, Firaxis Games (Civilization, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, etc.), another 2K Games studio and the spiritual torch-bearer for Microprose was working on a reboot of the first hybrid-strategy game. Now on October 9th and October 12th, the fruits of 4 years of labor will finally be revealed in XCOM: Enemy Unknown. So what is XCOM: EU about? Simple. In the near future, aliens target Earth for invasion and begin capturing people, while also terrorizing major cities. In response, a council of nations decide to create XCOM, the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit. In XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you are the commander. You are in charge of the organization's management. Research, manufacturing, personnel, logistics and tactical command. Which brings me to tell you about how this works. XCOM is a hybrid strategy game, part turn-based, part-real time. When you are managing the organization, you do so in real time using an interface called the Geoscape (alternatively known as the 'ant farm' as dubbed by the game's project lead Jake Solomon). When you are commanding the troops during missions, you do so in turn-based mode in what's called the Battlescape. In the 1994 version, troops were able to perform actions according to how many you could perform within a unit's Time Unit allocation. Each action had a Time Unit cost that deducted from that allocation. In XCOM: EU, that has been removed in favor of an action system. You can either move to a certain portion that allows shooting or another action at the end of that movement, or move for a very long range while sacrificing the ability to shoot. This however can be negated by special perks that you can attach to your soldiers as they progress in rank and ability, such as Run and Gun. Old enemies from the original game return in new forms and apparently there's still enemies that have yet to be revealed. Not only that but certain old enemies now have variants too. Sectoids, the easily identified classic 'grey' aliens now have a Sectoid Commander variant that can Mind Merge with another alien to give them enhancements. However the drawback is that if the Commander is killed, so's the alien that it's linked to. Floaters can jump from one part of the map to another, Mutons are very tough and very much on par with XCOM forces in appearance and attack style and also are paired with a dangerous Berserker Muton that is deadly at melee range. Chrysalids, Cyberdisks and Sectopods are back as well in new forms, and the Cyberdisk even has a little drone companion that can repair it. From footage shown so far, missions are much like the 1994 version. You can mop up the survivors of a UFO crash and take the UFO apart for research and other purposes and also rescue civilians in terror missions where the aliens are out in full force specifically to kill said civilians. Of course the main purpose of XCOM is to ascertain how the enemy operates and how to shut them down for good. From what's been seen so far, there's been a lot of positive response from the X-COM community and even from the gaming community at large, the game winning several titles at various gaming conferences and events. But of course, the best way to judge a game is to see it and maybe play it for yourselves. So without further ado, here is a full hour of gameplay footage as commentated by project lead Jake Solomon, lead programmer Casey O'Toole and 2K Greg from 2K Games. Addenum: There's multiplayer, I almost forgot to touch base on that. There will be multiplayer that allows you to put a squad of forces (alien and XCOM combined) against another player's squad. You have approximately 10,000 points to work with and each unit is priced a certain way. This price dynamically changes on the network based on demand. Edited by Cy-Fox, Aug 30 2012, 02:34 PM.



VlaDDrakkeN	Sep 3 2012, 02:39 AM Post #2
The Jester Posts: 1,902 Group: S Rank Hero Member #6,850 Joined: March 22, 2008 Gender: Male Country: United States of America Playstation Network ID: VlaDDrakkeN Game Currently Playing: My New Computer	I'm actually interested in this game. I learned of the games from a lets player...and have learned to fear the aliens ever since. Chrysalis...Lobster men...oh gods the horrors... Er anyway, I wasn't so much yelling betrayal with spoony and would of given the FPS a try...though I became more bitter when I saw Syndicate brought back as just another fps. Good job EA... I now wonder if they remade Populous or Age of Mythologies, they would turn them into FPS's as well, likly with God of War rip off plots. Still, I like where this is going.
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