Game Reviews #31 - XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Strategy Games Month

Platform: Xbox 360
Store Page
Price I Paid: £8

Much alike "The Bureau: XCOM Declassified", this is another game in the XCOM series. Unlike "The Bureau: XCOM Declassified", this game isn't a pile of shit. This game is extremely, extremely,  fun to play.

It's a tactical strategy game made by our friends at 2K Games, who, now that I think about it, are a pretty dominant force in the gaming industry, they own a lot of amazing franchises, I'll have to talk about this in another blog post. On with the review.

XCOM isn't like most strategy games on console, Enemy Unknown works pretty well on console, it's not clunky, laggy and it doesn't have any of the usual problems that most console strategy games have, mainly the controls. The game does a very good job of making sure the bulk of the content is accessible to all players from an early stage, with enough strategy and challenge mixed in to make sure the player doesn't just blitz through the game at rocket speed. It's a lovely balance that I wish more games had.

So how does one go gallivanting around, killing our extra terrestrial invaders? Well, you (initially) have a squad of four troops to deploy onto the field and fight the aliens, however, here's the kicker, once a squad member dies, they're dead for good. It gives you a real feeling of "OK, I need to be careful here" and what makes it worse is that you can name these loveable lemmings to give yourself a personal attachment to them. I usually name my squad members with names from my real life friends or celebrities, it seems like the only two you can really do.

Of course, if you're going to beat the aliens then you'll need to get better equipment, tech and so on, which is where the research comes in. Every time you finish a mission, you might bring the alien bodies and tech back with you for research to begin, giving you the advantage in your next bout of combat.

You eventually get alien weaponary and if you bought Enemy Within/DLC then you can eventually use bloody robots to fight off the aliens, I have Enemy Within on PC, but for whatever reason I didn't enjoy it as much on PC as I did on console.

Oh yeah, there's a multiplayer in this game as well, uhm, so that's a thing. It's alright I guess, what can you expect? They're basically quick firefights, a 1v1 match of tactical strength, however you can play as the aliens which is pretty fun.

If you haven't played this game yet then do yourself a favour and go out and buy a copy of it.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown gets a 9/10