XCOM: Enemy Unknown

"So imagine this: turned base strategy game where you fight aliens with a squad of marines. There are no respawns, when your character dies, he's gone forever. But, you can upgrade your guys with alien technology that you get from dead enemies and then make awesome laser weapons and make your guys sick!”

This was the way my brother ecstatically explained the game Xcom: Enemy Unknown to me.

At the time I hadn't heard anything about this game, but my brother held in a very high regard for its strategic gameplay, unique risk-reward system, and steep learning curve; all things I soon would too love about this game.

Part 1: Setting

Xcom: Enemy Unknown takes place in what can be considered the not so distant future. Everything is all nice and dandy until giant meteoroids carrying some kind of alien species comes crashing onto Earth, causing all sorts of hell. In response to this new threat a special group of extraterrestrial defense shock troopers are dispatched to react to this new alien presence, who you just so happen to be the leading commander of. Xcom is its name.

Part 2: Combat

Xcom has a very unique form of combat system that I have never seen anything quite like in any other turned based strategy game. However it is reminiscent in a way to the famous Japanese strategy game, Fire Emblem. Xcom, however has a very unique feel that is sure not to disappoint. The whole premise of combat is moving your units around any given area trying to secure high ground over your enemy, and to flank them at any cost.

Movement is broken down into two different categories: normal and sprinting. In any given turn a unit can move twice within his/her movement box, this is known as normal movement. This is useful for taking cover and aiming up shots onto your enemies. Sprinting gives your unit a larger movement box, but renders them unable to fire after the movement is complete. The advantages to sprinting, besides an increased movement box, are the ability to dodge enemy reaction shots (which will be discussed later on). This double barrel movement system leads to a player having to think very strategic on their movements because once a movement is complete, it can't be taken back.

Cover plays a large role in movement as well. At no point during combat do you want to leave any of your units in the open for it will become very susceptible to enemy fire, and will most likely die after the enemy turn. To combat this, the player must utilize cover. Like movement, cover can be broken down into two groups: light and heavy. Light cover will give limited protection from enemy fire and may (and often does) gets destroyed after an enemy fires at it. Light cover has its advantages though. For one, there is much more light cover in any given map and (some protection is better than no protection), and light cover also provides a greater field of view for a unit than its counterpart. On the other side of the spectrum, heavy cover provides added protection to a unit, but is not as plentiful and can often place the unit in a poor vantage point to take a shot. Each of these points has to be weighed by the player which leads to increasingly strategic and thought provoking experience.

Another dimension of strategy that is added to the experience is in using the units themselves. At the beginning of the game all of your units have a very basic form, equipped with an assault rifle, pistol, and grenade, and you can only pick up to 4 units in your squad. However, after units get battle experience they get promoted and randomly placed into one of four unit classes: assault, heavy, sniper, and support. Assaults are run-and-gunners, who get into battle quick and finish their jobs even quicker. Heavies are armed with an LMG along with a devastating rocket launcher. Snipers are put on an island to take out enemies from a distance. Finally, supports are a balanced class with an emphasis on helping out the other classes with things like health bonuses and smoke grenades. Each class is unique and each has their very prominent pros and cons. For example, the sniper class has a higher percentage of hit probability from a long distance. However, the closer an enemy is, the lower accuracy becomes. So as a player you must really weigh your strengths and figure out what works best with you.

To go along with the four classes each has its own specific skill tree that enables a player to pick between one of two options. Each class have has a unique skill tree and multiple skills to choose giving you the option to make no one unit the same.

Core combat is another strong point in the game. As discussed earlier, if a unit moves normally with its move box it can have the chance to fire upon an enemy unit, provided that the target is in the unit’s line of sight. After the movement is complete, and the target is selected, you are given hit chance percentage. This percentage value can be very deceiving because multiple times I was given a 50% or lower chance of hitting a target and the majority of the time I made the shot. Whereas when I was given a 75% chance of hit I would often miss. This led me to almost complete disregard any percentage between 35-80%. Anything lower or higher than those numbers are almost guaranteed to miss or hit respectively. This is one of the few down points of the game because it really leads you to disregard a game mechanic that would normally be the fore-front of combat. With that said, combat is immensely fun and addictive, and despite a few kinks is the highlight of the game.

Part 3: Meta-game

The other layer to XCOM: Enemy Unknown is its unique, between-battle meta-game. It’s usually your actions in this part of the game that will decide if you win or lose. Between missions you are transported to XCOM headquarters (appropriately nicknamed, The Ant farm), and it’s here where you can manage your units, research new equipment, and secure the world with satellite uplinks. How you are able to manage the background activities of the XCOM operations will dictate how your units will act in the field. However, everything has a cost, and nothing is without its consequences. This is also where the games infamous risk-reward system comes into fruition. Whenever you scan the world for alien activity you are often given multiple abduction sites that you can choose to dispatch a squad. Each abduction site has a specific reward attached to it; sometimes it’s extra money, other times it can be a high ranking unit. However, and this is where the risk part comes into play, you can choose only ONE site to help. This not only results in you not acquiring the reward from the discarded sites, it also raises the amount of panic with the country that the abduction site is related to. This can be a very significant issue because once a countries panic reaches full it drops out of the XCOM council. And if five countries leave the council, it’s game over. This again adds on yet another level of strategy that the player must take into account.

All of these layers, upon layers of strategy lead XCOM to be one of the most challenging, yet addicting game experience I have experienced.

Part 4: Cons

Not is all sunshine and lasers with XCOM though. There were a number of issues that I encountered that certainly doesn’t make the game bad, but can take away from the experience at times. Issues such as a significant frame rate drop at seemingly random points in the game. I’ll be navigating my units one moment, and then the next my unit which is sprinting is cutting in and out across the screen. It’s not a big issue, but it definitely takes away from the experience of a game that shouldn’t be that demanding to cause this kind of issue. Also the in game cut-scenes are nice and set a tone for the game and give it plot, but I found myself wanting to skip them at moments. It’s not that they were bad, but I thought they were lackluster. All in all these are nitpicks in an otherwise fantastic game.

Part 5: Verdict

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a great game on its own, but is a fantastic turned base strategy game that any fan of the genre will love and appreciate for its layers of strategy, unique reward system, and challenging gameplay.

I give XCOM: Enemy Unknown 4 out 5 stars.

Thanks for reading, and come check out my page for more gaming reviews and blog posts.

Until next time

ZedJayArr

***Note: I played this game on PS3, which may account for my frame rate issues***