XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN

or

How to reboot a franchise the right way.

  So, this week saw the release of X-Com: Enemy Unknown,  a deep strategy game that was originally released in 1993 on PC.  This series was beloved by many strategy fans for it's layers of depth and intense difficulty.  It saw a few sequel releases in the following years but faded away for over a decade (hardcore fans never forgot it though).  This new release by Firaxis (Civilization devs, with other greats under their belt) pays an insane amount of tribute to the original, while modernizing it at the same time.  Other developers and publishers looking to reboot old franchises take note (I'm looking at you, Syndicate!).

  First off, for anyone who doesn't know,  X-Com is about first contact with a hostile alien force.  They invade the planet and start kidnapping people and destroying cities.  The X-Com program is started as humanities defense against the extra terrestrial threat.  You take the role of the Commander of this newly formed organization,  juggling many factors to keep it running and deal with threats.  You must send out teams to battle aliens with ground forces, use aircraft to shoot down UFOs,  build and manage your homebase, research new technology gained from battles, interigate any Aliens captured alive, and juggle keeping panic levels down in all parts of the world.  I know this sounds like too much to keep up with,  well if the game wasn't so well executed then that would be an issue.

   This game makes all these factors easy to get used, with such a great menu layout and overall look to the game.  The controls are superb and everything was explained very well as things went along for me (I'm about 10 hours in as of this writing).  Now I want to break down each section so you can really have an idea of the depth of this game (there really are tons of options).

COMBAT

   With combat,  one of the main things,  you can send a squad of anywhere from 1 - 6 soldiers.   There are different classes so each soldier is different (Assault, Sniper, Support, and Heavy are what I've seen so far).  Now each time a soldier ranks up you can choose between a few abilities to add, making 2 of each class a bit different.  Even more awesome is the ability to customize the look and name of each soldier,  it really puts a personal feel to each squad member making keeping them alive all that more important.  Because, well your soldiers will die, ALOT, especially if you are not careful.   X-Com does an excellent job of making you care for your soldiers and really wanting to keep them alive.  Not just because they level up but you really feel crappy when one of them dies.  Objectives in battle can range from stopping abductions, disarming bombs, invading alien bases, and raiding crashed UFOs (might be more,  i'm only 10 hours in).

   Now, within the battles itself, everything is turn based (you move your troops, they move theirs).  Your guys get 2 actions per turn.  You can move in a smaller area which takes one action, or dash which takes two.  You always want to be mindful of your cover and what type (a crate really doesn't hold up well against laser blasts and explosives), especially since your cover will be destroyed with attacks (destructable environments, woot!).   Among the assortment of other abilities,  every character has two options while lying in wait.  You can either "Hunker Down" which makes you a harder target to hit for that turn, but reduces your line of sight for seeing enemy movement,  or you can go into "Overwatch", that means you will attack the first enemy moves into your line of sight with an accuracy hit (enemies can do these too, so you have to be careful watching for that).  

   Keeping your troops safe is important in even more ways than I have described.  If you are reckless and get a squadmate injured, or worse killed,  your other soldiers might start to panic.  This causes some serious problems in battle, as you not only lose control of said Soldier for a period of time.  They also start firing randomly at things,  which could be enemies or other team members.  Your squad can also be poisoned by some aliens and even mind controlled by some of the more advanced enemies.  If someone is injured in battle and they survive the mission,  they will also be out of commission for a period of time, due to the injury.  These factors can rip your squad to pieces in no time, this is why it's important to pay attention and be careful.

BASE MANAGEMENT

  Another level of strategy,  you have to keep funding coming in and decide what to do with it.  At the beginning of the game,  you get to choose which country your base in located in (there are specific bonuses tied to each area, it also keeps panic levels down in that area).  Since you are building underground,  you have 4 layers to build into,  some areas need to be excavated prior to building.   This means you have limited space altogether,  so you have to decide what fits your objective the best.  You also have research labs and engineering to worry about, and the growing factor of power (you must manage power levels in order to keep your base running).  

   On the research side,  here you will take in salvaged Alien tech,  Alien bodies, and captives to study so you can further what equipment your soldiers use, which aircraft you can make, or even what structures you can build.  So it's important to always be researching anything but also recruiting scientists.  You can get more by doing missions and sometimes trading your salvage with other nations.  This will keep money coming in and your men alive on the battlefield.

   Somebodies gotta build all this stuff, right?  Well that's where engineering comes into play,  they build what is researched, man satellites, and build the gear your soldier's use.  You recruit them the same way you do scientists.  So these guys are the life blood of your operation.  

SECURING FUNDS & PANIC MANAGEMENT

   

  To get all the upgrades and base additions, you have to be able to pay for them.  This is where paying attention to your situation room comes into play.  Since the X-Com project is new and the world is being invaded,  all the major countries of the world are supporting it.  Now each country can go into further states of panic,  you can reduce this by stopping abductions or defeating aliens in that area,  However when scanning the globe for missions, when something does happen it occurs in multiple parts of the world.  For instance, abductions typically occur in 3 parts of the world.  Well you can only stop the aliens in one part of the world,  so you have to pick where your squad will go.  Once victorious, that areas panic level goes down. However, in the other two areas raises up.  If panic levels, get too high in one area, they will discontinue support for X-Com at the end of that month.  Now if you lose support for 8 or more countries throughout the game,  the project is shutdown and you lose the game.  So it's critical to pay attention to which countries have higher panic than others.

   Other ways you can reduce panic is by building and launching satellites in that area.  This helps further scan those parts for abductions and UFOs, and help that country feel safer with your program.  Now another factor of this is your aircraft.  In order to protect your satellites and shoot down UFOs, you need planes.  So you have to setup Jets on each continent,  this again helps reduce panic and gives you a way to shoot down any Alien craft in that area.  This in turn gives you access to more alien tech which can be sold on the Grey Market (one way to get more money by selling stuff to other countries) or researched by your scientists to make your arsenal stronger.

  Truly,  X-Com is a beast of a strategy game,  having so many layers to manage.  But again, this would all fall apart had not for its smart interface and its risk/reward system.  Now while my platform I played on is the PC,  I've read numerous reviews that say the game works great for consoles as well.  For anyone looking for a challenge or old fans,  this game comes with a high recommendation.