XCOM: Enemy Unknown Review (X360)

• Publisher: 2K Games
• Developer: Firaxis
• ESRB Rating: “M" for Mature
• Genre: Strategy
• Pros: Nice presentation; every decision actually matters; limited resources keep things tense; customizing your squad
• Cons: A bad decision can cost you hours later; combat gets a bit repetitive

The story in XCOM: Enemy Unknown is pretty simple. Aliens are invading Earth, and you are the person in charge of leading Earth's defenses against them. Boom. The end. Nice, huh? At least until a larger plot slowly starts to unfold.

Gameplay

At its core, XCOM is a strategy game, but it isn't real-time-strategy like Command & Conquer or Halo Wars, nor is it a strategy RPG like Disgaea or Operation Darkness. It is a something else. The gameplay is split into two distinct sections - management and combat. The management aspect has you in charge of a group of the best scientists and engineers on the planet and you are free to have them research new technologies and then build new tools / weapons / armor / etc. based on that research. Your resources are surprisingly limited, however, so you can only spend so much money or use a certain amount of power before you run out. You also get the chance to put together a squad of soldiers, equip them with weapons and abilities, and even completely customize them if you want them to be more like real people you know, which of makes sending them into battle a bit more interesting than if you're just sending in randomly generated grunts.

The decisions you make in the game matter. Some in more obvious ways like the balancing act of resources mentioned above, but others in more subtle ways that you won't see the consequences of until much later. The game presents some either / or "do this, or do that"-type choices at points, and their results aren't always obvious until hours later when you go "Oops, I should have done this instead". The game opens up and leaves fairly important decisions up to you pretty early on, and doesn't exactly explain what everything does, and you can actually irreversibly screw up your resource management right form the start if you aren't careful. The game is meant to be replayed with different techniques and strategies, though, so figuring things out - both good and bad - as you go is part of the fun here.

The other half of the gameplay has you controlling a squad of soldiers in vital battles around the globe. This part of the game plays like a strategy RPG where you move each of your soldiers one by one around the battlefield between cover and / or attack the enemy during your turn. Your soldiers can all have different weapons and abilities, so having the right soldier in the right place at the right time with the right equipment to do the job is a huge part of the strategy of it all. As your soldiers survive more and more battles, they will be promoted and earn new abilities. They won't all survive, though, because the enemy A.I. actually puts up a decent fight. The A.I. is patient and won't usually rush into your traps, and different enemy types have their own unique abilities that create their own set of strategic problems for you. It can all be very interesting. At least for a while. When you figure out the nuts and bolts of it and have a few missions under your belt, the combat isn't particularly deep, and since many missions consist of simply destroying all of the enemies on the map, it can get repetitive. There are certainly a few particularly good missions that give you more interesting things to do, but the combat sections are definitely the weaker half of the overall experience.

The sound is similarly well done with great especially sound effects during combat and for the aliens. The music is appropriate, and the voice acting is actually quite well done.