XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Turn based games can be either very fun or very boring. For many turn based games, there is a heavy lack of action or excitement. Furthermore, they're usually compounded by terrible visuals or animations. Xcom truly shines above the crop. This game is fun to play because you can play it however you want. You play save scum, ironman, or simply play it on easy for the story. The real draw of the game is obviously the connection you make with your characters. The fact that you can customize them makes them that much more better. I had some of the best times playing xcom and I recommend it to anyone who wants to blow 50 hours of their lives on this game.

"X-COM Enemy Unknown" is simply put, one of the best strategy games of its generation. Whilst paying homage to the nostalgia of its predecessors, Firaxis' have perfected level design and turn based strategy with their latest X-COM offering. Focused on a war between man and aliens, the fierce squad orientated battles which you pursue are simply amazing. Base and personnel management is also extremely polished, lending well to the overall environment and atmosphere, and although the story line sometimes plays a secondary role in progression, it always feels rewarding and complex enough to keep you coming back for more. Great release and great game. Highly recommended.

This is one of my favourite games in recent years. I was a huge fan of the original X-Com games and was really looking forward to this. I saw some video footage of this at a Games Expo and I was sold. When I finally installed it on my machine my expectations were sky high. Thankfully I wasn't disappointed. I have played through this several times now. I've bought all the DLC and I've played the Long War Mod. This is the only game I have gone back to time and time again in search of achievements on Steam. For me it is close to perfect.

Good golly, is this game addicting. The tactical layer is filled with meaningful choices that keep you going in that classic “one more turn” loop familiar to fans of other Firaxis games. And there’s something so satisfying about the sounds and animations when you land a hit, and the panic when you don’t. The art is stylized just right for that dark alien vibe while maintaining a Civ-style level of cartoonishness. The strategic layer has less choice involved than the tactical. It is basically several lines of tech trees. There’s the actual tech tree of course, but the engineering tree is basically a tech tree, and so is the building, and the soldier skills, and so on. It’s all a steady progression of unlocking, with a few choices in the mix. I’d prefer to see the strategic layer be actually about building your base, with far more choices about what you build and where and so on. But it’s still fun. This game has stolen more hours, and kept me coming back more often, than any other game in my library in the last few years.

The game opens with an atmospheric tutorial, unfortunately the same feel isn't kept once the game really starts but it still makes for a good opening. Four classes of soldiers are featured each with two abilities to choose from every time they get a promotion, giving you some options on what kind of character you want to create. Permanent death makes you really think about your actions so you don't lose your favorite characters, although if you want to make things a little easier them game does allow you to reload saves if you want to. A variety of upgrades are able to be researched giving you access to better weapons, armor, items, some with fun abilities to use on the field such as a cloak, jet pack, or a grapple hook. Grenades and rockets can be used to destroy walls and cover or to cause objects in the environment like cars to explode and damage nearby enemies. The game has large amount of poor design choices, You will run into frequent bugs relating to shooting through walls or grenades going through walls. Line of sight problems can prevent you from seeing things right next to you, and likely due to the way the game handles elevation it doesn't understand how ramps or stairs work since they don't just jump to the next preset levels often causing problems with line of sight when there is only slight elevation difference and without taking height into consideration. The game lacks useful information you would expect to have in a turn based game likely due to the console versions, things like how far your character can see, range indicators, if moving to a different location would allow you to shoot at a known threat. The game is short and you end up upgrading equipment very quickly to the point where you will only be using regular guns for a short time, or you might just end up skipping laser weapons, and moving straight to the final plasma weapons. You start to get some cool armor as the game goes on but might not have as long to play around with it as you would like. There is low map variety, horrible in UFO crash missions that have you frequently placed in the same forest area. Poor character customization options, but color choices improve with DLC. You have no choice when it comes to what class soldiers get once they get their first promotion, it can be very annoying to see a character with a high aim stat become a class where you would want them using a shotgun or heavy weapon or when you keep getting the same class when you want another one. Terrible country panic system where you might need to rely more on luck to keep countries safe because aliens somehow hit three different places at the same exact time all the time, and you are prevented from sending out multiple teams. Terror missions are badly done, both because of the poor civilian and Alien AI when civilians are involved and because of the random placement of civilians can make things extremely easy or nearly impossible, it also makes very little sense that you are capable of completely negating panic from spreading if you do well enough as an entire town was likely destroyed and civilians would still have been killed. Soldiers are limited to taking only one item with them forcing you to make strange trade offs where you are deciding between taking things like a scope, armor, grenades, or a medkit. The game also has an uninteresting story with characters that end up being kind of annoying. A lot of improvements were made and some of the problems were fixed in the Enemy Within expansion.