Firaxis' reboot of the classic gaming series almost gets to those lofty heights... but falls just that little bit short.
And yes. I mean dumbed down - not 'streamlined', or any of those other buzz words. Dumbed. Down.
Not that, I hasten to add, being dumbed down *necessarily* makes a game a bad one. In fact, you can see from the rating I gave the game that I still considered this a very good game. However, for each genre of game, there comes a point where the desire to remove as much micromanagement as possible from a game leads to the game getting poorer, rather than better. Like with almost all games nowadays, the developers of XCOM: Enemy Unknown have sought to appeal to as big an audience as possible - that, after all, is where the money is. Unfortunately, this trend means that the outliers (like me) that really enjoy intricate games tend to get forgotten about, and from my point of view, games seem to stagnate rather.
But this isn't a forum for me to vent my frustrations on the lack of decent games out there, this is a review of a rather good game, despite its dumbing down. And I'll do my best not to mention how dumbed down it is too often in the rest of this review, and limit myself to two examples in the Geoscape and the Battlescape (to use the old school terms).
For those who know nothing about the original games, XCOM: Enemy Unknown returns to the original basic premise. Aliens have appeared in the near future, and are abducting and terrorising the general public, and are generally up to no good. This improbable event causes an even more improbable one... The world unites and actually starts cooperating, forming the eXtraterrestrial COMbat unit, or XCOM for short.
Yeah - I know, there's only so far the average person will suspend their disbelief, but try. If it makes it easier to bear, just know that these countries seem to be itching to pull out of the project if you don't get your arse into gear as the head of XCOM. And often even if you do. Those countries will recommence their petty squabbling soon enough, never fear.
As the Commander of XCOM, your role is relatively simple: Some basic admin stuff, where you research new technologies, manufacture new weapons, armour, or the occasional other piece of equipment, and the meat of the game: commanding your troops. All... four of them. Wait... you can upgrade it to six eventually? Well that makes it fine then!
And this is where the dumbing down really becomes noticeable. In the previous games it was by no means unknown to have 3 times that number. Now, I freely admit that sometimes this just seemed more than you needed (although the original two 'X-Com's were unforgiving to your soldiers, and you could certainly work through them), and could lead to lengthy, complicated turns, but 6 maximum? It just feels so... small.
What they've done, essentially, throughout the game, is to massively (and artificially) restrict your choices, so that you really feel the pain if you make a poor decision. And that's fine in a sense - it can lead to a good game-play experience. The only problem is that XCOM's setting is meant to be huge scale. You are meant to be the world's only hope, which the world is pouring its monetary resources into, and yet you can only muster up a maximum of six soldiers at a time. And - of course - for those of us who played the original games, it's rather a let down.
And this leads rather nicely into my first example of the dumbing down, which happens in the Geoscape. Periodically (well, regularly) throughout the game, Alien Abductions take place. Three at a time. And you can only pick one - leading to the countries (and continents) you don't help getting mad at you and withdrawing from the XCOM project. Like I said, artificially restricting your choices.
This really pisses me off. Are you seriously telling me that I can't send more than one squad of soldiers to a site at once? Why? Because I only have one transport ship? Well that's no problem, let me buy another! Just this one change to allow more freedom would allow so much more depth to the game. You could create separate squads, or spread out your senior soldiers so as to maximise your chances. Units being injured in missions suddenly takes on a new importance - do you dare risk a squad of rookies suffering a humiliating defeat, and perhaps jeopardising that country's support even further, or do you grit your teeth and take a lesser punishment by informing the country's military they'll have to take care of it? If you have a lot of countries questioning their commitment to the cause, do you rush unready soldiers into combat because the risk of losing them is too great?
So much would be added to the game by this one simple change. Sure, they'd have had to change their balancing to cover it, but that minor inconvenience would add so much more depth to the management of your soldiers.
I have to admit, the Geoscape part of the game as a whole feels rather small. I'd almost rather you had been placed as a commander of a squad, and not had the Geoscape at all, because - frankly - as an X-Com vet, I find it underwhelming.
So that leaves the Battlescape - the meat of the game, and the place where you sink or swim. You command your four soldiers in a turn based system, but one which has been.... urgh, yup, I've got to say it... dumbed down. Rather than the Time Unit (or Action Point) system common to games of this genre in the past, all you can do is move, shoot, or move and shoot (bizarrely, apart from one 'perk' for one class, you can't shoot and move - I can only assume it was for game balancing purposes).
Now this new system actually works quite well for its purposes. They obviously set out to keep the turns short and heighten tension that way (or, as an unkind person might say, try to attract those people with short attention spans who couldn't deal with a more drawn out system), and it does its job. Whilst your choices are certainly much diminished compared to previous versions (which allowed you to - say - move, shoot, and move again, or take two wild shots as opposed to one precise one, or scout forward carefully, dreading and yet anticipating the moment of first contact), that doesn't stop the whole experience being enjoyable.
And I do enjoy it. The cover system they've implemented works well (although it does lead to inexplicable moments where you or the aliens seem to be able to shoot through walls (again, a balancing thing, me thinks, or else cover would be too powerful)) and the fact that you can't move all your units forward gradually - although frustrating at times - means that you have to think carefully about the order in which you give your commands. And after some consideration, and dubiousness, I think the 'class' system, and perks are a fantastic innovation. And, seeing as I haven't mentioned them yet, I'll describe them here.
When you get your soldiers for the first time, they are all rookies (perhaps a little odd for an elite organisation trying to stop the greatest threat human civilisation has ever known, but it works for game-play reasons, and that trumps everything in my book!), and are utterly useless. Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration, but let's just say they have a lot to learn. As they have a taste of combat (and alien blood), they will specialise in a type of soldiering - Assault, Heavy, Support, or the deadly Sniper class - and as they continue to slap the aliens around they will gain 'perks' specific to each class. To give a perk I find particularly useful for each class:
Assault - can learn a perk which enables them to have a free shot at any enemy which comes in a certain range of them (4 squares).
Heavy - the only class that can wield rockets, they can also gain a perk enabling them to shoot their normal weapon and then move, or take another shot
Support - can learn a perk which allows them to take three uses from a medikit rather than the normal one.
Sniper - can learn Squad Sight. When used properly, and in conjunction with some of the later perks, your sniper will rule the field. This perk allows them to shoot at any enemy out of their vision, but inside an ally's, just so long as there is a line of fire on that enemy.
So yes, overall, I really enjoy the fighting. Seeing a well organised tactic coming up trumps is a great feeling. I still remember one particular mission with fondness where I was utterly out manoeuvered, my soldiers - although all alive - were on death's door and I turned and ran like a craven coward with the aliens in hot pursuit. Only... I stationed an Assault with a shotgun just round the corner from where I had sprinted to. And that Assault had the perk I mentioned above. Abject defeat, had suddenly turned into glorious success. XCOM gives you moments like that. It also gives you moments where you hold your head in your hands, wondering how you could have been so foolish. But that makes the success all the sweeter.
So yes. XCOM rocks. It just leaves me wanting...
... more. More depth, as much as anything.
But it's addictive. I've started my third run through now, on the hardest possible difficulty setting (impossible), and on ironman (can't make saves - the game autosaves) - and I don't do that with bad games. Bad games leave my hard drive as soon as I've finished them. The AI is reasonably competent, although the main two problems with Impossible mode isn't anything to do with how good the AI is, but rather the speed at which countries leave XCOM if you don't go to their particular abduction mission (see the gripe about it above), and the fact that you generally meet the aliens (in large swathes, on Impossible) in combat too quickly to set your team up into decent cover (and can't even retreat to cover because you're at the edge of a map).
The fact that some of the missions have really disadvantageous starting spots means that fighting out of your starting position to cover can be where you really get your losses, and I find it a shame that something like that can have such a big impact. I'm particularly worried because I'm aiming for a no loss ironman campaign, and it would be really annoying to fail at it for something that's not even my fault. Even the ability to see what the starting position is before choosing the make up of your squad would be a boon.
(Speaking of the maps, alas, they are not randomly generated, and thus repeat themselves. It's a pity, and it slightly hampers replayability - especially for the final mission, which doesn't lend itself to being repeated at all. Aside: it'd be great if they released some editing software so that players could create their own maps and distribute them to add variety)
Speaking of just how addictive it is - I haven't even mentioned the multiplayer. Granted, that's because I rarely play any multiplayer game, and so don't really have much to say about it. I've just played the one game at time of writing (and won it :P), but I can at least give the bare bones on it.
And bare bones is probably a good phrase actually. It's quick and dirty. You have a certain amount of points to work with, which allow you to set up your squad (which can be humans, aliens, or a mixture), and when both you and your opponent are happy, your duke it out on (at least in my game) a pretty small map. My match could only have taken 4 or 5 turns at most. (Maybe that's just because of my leet skills. Or 1337. Or whatever... ... ... Nah, I prefer leet. I'm so leet I don't even have to use leet-speak.) Each turn is restricted to just 120 seconds, to ensure that it doesn't drag on (and so people who are losing can't just sandbag until their opponent gets sick of it and quits), and that seemed reasonable enough to me, given that you'll likely have only 3 or 4 units maximum.
And as far as I can tell multiplayer-type gamers seem to like it. But to be honest, I can't give you much help there. From my position of little to no knowledge, it seems to be a good system.
So. Would I recommend it? In short... Yes: like I said before, it just falls short of the lofty heights of the originals - which, when you think about it, is pretty high praise.
If this review hasn't convinced you, check out some of the 'Let's Plays' on YouTube. After the abhorrent abomination that was Firaxis' Civ V, I needed to look at one of those before making up my mind to buy it! I was left glad I did.
(edit) Oh - one piece of advice. If you buy this game... Do the tutorial. Apart from anything else, it gives you free stuff. Just don't play the rest of the game the way they get you to in the tutorial! In this game (especially on higher difficulties), your two main friends are full cover, and 'Overwatch' but the tutorial doesn't do a good job of telling you that! If you watch some of the 'Let's Play's on YouTube, you'll notice that most of the mistakes the players make come from doing things the way the tutorial tells you to.