XCOM: Enemy Within Review

xcom-enemy-within

I’m not sure how long it’s been since Enemy Unknown came out but I do remember it was one of my favorite games that year. It might have even been among our personal GotY back then. The new expansion just came out and 2K was generous enough to supply us with a review copy. Enemy Within does not disappoint and expands upon an already fantastic game.

Usually when I hear about an expansion pack I assume the content takes place after the original, but that’s not really the case with Enemy Within. It adds a bunch of stuff on top of the already existing game which I suppose makes sense. The original game’s story was already a minor aspect of the game which in the end was more about playing through multiple times, etc. Kind of like playing through a game of civilization where you’re really making your own story. So it does of course retread through the original game’s content but there are a lot of nice additions that make playing and replaying fun again.

I’m going to break down most of the new stuff here.  Read on! (more…)

5 Comments

XCOM: Enemy Unknown Impressions

XCOM Enemy Unknown AssaultXCOM: Enemy Unknown is a turn-based tactical strategy game with sim elements.  That’s really the best way to classify the game because I don’t necessarily agree with using the RPG or Action labels.

The player is given a static base of operations to manage resources and research upgrades.  You can expand the facility with new types of buildings, monitor where alien attacks are happening around the world to know where to focus defending, and manage your teams that you send out.

Gameplay is turn-based tactical as I mentioned before.  There is fog of war keeping you from seeing the map.  Units can move a certain distance, perform an action, or dash to move much further but that ends the characters turn.    Once a rookie unit levels up he gains a ‘class’ like Sniper, Heavy, Support, and Assault.   As each guy ranks up they have a skill tree that allows you to choose one or between two abilities.  For example, when assault ranks up he an dash and shoot in the same turn, and the next time he ranks up you can choose something defensive or offensive.  So there are a lot of ways you can choose to specialize your units depending on the tactics you want to focus on in your gameplay.

Read more after the break. (more…)

17 Comments