Life and Leisure. Tech and Toys.

I’ve been following the XCOM Enemy Unknown feature on Game Informer since its announcement on January 5th. When a true remake of classic was announced I was just as skeptical as every other hardcore fan. Everyone knows XCOM UFO Defense caught lightning in a bottle way back in 1994, and every attempt at furthering the series was just imploded the franchise. UFO Defense is labeled as the perfect game by many strategy gamers and was easily way ahead of its time. The mix of RPG elements, turn-based tactical gaming and base management was leaps and bounds ahead of anything we’ve ever seen before. Not to mention destructible environments that are programmatically generated and an AI that was brutal on “Easy”.

Now after 10 articles and watching some great interview videos with the staff at Firaxis, I have high hopes for the project. I’m starting to realize it would be a mistake to want Firaxis to create the same game I loved for so long. A re-imagining would be better suited for what they’re trying to accomplish here. Fixaxis has admitted they are streamlining the game for consoles and inviting new players to the game. Things like delegating which pocket your squad member holds their grenade will probably be removed. I’m concerned what this means for the base management though. So far the big differences in the articles seem to be the elimination of time-units and the hint at smaller squads. Firaxis has instead decided to use a “move then attack” system that many other tactical games use, and have added class abilities to squad member types.

The elimination of time-units seems like a big deal to many people right now but I don’t think it’ll have a huge impact on how the game plays out. Whatever people say about time-units being the best part about the original XCOM I still think they were a bit broken in calculating shot types for different weapons. Reducing the number of squad members would limit how large each battle is or increase the difficulty since Firaxis has already said they are keeping perma-death (squad members die and cannot be revived). I did feel like towards the end of the original game you had too many units though.

Overall I’m excited by how the game looks so far, the character design and environments breath new life into the 3D pixel world. I’m impressed by what I’ve read so far but I’m going to try to temper how psyched I am so I’m no too disappointed with the outcome.