Joystiq's resident strategy game fan, Alexander Sliwinski, examines XCOM: Enemy Unknown from the perspective of someone unfamiliar with the series. How will other rookies react? Never played X-COM before? Cool, neither had I. Although the details are still hazy on how the hyphenated installments of the alien defense strategy series passed me by during the '90s, I am a turn-based strategy fan and I love me some sci-fi.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is one of the best and most accessible strategy games to come along in a long time, as evidenced by Joystiq's review. The game is split between the turn-based combat missions you'd see in a Final Fantasy Tactics, streamlined for a larger audience; and managing the resources and growth of XCOM's barracks, laboratories, workshops, satellite installations and more.

I can assure you that starting a game at the "normal" difficulty is imperative your first time through. The "classic" difficulty, even after I've beaten the game on normal and know the abilities of each alien species, is still a challenge. It's not that the aliens are overpowered, it's just that they're out to kill you in the classic mode as much as you're after them to usurp their tech. The normal difficulty setting won't regularly activate the aliens until you find them at your own pace.