XCOM: Enemy Unknown Message Board older than one year ago

Aha! If you’ve been fretting about whether XCOM Enemy Unknown is the second coming or an act of outrageous vandalism, now you can – partially – find out for yourself. A two-mission plus base-browsing demo has just arrived on Steam, which sounds like it’s primarily tutorially but should give you a flavour of Firaxis’ 21st-century reimagining of the classic 90s TBS. Get it from the link on the right of this page.(more…)

For some reason, I’m away whenever the chance to play Firaxis’ XCOM remake arises. Last week, any inexplicable wailing noises heard in the region of Marseille can now be ascribed to my grief upon discovering an email containing XCOM: Enemy Unknown preview code then realising my PC was in another country. So it was left to the able hands and brain of Adam, then later Jim also, to tell you all about this turn-based reiminaging. I might be a Johnny Come Lately here, but I am undeterred, having spent sunrise til sunset playing the code yesterday, and now wish to share with you those aspects of XCOM that have most delighted me. For they have truly delighted me: this is the tense, tactical time-sink I’d hoped it would be. Quibbles I might have, one of which you can also read below, but I’m so relieved, and so pleased: this is X-COM but not slavishly so, capturing the key beats and the essential tension while also nosing at new terrain.(more…)

We’ve been getting stuck into a preview version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown this week, and that turn-based tactical taste is fresh in our minds. Jim and Adam sat down to have a bit of a chat about it, following on from Mr Smith’s excited hands-on preview. What on earth would they make of it all?(more…)

I’ve been playing a preview version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown for the past few days. I haven’t really been doing anything else, except occasionally falling to sleep in front of my computer and dreaming about XCOM. I apologise in advance for the length and possible incoherence of what follows. I’m giddy, maybe I’m rambling, but I’m as excited about a game as I have been in a long time. No coy introduction here; XCOM is marvellous and now that I’m not playing it, all I want to do is talk about it, write about it, and jump up and down hollering about it.

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After something in the region of 30,000 words across four interviews, the odyssey that is my series of chats with XCOM: Enemy Unknown lead designer Jake Solomon finally comes to an end. While my battered transcribing fingers are inordinately relieved about this, I’m strangely sad otherwise – it’s been fascinating, and no matter how the finished game actually turns out, one thing I have no doubt of is that Solomon is yer bona fide X-COM superfan with only the best of intentions for the remake he’s heading up at Firaxis.

In this last part, we talk about the Guile haircut, how the alien AI works, which obscure aspects of the game he’s most proud of, soldier/armour customisation and bagpipes.

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Following on from Alec’s latest summit with Firaxis, there’s a video narrated by project lead Jake Solomon. It shows off some serious gameplay sequence, and by serious I mean it’s not only detailed, but shows an XCOM team in deep trouble. It really is looking fantastic, too. Watch. Watch.

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Not content with a mere three interviews with the lead designer of Firaxis’ upcoming X-COM remake XCOM: Enemy Unknown, I recently settled down for a fourth lengthy chinwag with the effusive Jake Solomon. In this first of two parts, we talk about the difficulty of describing the essential X-COM/XCOM experience, why people shouldn’t immediately start playing in Iron Man Mode (or perhaps why they should), what’s yet to be revealed about the game, some of the near-catastrophic mistakes made during its creation and how designing boardgames/arguing with Sid Meier might just have saved it.(more…)

I’m about to conduct another interview with Firaxis on the subject of their upcoming X-COM remake, and fortunately I go in armed with the knowledge lent me by watching around an hour of live-streamed footage. You can watch it too, because you are dear to me. It includes two missions of the game (one of which is a Terror Mission) and a wander around the base, narrated enthusiastically by three Firaxicons, and it’s meant that all the various elements I’ve heard about the game, both changed and reverential, finally fell into place. I understand, now, how this thing works. And I think it looks really rather fine – whether or it not it’s entirely X-COMmy, it is definitely a game I want inhabiting my hard drive. Here, take a look for yourself.(more…)

I’m about to say something pretty profound here, so let me clear my vocal passages of any and all disgusting bilious substances that might’ve congealed while I was allowing them to hibernate for occasions like these. Ahem. OK then, here goes: War is kind of not great. Some cultures even go so far as to consider it “a bit of a shame, sometimes.” And from the sound of things, XCOM: Enemy Unknown‘s going to be one of those wars. Millions of people will come away feeling slightly unwell, and some might even have to miss work the next day. It’s going to be gruesome, folks. See the unbridled carnage in a new trailer after the break.

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Alec can’t post these XCOM: Enemy Unknown screenshots. We’ve had to ration him to only thinking about the game in safely designated times, to stop him from exploding with excitement. For safety reasons, I’m bringing you the seven latest images of Firaxis’ take on the classic game. You may stare at them and probably worry that they’re doing it all wrong below.

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A small gray alien finds itself alone in the smoking remains of a forested battlefield. Everyone else – friend and foe alike – has fallen, yet it still stands victorious, a conquerer of worlds. And then, the unthinkable happens: SNAP. A beartrap closes around its exposed footflesh. It yelps in pain, which draws the attention of one remaining human survivor. The two immediately lock eyes, but this is no staring contest. It’s a staring war. But then, the solider lowers his gun and pulls apart the beartrap’s blood-caked jaws. He proceeds to help his one-time enemy up, at which point we cut immediately to a montage of the two skipping merrily through sunflower fields, pushing each other on a swing set, and making silly faces in a photo booth. “Wow,” declares the president one minute and 47 seconds later, after the montage has ushered in an era of peace. “If we’d just gotten to know our enemy, everything would’ve been so much easier.”

I will imagine this sequence every time humans and aliens team up in XCOM: Enemy Unknown‘s multiplayer. Every single time.

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Turn-based strategy rules the day as we play single-player and multiplayer in one of the most eagerly anticipated revivals of all-time.