Comments on: Unreal (Late) Game Review: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

By: Fut

Fut — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:29:50 +0000

“Unfortunately, fast-forwarding time again caused me to auto-fail the mission, and France left the council as they were overrun. There was literally nothing I could do in order to effectively take on that mission, had I not known it was coming in advance”

The best thing to do in this situation is to send a team, even a small team, to the Terror Site. Even if you land and retreat you’ll get a slightly better score than if you just leave the Alien Invasion alone.

By: charly

charly — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 19:09:45 +0000

Wow i just read pu**ys, play in the ironman mode, or go and play farmville!

By: Sed

Sed — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 09:32:28 +0000

There’s an Ironman mode available where there’s only one autosave. Soldiers that die stay dead, you can’t reload to make a “do-over”. It’s not for everyone but it makes XCOM that much more intense, and eliminates the Fire Emblem problem of reloading when something goes wrong.

By: Roberto

Roberto — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 15:00:39 +0000

I wish I could tell you something more mature than “the game’s good, you are playing it wrong”. I loved it, and my non gamer brother also played it to completion multiple times and got pretty addicted. That does not happen if the game is bad.
You are supposed to embrace permadeath once you are capable playing the game halfway decently. It makes it feel different.
You can’t say the game does not feel strategic. If you take a 90% shot, you are always taking a 10% risk and you should have an answer for that, thats the point. If you don’t have the manpower to take a mission, then you messed up because you planned poorly priorly, when you could have recruited more soldiers. Strategy is planning for things before they happen, and it would not be fun if you knew what is going to happen. The game is supposed to feel like a war against a superior enemy while shit goes wrong (Once I lost a mission because the aliens killed my support guy in front of the sniper, he went into a panic attack and shot the vip they were escorting, and you get pissed because a guy missed a shot… ). You never get to win it if you don’t earn it. Lower the difficulty and try again untill you find your groove.
Also, this game is a reboot, if you play a reboot and you don’t know what to expect of the game, you are at fault.

By: 53

53 — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 08:58:36 +0000

Hello Paul,

I totally agree with everything you said. This game is unforgiving, and many members of my team died. I reloaded my saves. To no avail, countries quit XCOM, and Earth was overtaken by aliens.

So I started a new game. Learning from my past mistakes I chose a new path… and failed… hard. Again a new game, and again fail.

After sinking 40 hours into it during my 5th attempt, I beat the game on normal. This game really is a learning by dieing experience. It’s not for everybody, but I highly suggest revisiting it some time down the road.

The story is sparse, XCOM is all about trial and error.

By: Panta Claus

Panta Claus — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:23:10 +0000

I liked the game and didn’t use saves to get my guys back. I guess I felt like it made me invest in the characters more, because when you lost a good one, it really hurt. I had to restart the campaign several times as I learned lessons on resource management and to be less aggressive in the missions. I guess I saw the hit percentages and sudden entrances of enemies as a way to simulate the fog of battle and “unknown unknowns” of actual special forces type missions.

By: Mutant Turd

Mutant Turd — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 05:00:51 +0000

The key to this game I found was save and save often. After every two moves in a mission I would save just in case one of my guys died (at the point I’m at most of my soldiers are at least half way to Generals). I also had an issue with balancing my budget in game as well. I wish they had thrown in a tutorial part for the base setup like they did with the combat missions though. The learning curve was way too steep there. But once I got the hang of it I have a hard time putting the game down. Now I won’t blame anyone for not liking the game. Hey, it’s not your cup of tea. That’s cool with me. But in reviews, putting down the game because it’s not your thing, or was not what someone told you it was, is a bit harsh. Just say if what the game tried to accomplish was done well or poorly and leave it at that.

By: Paul Tassi

Paul Tassi — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 04:56:17 +0000

Yeah this is a critique I can respect, though I don’t think it’s bad to have someone who is NOT a fan of a genre play that game and share their thoughts. I don’t think it’s necessary to only play games I think I’m going to like or are comfortable with. What’s the point of that?

By: Cartle

Cartle — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 04:35:40 +0000

What’s silly is…you kinda say that you aren’t a fan of these types of games. Therefore, it seems odd that you bothered writing a review for it. From the sounds of it, you did a lot of things wrong and expected it to go swimmingly well on your first playthrough. That’s not how these games work at all. Most of the time, you go through it horribly and learn from your mistakes, then start again with a better understanding of how the game plays. Hence the “skip the tutorial” option. Also, the game randomizes the encounters/maps/alien placements, so the game isn’t going to be the same twice. It’s not meant to be largely story based at all, which is good considering replayability is a huge factor for these types of games.

The issue, though, is that you don’t really write reviews like many major websites. Your reviews are usually very specific to your likes and dislikes, whereas many major reviews will evaluate the mechanics in relation to how games in that genre are supposed to work. In that respect, XCOM is a brilliant addition to the series. People need to remember to expect highly opinionated reviews when reading reviews on this site, that’s all.

By: Sectux

Sectux — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 23:27:05 +0000

Well, I agree with you Paul. It is not an easy game, but like the entire series it takes some getting used to. I would never expect to complete this on my first play through, but that I feel is where I get the enjoyment from it.

To get the most out of this game you need to be already aware of the game and how it works. More like a lot of information heavy strategy games like Civ and Anno 2070, just jumping in will put you off. But give it time, come back to it later and your effort gets rewarded.

I do see what you mean about the tough battle near the end of your playthrough, and I agree this is the point to stop. It is good to hear from someone who is not the avid fanatic of the whole series and instead gives an honest opinion like anyone else who may have picked up the game because it looked good or a friend recomended it.

But come back, once you have had a chance to digest all that happened. Start afresh, and love this game for its difficulty, and challenge, that this can give you.