XCOM Enemy Unknown Review - A Simplistic Take on a Complex Genre

I've been a fan of the turn based tactics genre for a while now, I've spent many hours on the Jagged Alliance games, WH40K Squad Command and Silent Storm But never actually played the original XCOM games so with this new reboot I decided it might be time to finally enter into the franchise.

The recent reboot of Jagged Alliance had me skeptical of another one in the genre and to be honest, the gameplay itself is very disappointing.  All actions on the battlefield are handled very simply, you can move twice, move and do something, or just do something. That's it. You're limited to 2 actions maximum per character per turn. An AP usage system is a standard convention in this genre and with good reason, it gives the player more strategic choices to make, which really should be the case in a game that's supposed to be about making tactical decisions.

Another feature that serves to limit your tactical options is the shoehorned class system. Troops Fit into 4 different class archetypes, Assault, Sniper, Support and Heavy, these are completely randomly assigned and you have zero control over them also these classes cannot use weapons that are specialized for one class, for example only the heavy is able to use rockets, so even if i really wanted to give my sniper a rocket launcher I couldn't, but don't worry, it's not like this game has an inventory system anyway and everyone has infinite ammo. However they do have a leveling tree which grants them different perks on leveling up, generally either offensive or defensive which can mean an ability or just a passive trait for the soldier, this system does help with specialization of soldiers and potential tactics but there is only three stats to level up for the soldiers, which is ridiculous considering how many other games in this genre have for you to play with.

What really, really bothers me about this game though is the cover system. There are two types of cover, half cover (chest high) and full cover (full height) with their respective defensive values, doesn't seem so bad right? Well, instead of stopping projectiles all cover does is decrease the hit percentage of the enemy, provided of course that the enemy is on the other side of the cover to you. From what I've seen even if the environment is in the way shots can still go straight through concrete and hit you if you just happen to be facing a different direction, presumably this system is used so that they don't have to do any projectile ballistics calculations, but it comes off as being lazy. This kind of percentage hit system means that it's also impossible to free aim, attempt to get a kill where you suspect an enemy is, or spray into a crowd and hope to hit someone you weren't even aiming at. Once more this all very much detracts from the tactical options given to you by the game, options which in my opinion are very important to a game like this for replay value, and general longevity.

All these reductions do not mean that the game is completely casualized though, the difficulty at times can be very punishing, there is a fair amount of resource management, the research system is well implemented and the base building elements add a very slight amount of depth. In fact sometimes these reductions can reduce some of the tedium that's quite common in turn based strategy games however I still think it detracts from the overall experience.

The story is fairly simple, aliens have invaded earth and its up to you, the leader of XCOM, to repel the extra terrestrial invaders. That's about it really there's a few interesting plot points but nothing too groundbreaking to be perfectly honest. Admittedly it does work well as a driving force for your actions throughout the game.

The graphics of this game are heavily stylised and cartoonish which is a refreshing change from all the grimdark brown and bloom games that appear to have overtaken the mainstream market, it actually works surprisingly well. From a technical standpoint the game is about what you'd expect at this point in time, pretty to look at but nothing major.

The enemy designs are a really refreshing change from current trends, there is a really good variety of shapes and sizes for you to kill, ranging from generic little gray men to half cyborg monstrosities and even more (but that would be spoilerific)

Overall XCOM enemy unknown is not a bad game, its just one with a lot of missed potential, I'm still planning on sinking some time into this title but it doesn't offer the same replayability and versatility of other similar games which is really quite dissapointing