2K Sees XCOM Remake Akin to Ray Charles Rapping like Kanye West

The new XCOM from 2K Marin and Take Two is one of the divisive video game projects of the coming year, with initial reports suggesting that the game was dropping all strategy elements in order to embrace the first-person shooter genre and with recent reports from E3 2011, including my Hands Off, suggesting that the game retains both tactics and strategic choices close to those of the original.

And now one of the executives working at 2K Games has chosen to compare the remake of the game to a possible Ray Charles switch from his own brand of music to a Kanye West-inspired rap style.

Christoph Hartmann, who is the president of 2K Games, has talked to MCV about his company's future projects and about the new XCOM, saying, “I use the example of music artists. Look at someone old school like Ray Charles. If he would make music today, it would still be Ray Charles but he would do it more in the style of Kanye West.”

He adds that the developers are working hard to make sure that the new game is close to the legacy of the original, saying, “The team behind is asking itself every day: 'Is it true to the values of the franchise? It's not a case of cashing in on the name. We just need to renew it - because times are changing.”

The original X-Com was a very deep tactics game with a number of role-playing elements and players, in addition to being able to defeat the alien threat in the field in turn-based battles, also needed to handle research, production of equipment and recruit new personnel.

The new game is more focused on the action side that is played from a third-person perspective and takes place in real time.

XCOM is set to be launched during early March of 2012 and will arrive on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the PC.