E3 2011 Live Hands Off: XCOM

When 2K Marin and publisher Take Two announced their intention to create a video game called XCOM and showed their initial ideas the gaming community was highly critical, saying that the game should not use the venerable name and that the third-person shooter space was not suited for it.

But the presentation for XCOM that the publisher and developer offered at E3 goes a long way towards dispelling the initial hostility I also had towards the project and shows what could be an interesting mix of third-person action and high-level tactical and strategic choices.

The presentation begins inside the base of the XCOM initiative in the ‘60’s and the team talks about how different characters there will help gamers control everything from research to manufacturing and, most important, the recruitment of agents and their development, which includes special abilities, classes (5 at the moment) and talents that can be used in the field, which are still being tweaked.

The base looks nice and lively and the interactions could be complex enough to come close to what the original X-COM offered in this area, although the 2K Marin team doesn’t aim for that specifically.

The developers say that they want to make choices in the base important enough to change how the action during the field missions happens, opening up replayability options for the new XCOM.

The campaign is non linear and the player is free to tailor his team and his research in order to personalize his progress.

One disappointment is that a player can only take two other agents with him in a mission, which reduces his choices a little, but that’s compensated by the ability to actually use alien tech as extra party members, with the demo showing how an enemy Titan (the round beam firing thing) can change the course of a battle once deployed.

During missions gamers can access a radial menu to plan moves and launch special abilities, but the combat still seems a bit too simple, although that could change later in the game.