Two levels that show signs of a great coming video game

Sep 26, 2012 08:59 GMT  ·  By

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is my most awaited video game of fall 2012, and the chance to play two missions from the single-player campaign, even if they are more tutorials than true missions, was too good to pass up.

XCOM is created by Firaxis and uses the same core idea of the series from the ‘90’s: an alien civilization is invading Earth and you are the leader of the sole force that can stand up to them, granted resources by all the states of the world and ready to use them to create weapons, recruit operatives and lead them to victory.

The two missions in the demo are fairly limited: the first one pretty much tells the player everything he needs to do in order to succeed, while the second one gives more general advice but still feels very restrictive when it comes to player options.

Still they manage to give a good sense of what the XCOM reboot has to offer: deep tactical action, squad management, base development and a feeling of deep terror generated by the strength of the alien forces.

The first of the demo missions is edifying when it comes to the tone of the game as it shows human four-man fire team as it is ambushed by the aliens, with three members dead in quick succession and just one survivor left to tell the tale.

Firaxis has done a great job when it comes to the user interface for XCOM, allowing the player to move between a top down view for tactical options and an over the shoulder vantage point used in order to select the best abilities for a situation.

The graphics quality for XCOM: Enemy Unknown is pretty good and it’s nice to see and hear the aliens, which evokes everything from Men in Black to The Thing.

Worth a full Softpedia review? Yes.