XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a game I have been waiting to play since it was first announced that Firaxis would be handling its creation. Now that I have my hands on it, I have decided to make the experience more special by ditching the Normal difficulty in favor of the Classic one as well as choosing to add the Ironman option.
The Classic difficulty setting is designed for those who have experience with both turn-based tactical combat and the XCOM concept, and I have both.
I played the original game in the series and, since then, I also appreciated the old Jagged Alliance titles, even if their tone and setting were very different.
I also have a long history with other games like Alpha Centauri and Civilization, both created by men, Brian Reynolds and Sid Meier, who have long associations with Firaxis.
The addition of Ironman means that I can only save the game in one slot, when exiting, which will mean that any decisions and, more importantly, any mistakes I make are final and I have to live with their consequences.
I started the game pretty confident that it would be hard but not impossible to play XCOM: Enemy Unknown with these settings, but I was soon put back in my place.
I lost three operatives from a squad of four in my third missions and it all went downhill from there.
I have since started XCOM: Enemy Unknown using Classic and Ironman more than 10 times and each of the attempts has been a failure, sooner or later, with too many countries pulling funding or the loss of too many good soldiers.
The big problem is that I am not patient enough to play on Classic and I periodically make a very ambitious move that the aliens use to cause irreplaceable loses.
I am not good enough for Classic and Ironman so I plan to demote myself to Normal.
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