Xcom Enemy Unknown Game Review

Earth is being invaded by an advanced alien race, you are the Commander, in charge of humanities first and last line of defense. Against overwhelming odds, will you defeat the aliens against all the odds... or will you become another statistic in their number of defeated adversaries?! It's your choice and the world is counting on you!

Plot: You very much make your own plots from the gameplay itself. Seriously, more games should do this!

Gameplay: There are two parts to Xcom's gameplay. First we have management, where you decide how to build your base. You can also task your scientists to research new technology, perform interrogations on captured aliens and do autopsies. Your engineers will build new gear like new weapons and armor, certain number of engineers are required to build certain items and certain areas of your base. You are able to excavate areas to expand your base, which is great, it just increases cost by how deeper you go and what your building. The ant farm look is cool and it makes looking at your facilities great, it gives you a universal look at your base, which gives it a unique look. The other part is the strategic combat with the squads you'll be using. As you progress, you can give your soldiers better armor(like the terminator looking titan armor), better weapons(alien plasma weapons, that you can't even pick up when you capture them) and even drones. As your guys progress, you form a connection with your guys as they fight on(I had a guy who went on 15 missions and got 25 kills, what an amazing soldier!) and you'll hate losing them as they get killed left and right. The destructible terrain is amazing, giving the battlefields realism when they get wrecked up. Their is multilayer, that I can't play(cause I can't link my consoles to the internet, lol), where you can play as the aliens(I really want to play this, to play as them!). It would have been great to have an alien campaign to see the war from the aliens point of view. Another part to both gameplay and story, is that when it comes to the Xcom prodject, there are sixteen countries and if you lose half of them... YOU LOSE! The limited resources really give you an idea what is at stake and even if you lose one squad on squad fight, it throws the world into chaos, which is also cool and when it comes to missions, two or three appear and you can only pick one, which adds more to your very critical choices. But the gameplay has some problems, for example your guys will act stupid and keep running to the same position after he has spotted an enemy, a mechanic that could have been used would be a 'bail' mechanic where you can quickly change the direction of where your soldier is running to, another thing would be you cant pick up the alien weapons, even when you stun them in the field, but at least when you capture the aliens, it unlocks research prodjects to get the weapons. Another mechanic that could have been used would be something for maybe a base defense mechanic(you know like in the movies where the aliens attack the human bases directly) that would have been a great idea. The interceptors could have used piloting mechanics like a jet combat game.

Graphics: The graphics are amazingly well done, it has a unique retro look with artistic style. Giving the game sort of a comic look, which is impressive.

Sound: The sound is great, from the aliens mysterious growls and shrieks to the weapons and voices. Giving the game a great scary and haunting feeling.

Verdict: It's been a while since I've seen and played a great strategy game. How come no one else makes strategy games anymore?! But anyways this high stakes game is done amazingly well and earns attention from every gamer in my opinion, but I strongly recommend that you play some other strategy games to warm up before playing this and starting out on easy(It gets very hard, even on easy) or that your a veteran of this game genre.

Rating: 9 out of 10 with the MagnumForce! approval.

Positive(s): Unique look, amazing sound, high stakes and story making gameplay as well as destructible environments.

Negative(s): Some odd choices when it comes to combat, cant pick up alien weapons in the field and no alien campaign.