Solid round strategy with minor flaws

I have the previous parts of the "UFO" series not played so I can not allow my "comparison" if the old UFO mood was captured correctly or not - what I read in another review but seems to be the case. I certainly was very excited when I heard that at last should sometimes appear a decent turn-based strategy game for the console, because turn-based strategy is indeed in this day and age an issue to which (unfortunately) not "dare address," many games developers - but that it nonetheless "works" XCOM has well proved in my opinion!

Action
The basic plot of the game is relatively quickly told (without spoilers):
Aliens invaded Earth, terrorizing cities and kidnap people. That we allow ourselves naturally did not like readily and therefore establish a special project called XCOM whose job it is, the hostile aliens in their place and to defeat the end in order to save our home planet. - So far so good.
As a (nameless) chief of this organization, we have several tasks: we must take care of the expansion of our XCOM base, scientists and engineers have to deal with, satellite shoot into orbit around our monitoring network set up and expand, build interceptor, arm and on the deploy different continents and of course hire soldiers train, equip and send in the application.
Our scientists are then responsible captured alien technology to explore the effectiveness of our weapons to improve and even copy entire Alien weapons at the end. Engineers help, captured alien technology and researched technologies quasi into action so that we can use this in the field.
With all these possibilities we get so little by the technological gap to the Aliens and urge them in the course of the story further and further behind until we eventually against the "mother ship" and the obligatory Obermotz must start.

Gameplay
In XCOM, there are basically 2 "command levels", a planning level and a (tactical) level fight. It is located between the inserts always in their own XCOM base and here you have to do all sorts of organizational. You get every month a certain budget of the XCOM Member States allocated. This should, of course, possible intelligent investing in basic equipment, training of soldiers, exploring new technologies, expansion of the satellite-monitoring network, interceptors against UFOs and of course, the actual development of XCOM. Here some strategy is definitely necessary because it goes without saying that not everything is to do the same. To ignore some areas of investment brings an in any case no longer, you will then get sometime serious problems due to the deficits in the corresponding area.
In addition to all this planning and strategy, there is then the battle level. Here commanded to a maximum of 6 soldiers directly in use against the aliens.
The soldiers there are different "classes" - sniper, assault, support and heavy. Each class has logically doing their own advantages and disadvantages.

Graphics and Sound
The graph of XCOM I would "average" call. She looks generally not bad and the Unreal Engine 3 does a good job in my opinion.
However, the graph is generally quite "farbarm" and there are also more or less only a handful of "Background Settings" - either to fight in the city (houses, roads, etc.) or in the forest (trees, streams, etc.) or in some desert-like environment (shrubs, stones etc.). The whole thing then each either by day or night.
Effects such as rain but see, however really very nice, and the lighting effects are very nice and contemporary. The characters are drawn neatly and also the enemy aliens (of which there are dozens of different metatypes) fit very well into the overall picture.
The sound is also up to date and very detailed. If you shoot next and instead eg hits a wall you can hear exactly how the basement wall "crumbles". The ambient noise outside and inside the crashed spaceships can convince.
What bothered me a bit was the really bad speech or German translation. On the one hand there is only a very limited number of "commands" or expressions that are used by the soldiers, on the other hand they have been partially translated so amateurish that they give hardly any meaning. As a soldier shouts: "Negative, damage!" he shoots next. Another noted "Back Off!" WHILE storm just 3 Aliens forward and my boys shake up properly .. A classic is also the constant "I think we are not alone" when a soldier hears a noise out of sight (of course they are not alone, why they were damn well ?? sent to the (offensive) use).
So all in all, the voice acting is rather poor. Fortunately, it is only minimally intrusive, so it does not significantly interfere with and in my opinion, leads to no impairment.

Control and operation
The control and operation is implemented absolutely exemplary for the XBOX. You can tell that every aspect has been designed directly on a game pad operation - much to the chagrin of PC gaming community. I had thought in advance whether I should buy myself the game than PC or Xbox version, but then read that the mouse + keyboard control is to be awful and it is recommended also to play anywhere on the PC with the gamepad.
Well, such a thing to me was already in "Skyrim" and this error happens I did not want to do it again here. So I decided to XBOX version and that was just right!
The menus and the XCOM base one moves directly over the shoulder buttons and up / down logically on the sticks, confirm with "A", etc. as we know it halt.
In the fighting the control of its own soldiers to work equally well. The shoulder buttons you can switch between the individual soldier and forth. Per keypress you just go into quasi Action menu of the selected soldiers, Here you can now select the desired of the available actions, or with a simple cursor on the field the soldiers specify a point to which it is to move towards. If an action is selected (move, shoot, grenade throwing, etc.) so the soldier performs this following directly.
The navigation on the pitch working properly and also the control of the soldiers is super implemented in my opinion.
Here comes naturally a great advantage of the turn-based strategy for the course: It has no time pressure! So you can "in peace" choose an action, watch hit probabilities and combine this action with possible actions of other soldiers.
Each soldier has a lap just 2 actions. First move of a point (within a certain radius) and then use shooting / reloading, Medikit or take cover. Or you can move the soldiers for both action Punke, then of course the range of motion is twice as large, but it can then do anything for the rest of the round the soldier. The "normal" soldiers (all except the "heavy") per round can always shoot only 1x. Leaving the soldiers so the first action shooting as the round for him right past. This is now just one example of many, because certain special abilities come with the levels increase a soldier's still learning that flow well with.
In principle, therefore, a relatively simple concept - but it nevertheless arise from this, not least because of the different special abilities, a lot of tactical options and you have already a lot not to send care about its soldiers directly to their deaths.
I know it yet from previous turn-based strategy titles like Jagged Alliance (but also in the older UFO parts it was probably so) because you always had a certain number of action points, and every action "costs" a certain number of points. Goods used up the points could not act the soldier in the round. That was all much more demanding, however, from the tactical side is one such "tweaking" nowadays simply no longer in demand.
Some may complain that the operation has now become easy, but I am of the opinion that the balance between tactical depth and benutzerfreundlickeit hit very well was!

Criticisms
At this point I would like to briefly address the points that bothered me and that led ultimately also to deduction of points.

Game extent
Criticism I did not at the game but actually more general scope on pointless give potential. The inserts make a great fun, as is removing the base, the formation and high levels of the soldiers and the ever closer monitoring network along with interceptors which to set up. There are also many areas of research, new weapons developments and and and ...
The problem with the whole thing: The game exits virtually self in the perceived "middle" of the plot. So you are just about to come to terms with its finances, is about to equip the soldiers tidy and has just begun to seriously worry about the base building and suddenly poof ... last mission ... and after that the game is also right past!
As one would so much to make out of it! For example, I saved the game before the last mission and had then taken up after a successful quit the game this store stand back and just keep playing, continue to build my base and continue to defend the earth ... and it is still fun! Even after dozens of hours "behind" the very end!
The base must not be completely removed also, there is neither the necessary nor is there ever the required number of buildings - the third basement is actually completely unnecessary!
Here abundant potential was given away and that really annoys me with such a great game!

Weak end
WARNING SPOILER !!
The end is then also an absolute joke! I mean, since you're fighting for 20-30 hours against the aliens and must in the end only a (ridiculous) zap "Obermotz"? Den had my sniper eg done completely alone within 2 rounds moment during his comrades the rest of the opponents 'employed' have ... Then comes a completely illogical cutscene because of "Oh no, that alien spacecraft is equal to a black hole which then will destroy the earth .. "- complete nonsense! (Brief digression in physics: For the spacecraft would have to have quite a few solar masses one solar mass corresponds to about 330,000 Earth masses and for the emergence of a black hole with a "noticeable Schwarzschild radius of a few kilometers you need loose 5-10 solar masses ... So much to do so. ..) - The mass ratios are here but certainly not before, because the spaceship "only" as large as a "normal" spaceship from known science fiction films such as District 9 or Indipendence Day.
Well anyway, sacrifices himself then just one of my soldiers and "directs" the spaceship somehow into another dimension or whatever .. - Peng, the Earth is saved .. the rest of my team flies back unmolested to the base ... and the wars .. from .. end .. no final sequence or something more .. only one side (meaning free) statistics were given for how many shots were fired or how many UFOs and that's it .. not even a warm handshake there in the end!
Hello There !? We've got just saved the earth !! There is indeed in a series "Millionaire" busier if a candidate breaks the 500, -Euro question!
Of the soldiers who hear have heroically fought the aliens and sees nothing more and I as a player, also known as the boss of the whole thing, go too easily into the realm of oblivion a.
SPOILER END

That was definitely by far one of the worst and lieblosesten computer game ends I had to experience as a player so in my (long) "career". I have here really expected a lot more. Especially for the reason that it is the so-called "Memorial" are in the game, a blackboard on which one can read the names of all fallen soldiers in action, with the date, use and so on. So it was always placed in the normal course of play value that the soldiers a grown fond and one loss actually perceives - the more is the end of the game to the effect so a slap in the face!
Tactical behavior of AI
The AI ​​is not bad in XCOM. They tried to flank a limited extent and occurs sometimes also a tactical retreat to when it is inferior. Different enemy types also have all their own behavioral patterns.
What bothers me a bit, down to the lower levels of difficulty the enemy at all times "triggered" in the field - which means they always occur only in action when they were spotted by my soldiers. So it is sort of a normal situation that I, for example, in front of a building 3 enemies in sight in the lack suppose moment during 4 more opponents behind the house "wait" to help without their colleagues. Only when I have done the first 3 opponents and was advancing farther, I get the other opponents in sight and only then they begin to act accordingly. The same applies, for example, also within buildings from room to room. So you shoot the enemies in space A "cozy" together WHILE While more enemies in the next room B wait this but not come to the rescue but wait until my soldiers storm the room B.

Difficulty
The tactical behavior of the AI ​​will change to a higher level of difficulty. Eventually the enemy then begin also to act out of sight of the soldiers. Then it can be quite tricky because there quickly emerged before then quickly a group opponents in the flank etc.
What is, however, annoying that the difficulty in the end can only be achieved by the fact that my soldiers generally poor and the opponents make better. The behavior of the AI ​​changes in principle not (apart from the matter of the acting out of sight). Opponents are therefore unfortunately neither intelligent nor tactically mature but hit just better ... as it does in my opinion not very attractive to tackle the game again in a higher degree of difficulty.

Bugs
The game presents itself broadly already quite mature and bug-free. It comes every now and then drop outs at the AI, it was time for example a round is finished although my soldier actually an action could have been allowed to run but otherwise I can not see much.
However, I had a bet who had brought me to the brink of despair. Here the game is really after each round, or even in the middle, completely crashed. Sometimes even the XBOX equal with this so I / A could restart only on power switch. This application has brought me almost to throw the game in the corner. It has lasted a whole evening (and about 10 XBOX resets and reboots 20 game) to finish this one mission. That's like saying, but only once so far occurred.

Conclusion
Basically, XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a really rewarding and great game. The operation (in the console version) is implemented exemplary and goes well out of hand. The graphics and sound are neat. The addiction factor is high, there really is always something "to do" and you constantly say to yourself: "but even this one mission, then it's over .." and actually it is only middle of the night back away from it :-) XCOM shows that turn-based strategy on consoles is easy to implement and is also fun.
I played about 25 hours to get one complete "by" - but then continued to play until now determined again 10 hours ...
The depth of gameplay is really enormous and up to the criticisms of the screwed-up action and the completely screwed-up finale, there are no significant deficiencies.
I can put all the game "Old-Shool strategists" of that time warmly. Even beginners of turn-based strategy should definitely risk a look and try for example the available demo. The game has a very good tutorial that introduces a progressive in all aspects - well done!
However, I prefer the basis of the aforementioned criticisms of the actually earned 5 stars from a - it was simply given away too much potential and the end is now times the question.