Back to the present: The current "X-COM" is one of those games whose fair assessment is not easy. Say it deserves "only" high 80s or 90s but a classification? On one side is fundamentally ever commendable that a large and competent developers understand us shows starving round strategists and instead of the umpteenth "Battlefield" -, "Call of Duty" - or "GTA" -Klons outing in a ( allegedly) unpopular genre dares. On the other hand we are looking for all the classic criticisms in the 2012 "X-COM" eh vain that could discourage "normal" players of this type product. An encumbered, confusing interface with umpteen buttons one can be understood only with the manual on his lap and learn? None. Complicated gameplay including action points / Time-Units? unavailable. And even the popular killer argument can not be here after the strategy games on the subject of "presentation" a decade after the state of the art back limp. "X-COM" looks thanks to Unreal technology from really good, music and staging are practically on feature film Nivau.
At first glance, so everything in butter. The game - so much is anticipated - will receive from me a strong buy recommendation. Now, however, comes the inevitable "but":
The jubilation ratings of some testers around / about 90 percent I think is exaggerated. And here also follow already my arguments why "Enemy Unknown" is indeed a very good but just not a great game:
1. Length:
I just played through the campaign in the second highest difficulty ("Classic", IIRC). And though I have charged dozens of times to resurrect my best fighters I have it loud Steam just 40 hours needed. This is simply too short. Here, the game would clearly provide more "stuff" for a long campaign. The mission and enemy types are as numerous as varied and the combination of round battles and base / soldiers management would have easily be enough to keep me much longer in line. The decision to "X-COM" such shape "cinematic", here takes revenge. All special tasks and projects, all the twists in the story, bringing the developer into play, of course, must also be provided with cutscenes and voice - and this wastes time and money in development. For comparison, here is the only significantly older and technically primitive "Jagged Alliance 2" called, which also comes with a solid campaign with tens of events, but the players clearly longer binds to the screen before it is completed successfully set up.
2. To greatly oversimplifies:
Probably the most important point of criticism for lovers of classic turn-based strategy. Yes: Interface detox is nothing objectionable to me and I also understand that you did not want to scare off the casual strategists. But in the case of "X-COM" went the Simplifizierungswut then going too far. The game mechanics, to which I must draw my boys and girls no more than two times (regardless of whether only one field or on their maximum range of motion), gives me just too little room for creative battle steering. Many things that are self-evident in older titles, do not work according to these rules: So I can not cheer about and let my people then change position. Or I can not grope step by step / field by field to a location on the battlefield myself. Again, I must again on "Jagged Alliance 2" refer whose action points system provides significantly more flexibility (especially when the ingenious Fan-Mod is installed 1:13). Here it is about possible to make a soldier advancing step by step. When enemy contact can I still cancel this advance in order not to let my fighters run into the fire. In "X-COM" works only partially. Also not available is the ability to opponents to "interrupt" - at least not as we know it from another round tactical titles. The interrupt function is called here "Overwatch" and must be re-activated in each round so that our soldiers interrupt the train of an opponent's and fire at him as soon as the runs in their line of sight. Really stupid: We have no control over when and to whom to shoot the soldiers with a successful "interrupt". So it may happen that three of our warriors on Overwatch shoot on the same opponent, while ignoring other enemies in its line of sight. It is better if the game would if successful Interrput let us decide who to whom opponents shoot as many would. Just as, for example, in - you guessed already what comes next - "Jagged Alliance 2".
3. Insufficient information:
Overlaps partly with point two, but no matter. For a quite complex game provides X-COM shockingly little information - both on and off the battlefield. It starts with the laughable "manual" to which only a few keystrokes, and the system includes (PDF version of Steam version). Fatal I find, however, the lack of information in the fight. Mini Map, opposing as friendly cone of vision or detailed information about the soldiers are nowhere. The absence of an XP-Display for my stretching I could get over just. That I but can not be displayed, who can see on the battlefield how far and where, is unforgivable in a title like. The positioning of snipers around becomes a trial-and-error game.
4. Technical weaknesses:
Very cool: The 3D landscapes look chic and are fully destructible. Less cool: The camera can not be free, but only rotate in four pre-defined steps. This is probably because the game for objects in the world (cars, trees, rocks, etc.) has only four sides (front, back, left, right). This makes the in-cover-going in some places (UFO inputs) impossible. While standing there, and the walls look even after coverage, but by the technical implementation are our fighters in these places simply around unprotected and outdoors. A very simple solution to these problems would have been the use of hex-based map. Why this strategy is not standard is used here, is beyond me. In addition, switching between different height levels degenerates partially made in extreme Fummelarbeit. Bringing a squad of six men in a large UFO with multiple levels on position, is often the pesky Herumgefriemel with the mouse. In addition, it should be mentioned that the game quite often crashed with me / hung up. Sometimes it also happened that the HUD / user interface adopted and wanted to play again after loading a savegame.
5. disappointing end.
In order to avoid spoilers, I will not discuss this point of criticism here on. But much can be said: After all the cutscenes email with important and dramatic-sounding speeches of my X-COM management and scientific staff, but I would have expected a lot more for the last mission. Both in terms of fun as well to the story-technical aspects. What can I expect at the end of "X-COM" is relatively unimaginative, anticlimactic and the otherwise quite thrilling and mysterious story not worthy. but who knows? Perhaps the developers have already the continuation of the story by expansion pack or "Terror from the Deep" remake in the drawer?
After so much criticism, I should reiterate my (almost) unlimited buying recommendation on "X-COM" again. Yes, the game has some flaws. Especially if you count yourself to the group of hardcore strategists, you are likely some of my points Grump slightly sour belching. Overall, however, the part is really fun and deserves great praise. Firaxis is known for classic game concepts skillfully to modernize and to wrap in fancy new clothes. And "X-COM" is no exception - probably because it has maintained despite Rejuvenating the familiar turn-based gameplay in the core loyalty. No: was on real time here, thank God, nothing turned inside out - unlike the renovated version of my beloved "Jagged Alliance 2" (Back in Action), which many strategic / Tatktik fans (myself included), therefore, for the devil's work , :)
SG
Overall score: 86/100
