Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’m playing an XCOM campaign at Classic difficulty in Iron Man mode, with soldiers named after RPS writers past and present. John Walker and Kieron Gillen are dead – who will be next? We’re off to somewhere near home – Liverpool, on an abduction mission. There’d been a choice of rewards, and between the Sergeant promised for this one and the fact that the UK is in a slightly higher state of panic than the others, Scouseland it is.

Rookie Stone is still wounded, as is wet blanket Rossignol. We can now take five soldiers out on missions, so looks like we need two more recruits. Who’s up for a visit to the meatgrinder?
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You know how I said doing ‘Meet The Squad‘ was probably a futile endeavour? Well, two things happened.

Number one, my PC’s secondary hard drive, where the ‘My Games’ folder is kept, had a wobble, which corrupted my XCOM Iron Man save. Not a huge issue as I was mere moments into the game, but the randomly-generated nature of the soldiers means that John’s now a dude and Kieron’s now a girl. Perhaps that is as it should be. Other than that, it’s the same setup as before.

Number two, half the squad got themselves killed. (Note – ‘got themselves.’ It definitely wasn’t my fault. Nuh-uh.)
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Hah, ‘meet the team’ he says. Most of these guys won’t live long enough to realise they’re in a team. There is every chance they won’t even survive the first mission. Never mind, their sacrifice will not be in vain. It will be stupid, it will be embarrassing and it will be horrible, but it will not be in vain. Fighting for the future of humanity is a brave, terrified group of RPS writers past and present. Who, if any, will survive? I will be playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown on Classic difficulty and in Iron Man mode – so no mistakes can be rectified. Death is forever.

Are you sitting uncomfortably? Then let us begin.
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Oh dear, it turns out it’s a first-person shooter with quick-time events and checkpoints after all. Move along, nothing to see here.

X-COM is back. I’ve waited 15 years for this, and now I can wait no more. Here’s what I think. (Note – this write-up covers singleplayer only. Thoughts on multiplayer will follow at a later date).
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The XCOM demo arrived yesterday, and immediately, violently divided opinion. This game could only ever divide opinion, of course, being as it is a remake of one of the most revered PC games of all time, but in this instance I think it’s dividing opinion for the wrong reasons. For various reasons, mostly due to its very minute amount of content (one entirely scripted mission, one on-rails tour of the base and one more too short, too-easy mission), it gives an impression of the game that isn’t altogether accurate. As a result of this, comments about the demo are a warzone of disappointment. In some ways – both good and bad – the demo does tell a true story. In others, it’s suggesting a much smaller and far more shallow game than the preview code we’ve been engrossed in, and for that reason I think it may have been a bit of a gaffe. Let me explain, in the form of a list.
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For some reason, I’m away whenever the chance to play Firaxis’ XCOM remake arises. Last week, any inexplicable wailing noises anyone might have heard in the region of Marseille can now be ascribed to my grief upon discovering an email containing XCOM: Enemy Unknown preview code then realising my PC was in another country. So it was left to the able hands and brain of Adam, then later Jim also, to tell you all about this turn-based reimagining. I might be a Johnny Come Lately here, but I am undeterred, having spent sunrise til sunset playing the code yesterday, and now wish to share with you those aspects of XCOM that have most delighted me. For they have truly delighted me: this is the tense, tactical time-sink I’d hoped it would be. Quibbles I might have, one of which you can also read below, but I’m so relieved, and so pleased: this is X-COM but not slavishly so, capturing the key beats and the essential tension while also nosing at new terrain.
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