The team leader stopped and drew a deep breath. His stomach filled with nausea and was tied in knots. His adrenaline was pumping as he approached enemies unknown. What ever landed in this area was definitely hostile. The corpses of slain soldier made that quite evident.
The carnage and horror echoed through the desolate streets of Cologne, Germany and were met by the aroma of decomposing flesh. His team moved into position, each squad member adapt at a unique specialty.
Out of the darkness came the first two extraterrestrials. They were bipedal and had large purple glowing eyes. The aliens are definitely hostile.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is set in the near future and follows a paramilitaries battle against an invading alien force. XCOM soldiers are tasked with defending the Earth against the alien incursion.
Gamers will command the troops in the field with a series of turn-based tactics, including taking cover, firing weapons and other task. In-between missions, the player directs the research and development of new technologies from recovered alien technology and captured prisoners. The more success the player has at this the more financial backing the organization receives.
The game's demo features two levels from the game's single-player campaign and allows gamers to familiarize themselves with the XCOM's control system and tactics. The tutorial missions focusing on combat controls and strategy and are a bit slow paced. I also would have liked to see more variation in the enemies that were shown during the demo. I'm sure the full-game will have more, but the demo doesn't showcase all of the cool aliens that the trailer reveals.
The level designs in the demo are pretty simple and are easy to navigate through, the only issue I had was sometimes when I sent a squad member to the roof of a building he or she would go inside the building instead, even though I adjusted the command for higher ground.
After a few play-throughs of the demo I noticed that the enemies could easily be flanked and defeated by a couple of well-placed headshots. I believe that the demo has an easy difficulty level and I could find no option to change this. Reviews of the full-retail release state that the game is actually quite difficult. So beware purchasing the game based on the difficulty of the demo.
The controls are pretty easy to master and figuring out your next move is pretty simple. You just have to go somewhere safe where you can attack the enemies. I actually enjoyed the demo and give it an 8-out-of-10. It is a really short demo and definitely worth the download if you enjoy turn-based tactics, tactical role-playing, strategy video games. In full disclosure, I'm not usually of fan of this genre, but XCOM: Enemy Unknown was surprisingly entertain. I may have to give the genre another chance.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games. The game was released on Oct. 9 in North America and is scheduled to release on Oct. 12 in Europe and Australia. The game is available for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Watch the trailer below...