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The Bureau - XCOM Declassified review: Mad men are from Mars
Agent William Carter peeks around a backyard wall, surrounded by the buoyant remains of a scattered birthday party. Straight-faced in an evacuated 1960s suburbia, he is the man who shouts against the alien invasion on America's porch. "Draw their fire!" he tells his two colleagues in arms. "Put a mine there!" And finally, with a bold pose and a deep cache of air in his lungs, he screams the scream that won the war: "DEPLOYING BLOB!" The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is a game about shooting aliens, coordinating offense under duress and, in some cases, deploying blobs in a tactical fashion. As a dapper CIA agent and pragmatic not-on-MY-watch type, William Carter rejects the lexicon of XCOM, a secret organization that now finds its Cold War paranoia rerouted to deflect "The Outsiders," slender grey men from outer space. Carter's blob is actually a "silacoid," a mercurial pet formed from magnetically bound lumps of inky material. The scientists back at HQ delight in describing its fascinating properties and how they repurposed it from our would-be conquerers, but to Carter it's just a roving tool meant to distract enemies in battle. (The alternative sound bite on this order is "Blob out!" which sounds like an instruction to lie in bed and inhale a gallon of Ben and Jerry's.) Carter's role in the action itself is to anchor your strategies, and that's what makes The Bureau a more arresting third-person shooter. There's the usual knee-high detritus that serves as cover in firefights, the pop-and-shoot gunplay, the evasive roll – and you've gotta have a melee attack, so Carter gets a huge electric bracelet that looks like it stuck after he punched through a desktop computer.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified launch trailer gives you new orders
Survive. Adapt. Win. And look suitably smart when you do. The Bureau: XCOM Declassified suits up on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC this week; check back soon for our thoughts on 2K Marin's mixture of XCOM strategy, third-person shooting, and 1960s style.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified live-action series ends with an ambush
As this final installment in The Bureau: XCOM Declassified's live-action series shows, humanity hasn't quite learned how to deal with alien invaders. In 1962, we just punch the crap out of them because Space Channel 5 has yet to teach us how to come together through dance.
HungoverX is a Bureau: XCOM Declassified mini-game
When Take-Two recently registered the domain HungoverX.com, we weren't sure what to expect. The publisher pulled the curtains back on the URL today to reveal a mini-game related to The Bureau: XCOM Declassified in which players guide a hungover Bill Carter through a groggy day at the office. The browser-based game is available now at HungoverX.com. The Bureau: XCOM Declassified will launch on August 20 for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.
XCOM publisher points to game's success as proof premium pricing works for iOS games
When 2K Games and Firaxis released their iOS port of the popular console title XCOM: Enemy Unknown, they decided to buck the conventional wisdom that mobile games needed mobile pricing. Rather than a price in line with the $.99 to $5.99 gamers have come to expect in the iOS store, XCOM was released for $19.99. Despite that premium price tag the game hit the Top 10 Grossing Apps charts in its first week of release. Take-Two chairman Strauss Zeinick is pleased with the news and has pointed to it as proof that premium pricing can work in the traditionally cheap mobile market. The success of XCOM: Enemey Unknown for iOS illustrates that consumers are willing to pay a premium price for a premium entertainment experience on any platform. This bodes well for the opportunity to deliver profitably our most immersive new AAA titles to mobile platforms as they evolve. As the computing power of smartphones continues to grow, the reality of bringing games that match the quality of consoles to mobile gamers moves closer than ever. However, with the increased cost of developing these games expect to see premium pricing become the new normal for top tier titles. Still with games like Candy Crush putting players on time out every five lives, with the option to pay to keep playing of course, maybe it will eventually become a pleasure to pay more money up front to be able to play whenever you want to.
XCOM: Enemy Within listed by Korean ratings board
A listing on Korea's Game Rating Board site indicates that a game by the name of XCOM: Enemy Within exists. The classifications board listed the game for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Whether the as-yet-unannounced game is a stand-alone product or extension of last year's XCOM: Enemy Unknown is, well, unknown. We also wonder what said enemy is within.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and Commander YOLO
The latest trailer for The Bureau: XCOM Declassified takes a lighthearted approach to the clandestine organization's permadeath philosophy. See, other secret organizations, like MI6, believe "you only live twice." XCOM is all about the YOLO.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified live-action video is in pursuit
This live-action trailer for The Bureau: XCOM Declassified shows Lost and Lord of the Rings star Dominic Monaghan in pursuit of an enemy while on the phone with a man that needs to shut his fridge door. The game is slated to launch on August 20 for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified trailer vote sees Cole bottle it
You can take the agent out of the shire, but you can't take the shire out of the agent. Ennis Cole (aka Lost and Lord of the Rings star Dominic Monaghan), like any good hobbit, finds himself drawn to the drink in this follow-up video, but only just. If you'll remember, Monday's The Bureau trailer asked viewers to tweet hashtagged voted for Cole to either grab the bottle or the gun Two days later, the bottle proved victorious, but with only 51 percent backing. What does it all mean? We're not really sure, especially since Cole grabs the gun anyway... but at least we get to see him bang a bottle about. This vid teases some sort of follow-up on Friday, July 26, but we're more looking ahead to August 20, when the game proper hits PS3, Xbox 360, and PC
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified trailer lets you tweet an agent's fate
A new live-action trailer for The Bureau: XCOM Declassified partakes in an incongruous mixture of top-secret government information and large-scale social network marketing. Still, it will be interesting to see which way the public goes on the fate of Special Agent Meriadoc Brandybook, or Ennis Cole to give him his XCOM codename. In the aftermath of a classified incident which left him without his wife and child, the vid asks users to tweet hashtagged votes for what Cole should do next. Votes can be registered until Wednesday, July 24, when the video revealing his determined fate will be released. That's all well and good, but the date to remember is August 20; that's when The Bureau opens its doors to Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified should reclassify creepy clown
Nope. No, no, no. Clowns live in sewers and eat children. It also appears from this The Bureau: XCOM Declassified trailer that clowns are scared of aliens. So ... the enemy of our enemy is our friend?
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified Video Preview
Drop in on this footage-filled discussion of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and learn how classy vests and buff-granting backpacks can save the Earth from extraterrestrial peril. If you'd like to venture beyond the brief chat above, have a look at our impressions of The Bureau's on-foot tactical combat, and see how its Cold War setting strives for authenticity within reason. The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is due on August 20 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
The Uncanny History of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
The first shot of the game is historically inaccurate, but not without good reason. "As much as possible, I try to stick to history," says Erik Caponi, the narrative designer. "There's actually a huge pet peeve I had that I finally gave up on. It's the first shot of the game. Sputnik is there. Sputnik should not be there in 1962. Nobody recognizes the Vostok 12 satellite, which is what should be there, so we stuck with Sputnik because it's iconic and recognizable." The Russian satellite becomes a subtle lie in The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, a game by 2K Marin that has endured several revisions throughout its history. It's not a first-person shooter (it's third-person now), warfare isn't waged in polite turns (time slows while you're issuing orders), and it's not about overseeing the modern XCOM organization, which acts as Earth's weaponized umbrella when the aliens rain down. Instead, you're where the real Sputnik would be in the early 1960s: on the ground. Playing as pragmatic CIA agent William Carter, you assist in the Cold War birth of the XCOM defense organization, jolted into premature operation by a manipulative alien race dubbed "The Outsiders." You also learn of Carter's motivations and the fate of his family – the kind of story you couldn't quite make out from the perspective of a commander in XCOM: Enemy Unknown. %Gallery-193969%
BioShock 2 creative director Jordan Thomas leaves Take-Two
Jordan Thomas, creative director at BioShock 2 developer 2K Marin, has left the company. His departure should have no effect on the studio's current project, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, which he moved away from in early 2012, he tells GI.biz. Thomas makes his exit from the company to go indie with an unnamed partner and work on his own projects. He came to the decision after helping Irrational Games finish work on BioShock Infinite. "It cemented for me that while BioShock spoke to me, it'll never be for me what it is for Ken. I've expanded that legacy here and there, but I could never have created it from scratch. I need to build something that is, to me, what BioShock is to Ken. No matter how long it takes, I have to start now." Thomas already has a game in mind, of course: He wants to take some of the ideals found in Thief and BioShock and apply them "with a radically different focus." If it's well-received, Thomas says "we might expand the vision and explore further dimensions of the same theme with more content producers. But we'd love to keep it as lean as possible for now, in the hopes that we're not writing checks our asses can't cash. Indie ambition is its greatest strength and its greatest weakness."
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified: Personal pacifist edition
Here's The Bureau: XCOM Declassified being played without the main player firing a shot. It's all squad tactics and powers through the demonstration, which happens to be one of the longest ones we've seen released publicly. The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is scheduled to hit retail on August 20.
Daily iPad App: XCOM: Enemy Unknown is great, if you've got the hardware
Firaxis recently announced that it was bringing a complete version of last year's console title XCOM: Enemy Unknown to iOS. The game is now available, at a premium price of US$20.00. That's costly for a mobile game, but the truth is that this is no "mobile" game as you might think of one. It's a full-featured experience that brings the old classic XCOM tactical, turn-based gameplay into the latest generation of graphics and gameplay design. The premise of the game is that you (yes, you) are the "commander" of XCOM, an internationally funded military research organization dedicated to fighting an alien threat. The game spans the entire organization: During fights, you direct soldiers in battle, and outside of combat, you direct funding and try to place satellites in the sky to protect the countries of the world as best you can. The game's balance is just brilliant. Research you do in the metagame opens up new combat options in the various skirmishes you'll fight, and winning fights (or capturing aliens) can kick your research into gear, which helps secure more tools and more funding. The game's graphics are excellent, and the grid-based combat experience used in the PC version has been translated to the touchscreen with care by 2K China. The one big issue with XCOM, however, is that because of its scope, it's a monster to run on Apple's touchscreen hardware. The iTunes listing says the game is best experienced on the iPad 4 and up, and they aren't kidding. I had some issues with slowdowns and crashes while running it on my iPad 2. Hopefully, future patches will fix optimization issues and the game will run better, but you shouldn't even think about playing this on anything older than an iPad 2 or an iPhone 4S. All of that said, however, XCOM is as premium an experience as they come on the App Store. This is a game designed for PCs and consoles, and we got it on iOS in a feature-full version, for half the price (the title is still $39.99 on Steam, though I expect that price to drop very soon). If you've got the hardware, this game is a must-play, both because it's so excellent, and just to support this kind of quality iOS release.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown now available for iOS
The long-awaited XCOM: Enemy Unknown has finally arrived on the App Store for a premium price of US$19.99. This is Firaxis' turn-based strategy hit from last year (in my opinion, one of the best games of 2012), translated to the iOS platform in full. The controls have been tweaked just a bit to work with the iOS touchscreen, but otherwise this is the full game, featuring a base that you can upgrade at will, soldiers that you can outfit with bleeding-edge technology and terrific turn-based skirmishes against aliens of all kinds. The graphics, I believe, have been slowed down just a bit, and Firaxis does recommend that you use an iPad 4 to play (and they even say to turn off other apps that might take up cycles in the background). So that could be a pain, especially if you have an older device. Still, this is a modern PC game, and we're getting it here in full form on iOS, so it's hard to complain about that. It's nice that this is a full premium release. You spend one price and get all of the game's content with no IAP or freemium twists at all. XCOM is a great game from a company that is well worth supporting.
The Bureau declassifies DLC plans
Publisher 2K Games announced today that The Bureau: XCOM Declassified will have pre-order and post-launch downloadable content, which is about as shocking of a revelation as knowing Marmite will divide humanity into the two groups of the next great war. "We're excited that our stories will provide a new perspective on the war effort, much like how our critically acclaimed Minvera's Den DLC for BioShock 2 allowed us to present a unique perspective of Rapture," said Morgan Gray, development director at 2K Marin. The game's pre-order bonus is the "Codebreakers" side mission. In it, Special Agent Carter and his squad must reestablish contact a top-secret government communications facility, eliminate any threats and decrypt the employee's combined lunch order. There are no details about the post-launch DLC, but the first pack "will be available exclusively to Xbox 360 players." The Bureau: XCOM Declassified will fight the future on August 20 and 23 in North America and internationally, respectively.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified files 'Battle Focus' trailer
Unearthed from a crate thought lost to Hangar XCOM, this gameplay trailer shows how 2K Marin meshes real-time shooting with strategy in The Bureau. Time can be slowed down while players get tactical via a radial menu, from which they can command Special Agent Will Carter and his trusty squadmates. Also, it shows us that if you're going to see off an extraterrestrial invasion, you may as well do it dressed to the nines - Carter is the definition of dapper in that vid. Independence Day could only have been improved if Jeff Goldblum had boarded that spaceship in a tux. The fashion of alien warfare aside, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified touches down on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC on August 20. %Gallery-191760%
XCOM: Enemy Unknown arrives on iOS on June 20 for $20
The long-awaited iOS version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown is almost here. 2K Games has announced that it will be available on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch Thursday at a premium price of US$19.99. Firaxis' excellent remake of the old PC game arrived on consoles last year to critical acclaim, and now it's coming to iOS with all of the single player features of the main release. Multiplayer mode is coming later on, and will be added in an update a little further down the road. That price might be the most notable thing about this one. Lots of developers are going with freemium on iOS lately, claiming that there's just not a big enough audience willing to pay a higher price to justify anything but giving games away for free. But XCOM is definitely a premium experience, and I think that there are plenty of gamers out there willing to pay $20 for a game worth the quality (XCOM is still selling in stores for $50 or $60 on consoles and PC). Firaxis apparently agrees, so if XCOM turns out to be a hit, we may see more developers and publishers trusting the premium price for their highest quality games. A hit here could also kick off a trend of even more developers bringing out their AAA titles to iOS, possibly even closer to the same day and release date of consoles and PCs. We'll see how this all plays out. If nothing else, we're all set to get another excellent game on iPhone and iPad this coming Thursday.
