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How RPGs colonized some of 2012's best games
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. 2012 may not be remembered as a fantastic year for pure western role-playing games (especially without a Skyrim to sweep the end-of-year awards) but it's been a great year for me as a video game fan. Why? Because many of the "best games of the year" may not be RPGs, but they've adapted some of the best components of RPGs to become stronger games.XCOM: Enemy Unknown, for example, is one of the best-received games of 2012, due in part to its use of RPG mechanics. Tactics games are often associated with RPGs (especially Japanese-style tactics games) but the connection isn't always so concrete with "western" games. For example, I don't really qualify the original X-COM: UFO Defense as an RPG, due to its too-large squads filled with personality-free squaddies, whereas Jagged Alliance 2 certainly fit the mold.XCOM tweaks the initial game's form in ways that align with traditional role-playing games. The squad size is limited to 4-6 characters, traditional RPG numbers, and only having one base means you rarely need large numbers of squaddies – I never had more than 15 at once, and even that was high due to playing on "Classic" difficulty. It also slightly decreases the importance of the strategic decision-making level, putting the focus on the characters in the field.
Meeting Atypical Aliens and Assassins
You're reading Reaction Time, a weekly column that claims to examine recent events, games and trends in the industry, but is really just looking for an excuse to use the word "zeitgeist." It debuts on Fridays in Engadget's digital magazine, Distro. This holiday's unceasing glut of games is a go, with store shelves making room for the onslaught of snarling aliens, sneering assassins, and slow-mo soldiers walking away from large explosions – or sometimes partially melted helicopters. These are the usual, commercially sexy suspects.It's best not to judge a game by its cover, though, and this week's front-facing embellishments are exceptionally deceptive. At a shallow glance, XCOM: Enemy Unknown may seem like another case of meathead military dudes mowing down extraterrestrials. Dishonored, meanwhile, conveys a stylish stab-a-thon with its masked, supernaturally talented anti-hero out for revenge. Look longer and you'll find that both have roots in classic PC gaming, and both sell something console owners might not even know they want.
Play as Sid Meier, Ken Levine in XCOM: Enemy Unknown
An XCOM: Enemy Unknown Easter egg allows players to bring in the heavy hitters when times are bleakest. PC Gamer points out that certain soldier names will activate "XCOM Heroes," who are pre-designed super soldiers.Name alterations for soldier unlocks that have worked so far are Sid Meier, Ken Levine, Joe Kelly and Otto Zander. The one caveat for this phenomenal cosmic super soldier creation power is that once these heroes are summoned the achievements for the game will be turned off.We also concur with PC Gamer's request that you make sure Levine lives, since after saving humanity from aliens we'd appreciate him finishing BioShock: Infinite.
PSN Tuesday: Dishonored, Sherlock Holmes, Retro City Rampage, tons more
Today's PS Store dump includes a barrage of full games as part of Sony's Day 1 Digital promotion and its ongoing indie focus. For full games, we have Dishonored, Birds of Steel, Devil May Cry HD Collection and The Testament of Sherlock Holmes.PSN gets Retro City Rampage, The Walking Dead Episode Four: Around Every Corner, Derrick the Deathfin, Machinarium, Worms Revolution and more. Retro City Rampage is also hitting Vita, alongside Dr. Who: The Eternity Clock, Spy Hunter and Sunflowers.Vita is getting three new PSOne Classics, Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4, Destrega and Saiyuki: Journey West. There's also a free demo for this week's big release (that isn't Dishonored), XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and the Mechromancer DLC for Borderlands 2. Check out the complete lineup here.
XCOM demo out now on Xbox, PS3 later today
Commander, to the living room console. Commander, to the living room console.XCOM: Enemy Unknown's demo is available now on Xbox 360 to Xbox Live gold members. The demo will hit the PlayStation 3 following the regular PSN update later today, and be available tomorrow in Europe. The PC demo is already out there for discovery.XCOM: Enemy Unknown is available today at retail and will deliver close encounters of the awesome kind.
Metareview: XCOM: Enemy Unknown
XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a turn-based strategy game, is getting pretty high marks across the board. We'll let that "turn-based strategy" bit sink in before we continue.... Okay, so, it is a strategy game from Firaxis, the studio behind the accessible Civilization series, which we said in our review "deftly blended management, tactics and the sort of gut-level, throaty encounters usually reserved for fast-paced action games." Edge (90/100): "Charting a course through Earth's imminent destruction is as unashamedly difficult as it was in 1994's X-COM. It's possible, through bad planning and bad management, to doom the planet early on, making the game feel unfair. Get it right, however – survive the stresses of management, and the strains of aliens – and you'll feel like world's greatest hero." Eurogamer (90/100): "So much craft has gone into its atmosphere, into innumerable small details that together add enormous depth and flavour to the world: the occasional conversations overheard while fiddling around in the base; the mission loading screen, which gives you a view of the troops inside the carrier, fidgeting and tapping their feet in transit; the ridiculously cute touch of soldiers acquiring nicknames like 'Longshot' or 'Odin' after a few missions; the memorial room for fallen warriors, with a cork board of photos on the wall, which records their names - and the fact that visiting it triggers, after a few seconds, the sound of a bagpipe march. " Destructoid (90/100): "I was disappointed EU didn't have a great story, at first. But, somewhere along the way, my own story played out through the game's intense missions and grueling decision making back at the base. My story is about an unlikely group of space heroes. After months of waging a seemingly impossible war, my elite squad of XCOM soldiers died." Polygon (85/100): "While tactical, squad-based combat has never felt so effortless and rewarding, the strategy component takes just enough away to make the game as a whole feel like two slightly disjointed halves. One of those halves just so happens to be one of the best and most artfully-designed strategy games in recent memory." IGN (82/100): "Recently Firaxis has been very willing to try new things with its franchises, and it's great to see both the revival of the XCOM franchise and the extension of strategy games on the consoles. You're still likely to want a bit more depth and surprise in the tactical game, but the campaign is full of tense moments that are sure to keep you coming back for more."
XCOM rookies, listen up!
Joystiq's resident strategy game fan, Alexander Sliwinski, examines XCOM: Enemy Unknown from the perspective of someone unfamiliar with the series. How will other rookies react? Never played X-COM before? Cool, neither had I. Although the details are still hazy on how the hyphenated installments of the alien defense strategy series passed me by during the '90s, I am a turn-based strategy fan and I love me some sci-fi.XCOM: Enemy Unknown is one of the best and most accessible strategy games to come along in a long time, as evidenced by Joystiq's review. The game is split between the turn-based combat missions you'd see in a Final Fantasy Tactics, streamlined for a larger audience; and managing the resources and growth of XCOM's barracks, laboratories, workshops, satellite installations and more.I can assure you that starting a game at the "normal" difficulty is imperative your first time through. The "classic" difficulty, even after I've beaten the game on normal and know the abilities of each alien species, is still a challenge. It's not that the aliens are overpowered, it's just that they're out to kill you in the classic mode as much as you're after them to usurp their tech. The normal difficulty setting won't regularly activate the aliens until you find them at your own pace.%Gallery-162799%
XCOM: Enemy Unknown review: Close encounters
My squad touches down in a wooded area, somewhere in the continental United States. The Skyranger's ramp lowers and my soldiers shuffle out. Dead animals litter the ground under the tree cover. I inch my squad members forward, toward the crashed UFO. I'm the one who shot it down, and I expect its occupants are none too happy about it. As my squad slowly creeps forward, wary of ambush, I notice strange pods scattered about the terrain. I have just enough time to wonder what they are before my point man, Cameron "Shield" Robertson, discovers three Muton soldiers – ugly, hulking brutes with equally nasty plasma rifles.The Mutons scramble into cover, positioning themselves to fire. Before they have a chance, my heavy trooper readies a rocket launcher, sending its payload directly into the aliens, scorching their hides and blasting their cover to smithereens. Now fully exposed, the beasts make easy targets for my sniper, Sheng "Xeno" Lin. Thanks to some special training, he quickly settles into "the zone," taking out all three Mutons with three perfect shots in rapid succession.The entire exchange is exhilarating, and I pat myself on the back for a job well done. Little do I know that I have just wasted my only rocket, and that I'll really regret it later on. It's choices like these, and their repercussions, that define XCOM: Enemy Unknown.%Gallery-167636%
XCOM: Enemy Unknown launch trailer to the situation room
Here's the launch trailer for XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which invades retail next week. We will have our review prepped to launch on Monday at 8AM Eastern.
XCOM lead designer goes undercover to sell his game
The crew at Firaxis is pretty passionate about XCOM: Enemy Unknown, few more so than lead designer Jake Solomon, who went to a local shop to pitch the upcoming game to customers. In his own special way, he tries to get customers to give the game a shot come launch day.If you appreciate Solomon hamming it up, be sure to give our Gamescom podcast a listen, where he joins us as a guest with XCOM producer and designer Garth DeAngelis. They eventually get around to talking about XCOM, but it's a fun and bizarre journey before we get to that point. XCOM: Enemy Unknown will begin abducting your time October 9.
Choose your own XCOM adventure
If you're unable to download XCOM: Enemy Unknown's PC demo due to a Sectoid incursion of your higher mental functions, check out this YouTube-based choose your own adventure video. The fork-in-the-road style video lets you choose what will happen to your squad on a routine mission to give planetary outsiders a ticket to XCOM HQ's autopsy slab. Don't worry if rookies die. Rookies always die. If you're looking for a less interactive XCOM viewing experience, you can always check out the hour-long playthrough by the developers. %Gallery-162799%
XCOM: Enemy Unknown demo out today on Steam
XCOM: Enemy Unknown will have a PC demo available today on Steam, with a console version "available soon." The demo covers two levels of the strategy game's single-player tutorial campaign, which also introduces the XCOM base, where all the training, research and alien autopsies happen.We've been impressed with how the game is shaping up so far, both its single-player campaign, seen in the video above, and multiplayer component. XCOM will admit new recruits on October 9.%Gallery-164464%
Video: From X-COM to XCOM
XCOM: Enemy Unknown has come a long way from the original X-COM. And we're not just talking about the absence of a hyphen. Check out the video above to see just how far XCOM has come since 1994. Just make sure you're stocked up on time units first.
Sending rookies to die in XCOM: Enemy Unknown
We've been able to spend quite a few hours with the PC version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, so we decided to put together a quick video walkthrough of one of its missions. Join us as we blast some Sectoids, snipe a few Floaters and just stand there and watch as our poor rookie gets murdered.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown designer Jake Solomon on the importance of PC
X-COM has quite a history on PC. In fact, apart from a pair of PlayStation ports (and for the Amiga and CD32!), the franchise's home is entirely bound to the PC. Developer Firaxis is definitely aware of the franchise's history, lead designer Jake Solomon tells me, and that history was taken into account when developing XCOM: Enemy Unknown, not to mention Firaxis' own history with the platform."When we first talked about reimagining X-COM, it made a lot of sense, because we were Firaxis, and we have a lot of experience with PC-based, turn-based games," he says. The studio always intended to make the game for consoles as well, but unlike an action game or a first-person shooter, Firaxis couldn't simply port the console version over to PC. "You couldn't say, 'Well, let's just do the least amount of work,' because interfacing with the characters, interfacing with the world, is so different."%Gallery-164464%
Sid Meier joins XCOM in new video, first PC screens revealed, digital pre-sales open
Alongside the announcement of Steam pre-sales for XCOM: Enemy Unknown, 2K has released a gameplay walkthrough narrated by lead designer Jake Solomon. Things don't start out looking very good for humanity ... until Sid Meier's psionic powers turn the table, that is.In addition to the new video, we also have the first screens of Enemy Unknown's PC version. Apart from the obvious point-and-click differences, the PC version also features a traditional grid system, which should be familiar to fans of the series.Finally, 2K has announced that digital pre-orders for Enemy Unknown are now open. In addition to Steam's pre-order promotion that Valve revealed yesterday, the downloadable version of the game is available from other outlets as well, including GameStop and Amazon. As with its retail counterpart, pre-orders of the digital version include the "Elite Soldier Pack," which features the original X-COM flat-top hairstyle, among other soldier customization options.%Gallery-164464%
Pre-order XCOM: Enemy Unknown on Steam, unlock rewards
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is available now for pre-order on Steam and it includes a nifty Ni No Kuni-inspired reward system, based on how many people purchase it before launch.Tier one gives customers the Elite Soldier Pack, which includes the classic XCOM soldier, soldier deco packs and complete color customization option. Tier two unlocks three XCOM-related items for Team Fortress 2: crafty hair; the Pyro as a Badlands alien; and the Vigilant pin. Tier 3 is a free copy of Civilization 5.XCOM: Enemy Unknown is $50 on Steam.[Thanks, Ethan!]
Dress up like XCOM's Thin Man, skip the lines at 2K's PAX booth
The lines at PAX Prime can be the show's biggest pain. It's all open to the public, so playing a much-anticipated game like XCOM: Enemy Unknown can have you standing around for ages. Fortunately, the folks at 2K have cooked up a cheat to help you out: Just dress up as the game's Thin Man character and you'll get a VIP badge when you show off your costume at the show.That badge will grant you access to play XCOM and Borderlands 2 without waiting, plus you'll be able to duck into the XCOM panel on Saturday. You can see what the Thin Man looks like above, and study some concept art on the official blog post, if you need it.If you don't want to wear a costume but still want some quality hands-on time with Borderlands 2 (and some Joystiq staffers), be sure to stop by the PAX party tomorrow night. The bar is open there no matter who you're dressed as.
Here, watch this hour of XCOM gameplay
Were you looking to watch an overabundance of new XCOM footage? 2K Games and Firaxis are sure hoping so, as the two companies took to Twitch.tv yesterday afternoon for just that – an entire hour of XCOM: Enemy Unknown hosted by Firaxis' Jake Solomon and Garth DeAngelis.What's that? You want even more XCOM coverage? We've got this handy, international-flavored podcast with the aforementioned Firaxis devs right here. You can almost taste the Gaffel Kölsch!
Citizens! Rise up against the alien scum by joining XCOM!
The time is now: war is upon us, and the alien invaders must be beaten back. Luckily for us, the aliens operate on a turn-by-turn basis, so there's plenty of time to decide how best to defend Earth. The XCOM awaits, soldier. The enemy, however, remains unknown.
