XCOM: Enemy Unknown Preview

PC World is offering a seemingly hands-on preview for Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown, based on the build that has been showcased at this year’s PAX Prime. Here’s an excerpt:

As is typical for an XCOM title, aliens land on earth and things start going awry very quickly. We don’t know much about them or even what they are, but we still need to figure out what’s going on and how we can stop it. There are reports of alien sightings and we haven’t heard from one of our teams in Germany. That’s where our team from the PAX demo comes in.

We saddle up and make our way toward Germany. Soon after landing, the gameplay begins. This first level is just a simple tutorial area that takes quite a while to get going, but the core gameplay is worth the introduction. In XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you move each member of your squad around the map individually. They can only move a certain distance per turn, but they can also give up their action ability and sprint to reach further distances. This is a really cool tradeoff, because it allows you to move quickly across the map, but also leaves you somewhat vulnerable to enemy fire. You have to decide which route is better for you to take, so it all depends on your play style.

I quickly learned that despite the need to keep combat flowing, XCOM: Enemy Unknown requires patience and that you need to think about your strategy for much longer than it takes you to actually execute it. Sure, you can move around quickly and play things loose and fast, but that’ll probably end up in you losing some members of your team. You don’t want to lose any members either, as you’ll level them up after completed missions, so you need to keep veteran soldiers around as long as you can to preserve their upgrades.