X COM ENEMY UNKNOWN DEMO REVEALS KNOWN UNKNOWNS

One game series which can take months to play through , more time than many people today spend on MMOs is the  Gollop brothers classic X COM or UFO defense series.Released on PC and with excellent ( and now highly sought after ) PlayStation versions ( the old grey flip top your grand daddy had) 

Then X COM got popular and publishers, greedy , the Gollop brothers left their franchise the origins of  which you can trace all the way back to Rebel Star Raiders and Nebula on the ZX Spectrum. The suits wanted X COM FPS games, X COM space combat games, X COM email games, X COM Rainbow 6 games, the Gollops departed but not before leaving us with the gem that is X COM Apocalypse. 

The X Com series has always been a victim of its own potential, so various versions the UFO Afterlight/Shock/ trilogy ensued, coded well but lacking the magic and the menace of the original Gollop brothers games. 

That menace and cold hearted ruthlessness returns in Firaxis XCOM Enemy Unknown , you will feel fear as an unseen enemy stalks you turn after turn and your corporate, science, political and military decisions made during the course of this game may not qualify you to run a mega corporation, but could indeed come in handy if Aliens do land outside your window...indeed Daniel Jackson...

From the demo it is not possible to see if the new X COM manages to retain the vast play fields of X COM, Terror from the Deep with its literally Titanic maps  and Apocalypse with an entire city. This is Firaxis though, so here's hoping....

That Firaxis were chosen to revive the classic gameplay of the originals has proved an excellent strategic decision, the new X COM plays like the old classic, with the power of Bleszinski et als Unreal Engine 3 being used in a unique way to create a turn based stragetic epic with real time cgi with the pace and speed of FPS games. 

Every time your fragile Hoomans make a dash for cover, as long as they run and that run is displayed as prettily as Mr Phoenix and crews dashes in Gears , as long as they are running your heart starts beating faster and you hold your breath .. will they make it ... ? Will they run in to an unseen ambush and what kind of Mulder pleasing monstrosity will be eyeing them up or frying them up with it's brain curdling microwave ray... And then it hits you the green or purple nasty that just Jackson Pollocked your lovingly trained elite soldier, has something you need and you send more of your squad to their doom until you get hold of it ...he tasks you and you shall have him and his alien weaponry.  Yes In X COM you get to probe the Aliens ( or what's left of them) ... you abduct them ... Mulder would have a field day....no wonder E.T. went home...

Alien rendition, torture, inter species war, mad scientists , politics and running your own version of Haliburton and quoting Donald Rumsfeld.  it is all here all wrapped up in the turn based classic magic game play of X COM Enemy Unknown. All accessed from an awesome almost Wes Anderson cut out side view of your base....

All in all this is shaping up to be one of the finest games of the year, will it have the 200 hour play time of the old classics..? We will have to see 

The best deal to be had is on Steam with which you get Civilisation V free and of course try the demo out for yourself..

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