Happy New Years!

Happy New Years everyone!

Jessica and I got talking about the blog last night on our way to a party, and I realized it had been a while since I had blogged.  I got to thinking and figured this would be a good opportunity to write about some of the games and what not I had played this last year, and some thoughts on them.  Because I don't have much time now, I think I'll start off with X-Com and try to use time throughout the next few days to write several blog posts

X-Com: Enemy Unknown

So this game hands down ended up taking the most of my gaming time this year.  I've clocked about 100 hours into it, which may seem like a lot of time, but when you factor in the 5 college classes, getting married, and working full time, it seems like even more.  Yikes!

What drew me into this game was the science fiction setting of aliens attacking earth.  Events start out at about the time we are in now and take place over the course of the next few months to few years.  Each month you gain money from countries that you offer protection from abductions.  You provide early warning assists in the form of satellites, each one guarding a particular country.  Get enough satellites over a region and you gain some sort of bonus including quicker interrogations of captured aliens and cheaper upgrades.  You use the income resources to purchase equipment for your soldiers and expansions to your base.

Research takes place after you defeat your first aliens and includes researching different devices, like strange alloys and power sources.  Biological research leads to interrogations of alien subjects, which give bonus' of their own, usually a decreased research time on different weapon, armor, and other research paths.  Research speed is dictated by the number of researchers you have working for you, which you can gain more of through completion of mission assignments and from countries you protect.

Missions are fun and tactical, involving a turn based system where you issue squad orders, and then the aliens get to issue their own.  This can lead to some really bad situations, for instance if the random map generator decides to place tons of enemy's right where your troops spawn, your in for a really bad time.  This leads to two complaints of mine, the first being that the spawn system is a bit bugged, and secondly that the random number generator is in fact not random at all.  I should take that back, it is semi random, but it's a seed generator that weighs each action you take in planning out the next action of the AI.  So, if you save your game and then shoot at an alien, you will always get the same result if you decide to reload the game and shoot at him again.  If you reload the game, then have a soldier move, you will get a new seed and thus a different outcome on your shooting.  This can lead as well to some interesting situations, like if you reload a turn before and complete your actions in the exact same pattern, then the aliens on their turn will move the same and shoot the exact same.

However, aside from the bugs, I really did enjoy the game.  The tactical nature of the turn-based combat system really makes this game shine.  The nature of character deaths as well adds a unique spin on the genre.  If you loose a squad member during a firefight, they are gone for good.  Survive, and they gain experience levels unlocking new power ups and abilities.  This ends up giving you quite a the incentive to have your soldiers survive, and makes it personal when they die.

Every now and then you'll find X-Com on Steam for under $10, like at the time of this writing.  If your looking for a great tactical shooter, I'd recommend picking this one up ASAP!

-Cj