I did a bad thing with this game. It was an impulse buy, and I shouldn't have done it. It sent me into my overdraft, and prevented me from going to Midgard this weekend, as I couldn't afford it. And if I'd gone to Midgard, it might not have been cancelled due to not enough players. Oh well.
I'm a big fan of the old game UFO: Enemy Unknown (Called X-Com: UFO in other countries), as well as it's follow-ups, Terror of the Deep, Apocalypse and Interceptor. I'd been disheartened by news the latest one of the series, Avenger, had been cancelled. Then when I just popped into my local gamestore this Friday (Which I tend to do just to see what I can buy when I've saved for my monthly game from my giro), and spotted this. I didn't even know it was being developed, let alone released. And so I bought it, straight away, as there was only the one copy. I feel bad, for the reasons listed above, but am really enjoying the game.
It's very much like the old school X-com games, with MUCH better graphics. It's kind of a mix between turn based and real time. The game pauses whenever your men finish the last command they give, but when performing the command, it's all done in simultaneous real time. So, you set your men to shoot the alien, and then unpause, and they carry it out, but at the same time as your men shoot, the alien's shoot too. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's nicely implemented. Kind of similar to Apocalypse and Abomination: project Nemesis.
Plotwise, it's not the same as the previous X-Com games. It's a different history, starting over (Different franchise I think), where in 2004, alien's released a set of spores over the earth that killed most higher life forms. The only humans to survive were in bunkers or otherwise protected. Now, you emerge to re-take the world from the aliens.
I really like this game, but then I am a big fan of the old X-Com series, as well as the Lazer Quest series (Turn based combat), and am unsure as to whether I'd recommend this to people unfamiliar with the older games. But I'd definitely say it's a worthy addition to the genre.
One minor comment I'll make, that amuses me greatly, is your faction is known as the Council of Earth. You have non-playable backup forces that will deal with missions you choose not to personally complete. When it does so, you get a little message saying, CoE forces have completed the mission near (X). I find this really funny, because for some reason I think CofE (Otherwise known as the Church of England). 'Hello Mr. Alien, we've just popped round to tell you about our new raffle. Could we put you down for some tickets, or would you just prefer the laser gun to the head? Thanks awfully, bye bye'
Final Comment: I don't regret buying this game at all, and am having great fun. The difficulty really ramps up later on, but I like a challenging game. If you liked the X-Com games, this should be a buy for you. But I wouldn't call it a primary game buy.
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