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The short version of this review is if you’re an old school X-COM fan that will settle for nothing less than exact recreation of the original with just a new coat of HD paint, then you’ll hate this game passionately. The isometric nature of the game guarantees that the sound effects are not always “in your face,” but when they are, they set the mood.
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The sound effects are functional, all of it coming through in Dolby Pro Logic II if you have the gear for it, with clean effects for the signals and nice, punchy effects for things like the report of sniper fire or the hum of a plasma rifle. They provide flavour and accent the fiction of you being in charge of a last line of Earth defence, but their performances aren’t critical. The main story isn’t front and centre here, it’s clearly not as important as the one you tell yourself, so there’s no great fountain of voice acting even from regularly appearing support characters such as Operations Officer Bradford, or your head researcher, Dr. Voice work is functional, with a limited range of voices to assign to you various soldiers as they acknowledge your orders. During actual battle sequences this music bears a strong resemblance to the Mass Effect series, but it still works well.
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Canadian composer Michael McCann-who scored Deus Ex: Human Revolution-steps in with an arsenal of synthesizers to update the 90s score. This is a game with focused, purposeful visuals, and they all work well in that regard.įor the sound, the original X-COM was hailed by gamers for its creepy atmosphere and unsettling sound. The home base is wonderfully busy, an almost literal beehive of activity where you can see soldiers running on treadmills while captured aliens fret in their cells. It’s not necessarily the most distinct look for the series-the armoured up soldiers can resemble generic space marines-but the aliens and the locales help make up the lack. Also, despite the fact that the game is still played from an isometric perspective, Firaxis have employed “glam cam” moments to show close ups of aliens and particularly spectacular kills. All the familiar aliens like the Sectoids and Mutons have gotten the expected facelifts for their HD debut.
![xcom enemy unknown flags xcom enemy unknown flags](https://i.redd.it/ikq0vq8f4yu41.png)
That quibble aside, the graphics generally appear and perform at high, stable standards, with an “action figure aesthetic” that carries through to even the ant farm/play-set perspective of your base.
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Once again, the Unreal engine has been employed and-at least on consoles-that means blurry textures occasionally appear at the beginning of battles that properly resolve themselves once the fight gets into full swing. Looking at the graphics, XCOM has made the jump from isometric pixels to full blown polygons, and the result is moody and effective. It’s a rare style in gaming, but ultimately one of the most effective, guaranteeing that XCOM will fill the internet with tales made by the players themselves, and in a medium about interactivity, that’s the very best kind of story to tell. This is emergent narrative that tells itself in the playing of the game, through the decisions you’ve made. This is a game where the most memorable tales are of your sniper missing what should have been easy shot, throwing an entire squad into jeopardy, or the new rookie that manages to get take on a Muton with a panicked shotgun round and saves the day. It’s not a particularly original story, but it doesn’t have to be, because the real stories, the ones you will remember, don’t come from cutscenes, but from the battlefield. Along the way people die, discoveries are made and new challenges arise.
![xcom enemy unknown flags xcom enemy unknown flags](https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/151/images/thumbnails/92-1-1358722734.png)
The XCOM unit, with funding from various nations, boasts the best troops and technology with the goal of defending Earth and understanding the reasons for the sudden aggression. As with the 90s original, XCOM: Enemy Unknown is about the sudden, brutal abduction and destruction of Earth’s cities, and a task-force created to stop the incursions.