Turn-based
strategy games are a rarity these days, and on consoles doubly so. Not that
they’re antiquated or their audience has fallen out of favor for them mind you;
publishers would simply rather fund a first-person shooter instead. One notable
turn-based strategy title known as XCOM
UFO Defense managed to create lasting appeal back in the ‘90s, most notably
through a series of agonizing defeats, tragic loss and self loathing. It was
the kind of game that pushed you down every time you got up until you
eventually cracked, punched it in the balls, stole its girlfriend and burned
down its house. Sweet victory! For those of you not in the loop, XCOM UFO Defense is notoriously
difficult, allowing characters to be built up and upgraded by the player only
to have a lucky shot nullify all that hard work. That’s right characters could
die for good -- nothing special back in the ‘90s
-- but relatively unheard of these days. Keeping your squad alive became a series of
careful placement and management, i.e. strategy, you know, the thing that’s
ever so rare these days. Anyone interested in playing this relic should know
that through careful investigation and research on our part, we have determined
that the game was played on something primitive humans called “DOS”, which we
can only discern to be a follow-up from cave paintings and idol crafting.
Over the
years the franchise has moved from developer to developer with mixed results,
eventually fading into obscurity in the early noughts.
Recently the series fell into the hands of 2K Games and Firaxis Games, famous
for their strategy series Civilization;
a promising turn of events for the franchise. What was the first title
announced? XCOM… a first-person
shooter. Oh, and a second title, a strategy game set to revitalize and
nostalgize long-time fans and newcomers, bringing back the classic formula to
PC and consoles. XCOM Enemy Unknown delivers
just that. And it’s a shining example of how to modernize using a classic
formula.
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