XCOM: Enemy Unknown Review

Questions you might have if you're interested in playing it:

• What is it exactly that you do in the game? Your duty as the leader of X-com is to organize all the aspects of the human resistance, from the training of your soldiers, to allocating resources for researching new technologies and even micro-managing every single battle against the aliens. X-com is a game about making hard choices in order to win the war. Managing resources and establishing priorities is what you are going to do, 80% of the time.
• Will it make my eyes bleed?
For a 2012’s game it looks fine. The textures and the character models look a bit outdated. The levels are a bit too simplistic for my taste, there are only 3 basic variations of levels: city, forest and alien tech structures, this is not necessarily bad, but it feels barebones for modern standards. Something that I really love about X-com are the amazing pre-rendered and in-game cinematics, they feel modern and they are so well directed and entertaining that this is by far the highlight of this game’s graphical aspects.
• Does it have a good story?
It has a good setting, but since it’s a game about managing the war and how good or bad you do in said war, the story is simplistic. Like I said before, I love the cinematics, but they are mostly to show you world events, tutorials or outcomes of your decisions. Besides this, the story is basically non-existent.
• Does it have a good soundtrack?
It’s great!. The soundtrack feels like something out of a Hollywood movie and really elevates the game. The battles feel tenser and more meaningful thanks to the awesome battle theme. The alien musical themes really make them feel like dangerous foes are a threat to the whole world.
• Does it have replay value?
Yes! Due to X-com’s nature, with all its systems, dice rolls, multiple difficulty settings, the huge amount of choices that you can make and different strategies which you can and will use to beat the game; you will have plenty of stuff to unlock, explore, investigate and experiment. The first time that I beat X-com I spent 50 hours on it, after that I made a new save on hard and I got a game over 20 hours in and I loved every single bit of it.
• Does it run well?
On my current rig X-com runs almost perfectly. I found a couple of game breaking bugs and I had a single hard crash. But I’m aware that in old hardware this game runs “fine” but it’s way more unstable, so be aware of that.
• Is it fun?
It's so much fun. The whole strategy aspect of this game makes it so fun to play and replay.

So what is X-com: Enemy Unknown?

Things that I like about this game:

• The optimization is great.
• The combat is fun and engaging.
• I love how this game feels like a good B-movie.
• The pool of enemies is diverse enough for you to not get bored of the game.
• The customization of your soldiers’ stats and skills is deep and interesting.
• It’s mostly a challenging but fair experience… mostly…

Things that I dislike about this game:

• It has some severe bugs and exploits; the game hard crashed once on me.

Is this game worth my hard earned money?

Since When Did I Like Tactical Games??