Turn-based tactical games are all about tough choices, and XCOM: Enemy Within does an outstanding job of piling more of those into the first half of the campaign against the alien invasion that began in last year’s excellent XCOM: Enemy Unknown. But as awesome as it is that developer Firaxis has given us so many more toys in this expansion (on PC – it's available as a stand-alone game on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3), the aliens could’ve used some more help to keep the last months of the war competitive.
There are a ton of great changes here, but the biggest is the addition of a new resource to most of the tactical maps. Known as Meld, it’s used to buy powerful new genetic and cybernetic upgrades, and Enemy Within deviously dangles randomly placed cannisters in front of our noses. Their ticking self-destruct timers forced me out of my usual conservative patterns by pushing me to explore the map quickly, and prompted me to take exciting risks with the lives of my troops. As a direct result, my XCOM body count was much higher in Enemy Within than it has been on recent Enemy Unknown playthroughs (on Classic difficulty), and that’s reinvigorated the sense of danger.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...
