Xcom Enemy Unknown - Completed

The Uber Ethereal is dead & Earth is saved but “MR T” sacrificed himself to let the rest of the squad escape & destroy the Temple Ship. The six KHANS were united for over 50 missions between them, each complimenting each other’s abilities & skills. Shooting, scouting, healing & by using psi-ops to destroy the alien invasion.

Great game & very satisfying when you manage to pull off an ‘overwatch’ strategy to take out a sectopod or a group of muton soldiers. It is tough and many times I would reload a save point to try a different approach. The main story is very brief in that you only three main missions you have to complete to finish the game but you will be given many random missions that give you the time needed to level up your characters & upgrade your facilities.

So another PS+ game chalked up to completion, that makes three now (Uncharted 3 & Specs Ops). £35 for a year’s sub is proving great value for money. I have started downloading this month’s offerings of Metal Gear Rising & Remember Me but they both will have to wait because the Bat will be arriving soon !!

XCom - Overwatch

One of favourite tactics is to put five soldiers into overwatch & use the last soldier to lure out the enemy. When they move BOOM !! five soldiers attack & take them out. It is very satisfying luring the enemy into a trap & having them destroyed in what is essentially the aliens turn in the game.

I have upgraded my main group of six (two support, two assault, sniper and a heavy) to maximum levels unlocking all their abilities whilst also equipping them with titan armour & plasma weapons.

Satellites have now been launched over all the countries & all that remains is to upgrade the interceptor fleets & equip them with plasma cannons. If I had only one wish for this game it would be the chance to increase the squad size to eight this would allow be to have another sniper & heavy in the team.

I have again pre-ordered Batman Arkham Origins hopefully I can complete XCOM before the Dark Knight arrives.

New Game - XCOM I know the enemy

Started this on the 360 last year but it got sidetracked my other games I was more interested in playing. Since then it was added to PS+ so I sold the 360 version. With nothing to play until the pre-orders start arriving it was time to revisit some of the ignored games.

I played a fair bit on the 360 before leaving the game so I went for an American base & quickly started building up the base with a thermo plant & an alien containment unit. I only have five team members at the moment with two assault, a heavy, sniper & support. Focusing on developing the weapons to get the laser guns & trying to save enough cash to launch some satellites into orbit.

New Game - XCom Enemy Unknown

The A to Z of games never played only made it to the letter O. When it gets to the letter X, XCom will be on the list. I have never played any of the original games although I did own Enemy Unknown & Terror from the Deep on the Playstation I just never got the time to play them.

So after playing the demo this was an instant purchase which Abbas took to straight away and started playing a few days ago. Watching him play for a few hours I ignored that Uncharted 2 had not been touched for a few months & I started Halo 4 & Renegade Ops recently, I know I should go and finish these games first but the lure of a turn based strategy game forced me to starting XCom.

When you start the game you can choose your difficulty & I would recommend to disable the tutorial (You can play the tutorial if you wish but then I would suggest you start a new game after completing it, because you are then in control of what you want to do with your soldiers, money & base).

Choosing your base location is your first decision & I opted for USA (50% reduction in cost/maintenance). Africa is the other good option for a early money boost. Then into your first fight you go, only advice I can give is take it slow, use overwatch & save often.

After playing for a few hours I have quite a few high level soldiers & my base is growing slowly. I have not played a turn based strategy game on a console since Civilization Revolution (if you can call that TBS). My next target is to excavate the base so I can build my thermo power generator & research some better armour.