The Enemy Unknown

I finally finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown the other day. I know it's been out a while but I kept getting distracted by other things. Playing games is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. Whenever I do, I sort of feel bad like I really should be writing instead.

To that end I don't play timesink games any more. I just can't justify playing something like World of Warcraft, you just waste so much time. I also got utterly burnt out and bored of WoW after having played it for a couple of years. So I stick to shorter game of the "drop in, drop out" model.

Anyway, back to XCOM. I'd never played an XCOM game before. Back in the day I wasn't interested in turn-based tactical strategy games, I preferred real time strats like Command & Conquer. So when approaching the modern XCOM I didn't have any expectations. My interest in the game was only really piqued by seeing videos on Youtube by TotalBiscuit and Rythian from the Yogscast.

Since I was a pure rookie I started the game on the easiest setting with the tutorial on. I have to say I rather enjoyed it. The tutorial probably holds your hand a bit too much to begin with but it is fun when you get going. It was good fun to pick your strategy, plan out your attacks, choose the right tools for the job and taken down the alien menace. It isn't a perfect game, far from it, but I did enjoy it and I'm looking forward to starting another play through.

I've seen some gaming sites suggest that its game of the year material. I can't agree with that. The main reason is that it's just got way too many bugs. I understand that the higher the difficulty the more game breaking these bugs become. Even on my easy play through I saw some pretty annoying bugs. Ridiculous line of sight issues, alien shots going through walls and maps not loading properly. I don't mind challenging games but the challenge should come from game mechanics not game bugs.

I don't agree with GOTY titles anyway, given how often it gets doled out it's become meaningless. Were I forced to pick one from 2012, it'd be Faster ThanLight. That's a topic for another day though.