First Look: XCOM

X-COM is a much beloved turn-based tactical squad game from the last decade. When the rights bounced around from Hasbro to Atari and then to 2K Marin, it appeared we’d finally get a new game on the IP–minus the hyphen. 2K Marin’s objective is to combine the “fundamentals of strategy and fear, and put them together.”

At 2K’s booth, we got a 20-minute tour of the updated XCOM world.  Boys and girls, put on your tinfoil hats as we delve into the wacky world of aliens invading America.

We began in the familiar air hangar base. The main character is William Carter. Carter discovered the first alien artifact (which see early in the game in the R&D room) which kicked of the government’s secret XCOM project. The map room and research rooms have been transferred from the original.

Back in the map room, we have to choose between three different missions. This is where the strategic gameplay comes in. Each mission has a benefit but you can only pick one. Helping a civilian increases the general populace’s support for XCOM but you get no alien tech. Go after a mission with R&D benefits, you can build new weapons.

In this demo, we choose to go rescue the civilians. There’s minimal HUD save for the gun reticule. When the map appeared, it wasn’t a digital overlay but a paper map and notebook with the objective appeared in Carter’s hands. According to Slater, they’re trying for a realistic look.

I get the feeling that XCOM, while it’s a mysterious shadowy organization, doesn’t have the most powerful weapons. Carter is trying to kill the black blob aliens–no word if they’re the main baddies–with a shotgun and it’s not very effective. The blobatovs–a firey bomb made from the black blobs–burns them, but just barely.

No decision has been made about multiplayer. Look for XCOM in 2011.

Quick note about 2K’s presentation. They were demoing four games at E3 and each game had an individual theme room. XCOM is set in the idyllic ’50s of America and we viewed the game in a typical kitchen of that era.