After what feels like an eternity of waiting, I finally got my hands on Xcom: Enemy unknown and I were impressed. Now as per usual I’m not going to give away any of the storyline but I will give a look into the mechanics of the game.

I’ll start where the game started and that’s the opening scene. How I have longed for the scene to this game to be laid out in cinematic form and the CGI didn’t let me down. It sets the pace straight from the off. Mankind is in trouble and they need your help! Having watched it my initial reaction was “dirty alien scum, you do not know who you are f**king with!” which is exactly how I wanted it to make me feel, how I always felt before having my tactical ass handed to me on a plate when playing its predecessor! Then it sent me to the ground to hunt what ever was causing this mess down there and exterminate it, hunting Sectiods is a hobby of mine. Again the graphics and the sheer panic that had engrossed poor Germany made me feel angry and wanting retribution. The only downside being that this was the tutorial. Don’t get me wrong I think tutorials are useful and necessary given that some games don’t even come with a manual now-a-days, but I like the freedom of movement and to learn the hard way!

Now movement on the 360 version felt quite clunky which I wasn’t happy with! The specific place you needed to be to take cover can sometimes take 2 or 3 attempts to land on the exact spot you want, first going too far past it the just past it the other way and having to tap the analogue stick until it lands where you want it, that I found infuriating but it was slightly forgiven when I made my first dive through a window smashing the pane on the way in! The new rebuffed version of one of my old favourites also has a new class system; this means some soldiers will be better with different types of weapons (snipers, heavy weapons etc…).

Moving away from the battlefield action, the base of operations has a completely different lay out to that of the older Xcom games. It now has more of an ant farm feel about it. This structure has its merits as placing certain facilities next to each other will result in certain perks (I really hope there is a manual to explain these perks!). I felt upset not to have an intercept mission but again this was the Eurogamer show and tell, we’ll have to wait to see what the full game has in store for us!

The game is out in the UK on 12/10/12 and I for one will be getting my copy first thing on that morning!