First the aliens came from the east, along the street.
In the very first Enemy Within battle I played after Xenonauts - “just for comparison, then I can write this article” - my soldiers started on one side of a convenience store. Because soldiers in Firaxis XCOM can move quite far and still shoot, and because cover, flanking, and line of sight are so important, Firaxis ground combat is extremely fluid. After six or seven hours back in September, I loaded up Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Within… and since then, I’ve haven’t looked back.Ĭomparing Xenonauts and Enemy Within made me appreciate what Firaxis did right. Xenonauts is a generally inspired homage to the Gollop Brothers’ X-COM, let down by repetitive ground combat. As such, this is also a good time to review each subgenre – which games it contains, what makes it distinctive, how it compares to the others, and how it’s faring. The above names suggest this is a pretty broad genre, and in fact, I don’t think there is a single squad-level strategy/RPG genre so much as there are several distinct subgenres, spread across PCs and home and portable consoles. Two more titles are due out in a few months (Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown for PC, and Atlus’ Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time for PSP) and we may well see a third soon, Goldhawk’s Xenonauts (PC). This year won’t lack in quantity: it’s already seen a Jagged Alliance remake for PC and the recent PSP launch of Gungnir. Last year saw the PSP release of the excellent Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, a labour of love that blended fine-crafted gameplay, a mature story, and gorgeous production values. This is a good time to be a fan – as I am – of games that mix squad-level strategy and RPG mechanics. Welcome back, old friends – we missed you. Indie titles such as Expeditions: Conquistador have added spice. The Fire Emblem series is posting strong sales on 3DS, and Valkyria Chronicles has been ported to PC. XCOM: Enemy Unknown turned out to be superb – it was definitely a hybrid, by the way, combining the lethality and dynamic campaign of Type 1 games, the Type 2 emphasis on careful movement and not triggering too many enemies, and the soldier customisation of Type 3. Since then, to my delight, the genre has gone from strength to strength. Note: Only some items can be spawned in quantities of greater than one.I originally wrote this post in 2012 during the lead-up to Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown, proposing a classification system for squad-based games and tactical RPGs across PC and consoles. Use one of the following values with the "ctrlaltdelete:createitem("",)" code.
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