Culture

Rating: 6.5/10

As far as original premises go, alien invasions are hardly groundbreaking. Sometimes, though, all you need is a fresh take to make something common feel original.

In the eyes of many, this is what the game 1994 UFO: Enemy Unknown (also known as XCOM: Enemy Unknown) achieved. This classic sees players contributing to three elements of the fight to save humanity from an alien invasion: resource management, base defence and strategic skirmishes.

Commonly listed among the greatest games of all time, Enemy Unknown proved to be a turning point in terms of gamers’ perceptions – increasingly, gamers came to appreciate that games could be multi-dimensional, or offer more than one type of challenge or experience. A number of sequels were trialled, in which designers tried to play with the genre, but none matched the quality of the original.

Last year, a new remake was announced – XCOM: Enemy Unknown – which aimed to celebrate the original game while injecting it with some twenty-first century flair. The fact remains, however, that no genre-bending XCOM game has ever been a success.

Many gamers had high hopes for a first person shooter iteration of the series when it was first announced in 2006. After several years of silence, it was finally made public in 2010 that the project had been scrapped and was being relaunched as a third person strategy game. That game finally arrived in the form of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.

The Bureau’s story takes place in the 1960s, which makes a refreshing change from the modern-day setting of most strategy games. Supposedly, this was done to allow the developers (2K) to base the story around the inception of the XCOM department – a department that was originally created to aid in the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union but that was forced to become an anti-alien task force after Earth was attacked by extra-terretrials.

Disappointingly, however, the entire plotline of The Bureau not only ignores the original story, but virtually spits in its face. Every aspect, from the origins of XCOM to the aliens’ psychology to the story surrounding protagonist Special Agent William Carter, contradicts well-established knowledge regarding the XCOM universe. This is a real shame – a story that built on the original universe would have won over newbies and existing fans alike.

The Bureau tries to infuse a level of intimacy into its storyline by including dialogue between colleagues at the XCOM base, reminiscent of the dialogue in Mass Effect. Dialogue options, however, do not influence outcomes, and as the writing is generally hackneyed, the result is occassionally cringeworthy.

The gameplay attempts to couple third-person shooting with the original game’s strategic manipulation of squad members. Though less than optimal, it works far better than many people guessed it would back in 2010. Switching from third-person shooting to a display screen in which you can assign orders – such as movement or abilities – to your crew members is cumbersome at first, but after some practice the ability to pull off a well-executed strategy is exhilarating.

The third-person shooting itself, however, is average, and is only made worse by the fact that the (limited) selection of weapons on offer all feel essentially the same. Thankfully, the game retains my favourite feature of the XCOM series: perma-death. Perma-death means that if one of your crew members (whom you have named, customised and “levelled-up”) dies, they remain dead for the rest of the game. Unfortunately, this feature is now rendered useless by the introduction of regular checkpoints that allow you to instantly reverse this outcome.

The game could have used with a little more polish, thought, and loyalty to the original conception of the XCOM universe. It’s frustrating to play, because it is so easy to identify elements that could have made the overall experience a more fulfilling one; watching potential being squandered is always sad.

Unfortunately, the curse of the XCOM shooter remains. I can deal with this, however, so long as XCOM strategy games continue to be produced. Speaking of which – an expansion has recently been announced for XCOM: Enemy Unknown at Gamescon. At least all the disappointed XCOM fans out there have that to look forward to.