For those blessed fans of the original (1994-1997) PC computer game series, X-COM, a "nearly" official sequel has been announced and is currently set for release this year, 2012. Original X-COM Series (1994-1997) In 1994, MicroProse, a major development studio (headed by Sid Meier himself) that was responsible for creating many successful titles like the Civilization series and popular flight sims, released the first X-COM video game, UFO: Enemy Unknown (X-COM: UFO Defense in America). X-COM was primarily the creative vision of one man, Julian Gollop, a very small production team (usually about three people), and it took three times as long as planned (or customary) to complete. The series went on to create a nearly carbon-copy sequel (without Julian) titled, "X-COM: Terror from the Deep," the following year. Lastly, as far as most fans are concerned, comes "X-COM: Apocalypse" in 1997, again the primary creative vision of Julian Gollop. Officially, the studio published two additional X-COM titles during this period of time, but those games were structured using different formats, genres, and development teams; and as a result were far less financially successful and have come to be disregarded by most fans for being untrue to the series. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM End of MicroProse Despite the success of several of it's titles, MicroPose was suffering severe financial problems during these X-COM years, which ultimately resulted in the selling of the company's name and intellectual property rights to another software developer. In the period at the end of the X-COM series, around 1997, Sid Meier, his partner, and much of the original development teams behind their hit titles had left the new MicroProse and found employment with other gaming companies. Those that remained lost their jobs shortly later when the new owners terminated the remaining development positions. Interim Years For many years MicroProse's previous hit titles were stagnant, some remaining unproduced, some being picked up by other studios who experienced less success with them, and some (X-COM for example) persisting in a state of property rights limbo. Despite the moderate financial success the series enjoyed during it's active years, X-COM has developed a cult following of nostalgic fans during these inactive years, and is regularly featured in top 10 lists of best video games ever produced. Many attempts have been made by smaller studios to capitalize on this X-COM nostalgia and create some form of spiritual successor to the series. Spin-off series inspired by X-COM but exploring different visions have generally been quite successful in subsequent years, but the attempts to create a clear successor to the project have not. No major studios have attempted any true continuation of the series, probably for fear of copyright infringement, and only independent projects and small, low-budget Eastern European teams have made genuine attempts. Financially speaking, and more importantly, according to the X-COM fans, none of these projects has been satisfactory. Many developers claim that there is no longer a market for the same genre of game as the original. Firaxis Games (1996-Present) Sid Meier left the studio he created and formed Firaxis games in 1996. Many members of the development teams he worked with at MicroProse eventually followed him. While originally he still didn't own the intellectual rights to many of the titles he was responsible for creating, in several wonderful twists of fate he eventually reacquired most of them under the new Firaxis corporate name, and has since resumed production on series like Civilization. XCOM "Rebooted" (2010-Present) Officially, Firaxis is calling the relaunch of XCOM a, "rebooting," though they don't deny their source of inspiration and repeatedly quote the original X-COM at every development turn. For example, the developer videos and articles featured in the February 2012 issue of Game Informer (and their site) show developers tailor-making each design feature from the original game and improving on and modernizing it, step-by-step, they explain that all of the design team are fans of the original, many members worked on all the original titles under MicroProse, and every proper noun except the game title remains exactly the same between the original series and the modern "rebooting" of it. I can only assume that the title change of X-COM to XCOM (without the hyphen) is purely for copyright infringement purposes. Also, I should point out that while the product is clearly a high-budget modern sequel to X-COM, Julian Gollop is not involved with this new project. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XCOM:_Enemy_Unknown The official XCOM Enemy Unknown site: http://www.xcom.com/enemyunknown/ Portal to XCOM articles, screen shots, and videos: http://www.gameinformer.com/p/xcom.aspx
An updated promo video on the game that explains the mechanics of the original as well as the reboot: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/hit-points-xcom-enemy/728718
A video featuring a crazy Brit with a rocket launcher. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uHHmTSDCvA"]XCOM: Enemy Unknown first look - in-game footage and interview - YouTube[/ame] Also, I didn't realize there was a video game section to the forums when I posted this. Could a mod please move this accordingly?
It will be available on PC, XBox 360, and Playstation 3. There is not an official release date, but the unofficial release date according to Amazon is December 31, 2012. I could not find any published system requirements yet.
Playing it and its pretty good so far. 8.5/10 The gameplay is really great, the turn-by-turn system is excellent. I like the way you have to manage your base and your researches. My only negative point so far is that most maps look the same and they are all at night so far.
I haven't played the PS3 version but all the game critics rated it the same across platforms. I think your best bet is to play it on PC if you can because it will be a heavily moddable game in the future (according to the devs). I give it a 9/10. It's very much true the spirit of the original X-Com, but it lacks the same size of and randomization of the maps/buildings that the original provided. Also, it's a shorter game. How much shorter I cannot say (it takes about 15-20 hours to complete on normal mode) because I haven't played the OG all the way through in so long. I've been playing it on campaign mode (hard) with save toggling and I think I'm almost done with the game after about 15-20 hours, even though the devs claim it takes much longer to complete on the harder modes. I'm sure that's true if you play it on Ironman (or whatever they chose to call it) where you only get 1 save file and you'll be losing entire dropships and squads all the time. On that mode, it would be very easy to lose the entire game, even on Normal gameplay mode. There are three difficulties, with Ironman options for each. Easy, Normal, Classic (Hard), and Impossible. Because this game received so many rave reviews by professional game reviewers and fans, I'm confident we'll be seeing some sequels in the future, plus a ton of community mods. It looks like we'll be needing the training too: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDOOZ_IPb6Y"]Error 502 (Server Error)!!1[/ame] 2001 National Press Club Interview with Senior Air Traffic Controller Enrique Kollbeck for Mexico International Airport. So build some satellites in Mexico people. Never forget Mexico! :Alien:
