ITWire

A disclaimer to begin with, turn based strategy floats my boat, and looking for something on the go on the phone or tablet has proven somewhat fruitless, and whilst that quest continues, XCOM Enemy Unknown scratches that old hard to reach middle-of-the-back itch on PC , Xbox 360 and PS3.

Those clever folks at Maxis have delivered a deep strategy and tactical mix with the console controller design in mind, but importantly, without compromising the traditional PC complexity of a game such as this.

Look out planet Earth, the aliens have landed, and who knows what they want.  A consortium of countries forms the paramilitary organisation XCOM, building a secret underground base to combat this new threat.  Guess who is brought in to command the new base?

At the tactical level it is up to you to manage XCOM funds to expand the base with new facilities, balance Engineers and Scientists to both build required equipment and research new technologies as aliens are brought back to base, dead or alive.

Satellites need to be deployed and missions undertaken in XCOM member countries to keep panic down.  If the local citizenry gets too spooked, that particular country may withdraw support from the XCOM project.  Whilst this does not make much sense logically, the effect is to be avoided as funds will begin to dry up as countries drop off.

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