New video from Firaxis spills the alien beans on the upcoming XCOM: Enemy Unknown

A while back it was revealed that we will not only be treated to the FPS take on the old X-COM franchise, but that there is also a "proper" new game in the works, which is going to take us back to the base building and turn based combat goodness of the original games.

Today the developers, Firaxis, has posted this video look of the game, giving us the first chance of actually seeing it in action:

I'm personally really excited after watching this video!
Some people may disagree with the somewhat cartoony art direction that the game seems to be sporting, but I don't mind it at all, and I think that the new "glamour" cam that they were showing off looked awesome and will help add to the immersion of combat.

I'm definitely much more interested in XCOM: Enemy Uknown now and looking forward to playing it later this year (no firm release date is available yet, though).



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Impressions of Heroes of Might and Magic VI - Old in all the right ways

I was 17 years old when the first ”Heroes of Might & Magic” came out in 1999. I immediately fell in love with the turn based fantasy game that mixed running your little kingdom and managing your castles with very entertaining and tactical turn based combat.

This week I've been playing the latest installment in the “Heroes” series, “Heroes of Might & Magic VI”, and I'm ready to give you my initial opinion on whether this latest in turn based fantasy kingdom management is still able to entertain.

Now, I stopped playing games in this series after the third game, which I felt was perhaps the best of them all. I played a little bit of Heroes IV and enough of Heroes V to know that I didn't care for that at all. So I was not completely thrilled about the prospect of jumping into Heroes VI.

The basic formula of Heroes VI is exactly like the five games that have come before it. You control one or several heroes traveling across a world map finding treasure, capturing resource nodes and visiting magical shrines.
The world is crammed full of stuff to find, so it's impossible to swing a dead Orc without hitting an ancient magical monolith or a gold mine.

A world of treasure and trinkets await!

Of course, most of these things are protected by some form of hideous monster or another, meaning you'll have to do a bit of wholesale slaughter before you can lay your grubby hands on your chosen prize.
Combat is again following the classic Heroes formula of taking you into a grid based field where your army is lined up on one side and the enemy army on the other. Your units then take turns trying to brutally murder each other until only one army is left standing.
Additional spice is added by your hero, who is not directly available on the board, but can cast spells from the sidelines which acts as buffs to your units, heals or just throwing large flaming balls of destruction down onto the heads of your foes.

As you roam through the countryside, butchering enemies and grabbing phat loot, you'll also come across enemy castles that you can attack and add to your kingdom.
Managing your castles is its own little game where you have to figure out what buildings you want to build and making a nice little bastion of doom. You'll have to build buildings that produce units as well as think of creating fortifications to repel enemy heroes trying to take over your castle, so it becomes a balancing act of focusing on the right type of buildings at the right time.

Like chess, only with demons, crossbows and magic

So far it's all sounding like any other Heroes game. Where Heroes VI differs just a little from the previous games is the increased focus on storytelling during the missions, which is conveyed partly through voiced over dialogue that pops up as you play through a mission, and partly through cut scenes.
This may sound like a not so great thing, especially considering that this exact increased weight on storytelling is why I disliked ANNO 2070, which is another strategy game that I have enjoyed immensely in the past.
But I think that the story parts are actually pretty well done in Heroes VI. That's not to say that the story is good, but it's certainly presented in a manner that makes it not an affront to humanity and does not immediately make you want to Alt+F4 out of the game.

So it's a Heroes game that follows closely all the traditions of the series with an extra helping of story? But is it any fun to play?

For me the answer to that is a definite “Yes”. There's something about the way that Heroes VI plays that made it immediately click with me in a way that I haven't clicked with a Heroes game since Heroes III.

"Open wide and I'll use my giant toothpick to get that piece of chicken for you"

Controlling your heroes on the world map feels snappy, as does controlling your army in combat.
There's also a lot of side quests to do during your missions and that helps to encourage you to explore every nook and cranny of the map and not just burn out on fighting monster armies for some random loot.

I'm also very pleased with the graphical design of the game, which is more simple and “flat” than what was in Heroes V and I think that the simplicity works very well for the game. There's a very clean aesthetic to the game that makes it really enjoyable to look at, though it certainly won't impress you with its graphical prowess in any way.

So far I've only played through the initial tutorial campaign and the first mission of the first proper campaign, so there's still a very long way for me to go before I can definitely say that this is a great Heroes game, but so far it's been pushing all the right buttons for me and I'm looking forward to getting back into the game and plowing through more of the game, and that's always a good sign!




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Anno 2070 Impressions - Everything was better in the old days

I've been spending some hours with Anno 2070 this week. This latest installment in the build-em-up Anno series takes us out from the old times of wooden galleons and muskets that have been the trademark setting of the series so far, and instead dumps us into the semi-near future of the year 2070.

In Anno 2070's future Earth setting, global warming has certainly manifested itself to be anything but a myth, and has blessed millions of people with unexpected ocean views. Unfortunately it has also cursed several other millions of people with severe moisture problems and resulted in a frenzied competition for Earth's precious resources.

During the main campaign of the game you'll be tasked with assisting either of the two main factions in Anno 2070, the Gordon Gekko loving "Global Trust", who want nothing more than to suck every last piece of useful molecule out of mother Earth. Or the tree hugging "Eden Initiative", who are all about not trying to completely destroy what little remains of the planets ecological health. Also, I imagine that they smoke a lot of weed.

Jumping into the game, things will immediately look fairly familiar if you've played any previous "Anno" game.
Through an isometric overhead view you'll be overseeing your little slice of Terra and plan out small island colonies by building everything from ports, housing, mines, power plants and so on.

The important building is the tall white one... ah crap

In classic city building game fashion, everything is connected and every building adds something to your settlement, while also bringing in new requirements of its own.
You'll need to have tools to build buildings, but a tool workshop requires coal and iron, which requires mines and those require workers that need houses.
The way everything fits together is one of the most interesting things about playing these types of games.
You're constantly adding a new piece on top of your existing settlement, and every time you do, you'll have to make a tweak here and a nip there to make sure everything is still running optimally. It's not a game for people that crave action and big explosions, let me just make that clear right away.

A "real" new X-COM game is in the making by Firaxis

While we're waiting on the delayed first person shooter take on the X-COM franchise, we can enjoy a fantastic piece of surprising news.
Game informer has just revealed that there is a new and "proper" X-COM game in the works, which will be a traditional X-COM game that focuses on large scale alien fighting strategy, mixed in with tactical control of your extra-terrestrial exterminating hired guns.

The game, which is nostalgically titled "X-COM: Enemy Unknown", is being made by Firaxis, which is a company with much experience in the strategy game genre, as they are the massive swollen brains behind several of the "Civilization" games.

According to Firaxis president, Steve Martin (don't laugh, that's his real name), there's been much consideration put into ensuring that this game will stay true to the "classic" X-COM games, as he explains in the interview with Game informer: "We were careful to keep XCOM: Enemy Unknown true to the elements that made X-COM such a revered game while delivering an entirely new story and gameplay experience for both die-hard X-COM fans and newcomers to the franchise."

It seems aliens, much like deer, are also hypnotized by car headlights. I'm sure this knowledge will come in handy

The game will feature destructible environments, a real-time strategic view (as we know it from the old X-COM games) and turn based combat (again, like the old games of the series).

I'm looking forward to seeing more details about this game, which will hopefully be a little easier than the first X-COM, which I recently went back and played and subsequently got my ass completely handed to me by.

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X-COM Journal Day 1: This could all go very bad...

As I proclaimed yesterday, I have bought a copy of X-COM: UFO Defense and immediately jumped into the world of small grey aliens and flying saucers (brings back nostalgic memories of X-Files it does).

Yesterday I was bombastically bragging how my many years of gaming experience would easily enable me to subdue this old sci-fi gaming antiquity, and I launched the game with high hopes of easy battles against inferior computer enemies.

Approximately 45 minutes later I found myself alt+F4'ing out of the game with a sense of deep despair that would make an emo goth seem cheerful.

A fresh game of X-COM ready to be conquered!

There is no doubt that the last 17 years since X-COM's release has seen great leaps and bounds in terms of easing players into a game and helping them get a feeling for what the hell is going on.

I think the death of the big paper manual has probably helped with this, as back in 1994 you would still find a nice little book for you to read through, whenever you bought any game more complicated than Space Invaders.

However, without a manual (or the patience to read one, even if I could find a PDF document online somwhere) I threw myself headfirst into the game and hoped to figure it out as I went along.

Mistake number one came after around 20 seconds of having selected difficulty level and started the game.

Sci-fi blast from the past: X-COM: UFO Defense

Following my own, rather fantastic, advice on cheap sci-fi games on Steam I just picked up a copy of X-COM: UFO Defense

Something strange in the neighborhood?
Who you gonna call?
X-COM!

I intend to deep dive into a pool of DOS powered gaming nostalgia and relive the magic of the strategy game that helped spark my love affair with sci-fi computer gaming.

Either that or I will run away screaming, horrified by the outdated graphics and cumbersome gameplay mechanics.
Either way, it should provide you with top quality entertainment!

X-COM was one of those games that I had a bit of a complicated relationship with, just like I do with Eve Online.
It continually kicked my ass every time I played it and I only managed to finally complete it by cheating (trainer programs and hex-editors for the win! "FFFFFF" for lots of money).