The Veteran

Dudes... Seriously though... Dudes!!!

I'm going to get my manual It doesn't hurt that Enforcer starts midway through the game, it does mean that it was NOT being developed side by side with the HWP though which is what I'd always assumed and advocated. Perhaps it was developed alongside the hovertank? Both use alien alloys and weapons along with the ability to fly... Not convinced that the prof would have enough access to alien tech to develop the teleportation tech himself. At least not until his base is attacked by the alien transporters. This may be one part of in-game canon that needs disputing in order to tie well with in a franchise canon... I suppose reverse engineering the tech from alien transporters DOES still work as a theory though doesn't it? Have we decided that we should consider the teleportation aspect of the game canon now? As it's a pretty major consideration! Another one is the alien mother ship but that won't be in the manual... Anyone know if we can access the cut scenes from the CD or something? I played through the whole game in one night a few years ago but don't feel the urge to do it again just for a fe snippets of extra information! I wondered about the lifts too but I think the in-game animation makes it pretty clear that they're grab operated. I also thought it was a little strange that X-Com could use them right off the bat though as I always assumed they would be psionically activated. A good argument against these lifts being teleporters is the horseshoe room in alien bases with the four small rooms on the lower level and a bunch of lifts. If these were teleporters rather than lifts why have this strange 'checkpoint' type room consisting of so four of them?

Is it possible that he once worked for a secret US project in Nevada? Then this entire base was already established and funded before the AW. Perhaps he and his team was then headhunted by X-Com due to their work on bi-pedal tech and so the facility fell out of use when they left! It's then possible that funding was only part of the reason the project was cancelled and the rest had to do with Standard's difference of opinion with the rest of the team and inability to be flexible with regards to what was required by X-Com and his own intentions for the project. Perhaps when things began to fall apart he secretly discussed the project with his former bosses and managed to open sale negotiations between them and X-Com. They agreed to the sale but refused to release any of the personnel involved. Only Standard was to return to the facility following his discharge for breach of trust/ethics or what have you... This explains how he got the lab, the enforcer and all those spare parts. It also explains why he is working alone (sort of) but not why a new team hasn't been assigned to him or why he doesn't seem to answer to any higher authority. The issue with the teleporter is pretty serious though as Silencer makes a valid point. How did he get it and why hasn't he shared it? Of course we could potentially dismiss it to make life easier but that's a cheat. An alternative would be that the prof comes into possession of this technology after leaving X-Com when the aliens invade his lab. He could potentially reverse engineer the alien transporter technology in order to obtain the ability to teleport inorganic material only. That stops it being such a huge issue in the rest of the canon... This tech is for some reason never shared with the rest of the world and is lost after the war when the professor dies. The fact also remains that the Enforcer's primary objective is consistently to destroy all alien transporters so it's quite easy to state that no other examples were ever recovered... Personally, I find it hard to include the transporter tech in an Enforcer viewed from an EU standpoint though. I'd be happier to see the larger forces arriving in some sort of drop-pods or similar known technology that doesn't have quite such serious technological implications for mankind... Might be difficult deciding where to draw the line on this one!

So now we seem to be discussing the Professor and the mothership as well... According to the wiki; I just had a look for cutscene videos and the like but very few are forthcoming. We really need to know where the mothership is during the events of this game to make any sense of it! Personally I think it makes a lot more sense if it's simply hiding behind the moon the whole time as otherwise how do we explain the massive quantities of aliens being teleported to earth in these missions? If it is en-route as suggested then where are the aliens coming from? And another issue (which remains anyway) is where did this mothership come from exactly? Was it on Mars? If it was from another more distant planet we have to also accept that more vessels like this exist and that isn't particularly condusive of what we're aiming for here! Perhaps this is the main military centre of the Cydonia base or something which is why the final mission on the red planet is fairly easy (as enforcer blew away the majority of their heavy troops and command!) As for professor Able Standard, there isn't a lot of information to be had. Just the opening cutscene which suggests he finished the project alone and the game story itself (which I haven't checked) that states it is an X-Com project cut loose. I believe it's stated that funds were the issue, is that the most likely event? It could simply be that X-Com deemed it too much of a powerhouse for the covert operation. This would have been compounded by the good professor's inclination to develop insane weapons and a jump pack for the monster. Maybe X-Com simply refused to allow the professor continue with his over the top design to work on somethig cheaper, more compact and better suited to populated areas, the HWP. The mystery would still remain of how the professor and the Enforcer managed to get to this other secret lab though, and where did the lab even come from? All we know is it was somewhere in Nevada and there are plenty of theory about the bases out there... Perhaps there was an old X-Com facility in the area that was deemed insecure at the outbreak of war. It would have been abandonned somewhat hastily allowing the prof to cop a squat. It would also explain how the aliens found it before the Enforcer was even fully operational however... Quite where the materials for the project came from would remain a mystery but with so many other secret bases nearby perhaps NKF has a point? Warehouse raids could certainly yield SOME useful loot. Perhaps the professor was even in cahoots with the US government?! Let's not forget that although the US government formed part of the funding council for X-Com they had literally zero say in what went on there. We can assume the yanks wouldn't be best pleased about this... Area 51 was involved in the first contact operation at Roswell if I remember my facts correctly so they would be pretty ticked off when X-Com suddenly cut them out of the program. I reckon they'd be happy to accomodate and maybe even fund the professor and his Enforcer project if he promises them something in return. Like an army of Enforcers once the prototype is complete perhaps, or simply that his creation will operate solely in the US to protect her citizens (as in the game that's just what it does!) Let's not forget that the base, bot and prof are all lost to Earth at the end of the war so whatever arrangement existed would be null and void. No loose ends there... Just found this worrying snippet in the wiki...

I love that I came back to this site less than 24 hours ago and since then have now started new threads in two of the most neglected forums we have! This one is going to start off as a bit of a transplant based on a little back and forth Silencer and I are currently having regarding the discrepancies displyed by Enforcer that prevent it being officially accepted as canon X-Com material. I am in the Canon camp and accept that the events in Enforcer DID in fact happen, although the game most certainly does embelish them a great deal! We've so far discussed things such as boss fights, teleporters, massive numbers of aliens and the fact that X-Com didn't realise any of this was going on until after the war (or ever possibly) The main purpose of this thread then is to discuss such things and generally get word of the game back into the community for a bit as it gets a pretty rough deal does Enforcer. What would be very interesting though would be to come up with a canon history behind the events in the Enforcer game. If we as a community can explain away enough of the ridiculousness of this game for it to become a logically acceptable chapter of the X-Com universe then I think that'd be awesome! Of course feel free to also discuss the game itself and what not. For anyone not familiar with it I would recommend at least giving it a go if you can find a (free) copy. It's definitely not X-Com as we know it but it's kind of SO not X-Com as we know it that it doens't even matter. It doesn't ever pretend to be a tactical turn based squad game with base building so you shouldn't be disappointed when you realise it's not! What follows will be a bunch of posts moved over from our original convo. I hope some more people will join us in this discussion soon! As this conversation started in a dissection of The Bureau I made some comparisons here which I've left in for the benefit of those familiar with both games. which is why I created this one! I'll leave room for someone else to pitch in before we get into boss specifics though. It may still be easiest to just forget about the bosses entirely or substitute them with something else (uber-ethereal=ethereal council for example) Off to do some other bits now though so will return shortly. Hope you see this new post Silencer and anyone else out there too!

Have moved Enforcer related conversation (including my last post) over to a new thread in it's own forum. I hope you'll continue to discuss these important matters with me there And also that there will be some more people turn up in here to discuss the Bureau. It seems I'm discussing thoe only 2 games that half our members still haven't played!

Just added to the original post. Here is what's new and it's a lot again Silly Coids So what's the deal with these things anyway? (Like we don't already know) We all know what the Silacoids are in EU and this is most definitely not it. The decision to turn them into these black globular, Calcinitesque monstrosities is frankly baffling! How is it that they somehow evolved to become solid bioligical entities in the next few decades? Well the answer is fairly simple isn't it, they don't... The 'blobs' as The Bureau calls them, were the first enemy ever created by 2K and they simply put too much work into them to send them to the cutting room floor. So they kept them, fair enough they were a HUGE part of the narrative (though that says fairly little) What is NOT excusable is the use of an already established X-Com enemy, the Silacoid, to represent these formless lumps. They are not, were not and never will be the Silacoids we see in EU so why on earth did they choose to take the name in vain? Is that a boss fight? I don't know what's more tragic, the fact that this game features 'boss' aliens, or that I didn't realise until I'd finished the whole thing! You may not know what I'm talking about but I can sum it up in one word. Titan. What? You don't know what that is? Oh that's right because the word is only ever used one time throughout the game on a letter you may or may not find and read... Well, the Titan is apparently what the alien laser eyeball thing is called, it's mentioned that the Avenger is somehow being built from this material despite being almost finished before your first encounter... Oh and did I mention your only encounter?! This enemy is the guardian of the alien tower that you steal the transponder from (so easy btw) and it's reminiscent of the early trailers for this game. That's because it was designed waaay back and intended to be one of the main baddies faced by Carter and friends. I imagine a whole lot of time went into the frankly awesome animation surrounding it's deployment and transformation and it was well worth it in my opinion. The thing looked great and was actually a wow moment for me but then I got back to shooting it in the eye a million times and it died and I moved on... So there it is, the bureau boss fight. And this isn't the only one, the Muton, Sectopod and later Elite Muton and Heavy Sectopod are basically all in the game just to ramp up the difficulty. That's why the Muton usually comes at the END of a combat encounter. It's the boss. Now as I said, I didn't realise this until I'd finished the game so it's not that huge a problem. What is a shame though is what tipped me off to this which is of course the sole Titan sighting. Like the Silacoid it's a reminder of 2k's previously discarded attempt at making this game and while it's cool it seems totally out of place here. On defeating the Titan, Axis boasts 'you have defeated one of our smaller ships...contemplate facing our larger vessels'. So the Gunships don't count as vessels then? As they clearly aren't constructed of the same shape changing materials as this ring-o-death. They don't have that central orange power core either. In fact, nor does ANYTHING else in the game. All the power cores, seeds and nodes are blue, only turning orange when something is very wrong with them! So while I understand WHY they included this unique enemy, I don't understand why it isn't more well used. Why not spawn one of these Titans instead of a pair of Mutons sometimes? Or have it replace the odd Sectopod. Near the finale there is a room that spawns a lone sectopod then immediately another once it is dead. Could have used some variety there I think! The second iteration of 2Ks Bureau showed enemy footsoldiers who had skin resembling the Titan form in that they changed shape and texture in a similar way. This looked just plain wrong on a humanoid lifeform however and I'm very pleased it was dropped in favour of the far more organic Outsiders. The fact that they dropped every other iteration of this shape-changing mechanical menace can't help but sound alarm bells and the fact that they kept just ONE of these resources in the game for a quick wow factor and then never mentioned it again smacks of stupidity. It simply doesn't fit in the game, anywhere, at all, ever... And now that I mention the Outsiders... Zudjari? Ah you mean people from Zudjar! Who the hell are these outsiders and at what point did the game mention the name of their race as I clearly missed it! I guess the infiltrator tells us but I only found the name when I started googling wikis! The question here though isn't really who they are, as we already know they are Origin's race who he somehow 'saved' by terraforming their planet in such a way it was left utterly incapable of sustaining them. Interesting long term plan Origin! The real puzzle here is what do they BECOME? This is so far the only point at which I will refer to the 2012 XCOM as the canon storyline (as from 2ks point of view it is) From the point of view of the original EU this doesn't warrant a mention as outsiders simply don't exist and can therefore be written off following the Bureau. Of course this is all inconsequential twoddle as I maintain that the Bureau is in no way canon with regards to either iteration of Enemy Unknown and does not take place in the X-Com universe at all. But for argument's sake, let's throw 2k a bone and say 'I see what you did there' using the outsider from 2012 XCOM in your new game. It gives it some kind of connection, like using the sectoid and Muton. What it doesn't do however is explain why the Outsiders in XCOM are crystal guardians though... It's theorised in some wiki's I looked at that these crystal beings are being controlled by the Sectoid commander in the alien base. This is why they cease to be after the base is raided by XCOM. I can live with that, it sounds reasonable. But it doesn't make sense with regards to the bureau does it? It's been suggested that the Ethereals seen in the Bureau have transcended their physical form while those seen in 2012 XCOM have not. However it's also stated that 'Any homeworld we had is long forgotten to us' which would suggest the Ethereals in the Bureau have no knowledge of other physical beings or even how they came to transcend this state. It's almost as if they were banished by those who couldn't achieve this feat. Is this transcendence perhaps what happened to the Outsiders between the Bureau and 2012 XCOM? Have they transcended their physical form and become vessels for more powerful aliens? And if so, why is it that only one Sectoid in the entire invasion fleet can control them? Are they not worthy for utilisation by the Ethereals perhaps? Out of this World! For those of you not in the know, Ethereal means 'otherworldly' so... Yeah, there ya go. Following directly on from the problem with Outsiders moving from the Bureau to 2012 XCOM the same problem should be addressed for the Ethereals, being as they are the head of the invasion. From my googling and writing the above point I suddenly find myself able to theorise on these events which is interesting but of course remember I do NOT acknowledge any connection between The Bureau and any other game. It's clear that the designers meant for me to though so we shall hypothesize... I reckon, the Ethereal who left with the outsider ship maintained control of all the alien races that were part of the invasion. It's a peaceful presence unlike Origin before him but it's maintaining control nonetheless. It uses the ship to explore the galaxy/universe in an attempt to find answers regarding it's origin (as it's buddy is now dead and was pretty clueless anyway) On it's journey it attempts to understand how it came to be in its incorporeal form and experiments with the Outsiders to such a point where partial transcendence is achieved. The 'essence' of the outsiders can be bound to energy crystals and then controlled by the Ethereal but they lose their consciousness in the process. Of course at some point this vessel must arrive at the Ethereal homeworld where many corporeal beings still exist. Fearing an invasion by the being they once exiled from their planet, the arriving Ethereal is tricked and captured along with it's army. Most likely this Ethereal becomes a part of that wierd glowing sphere on the alien mothership in 2012 XCOM but my memory on that is hazy at best. Whatever becomes of it, the Ethereals gain control of the mothership and the army on board it. They then check the ships logs and realise that it recently visited a planet they seeded long ago which has developed faster than expected. They decide to make use of the free army and make their way back there to reclaim what is rightfully theirs! At least I reckon that ties up a fair few loose ends... Of course the big problem with this is that the Ethereal must get from Earth and to the Ethereal homeworld and then back to Mars again to set up shop in only 50 years, quite an achievement even with gate technology but something entirely different without it! I realise of course that Mars is not involved in the 2012 XCOM story but if it is not important to the aliens at some point then I shall dismiss this reboot entirely! Cydonia was a HUGE part of the original mythos and noone has the right to take it away from us... Origin of Stupidity maybe... As for this Origin guy, well where to start? This guy is gifted with massively advanced technology and a vastly augmented intelligence and what does he do? That's right, he enslaves the being who provided said gift, creates a machine that gives him control over his entire race, then renders his own planet unsustainable while conquering dozens of others, essentially rendering THOSE uninhabitable as well! He shouldn't be called Origin, he should be called Plague, this guy is an all consuming virus to the galaxy at large! Everything he touches seems to quite literally turn to crap and he is essentially responsible for single-handedly obliterating not only what little hope his own race had for survival but also countless others! It's mentioned repeatedly throughout the game that Origin's 'terraforming' of their own world has rendered it a 'lifeless husk' and it will do the same to Earth. Doesn't that seem a little strange as the infiltrator constantly keeps reminding us that 'my people need a new home', 'we're looking for a new home' and 'the war will not end until we find a new home'. Ok, so you've invaded earth because you need a new home, we get it. So WHY are you destroying the planet if you need it to ensure the survival of your race your dimwits! And what exactly is this 'terraforming' anyway? Isn't the purpose of terraforming to alter the atmosphere and landscape of a planet to better suit your needs? But we already mentioned the fact that these aliens can quite happily live and breathe in our atmosphere and they don't seem to need to eat or drink at all sooo... Also, at what point does building gigantic metal towers count as terraforming anyway? That's more like industrialisation, or urbanising, or Coruscanting or something... They mention in the game that these towers are simply being built to open the way for a main invasion force, but what's so important about huge towers to an invasion fleet? They can open space gates and build secret complexes under gigantic reservoirs but they can't land their invasion fleet on the ground? Oh yeah, and they have TELEPORTERS! So what's with the towers Origin? This guy is a tool...

Just realised there is an endgame spoiler for The Bureau in here! Last sentence, first paragraph... It's my opinion that Enforcer should definitely be considered canon. I was considering this statement after I finished my post last night and I realised that it actually isn't too dissimilar to the Bureau in several aspects. Remember the teleporter probes that brought in all the enemies? The Bureau has drop pods that do the same thing... The ridiculous weapons in Enforcer? Not quite the same in The Bureau but I'd suggest a rotary plasma cannon (read : heavy plasma gatling cannon) is pretty nuts. There IS also a lightning cannon in The Bureau which is quite frankly ridiculous and I assume only exists in the game because they already developed it for the first iteration of the game... Enforcer threw masses of enemies at the player constantly, nothing like Enemy Unknown. There are dozens of points in The Bureau when this exact same thing occurs though. And remember the bosses in Enforcer? The giant Chryssalid and such? I'd suggest that the Titan (flying eye disk o death thing) in The Bureau is essentially a boss fight. So is the first time you meet a Muton or Sectopod. Then later as the game ramps up we get Elite Mutons and Heavy Sectopods too. All boss fights essentially... Agent Carter IS the Enforcer. He has magical powers and wields some pretty amazing weaponry, essentially winning the war singlehandedly. Hell, the two games even end in the same way. Hero finds alien mothership orbiting earth, kills guy in charge, game over... The reason it is significantly easier to relate to The Bureau than to Enforcer is NOT because of the different story or setting, it's because of the massively over the top arcade elements of Enforcer and the significantly improved graphics in The Bureau. Try to imagine for just 5 minutes, how Enforcer would look without such an endless barrage of enemies, power-ups and 'microchip' point tokens and instead try to picture it in a modern graphical engine with The Bureau's Drop pods and 2012 XCOM's enemy depictions. Seems like a pretty decent game doesn't it? Let's not forget that there was a little R&D in Enforcer too. I daresay that if it was approached sensibly by a competent developer with today's technology, Enforcer could be a VERY different game than the one we got all those years ago. Let's not forget that this game was made by Hasbro Interactive when they were on the verge of bankruptcy. They cancelled Alliance and Genesis to make a quick buck off the franchise. That killed them soon after and we lament the loss of those other games to this day. At the very least, let's be grateful that the internet and social media has allowed the fans to prevent 2k from making the same blunder with the Bureau as Hasbro did with Enforcer. We know there were lay-offs after it was published, even in it's improved semi-tactical form. They could well have faced Hasbro's fate had they gone for an early cash grab with it!

I actually don't have enemy within myself yet! I've heard good things about it but I guess I felt rather jipped by the sudden 'stopping' of 2012 XCOM! And for what it's worth, The Bureau doesn't ask for a great deal of time commitment so I'd say just go for it when you have a free day or two!

Greetings Strategy Core, I trust you are well? So here it is... On a recent day trip that just happened to take me near enough a 'Game' store for me to be inexplicably drawn inside, I picked up a copy of The Bureau. Today I finished it and polished off 33 of the 41 steam achievements, all that are possible without the DLC (and winning on Commander) and of course I couldn't help but coming here and dissecting my experience with it. Know this, spoilers will inevitably follow. Know also this, I actually kinda liked it... Know finally this, I'm going to do a lot of whining here but I'd like to hear other opinions whether they concur with mine or not so please chime in with your time in the Bureau! So where to start? Seems like there's quite a lot of ground to cover here despite the game being pretty short and entirely linear... I guess we could start with the game being quite short and entirely linear? This game is pretty short and entirely linear... Well it is! It probably took me longer to write that statement 3 times than it did to complete one of the minor operations! Ok, maybe not but seriously. If we know anything about X-Com games it's that success demands a serious time commitment on the players part. You can't just attend a dozen missions and save the planet, it just doesn't work that way... I rather enjoyed the Minor Operations as they seemed more familiar to me than the long ass main missions but the fact that all of it was so linear and scripted just made it feel like any other shooter (regardless of the tactical capabilities). Where were the UFOs? Where were all the other teams? The other missions? All the story boils down to in the end is Carter (sort of) saving the world single-handedly while the rest of the bureau sits on its ass doing nothing. The Bureau would have felt a whole lot more like a REAL X-Com game if they'd added some length, some meat to it's bare bones. Why not spread out the main missions as opposed to having them come literally one after another without respite? Why make all the minor operations so scripted and linear when they could have been partially randomised variations based on a pre-determined set of mission types? Why not let us investigate landed UFOs that could be delivering equipment, sowing 'seeds' or any amount of other nefarious deeds. As we learned from XCom 2012, UFO missions don't even really need a landscape to play on, they still work. We could have had two or three different UFOs which cycled through a handful of docking or landing stations and then given them one of several mission objectives to provide dozens of extra missions. Same goes for other missions, an American town in the 60s is basically an American town in the 60s. We never got tired of the same gas station or warehouses in EU did we?! A further insult, particularly in the major ops, was the continuous barrage of 'no turning back' drops and doors that sealed you into just pressing forward. Everytime you jump down a hole or off a ledge you just make ready and prepare for another fire fight. There's no tension, no mystery, yet there are inexplicably massive amounts of time where you'll encounter NO enemies whatsoever! The most ridiculous example of this happens during the assault on Axis' tower when there are literally zero enemy troops for minutes at a time. And that's the guy masterminding the invasion? With that sort of skill for organising security it's no wonder he failed so spectacularly... Research and Develo-whut? Ok so we knew this wouldn't be here to some extent but I had no idea it was absent to quite such an extent! I remember very early in this game's development seeing videos of scientists testing the electro-raygun-o-death and thought it was a neat scene. It seemed to show how the tech was developing and gave an insight into the labs that we didn't get back in the 90's. The finished product retains the lab and workshop which is almost certainly a good thing, as are the conversations you can have with some of the staff, but they just kind of carry on regardless don't they? The player has absolutely no control, or even any effect whatsoever, on research and development in the Bureau. I find this strange seeing as Faulke tells us at one point 'no other agent has your success rate in the field' and quite clearly we are the agent going on EVERY major operation that's undertaken. We're even told after the first mission that we MAY be able to adapt the alien weaponry for our own use but so far they all disintegrate on their user's death. It's also pointed out that we need weapons that haven't been 'imprinted' on anyone yet. In the very next mission however (and for the rest of the game) we're able to collect any weapon we like, including those from downed aliens. So why the sudden u-turn? This is NEVER addressed and noone ever even MENTIONS this new tech to us at base. The only thing we see in the lab that even comes close is the experimental lightning gun which explodes, before randomly turning up in an alien base a few missions later... How about the backpacks? Kind of a nifty gimmick along with the vambraces, but did anyone else ever wonder what the hell they were or where they came from? Apart from a quick chat about the vambrace being good for punching aliens with (a great idea...) noone ever discusses it again and is it just me or does it seem to be housing some kind of fusion reactor? I wouldn't want that on my back while people were trying to kill me. Ever. If you gave me a backpack that combined ALL of the bonuses available in the game but would only let me wear it I didn't ask what it was, where it came from or how it worked. I would be leaving very fast indeed... Who even makes these things? We find a blueprint for them in alien bases (for some reason) and then immediately they appear in our base. That is super efficient (probably Japanese) manufacturing. Another huge err in this game is the fact that the Avenger seems to be almost finished by the time the aliens have even chosen a planet to invade because 'the government have been working on it for a while'. Ok, that's handy... How come the government have been building it from alien resources that we only just recovered? I also found that time in this game passes at an indiscriminate rate. After I was told to get on the Avenger to bomb the alien homeworld (...) I went on two minor operations and cleared a couple of investigations at the base. Faulke waited patiently for what I can only imagine is a couple of days while I did this so bully for him. Boss of the year mug coming your way, though by all accounts you probably should keep a tighter hold of the reigns when your staffs performance directly effects the continued existence of mankind as we know it... On top of the R&D there is of course another thing missing. That is of course base building, another thing we knew we wouldn't be getting. The fact we already knew doesn't make it's omission hurt the game any less however and it could've been really easily added in my opinion. Throughout the course of the game there are piles of crates blocking areas of the base (despite them all being shown on the map) and there is even a mention of 'building defences' later in the game. Now I certainly don't think Carter should be put in charge of building this base, but it could've been included in the narrative to some degree and I think it would have at least made it FEEL more like a proper X-Com game. How is it they already had the alien containment built BEFORE the invasion? Truth be told the alien it held seemed to basically be a human in a halloween mask who slept in a bed and walked around a bit but why shy away from it? Why not have the Infiltraitor alien die due to lack of containment? Then the next mission can be to capture another one 'since we now have a room that should contain him'. It could even have served to lengthen the game as you wouldn't want to launch certain missions without having defensive facilities in place just in case the base is discovered in the aftermath for example. My point is simply, base building could have formed part of the narrative of this game and in doing so it would have stayed closer to what it claims to be. X-Com. So 3-man? Or squad? Which is it? Yep, a 3-man squad. That's not a squad is it? That's not a darts team. It's not even enough for a Beatles tribute act! A proper Skyranger will hold a 14 man squad. Fourteen! Now that is a reasonable amount of firepower when you're facing an alien invasion. They're intention is to destroy our homeworld and enslave each and every one of us, how many men shall we send to stop them? Yeah, of course you would choose three... The toruble is, the tactical portion of the Bureau just wouldn't work with many more agents. I still think we could've done with at least 4 or 5 (one of each class?) but it was never going to be 14. Thing is though, it just doesn't work in a game that is trying to tell us it's X-Com when it clearly isn't. The devs didn't 'add' these two squad mates later in development, they were already there. They simply gave the player some extra control over them, which works well in fairness. The reason they did this was because people were complaining so much and they wanted to see a 'tactical squad based game'. By making these two soldiers more than simple AI grunts and giving some semblance of control over them to the player, they claim to have achieved this. A shooter by any other name however is still a shooter... They didn't provide us with a squad and they didn't really provide us with any tactics. Because lets be honest, tactics in EU weren't about lifting enemies in the air, spawning laser turrets from nowhere or calling in artillery strikes in space. Tactics in EU were about utilising a large squad of varied troops with differing armaments and objectives. Now we simply hide in cover, shoot for a while and then heal our whole squad with our magic. Noone even dies anymore! (Unless you really really suck) Which brings us onto another big problem that stops this from being an X-Com game... Why won't you die! Now don't get me wrong, I HATE losing men and did my fair share of reloading in the 2012 XCOM to try and get the majority of my squad home intact. Much moreso than in the original EU in fact because in EU you just straight up expected your soldiers to die. Mortality in the original game was ridiculously high but that's because you were sending rookies with pistols in bright blue jumpsuits to fight plasma wielding aliens in white snow. Of course they're all going to die! But if one of them manages to bring a new gun back to base for research then maybe fewer will die next time! Of course the reason it's so hard for agents to die in the Bureau is because you have so few of them. I dare say if you let an agent die out in any of the major operations you probably won't survive till the end of it. And then you have to level up another new agent to get those skills back which is tough (maybe impossible if you're particularly bad at the game) because there are only a few dozen opportunities for your soldiers to gain any experience whatsoever. If all of your agensts are dead by the time you head for the mothership then tough luck! Looks like you're taking 2 rookies with you to the toughest fight in the game... This is another aspect of the bureau that is just very un-X-Com... I don't WANT my people to die anymore. Ever since I first played the original EU all those years ago, every movie book and computer game I've come into contact with tells me that death is a bad thing. It's never necessary unless it's forced, scripted. In an X-Com game though it doesn't need to be scripted. A death in EU wasn't a bad thing per-se, it's just what happens when technologically superior aliens attack an unprepared planet! People will die! Unless of course you're affiliated with William Carter... You can't let your people die here, the game almost prevents it from even being possible. Even when someone 'goes down' from a blaster rocket to the face they remain alive and INVULNERABLE no less! I had Mutons and Sectopods jumping up and down on my injured squad mates while they simply continued to ask for help in a very casual manner. You then wander over there and spray them with your never-ending medkit (something I WISH EU had!) and then they have full health again! Yay! It even seemed when I was playing that my squad mates were practically invincible when saving my sorry ass. Getting shot to pieces by mutons but simply carrying on and barely losing health at all! When a game makes it this hard to die, you KNOW it expects you to survive... Silly Coids So what's the deal with these things anyway? (Like we don't already know) We all know what the Silacoids are in EU and this is most definitely not it. The decision to turn them into these black globular, Calcinitesque monstrosities is frankly baffling! How is it that they somehow evolved to become solid bioligical entities in the next few decades? Well the answer is fairly simple isn't it, they don't... The 'blobs' as The Bureau calls them, were the first enemy ever created by 2K and they simply put too much work into them to send them to the cutting room floor. So they kept them, fair enough they were a HUGE part of the narrative (though that says fairly little) What is NOT excusable is the use of an already established X-Com enemy, the Silacoid, to represent these formless lumps. They are not, were not and never will be the Silacoids we see in EU so why on earth did they choose to take the name in vain? Is that a boss fight? I don't know what's more tragic, the fact that this game features 'boss' aliens, or that I didn't realise until I'd finished the whole thing! You may not know what I'm talking about but I can sum it up in one word. Titan. What? You don't know what that is? Oh that's right because the word is only ever used one time throughout the game on a letter you may or may not find and read... Well, the Titan is apparently what the alien laser eyeball thing is called, it's mentioned that the Avenger is somehow being built from this material despite being almost finished before your first encounter... Oh and did I mention your only encounter?! This enemy is the guardian of the alien tower that you steal the transponder from (so easy btw) and it's reminiscent of the early trailers for this game. That's because it was designed waaay back and intended to be one of the main baddies faced by Carter and friends. I imagine a whole lot of time went into the frankly awesome animation surrounding it's deployment and transformation and it was well worth it in my opinion. The thing looked great and was actually a wow moment for me but then I got back to shooting it in the eye a million times and it died and I moved on... So there it is, the bureau boss fight. And this isn't the only one, the Muton, Sectopod and later Elite Muton and Heavy Sectopod are basically all in the game just to ramp up the difficulty. That's why the Muton usually comes at the END of a combat encounter. It's the boss. Now as I said, I didn't realise this until I'd finished the game so it's not that huge a problem. What is a shame though is what tipped me off to this which is of course the sole Titan sighting. Like the Silacoid it's a reminder of 2k's previously discarded attempt at making this game and while it's cool it seems totally out of place here. On defeating the Titan, Axis boasts 'you have defeated one of our smaller ships...contemplate facing our larger vessels'. So the Gunships don't count as vessels then? As they clearly aren't constructed of the same shape changing materials as this ring-o-death. They don't have that central orange power core either. In fact, nor does ANYTHING else in the game. All the power cores, seeds and nodes are blue, only turning orange when something is very wrong with them! So while I understand WHY they included this unique enemy, I don't understand why it isn't more well used. Why not spawn one of these Titans instead of a pair of Mutons sometimes? Or have it replace the odd Sectopod. Near the finale there is a room that spawns a lone sectopod then immediately another once it is dead. Could have used some variety there I think! The second iteration of 2Ks Bureau showed enemy footsoldiers who had skin resembling the Titan form in that they changed shape and texture in a similar way. This looked just plain wrong on a humanoid lifeform however and I'm very pleased it was dropped in favour of the far more organic Outsiders. The fact that they dropped every other iteration of this shape-changing mechanical menace can't help but sound alarm bells and the fact that they kept just ONE of these resources in the game for a quick wow factor and then never mentioned it again smacks of stupidity. It simply doesn't fit in the game, anywhere, at all, ever... And now that I mention the Outsiders... Zudjari? Ah you mean people from Zudjar! Who the hell are these outsiders and at what point did the game mention the name of their race as I clearly missed it! I guess the infiltrator tells us but I only found the name when I started googling wikis! The question here though isn't really who they are, as we already know they are Origin's race who he somehow 'saved' by terraforming their planet in such a way it was left utterly incapable of sustaining them. Interesting long term plan Origin! The real puzzle here is what do they BECOME? This is so far the only point at which I will refer to the 2012 XCOM as the canon storyline (as from 2ks point of view it is) From the point of view of the original EU this doesn't warrant a mention as outsiders simply don't exist and can therefore be written off following the Bureau. Of course this is all inconsequential twoddle as I maintain that the Bureau is in no way canon with regards to either iteration of Enemy Unknown and does not take place in the X-Com universe at all. But for argument's sake, let's throw 2k a bone and say 'I see what you did there' using the outsider from 2012 XCOM in your new game. It gives it some kind of connection, like using the sectoid and Muton. What it doesn't do however is explain why the Outsiders in XCOM are crystal guardians though... It's theorised in some wiki's I looked at that these crystal beings are being controlled by the Sectoid commander in the alien base. This is why they cease to be after the base is raided by XCOM. I can live with that, it sounds reasonable. But it doesn't make sense with regards to the bureau does it? It's been suggested that the Ethereals seen in the Bureau have transcended their physical form while those seen in 2012 XCOM have not. However it's also stated that 'Any homeworld we had is long forgotten to us' which would suggest the Ethereals in the Bureau have no knowledge of other physical beings or even how they came to transcend this state. It's almost as if they were banished by those who couldn't achieve this feat. Is this transcendence perhaps what happened to the Outsiders between the Bureau and 2012 XCOM? Have they transcended their physical form and become vessels for more powerful aliens? And if so, why is it that only one Sectoid in the entire invasion fleet can control them? Are they not worthy for utilisation by the Ethereals perhaps? Out of this World! For those of you not in the know, Ethereal means 'otherworldly' so... Yeah, there ya go. Following directly on from the problem with Outsiders moving from the Bureau to 2012 XCOM the same problem should be addressed for the Ethereals, being as they are the head of the invasion. From my googling and writing the above point I suddenly find myself able to theorise on these events which is interesting but of course remember I do NOT acknowledge any connection between The Bureau and any other game. It's clear that the designers meant for me to though so we shall hypothesize... I reckon, the Ethereal who left with the outsider ship maintained control of all the alien races that were part of the invasion. It's a peaceful presence unlike Origin before him but it's maintaining control nonetheless. It uses the ship to explore the galaxy/universe in an attempt to find answers regarding it's origin (as it's buddy is now dead and was pretty clueless anyway) On it's journey it attempts to understand how it came to be in its incorporeal form and experiments with the Outsiders to such a point where partial transcendence is achieved. The 'essence' of the outsiders can be bound to energy crystals and then controlled by the Ethereal but they lose their consciousness in the process. Of course at some point this vessel must arrive at the Ethereal homeworld where many corporeal beings still exist. Fearing an invasion by the being they once exiled from their planet, the arriving Ethereal is tricked and captured along with it's army. Most likely this Ethereal becomes a part of that wierd glowing sphere on the alien mothership in 2012 XCOM but my memory on that is hazy at best. Whatever becomes of it, the Ethereals gain control of the mothership and the army on board it. They then check the ships logs and realise that it recently visited a planet they seeded long ago which has developed faster than expected. They decide to make use of the free army and make their way back there to reclaim what is rightfully theirs! At least I reckon that ties up a fair few loose ends... Of course the big problem with this is that the Ethereal must get from Earth and to the Ethereal homeworld and then back to Mars again to set up shop in only 50 years, quite an achievement even with gate technology but something entirely different without it! I realise of course that Mars is not involved in the 2012 XCOM story but if it is not important to the aliens at some point then I shall dismiss this reboot entirely! Cydonia was a HUGE part of the original mythos and noone has the right to take it away from us... Origin of Stupidity maybe... As for this Origin guy, well where to start? This guy is gifted with massively advanced technology and a vastly augmented intelligence and what does he do? That's right, he enslaves the being who provided said gift, creates a machine that gives him control over his entire race, then renders his own planet unsustainable while conquering dozens of others, essentially rendering THOSE uninhabitable as well! He shouldn't be called Origin, he should be called Plague, this guy is an all consuming virus to the galaxy at large! Everything he touches seems to quite literally turn to crap and he is essentially responsible for single-handedly obliterating not only what little hope his own race had for survival but also countless others! It's mentioned repeatedly throughout the game that Origin's 'terraforming' of their own world has rendered it a 'lifeless husk' and it will do the same to Earth. Doesn't that seem a little strange as the infiltrator constantly keeps reminding us that 'my people need a new home', 'we're looking for a new home' and 'the war will not end until we find a new home'. Ok, so you've invaded earth because you need a new home, we get it. So WHY are you destroying the planet if you need it to ensure the survival of your race your dimwits! And what exactly is this 'terraforming' anyway? Isn't the purpose of terraforming to alter the atmosphere and landscape of a planet to better suit your needs? But we already mentioned the fact that these aliens can quite happily live and breathe in our atmosphere and they don't seem to need to eat or drink at all sooo... Also, at what point does building gigantic metal towers count as terraforming anyway? That's more like industrialisation, or urbanising, or Coruscanting or something... They mention in the game that these towers are simply being built to open the way for a main invasion force, but what's so important about huge towers to an invasion fleet? They can open space gates and build secret complexes under gigantic reservoirs but they can't land their invasion fleet on the ground? Oh yeah, and they have TELEPORTERS! So what's with the towers Origin? This guy is a tool... Carter is a level 3 Mage! Now this might just be me, but I was somewhat surprised when Agent Carter suddenly began demonstrating an ability to lift aliens up in the air. You know, from a distance... Without touching them... Like magic... Was this meant to be the vambrace? Because we all remember that guy who invented the levitating vambrace back in '59 right? Was it perhaps the thingy (being spoiler kind here even though I already warned of them!) he has that was giving him this power? As it does pass to the character you choose at the end so this is logical. But unless I missed something, and I do have annoyingly needy kids so it's possible, this is never mentioned or discussed. Ever... Also Commando class troops can use these same magic powers to push enemies away, and I'm pretty sure they don't suffer the same 'affliction' as Carter do they? Yet even when non-commandos witness Carter lifting stuff into the air with his wrist/mind they don't seem to find it unusual. Come to think of it both friendly and enemy combat drones can do this as well so it must just be nifty alien technology that the Bureau happened to come into possession of BEFORE the invasion I guess... Weaver is a level 10 douch... What the hell is with this wench? She does nothing useful the whole game and then (in my game) dies. She was not missed... The first time we meet her she kills the general, who is admittedly possessed but also unarmed I believe. She could just as easily have communicated to the three heavily armed agents who just entered the room that he's dangerous but no. Strong independent female character wants to assert herself early on. She even says at one point 'I'm a woman playing a man's game'. I mean really?! So ridiculous it gets it's own paragraph... Of course 90% of her douchiness comes from the fact that she steals a skyranger (strange as we only ever have ONE of them except at this point in the game) and flies off to fight Axis on her own. She also manages to successfully infiltrate his tower ALONE making her one hell of an amazing agent. Carter then catches up to her and talks her down, helping her find her brother and pull the plug. They continue to work together right up to knocking out Axis. The sole objective of this whole mission. EVERYONE has stated how important it is that Axis be captured alive. Faulke, the scientists, Carter, even Weaver herself. When he's on the floor, defenceless, Carter tells Weaver they've succeeded then walks away and leaves her to shoot him in the face... WTF??? Carter doesn't even seem bothered by this, even though Weaver has just single-handedly failed the mission and rendered his teams work up to this point completely futile. Back at base everyone is similarly nonplussed by the whole affair. In fact they don't even seem to want to talk about it! Perhaps the bureau has been on the recieving end of one too many 'gender discrimination' lawsuits and so is letting this one side. She's not reprimanded for stealing the Skyranger, or for killing Axis, and she's not even deemed psychologically effected by having to pull the plug on her own experimented brother, the one she's been obsessing over for years. On top of all that, she continues to play a part in the organisation and actually goes on the final mission to save the planet. When she came back she should've been locked up with the Infiltrator, she did more damage than he did... Let's plug him back in! Speaking of the infiltrator... This is the first alien that was captured by the Bureau. They removed his link to Mosaic (the alien brain) and he becomes fast friends with Agent Carter for the remainder of the game. He is essentially a game long deus ex machina solution to a great many problems. Who is leading the invasion, where the aliens get their orders from, how to get to the alien homeworld, all these massive questions are simply answered by the infiltrator because apparently he doesn't really care either way. It seems like the lazy story-telling continues right up to the end of the game then when he is once again instrumental in commencing Act 3 by revealing the location of the Bureau to Origin and prompting it's destruction. Why did he not do that in the first place by the way? They put his implant back in and he connected to mosaic, so why didn't he do that before they took it out? It was mentioned earlier that he'd been wandering around the base for months so what kind of a crappy infiltrator is he that he decides not to relay the location of mankinds only hope for salvation until AFTER he has had a change of heart and befriended half of the base. Deus ex Machina and lazy narrative for the win! This character could have been developed so much better and given a real post-war story but instead he was just cashed in for a bit of action and drama. If it weren't bad enough that this alien became the 'easy way out' for roughly 75% of the games story, even the way in which he was used was piss weak. Designers must have asked themselves 'how do we make this alien betray the humans now that he has an identity of his own?' and the best answer they could come up with was to have Faulke and Weir inexplicably RECONNECT HIM TO MOSAIC!!! The alien even states repeatedly that this connection will kill all of them and that the information will be lost but of course they don't listen... Now Faulke seems like a bit of a prat anyway but Weir is a genius! One of the few scientists on the base who isn't determined to turn every discovery they make into a weapon of mass destruction! Surely he was aware of the repercussions this act would have. But because the narrative demanded it, he pushed the 'please tell aliens where we are button' and basically everything they'd achieved up to that point was destroyed... Good job prof. I was asleep HOW LONG? Oh well... Onto the damning 'post game' problems now and this is only the first one but it's a kicker! It's stated in the epilogue that all of the 'sleepwalkers' were saved thanks to the ethereal and a bunch medicare dollars. It also mentions that 'thankfully they had no memory of the events'. But that's not really a solution is it? See the thing about mankind is that we're a curious bunch. Ever so curious. So curious in fact that we'll dive to the bottom of the ocean and probe the depths of space. We're looking for the smallest particles in existence while trying to answer the biggest questions there are! Now, based on the map of the US from where our missions are born, there are a MASSIVE amoutn of infected citizens by the end of the war. Let's not fall into the trap of thinking the aliens only hit small towns, we know for a fact that Washington was hit and the president and all his staff killed. Everyone else? Most likely they were turned to sleepwalkers. I imagine there were a great many other major cities hit too and even if we assume that they DID only hit small towns, we KNOW there were hundreds of thousands of infected sleepwalkers. In my opinion it's unlikely that there were any less than millions of them in the US alone by the end of the war. Remember that water poisoning station where Weaver showed us how much of a dick a pissed off broad can be? That place had been running for decades by her reckoning and it's sole purpose was to infect the population. Unless Axis was as inefficient at that job as he was at defending his tower, I think you could infect a lot of people in all those years. Regardless of statistical debate, the fact remains that a few hundred cases on amnesia across a country will be quickly explained away and forgotten. A few thousand can easily go away too with a little help. Even once you reach tens of thousands of cases of amnesia I reckon the bureau could tie them given enough time. However... To think that hundreds of thousands of people will simply wake up in hospital beds with no memory at all of the last several months and just accept the fact that their home town has been inexplicably destroyed and subsequently cordoned off by a military unit they've never heard of before simply because they're told so by the government is fairly unbelievable... Going to need more tarps. Let's not forget, the aliens have left HUGE amounts of collateral damage literally everywhere they've been. If not weapons then weapons fire, and lets not forget how hard it is to scrub silacoid slime out of deep pile carpets... Entire communities have been destroyed, almost eradicated, and hundreds maybe thousands of gigantic towers composed of elements not found on periodic tables dot the landscape. People don't forget this stuff, ever. And a team of a dozen people on a spaceship certainly don't have the manpower to make it go away. Even if the government was intact (which we know it isn't) the entirety of the US Air Force, Army and Navy (all destroyed by the way) could do nothing to stop knowledge of a massive worldwide alien invasion becoming common knowledge in a matter of days... Wonder what the reds are doing right now... Being a Brit as I am, I am acutely aware of the existence of intelligent life outside of the USA. I will not turn this into a well-deserved rant about why all the intergalactic naughties that find earth seem to instinctively head for the white house however. What I will do is ask what the rest of the world was doing when all this was going on... Russia is pretty much at the peak of it's Communist power right now and could amass a gigantic army in a matter of moments. They would most likely be abysmally trained and equipped and many would die from starvation and illness but as Hitler and Napoleon discovered very much to their detriment, Russia most certainly has numbers on their side. And they don't give up without a hell of a fight... The sort of numbers that we're seeing in these sites of alien activity simply pale in comparison to a Russian platoon and the other dozen platoons backing them up... This isn't the same as slaughtering a few college graduates in Anytown, USA, this is paranoid, militarised, Soviet Russia! Russia aside, I reckon there are a few other places that might also have a problem with this alien invasion. China and Japan had massively dense levels of population, even back in the 60's. There isn't really such a thing as 'rural' Japan so if you start building a big ass tower there it won't be long before the entire country is onto the scam. Let's not forget how willing these japs are to die for the cause either, especially after a shameful defeat in WWII, I daresay many of them would have relished a chance to fight again. Even those who don't want to are hardly likely to sit by while aliens take big glowy green turds on their doorstep are they... Europe is interesting too, it's kind of half way between the US that we see in the game and the Japan I just vaguely described. Sure they have farms and suburbs but most of the countries are fairly advanced and pretty switched on. Many of them would still have a lot of post-war infrastructure in place too so communication that didn't need satellites would be commonplace. England particularly is a small island so we'd be pretty likely to act on any incursions over here, particularly with our fancy new radar and the clever chaps at Bletchley park (though most of them have probably gone to work for the bureau now) Now having completed the game, I know it's not really 'about' America. It's about Carter and to a greater extent what he possesses. Also given that the Skyranger is an ugly silver helicopter, it's not partiularly believable that the could go on missions anywhere outside of the US mainland. So fair enough... It would've been nice to acknowledge the rest of the world though wouldn't it? Why couldn't we have experienced one or two missions in different parts of the world just as a bit of a break from the norm? It would even work as DLC, 'the European Pack'. 'Kiryu Kai' and so on. But no, I guess like many potential improvements it's just too much work for the designers! And where do you find time to write a story for your game when you've only been working on it for the best part of half a decade... Third world my ass... Following on from the last few points, it IS impossible to cover up this war. You can't convince people that nothing happened. You can't clear every speck of evidence out of America. You can't chemically remove every splatter of sectoid blood in Pima and you certainly can't reopen that university! But hypothetically, you know, just in case some bright spark thinks of a way you could do all those things... What do you do about the less civilised parts of the world? They don't have their own high tech well funded governments to bail them out or cover up what's going on. You think these African tribes or aboriginal Australians really have a clue what's going on? Or really care??? I don't pretend to know squat about their cultures but I'm pretty sure they're playing a whole different ball game to the Bureau and that's going to cause some problems. The aliens are going to be all over these remote, low population areas if they know what's good for them. Frankly I'm not sure why they didn't just land the entire invasion fleet in a desert somewhere and sweep the rest of the planet clean but then I'm not an extraterrestrial tactician so what do I know... Fact is, these areas are bound to be just as rich in alien artifacts as the rest of the settled world, possibly more so if the aliens have any sense. The difference is, they have noone to clean them up. So it really is only a matter of time before these stories of alien invasions start spreading and someone opens a stall in the bazaar selling laser pistols to tourists. Because let's be honest, if you were an alien invader, would you really waste your resources on polluting the water these guys drink? It quite often kills them anyway so why bother... But I was holding one like, JUST now... I don't know about everyone else but I finished the last mission of the Bureau armed with a plasma assault cannon and a laser pulse rifle. They were fun, hard hitting and just about got the job done... So why is it that none of these weapons manage to survive the end of the war? Ok so the base was destroyed that's a bummer... Buuuut... I'm pretty sure we saw hundreds of aliens throughout the mothership dropping their weapons at the end of the game. What happened to them? And how about all the weapons dotted around the alien bases built on earth? Remember there are dozens of them on every mission you do, and they'[re all still there after you leave... Even if we disregard the Bureau's utter incompetence at holding on to items of technical significance that will alter the course of human history, what about the rest of the world? The japs love shiny gizmos, did they manage to lose them all as well? Frankly, EVERY country in the world would have had a surplus of these weapons after the war as ALL the outsiders on the planet simply dropped their guns and then reported for clean up duty. Yet by the time the aliens invade AGAIN in 1999 (yes I'm sticking to that date deal with it) all these weapons are gone. Along with basically, well, everything. Let's not tell them, it'll be funny! I think this is a great one to go out on as I find it simply hilarious! We know for a fact that only a handful of Bureau agents actually survived the end of this game, so there would have been a lot of rebuilding to do and a lot of new agents brought in to help out. We know that Faulke really doesn't trust anyone with anything though, it's sown into the game pretty early on... So it seems that every new agent Faulke hires is kept in the dark about the existence of these aliens. He probably hires them from the sleepwalker pool or something... Indeed, a few decades later, Weir is dead, Carter is smashed off his tits on Whiskey because he just remembered his family is still dead and all the other remaining agents have spent so much time with new non-believers that they've convinced themselves the whole mess was just some bad dream. By the time the aliens attack again more than 30 years later noone in the world has ever heard of them! Faulke must have forgotten to correctly label the 'play this in case of my untimely death' video tape so after his autoerotic asphyxiation mishap noone is any the wiser to the alien threat that still lingers in the stars! I mean really??? The eagle eyed out there may notice that I haven't once referred to the organisation in this game as you know who because they just aren't X-Com. They are the Bureau, and they are terrible... They only succeeded in defending the planet because an Ethereal was doing it for them. Besides, it isn't even about 'The Bureau' or about Carter. It's about an alien invasion of EARTH and I find it really hard to believe that after just 30 years every single person on the planet has forgotten all about the largest most destructive war in history. All those people with amnesia just don't really care what happened to them and feel refreshed after their 6 month nap? Ridiculous... And not to mention... As is always the way with such things, I've inevitably forgotten many of the things I wanted to write about here. It has also taken me somewhere in the region of 2 hours to compose this massive wall of text so forgive me for what I didn't write! Also, forgive me for what I did write as I'm well aware (on checking the time) how much of it there is! Of course you're unlikely to read all of it and if you do it's even more unlikely to have taken you two hours but still, apologies... Please pitch in with what you thought of this and feel free to agree/disagree/react violently to any of my views as posted. Maybe address one heading at a time though to save yourself getting a back quite as rigid as mine is right now... Lastly, you may remember I started off by pointing out I actually kind of liked this game. If not I'll end by saying it again! It's most certainly NOT X-Com and anyone who tries to convince me it is canon will be severely reprimanded, but it IS at least a half decent game. Just a shame they tried to shoehorn it into the X-Com franchise where it quite definitely does not fit... As far as X-Com and FPS/TPS go, I still stand by Enforcer. It may be a ridiculous, ugly, arcadey mess but it IS X-Com. It displays it's name proudly across 3/4 of the width of the box! The Bureau barely has the balls to display it on the box at all but even that is too much! Simple fact is, and here's the bombshell I'm going to go out on, Enforcer is canon, the Bureau never will be...

Howdy folks, just got a pretty good deal dropped in my inbox so thought I'd send it your way for anyone who's interested! I already have these games but for anyone who doesn't this is certainly a sale not to be missed. All three of the UFO titles are currently on a 4 day sale (Friday-Monday) at http://www.gog.com for less than $8! It's certainly less than I paid when I got them and while I wasn't a huge fan of the trilogy it's certainly worth $8... The games can also be purchased individually for about $3 each and only $1.79 for Aftermath. You'll need to make a free account to buy games at GOG if you don't already have one but it's safe and free and you even get a bunch of free abandonware titles just for logging in. Anyone remember Under a Steel Sky? Anyone complete Under a Steel Sky??? Hope someone sees this and thinks it's a good deal, otherwise I just wasted precious seconds of my life that I'll never get back. Shame on you, go and buy these games!

How can any of you say you would rather play the game they originally pitched??? This isn't about originality, it's about an X-Com game that STILL DOESN'T EVEN HAVE THE HYPHEN!!! Seriously, if they can't even spell the name right after so long in development there will NEVER be any hope for this game. Especially after the excellent effort that was the recent Firaxis turn-based strategy game... We should be absolutely delighted that 2K are heeding the fan community and at least TRYING to make amends for their blasphemy but instead, even the people who cursed the original release are now saying it's a shame they changed it?!?! And let me point out that changing to a TPS still doesn't make it a strategy game, it just makes a slightly more turn-based FPS... So they're listening, sort of... What difference has it made so far? Issues resolved? Sectoids are in the game now along with other recognisable foes Wierd black ghosty monsters are possibly gone? There are attempts to tie this into actual X-Com timeline and Mythos (even though there shouldn't be) Issues unresolved? No base management, save for research and personnel The aliens only invade America (as usual...) Highly developed shield and plasma technology is introduced forty years before UFO, but they lose it all... The initial invasion devastates large parts of the US but goes completely unnoticed by EVERYBODY ELSE The stupid black obelisks and weapon systems are still in, despite a genuine UFO being shown in the teaser Only fielding a 3 man team (with a roster maximum of 8) against possibly dozens of aliens Everything else not mentioned so far... One of the things that REALLY bugs me is that they go so far as to say the alien invasion was DEVASTATING and every single battlefield in the game is completely devoid of human life. But then they try and tie it into the original mythos? How? Was every shred of evidence of the invasion miraculously destroyed everywhere all at once? And all of the decimated American towns were suddenly rebuilt and their slaughtered inhabitants revived? Really? Noone who saw or heard any of this stuff survived? Or even wrote something down? Phone call to a loved one? Telegram to colleague in scientific community? Possibly PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORITY??? Not only is it absurd to imagine such a crippling invasion going completely unnoticed in the rest of the world, it's also illogical that such a serious extraterrestrial attack would fail to cross the borders into even Canada and Mexico, let alone cross any oceans (in their intergalactic spacecraft...) On top of all of this nonsense, there are also the strange and seemingly immensely powerful obelisk weapons that just seem to be discontinued by the invading aliens in favour of floaters by the time they invade again in the 90s... What happened to the Mutons too? After the invasion failed in the 60s and they realised that only the heavily armoured plasma powered ape-monsters had actually had any success at all, they must have decided to do away with the armour and growth hormones in favour of a skin tight green onesie... Seriously I could rant about this all day. Sure, they listened to the fans hating on the game, but not to WHY the fans are hating! We weren't screaming out for you to add sectoids, change the era or move the camera. We just wanted you to release the game WITHOUT THE XCOM NAME ON IT!!! At least in 2010 we could all accept that it just wasn't even remotely X-Com and the name on the box was just a typo. Now though? They've gone out of their way to include recognisable aliens and link it into the pre-existing X-Com universe. But they've done such a half-arsed job of it they would've been better off doing nothing at all! All they needed to do was CHANGE THE NAME!!! What is this game even meant to be a prequel too by the way? I presume the Firaxis one? In which case forget the onesie comment... In actual fact though I don't really care that much if it's only trying to tie in with the new re imagining. That means it isn't trying to sully the original franchise after all! And for what it's worth, I don't think this game will be even remotely comparable to Enforcer. No it wasn't even the least bit tactical and had nothing at all in common with the original. But you know what it was? Canon... Like it or not, Enforcer DID happen in the X-Com universe... There are a lot of people out there (possibly a majority) who refuse to acknowledge Enforcer as a true X-Com title but the truth is, we don't get to decide that. The people who own the rights do... Right now it seems the people who own the rights are incompetent and unsympathetic buffoons. They should've cancelled this game years ago and just used the assets elsewhere. It'll no doubt still be an entertaining game (as it would've been for different reasons in 2010) but it STILL won't be an X-Com game...

The Kiryu Kai never stood a chance. They were the best Japan had rather than the best the whole world had so they had very little funding or coverage (despite arguably having more technology than the rest of the world!!!) When the funding Councils came together to form X-Com things were different so they had the best possible chance of success. Regardless though you're right, the whole concept of it is laughable in every iteration of this sort of game. The thing people fail to realise about 'alien invasion' media is that we had to use all of earths resources to fight off a small part of the alien war machine and the planet is essentially half destroyed as an outcome. Take Independence Day for example, obviously they'll be back. And when they are it'll all be over for earth!

Absolutely right it doesn't make sense! I'm not levelling that comment at just the new game but all of them. The UFO series is particularly hard to believe as after the spores killed most of the planets population, the tattered remnants still managed to fight the invaders off easily and then go on to fight them 2 more times as well

Make sure you start in a different location mate as you need to win a game in each of the five for another achievement For the fusion weapons you need to do a battleship mission which is easy enough by reloading your other game but floaters (in my experience) are gone for good now!