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I want to tell you about an often overlooked game that I really enjoyed my time with.
The setting is AMAZING, you are in 1960s America trying to contain an alien invasion with your team.
It got a lot of flak because it used the XCOM name while being a completely different type of game and it definitely had some flaws (the gameplay reminds one most of Mass Effect 1) - but if you see it on sale somewhere give it a chance, I think you won’t regret it. If anyone else has played it, do share your thoughts :)
The big part of the initial reactions had to do with the fact that Enemy Unknown wasn't announced at the time so people were worried series will move in a completely new direction (anybody remembers Close Combat: First to Fight?).
The other issue (post release) was how different it was from what we've seen initially - it was suppose to be set in 1950's, have first-person perspective, open-ended levels, info gathering, research and horror vibes (check this trailer and this gameplay).
By release that game turned into a third-person shooter with simpler, more linear levels, no research of alien technology and other streamlining measures. That doesn't mean the final product is bad (I enjoyed it quite a bit and the "twist" near the end was a pretty neat addition), it just didn't live up to the expectations and slowly fell into relative obscurity.
All in all I agree, play The Bureau if you want a different take on the XCOM universe. It's a decent game.
Thanks for adding to the conversation! I didn't know about the direction switch problem. I guess if I was an XCOM fan at the time it would irk me too
This controversy was actually how I found out about the classic XCOM (I may have heard about it before but never really looked into the series before that).
Truth be told, the whole thing could've been avoided if not for 2K's lack of foresight - not only they decided to call the game XCOM but also Enemy Unknown was already in production when they revealed the FPS version. All they had to do was let people know it wasn't the only project in the pipeline (though lack of such announcement may have been caused by the development issues with EU at the time).