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XCOM: Enemy Unknown Review

at ‘normal’ difficulty, while you shouldn’t have equipment they capture, has a direct impact on
too much trouble beating the campaign, you will the options available to you at home in terms of
almost certainly lose a fair few men along the way research and engineering.
(unless you cheat with game saves).
As in the original title, research and engineering
You can lose a trooper at a moment’s notice are the two keystones to successfully defending
through a single poor decision or through pure bad the Earth from the invasion force. At the opening
luck. My first real blow was when I lost Maj. Felix of proceedings your troops are woefully under‘Tectonic’ Lopez, who had been with me since the equipped in the face of a far superior force, with
first tutorial, to a stray shot on his 11th mission. He conventional weapons and armour being less
was the first, but not the last, of my high-ranking than efficient against the advanced technology
soldiers who bit the bullet before the end-game of the alien forces. By capturing alien technology
and it never got any easier.
In between tactical missions
you will spend time at XCOM
home base, managing the
construction of new facilities,
undertaking
research,
constructing new equipment,
managing your recruits,
installing spy satellites and
scanning the globe for alien
activity. There is an awful lot to
do in the base and whilst the
game’s tutorial phase does a
good job at teaching you the
basics it is very important
to do a bit of exploration to
make sure you are making the
most of the options available
to you.
Although the tactical missions
are separate and distinct
from base management in
gameplay terms, the two
are closely linked and the
performance of your troops
in the field, specifically the
XCOM: Enemy Within Special Edition 2013

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