XCOM DEMO Review : "Holding Hands Through the War"

So me growing up on fighting games and such games like Mario Kart, my manliness could not entertain the uterus-filled nonsense of turn based gameplay. The waiting, the thinking, the contemplating - all a bit too much for my taste and at first I thought it was too easy. However as I've grown, I've realized that Pokemon isn't a great representation of the turn-based genre so when I dropped Pokemon I dropped the genre as a whole.

*clap*

Now! I've been hearing all this buzz about this alien game which at first looked like a 3rd person shooter. It also caught my attention by it's interesting design . So with that in mind I decided to take on this Turn-based strategy and dive into...

 XCOM : Enemy Unknown!

Based on the demo the game starts out by holding your hand - and I mean holding it tight! - so you can understand the basics of the game.
In a way this was necessary for those who unfamiliar with XCOM, turn-based strategy or even those who hardly play games at all. In that aspect the tutorial was successful, the only thing that somewhat bothered me was that I hated the scripted game, instead of saying " go find some cover" thus you deciding where to go, it LOCKS you in so you must go to this exact spot which basically felt too on-rails for me. That aside, once the tutorial mission shows you the basics, you can feel your way through the rest. Basic point and click but watch turn you two actions whether it being offensive or defensive. You can move up a short distance and perform an action or use your whole turn by dashing a long distance. Also you can only shoot once even if you don't move which I believe can be tweaked with abilities.

Aside from wide view you have combat view -(G4TV.com)

Ah yes abilities! So there is a major RPG leveling up system here, and it is class based so who you bring with you is vital. Understand that this is war and depending on difficulty you have it on, once that person dies on a mission they are gone FOREVER! This makes every mission tense and just the thought of it makes me fear for my future team whom I will be spending all my time with. The campaign story hasn't really been talked about and I found that a bit troublesome considering the game is only one unaware that the enemy are aliens.

My main problem with the demo is it didn't really explore the wide range of strategy that it was promising. Why put out a demo for TBS when strategy(S) is taken a back seat? Keep in mind, I don't play these games and I found the AI not worth much of any threat and maybe that was their intention. Or maybe all those Pokemon battles on GameBoy paid off in some odd way! Anywho, the other level of this game is what I call the Anthill level. So between missions you have your base which from a distance looks like a underground anthill. I think it was made like that to keep a light heart and to its credit it works. You see many different rooms where you put your time into research, upgrading your infantry, and so forth. The demo was really anal about only letting you see the places it wanted to, so I didn't get to explore the whole base.

The Ant Hill/Farm -(Vidoegamewriters.com)

All in all, the game looks fun but I found myself enjoying watching others play against each other rather than playing the demo myself. I imagine this game will really shine when playing against FRIENDS where you can share jokes and trash talk to each during the battle. Random people? Ehhhh, maybe! But from the little TBS experience I have, there is usually a broken combo that nearly everyone uses, and that becomes the majority of your fights with people.  However I am excited about the game, I will be checking it out when it does release but I just wish the demo made a better case for itself. The game releases October 9th- that is right around the corner for PC, 360 and PS3.