Part remake, part reimagining, XCOM: Enemy Unknown bridges a gap of 18 years since the hugely popular UFO: Enemy Unknown debuted and established itself as one of the most acclaimed games of all time. With such an iconic game inspiring their project, and the pressures of delivering a great experience with modern features, whilst still remaining true to the original, Firaxis had no easy task. Fortunately, for the most part, they succeeded in creating a game that gives plenty of nods to the original, but still manages to bring something fresh and exciting to this relaunched franchise. Set in the near future, the player is assigned command of XCOM, a multinational organisation tasked with combating an alien invasion. Gameplay is split between several different interfaces; the main part of the game sees the player command a squad of soldiers through a battleground, seeking out and eliminating hostile aliens. In between missions players return to their base to assign research projects, manufacture advanced weapons and technologies, promote soldiers, manage finances and monitor for alien activity. Each aspect of the game offers different strategic challenges, all of which need to be balanced in order to achieve success. By far the most fun segments (and often the most challenging) are the turn-based combat missions. With a maximum of six soldiers (meaning that the aliens will nearly always outnumber the human forces) players must explore areas ranging from urban blocks to empty forests. Normally the mission brief is simply kill all hostiles, but Enemy Unknown does occasionally throw different missions into the mix, including ones where players must locate and protect a VIP, or save a number of civilians from alien terror strikes. This mix of objectives and settings means that gameplay never grows stale. Although missions are turn based, movement points are a thing of the past; instead, soldiers have various actions they can carry out, depending on their position and previous movements. Most units can move a short distance into cover before firing or using a special action like throwing a grenade. Theres also the option to dash a very long distance across the map, but this leaves the unit unable to carry out any more actions, meaning that players must seriously consider what action to take; often running in without taking the time to survey the scene results in a load of dead soldiers. Killing aliens earns soldiers promotions. After their first promotion, troops are assigned a specialty, ranging from assault to support to sniper to heavy. Each speciality provides the soldier with unique weapons and abilities, allowing commanders to build up a diverse squad. Snipers become deadly at long range, and can be given a skill that lets them shoot any alien that has been spotted by other squad members, whilst assault troops earn the ability to use the dash move and still fire at the end of it. These abilities provide players with plenty of ways to approach missions, and adapt their squad to their own style of play. Even with a well-equipped and skilled-up squad, Enemy Unknown is still a very difficult game; even on the normal difficulty setting casualties are common, especially earlier on when the aliens have a massive technological advantage. Harder difficulties can make the game unrelentingly punishing, especially in ironman mode, where youre only allowed to save the game once throughout an entire playthrough so no reloading after accidentally getting your elite squad killed on that last mission. Failing missions will cause panic to rise in the country affected. XCOM is funded by various nations around the world, all of which will come under alien fire at some point. Failing to respond to these incidents will cause panic to rise in the country. If the panic level gets too high and XCOM continues to not respond, the country withdraws and XCOM experiences a funding cut. Very often incidents will occur simultaneously in different countries, meaning that players will have to make difficult decisions when responding to alien activity. Click next to read page 2, for our scoring break-down.