Utter the words 'turn-based' to some gamers and they'll run for the hills. For XCOM though, FireAxis' approach to how encounters go down has the right amount of progression through unknown territories and deployable tactics to help you stay alive, depending on what you encounter along the way. Missions are undertaken from a large home base you'll kit out with the spoils of war after each deployment. Manage to pacify an alien instead of blasting its tentacles off? You can have your research team look into its carcass and develop some fancy new armour, or an experimental weapon. Psycho therapy can give some of your units mind-related powers including telekinesis and unit control, whilst you can commission others to having their limbs removed and transformed into frighteningly effective human/mech hybrids. You're basically tasked with stymying the flow of the alien invasion, by any means necessary - and it's how you achieve all of this with the eyes of the world watching every move, that makes XCOM (and every decision you make) absolutely exhilarating.