The Bureau: X-COM Declassified

“Independence Day” meets “The Untouchables”? That’s what this game feels like to me. The Bureau: X-COM Declassified is set in the 1960’s during the Cold War; America is not only fighting Russian threats but unknown extraterrestrial beings as well.

As Special Agent William Carter, you take on the role as leader and executioner toward the unknown menace that is invading our beloved country. It is your job to protect humanity while uncovering any facts you can during your investigation. 

2K Games Leads Development 

2k Games is best known for their BioShock and Borderlands series, and is taking on a new franchise. Straying away from the first-person shooter, they are making this game a third-person shooter. There hasn’t been any info on whether there will be a R&D portion for the game, which is what made earlier X-COM games great. Being able to upgrade your tech was a huge part of being successful in the game.

Leaving XCOM’s Roots

 If you ever played or read about X-COM games, then you know it didn’t start out as a first-person shooter, you knew them as a TBS or Turn-Based Strategy game. Having complete control of your team by managing their equipment, role, and upgrades so that you can send them ready to battle the unknown enemy. Establishing your base of operations all around the globe was a great concept because the aliens could land pretty much anywhere! Researching new technologies for your organization was a blast and not easily forgotten. I hope that in this game they continue to at least have the research and development portion, because fighting aliens with our shotguns and Tommy guns just isn’t that fun, we want the Laser guns!

Diagnosis: Successful or unsuccessful?

Sure third-person shooters are fun–look at Gears of War and Grand Theft Auto 4. X-COM wasn’t a third-person shooter to begin with; if anything they should’ve made it into a RTS. Something like the Total War franchise on a more global scale. It is kind of hard to tell whether or not this game will be successful because it is still pretty early and we haven’t seen exactly what will be in it. All we know is it’s going to be a third-person shooter, which seems to me like another Uncharted game.