The XCOM Ironman Diaries, Part 1

If there's one thing I don't take any crap from, it's virtual aliens. Come on then, XCOM: Enemy Unknown: let's do this properly. Impossible difficulty. Ironman mode. EARTH DEFENCE FORCE, ASSEMBLE!

Hmm... that didn't go so well. But as any fule kno, Classic difficulty is where it's at in a strategy game like this, and if you ask me the aliens are cheating on Impossible anyway. So let's roll from the top. Over three instalments of this diary, I'm going to take down the alien menace on Classic, in Ironman mode, no messing. I've placed the XCOM main base in Asia, reasoning that we want trooper upgrades as soon as possible – this continent's bonus reduces their cost - and as we'll be losing a lot of operatives, softening the blow is paramount. I'm a realist.

My hardy squad prepare for their first mission – Osaka, Japan. The first trooper's barely taken a step before a group of Sectoids are spotted. They scatter, but our brave forces move in and start picking them off, all thanks to the commander's advanced knowledge of 45% potshots. This is more like it.

The Sectoids fall easily to these special tactics, and now I get to name the IGN squad. Keza's the sniper, bold and true. Daniel Krupa, Alex Simmons and Tom Butler are the next three names on my list, and to make up for a bit of gender-mismatching Simmons and Butler get cool Master Chief helmets. I'm not going to put myself in: I'm the boss.

In this second mission, the IGN crew's debut, it turns out Tom Butler is the hero this earth needs. A close-quarters engagement in Liverpool, six Sectoids are almost immediately flushed from hiding and scarper inside a nearby bar. While the other three distract the aliens by running between cars, Butler sneaks around the outside and pops two while they're mind-merging with their buddies – a cool four kills in two turns, and instant promotion.

Back at base, I get some research cooking to better my gear, and after two missions and no losses things are looking just swell. A UFO makes the mistake of flying too near an XCOM satellite and is downed like it ain't no thang. Off to the crash site we go! 'Classic' difficulty, Firaxis? Pshaw! This is a piece of cake!

Keza, I am so so sorry. XCOM's first loss was a combination of a commander's recklessness, and a dastardly Sectoid mind-merge critical-ing our plucky Scottish sniper to death. We got him next turn. It didn't feel as good as it should have. No more Keza, because this is Ironman. She didn't even get a nickname.

Onwards, brave probably-Christian soldiers! Alex Simmons is doing pretty well, so I decide to reward the brave soul with a snazzy hero turtle look, which I think goes rather well with his newly-acquired nickname of 'Vixen'. As soon as I do this, of course, Simmons decides to run straight into a nest of Sectoids at the start of the next mission.

I'm ready to kiss Vixen goodbye, when in one of those rare strokes of good fortune every single shot from the cranial foes flies by. It could still get ugly, but then the Sectoids bunch within grenade distance and... well, boomshakalaka. Dr Vahlen moans about how we can't recover artefacts from ze bodies, but she wasn't in the mouth of the beast.

The next few missions pass without incident, thanks to some truly awesome commanding – XCOM disarms a bomb, salvages another UFO, and takes out a herd of Sectoids on an abduction mission. No lives lost, and NOW we've got Scopes for better aiming, an Alien Containment facility and the stun gun ('Arc Thrower') to fill it, plus an Officer Training School. The good old USA eventually gets a satellite, because they pay megabucks and are looking a bit panic-stricken and... well, everything's going along smoothly.

It couldn't last. A seemingly routine mission sees the now-legendary 'Vixen' Simmons taken out in a single shot from a Thin Man, while in cover. I mean, god rest his soul, but I don't see how the commander's to blame for that. And on the plus side, we captured a Sectoid.

The Sectoid capture was quickly followed up by another great success: after shooting down another UFO, and stunning a glowy crystal dude, we've found the aliens' base on Earth. I thought things were going a bit too well. In part 2, we're going in.

Rich Stanton is a Terran freelancer who spends most of his free time in Lordran. Check him out on IGN or Twitter for all of your sun-praising and Zerg-smashing needs.

Source : ign[dot]com

Anna Review

I like the exhilaration that comes from being chased; the tension and rise of adrenaline that comes in the moments where my character is hiding from a stalking enemy; the way my hands shake as I let out a stifled breath upon reaching safety. Whereas so many games make you feel like you’re untouchable, horror games often strip you down to the most basic fight-or-flight impulse, stoking your primal instinct to run the hell away.

Anna doesn’t give much of an introduction. Your character simply starts out at an abandoned house, solving puzzles in a serene garden in order to gain entry into a twisted home that holds a key to the bizarre dreams you’ve been having. Something is wrong with this house, and you need to find out how you’re connected or, at the very least, escape.

It starts off scary. You wander around the environment in a first-person perspective looking for interactive objects to pick up, examine and sometimes combine with inventory items to create new things. Performing these actions triggers events within the house: spirits throw objects, random apparitions appear to startle you as you turn a corner and voices call out from the shadows. It’s unsettling to say the least, and if, like me, you scare easily, you’ll probably need breaks to dry your sweaty palms.

That is until you realize you really have nothing to worry about. You see, while a few big scares occur throughout the short story, the fear-inducing moments become neutered when you realize you can’t die, lose or otherwise find yourself in an irreparable situation. Suddenly the unknown spirits that taunted me went from beings of unknown and frightening power to uninteresting annoyances; spirits who were just out to slow me down rather than do me any actual harm. As the umpteenth can raised into the air and slammed into my head my adrenaline continued to pump, but only out of frustration with Anna’s anger-inducing puzzles.

OK, not all of Anna’s puzzles are unnecessarily confusing or frustrating, but the ones that are drag down the entire experience. Regularly your character encounters “puzzles” that are really just trial and error situations. Just like classic point-and-click adventure games of yesteryear, Anna often puts you in places where all you can really do is start combining unlikely items until you figure out the baffling combination the designers intended.

Bizarre polish issues and poor interface don’t help here, either. Opening up your inventory, clicking use on an item and then closing your inventory before trying to combine it with something in the environment is tedious. Now imagine doing this time and time again as you start randomly combining things in a fit of desperation after you encounter yet another obtusely designed puzzle – it’s maddening how clumsy and unintuitive it feels. Times when you know a puzzle’s solution, but you aren’t combining items in the exact order or way Anna intends are even more excruciating; combine A with B to get C and you win, but combine B with A and you get something unusable. Pixel hunting for the exact spot you can click to do something “right” isn’t rewarding, and makes the relatively short story of Anna drag unnecessarily.

Anna is billed as an experience that adapts to what you do, and that, “features three ending according to how much the character has gone deep into madness,” but that description is a bit misleading. Really what the team means is that if you interact with certain doors at specific times then Anna will end. If you want to get the ending where the credits actually scroll, the one with the most fulfilling (and least confusing) narrative, then you’ll either need to randomly make the right decisions or read a guide.

Source : ign[dot]com