XCOM – First screenshots of UFO sequel

Remember UFO: Enemy Unknown or XCOM: UFO as it was called in a other places. A great turn based strategy game were you ran a Worldwide organistion combating an alien invasion. You had to protect the sky, build bases, send out teams to salvage alien tech and research what you found. A fantastic game that I loved. There were a couple of sequels (Terrot from the Deep was one of them) and now a new one is heading our way by 2K.

This one is set in Fifties USA and unfortunately looks as if it will be a FPS with limited input on the whole research and team work that made the original so good. The official spiel for the game is this:

XCOM is the re-imagining of the classic tale of humanity’s struggle against an unknown enemy that puts players directly into the shoes of an FBI agent tasked with identifying and eliminating the growing threat. True to the roots of the franchise, players will be placed in charge of overcoming high-stake odds through risky strategic gambits coupled with heart-stopping combat experiences that pit human ingenuity – and frailty – against a foe beyond comprehension. By setting the game in a first-person perspective, players will be able to feel the tension and fear that comes with combating a faceless enemy that is violently probing and plotting its way into our world.

It looks as if the aliens are making people go all blocky or something. Hard to tell at the minute.

However NeoGAF have had a go at it and have posted a detailed synopsis. Here is a bit of it:

-The level zones are huge, but if you want to poke your head into just one house, find a bit of intel, and go home unscathed, you can do that. The tradeoff, though, is that you lose out on other potential intelligence hidden around the area, and crucially, you’ll miss any opportunities to gather precious Elerium. Eventually clarifies lead designer Ed Orman ominously, “You do have to leave no matter what. “

-In the quaint Flagstaff neighborhood, Carter and Co come across a rather impressive two-story house halfway down the street. According to the mailbox in front the Sweeter family live inside. But, clearly, something’s gone sour. A dark grayish black trail of….something leads from the front yard into the back through the gate.

-All is quiet in the backyard except for some odd sounds-foreign noises made even more eerie silence permeating the entire neighborhood-and the continued trail of residue running up the side of the white house. A red lawnmower lies on its side. Still running, its exposed blades remain spinning, ready to slice and dice anyone-or anything-that gets too close. Here, we receive our first look at XCOM’s unique array of gadgets.

-Dr Goldeberg really outdid himself; in Carter’s left hand is a Petrie dish containing what appears to be a living, nebulous sample of the black, inky residue that led us to the Sweeter’s backyard. It’s as if someone captured Spider Man’s Venom in a glass sphere. Plugged into the dish are electrical leads connected to a battery-fed compass in Carter’s other hand.

-As we move closer to the trail of goo the electronically stimulated contents of the dish vibrate wildly. Because the substance wants to combine with itself whenever possible, the gadget ends up guiding you closer and closer to the source of the gooey material.

-We move through the backyard toward the opposite side. The black stuff begins to react even more violently, leading us straight over and through a doghouse to a grassy patch behind some bushes in the back of the property. On a different day we’d stop to admire the scenic view of the valley below, just as a man standing there was doing, camera in had. But this isn’t that day; the man with the camera lies dead next to his tripod, coated in black nastiness. Ironically it is now our job to photograph him to document the incident for Goldberg, Quinn, and crew to study for precious intel.

-With the goo compass spastic and the trail of horror getting worse it’s obvious we’re close to something. Heading towards the home’s side entrance we finally glimpse it; a big black glob of goo. You quickly put away your compass for a loaded shotgun. You and your two pals unload pellet blasts into the extraterrestrial substance. It shrieks and breaks into smaller-but-still-very-much alive pieces and immediately starts to reform. A good ol-fashioned lead diet, it seems, is only going to slow down this alien invader, not stop it.

-Your man carter plunges his hand into his pocket to pull out another Goldberg contraption.: the Blobatov (aka a goo grenade rigged to catch fire when shattered), The dichotomy of its visual appearance is almost laughable: a clear glass sphere containing a radically advanced alien substance, rigged up as a grenade with primitive analog 50s’ era switches and misc hardware. Still, it proves satisfyingly effective when you throw it into the goo. The orb shatters, the goo ignites, and the entire tar like mass evaporates in a flash of fire and ear piercing, terrorizing shriek o what must be pure pain.

-One blob is down, but we still have to fine Elerium before we flee Flagstaff. Our sense of dread intensifies as we move through the house. In these close quarters and tight hallways, we’d have a difficult time dodging the goo if any of it leaps out at us here. We follow a slime trail upstairs and discover the nursery, complete with mutilated mom and no baby. There is no Elerium either.

-With Frank and Jones at our back we move back downstairs and toward the front door. Remember how we’d come in through the side? A wise decision as three blobs ambush us in the living room! One gloms onto Frank. He tries to pull it off, but at the end of the battle we find his body lifeless beneath an end table with a knocked over lamp on his head. Carter and Jones manage to fight off the springy alien tar with shotguns and Blobatovs, but not before being dragged to the brink of death in the process. Still in search of Elerium, we move outside and head up the street; that’s when the vortex appears in the sky and the Titan monolith shows up.

Still it is early days so we’ll have to see how it develops.

You can check out the official site.

Source: Kotaku