Family Guy is one of my favorite TV shows because of the original and loveable cast of characters. It may offend some people, but I think it is one of the best shows of the past decade. Family Guy tried diving into the game market back in 2006, and it was a complete disaster. I was very skeptical about this game, but it is quite a bit of fun for a Family Guy fan. As a game in general, there isn’t much to it, and it feels about 10 years old.
You play as Stewie and Brian, who are trying to stop Bertram from massing an army and destroying Quahog. They travel to eight different universes that are full of charm and wit, but that all stops with the visuals and voice acting. The game feels like something from the early 2000s, with weak platforming and repetitive shooting. It is good and solid, but there isn’t anything in between. Running around and shooting the same enemies over and over is dull after the first level. The only thing that kept me going was to see the new wacky levels and the story. There are weapons you can buy over time and acquire, but most feel useless. I honestly stuck with Brian and his shotgun and pistol through most of the game. The enemies just come charging at you, and you just blast them away. It looks goofy and captures all the charm of the show, but I know there can be a better Family Guy game.
For people who are into it, there are collectibles in each level that unlock new costumes, but to be honest, why would you go back through this game again? It gets really boring as it gets towards the end, with the only thing breaking up the monotony being boss fights. I wish there were mini-games or something thrown in here, but each level feels the same. Pull this lever, turn this valve, and hit this button; it never changes. For someone who isn’t a Family Guy fan, this game would be god awful, but FG fans will dig it as a weekend rental.
The game has co-op play, which is the most fun to experience the story and hilarious lines with another FG fan. One thing to note is that the PC version doesn’t have any graphics settings, and the highest resolution is 1280×720. What is up with that? It actually looks worse than the console games if you have a large monitor. The lack of PC support is a real shame and shows the studio doesn’t really care about PC gamers. The graphics are alright and capture the show’s art style, but there isn’t much to write home about. This game isn’t worth the $50 price tag at all, but a weekend rental will suffice.
If you are itching for some Family Guy gaming, this game has finally nailed it, but just barely. As a Family Guy game, this is pretty fun, but as a general game, it feels over 10 years old with dated mechanics and repetition that will make you fall asleep.
Hitman is a long-running series that is over 10 years old. The series is highly underrated and overlooked, mainly because of the time between each release. The last game (Blood Money) was released back in 2005. Some people actually thought the series was done until the announcement of Absolution about 18 months ago. You play as a slightly older Agent 47 while he hunts down men involved in kidnapping a very important girl for the agency. The story isn’t all that interesting and is slow-going, but the characters are great, and the voice acting is superb. Of course, the best thing about this game is the signature kills and stealth.
The levels are pretty linear, but 47 now has an instinct ability that will highlight important objects in yellow when they are nearby and will be flashing beacons at a distance. These range from weapons to distractions. Some levels will have hits that you have to complete, but the challenge isn’t just running around shooting everybody. Sure, you can, but what is the fun in that? Absolution has a very punishing scoring system; even if you kill one target that isn’t your hit, you will get a score drop—not much, but enough to keep you from getting the ultimate Silent Assassin score. You can knock out enemies and hide them to regain the negative score as well. The levels are cleverly designed, and each one is completely different. It is really fun to sneak around trying to find ingenious ways to kill your hit, which is usually to make it look like an accident.
If you just can’t find one, you can use your signature fiber wire to get the same score, but it isn’t as fun. This is the biggest issue with Absolution, though; you get punished for not being stealthy, but the game has a large arsenal of weapons of all kinds. Sure, you can run and gun for fun, but I honestly felt they should have just stuck with stealth and left the other weapons out. There are very few times where you need to use a gun, but those are usually silenced. The other huge problem is trial and error. Some levels had to be restarted over a dozen times because I just couldn’t find a path through a bunch of enemies or find a signature kill. I eventually found one, and there are checkpoints spread throughout the levels, but it is really tough. You can use disguises for enemies you subdue or find. The instinct indicators will tell you if someone is about to see through your disguise, so you use instinct to kind of blend in. This uses a special instinct meter but can be upgraded over time.
Some levels require multiple hits, which can be really tough. The whole point is to distract guards or find quicker ways to your target via vents, ledges, ladders, and other hallways. Most levels are pretty easy to figure out, but there is one you will restart over a dozen times. This really made the game feel frustrating at times because you would have no idea what to do on the first level. I was completely lost and didn’t know how to kill the targets. You can poison food, make things drop on enemies, or there are level-specific things that can happen. Sometimes you can blend in with the crowd; other times, disguises may not be available. Thanks to the large variety of levels and hits, you will never get bored. There is also a Contracts mode that expands the single-player campaign as well as the ability to outscore other players.
Multiplayer lets you create your own contracts, but most people won’t spend too much time here. The PC visuals are astounding, with beautiful DirectX 11 visuals, but you will need a rig with the latest hardware to run it in this mode. The textures look nearly realistic, and there is some gorgeous lighting and shadowing in this game. They are a huge step up over the consoles, which really show their age. Overall, Absolution is an amazing stealth game with a lot of variety and satisfying signature kills. I just wish the trial and error wasn’t so high.
The Resident Evil franchise made a huge comeback with RE4, but Capcom has abused this style of RE as they do with all their other franchises. Resident Evil 5 was already disappointing because it was too similar to RE4. RE6 takes it even further by making the game 100% action-oriented but trying to keep the survival horror elements of the last game. Either make it an action game or make it survival horror; you can’t make both. There are so many things wrong with this game that I couldn’t even finish the second campaign.
The story is about the C-virus that is being used in a terrorist attack. I honestly can’t tell you who did it, or did I even hear Umbrella’s name once through half the game that I played? This C-virus allows the zombies to mutate when damaged. That’s great and all, but give me some freaking ammo to kill them with. This is the biggest issue with the game; there isn’t enough ammo. I had to constantly scrounge for ammo like in past games, but they throw 10–15 enemies at you, and this becomes frustrating. I never had my maximum capacity of ammo; I always had half a clip in each gun, then ran around meleeing enemies until they dropped some ammo. Oh good, 5 rounds for my shotgun; it takes more than that to take some enemies down, so it’s back to square one. I literally ran out of ammo at the wrong times and had to exploit the game to survive; that is not fun at all and is a broken game. Throwing three strong enemies at me plus a bunch of small ones with just two clips isn’t survival horror; that’s survival ammo.
If that isn’t enough, this game is meant to be played co-op only. The AI does a terrible job covering your back when you run out of ammo. They peck at the enemy here and there with a round or two, and it can take over 10 minutes for the AI to take a large enemy down for you. I also found the quick-time events poorly implemented, and the animations for getting wounded are just awful and frustrating. Each character does this stupid drawn-out animation that completely rips you from the game. When you get back up, you get hit again, play another long animation where you lose control, then again with another hit, and you’re dead. This is so stupid and frustrating. Why rip the control away from me and play some stupid, long animation that can’t be interrupted?
The boss fights are the most interesting in this game, but also the most repetitive. You will have to use the same strategy for every boss several times over instead of just two or three times before it is dead. The final boss for Leon’s campaign needed the same quick-time event performed 10 times. That is extremely tedious and not fun at all. As you have seen me explain, each character has their own 4-hour campaign that explains the story in busted-up pieces. It makes no sense; the enemies are silly (why do these zombies have guns, parachutes from helicopters, and drive tanks?) and the new characters are hardly likable. The story just didn’t make any sense. Sure, there were a few shocking moments, but why trudge through these four campaigns for it? At this point, Resident Evil needs to go back to its roots and veer away from this action nonsense.
There are a few modes, like Mercenaries, where you can earn more skill points. The skill system is terrible as well, because I beat one and a half campaigns and only had enough skill points to upgrade three skills. It takes so long to upgrade these skills; what happened to the weapon upgrade system? That was a lot more fun. The game doesn’t even feel like Resident Evil, but as an action game, it isn’t starring RE characters. Sometimes it felt like a setting from Gears of War; sometimes it felt like something from a generic sci-fi shooter. Lots of boring cement buildings—nothing interesting at all to look at. It doesn’t help that the graphics are awful, save for some nice lighting effects. The textures look like muddy stickers, and the game just gets boring and monotonous halfway through the first campaign.
Is this worth playing at all? Sure, in co-op only because the AI can’t cover you and is worthless. The quick-time events are poorly implemented, the boss fights are fun yet repetitious, and the game is just boring to look at. It also doesn’t help that it never once felt like a Resident Evil game, and the constant scrounging for ammo is just stupid. If you are a hardcore fan, stay away; if you are a newcomer, stay away. Just go play RE4 or 5 one more time and wait for the next game.
LocoRoco was one of the PSP’s killer apps and brought cute platforming fun to the handheld. LocoRoco 2 is a disappointment because of how little it changes from the first game. The gameplay and graphics are unchanged, with just new levels and bosses. There are a lot of things to collect, but the mechanics a second time around just seem a bit frustrating.
You control the blobs by tilting the world with L and R and pressing both to jump. This is fine, except I wanted more control. Some levels require precise jumping, and tilting the world doesn’t provide that precision. There are underwater levels that feel the same way, but I really enjoyed the mini-games; however, they were short-lived and only lasted seconds. The goal is to get to the end of the level while collecting pickles and fruits to make yourself bigger and knocking out Moja along the way. You can help out creatures by having enough fruits and using a pretty simple rhythm mini-game to earn rewards. These rewards come in pieces to help build Mui Mui’s giant treehouse. This is great for kids, but as an adult, this is just kind of boring and feels useless.
The game uses physics for everything, and it works well enough, but it just feels a bit floaty. The boss fights are extremely difficult, and I couldn’t get past the second main boss. The jumping mechanics just aren’t precise enough for this, but that doesn’t make it a bad game. You have to use momentum to be able to jump up high, so tilting left and right until you get enough speed makes jumping tedious. You get used to it, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling. After about 10 levels, you start getting bored with the game, especially if you already played the first one. I kept expecting new stuff to happen, but it was all the same. The level’s difficulty just varied way too much, and I felt there wasn’t a good pace set. This was mainly due to the fact that Mojas can eat a piece of you, and there’s no way to shake them off. If you bump them in time, you can get the piece back, but when several surround you, it gets frustrating.
All the collecting and stuff is fine, but it is difficult to tell where these hidden spaces are. You have to accidentally come across them because there is no hint that they are there. No wall discoloring, no breaks, nothing. I honestly felt nothing in this game was worthwhile or worth finding. Once you finish a level, you never want to go back because you will eventually get tired of the game. The most enjoyable moments in LR2 are when you aren’t even controlling the game. When you go on “gumball” style rides where you break down into tiny blobs and go for a ride, those were enjoyable to just watch. It reminded me of gumball machines as a kid, especially the crazy ones.
LocoRoco 2 is full of charm, but older players may grow tired of it quickly. It’s a one-trick pony and is nearly identical to the first game in almost every way. Collecting items feels pointless, and they are very difficult to find in levels. The boss fights are annoying and hard due to the finicky jumping mechanics, but it is an overall enjoyable game.
This game was a complete surprise to everyone. An old-school action game with 8-bit graphics that has a very weird story but is still fun and interesting? It can’t be possible! Well, it is because of the genius-level design and over-the-top perspective where special game mechanics were worked in. Enemies can shoot through windows, you can use doors to your advantage, and there are so many different weapons that the fun is endless!
The game is based on cheesy 80’s snuff films where you are a hitman that goes to different spots and just kills everyone in the building. The story is very weird yet entertaining; it doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t need to. That’s how great this game is. You start out by picking an animal mask that you have unlocked, then you go in and try to clear the stages without dying. One hit and you’re dead in this game; let me make that very clear. You get a split-second window to kill someone before they kill you, whether they are facing you or not. If you are behind them, you get an extra split second, but you won’t clear a hallway before they shoot you. Enemies who have melee weapons are easier because they have to come toward you. The strategy is to see where the enemies are placed in each room and clear the stage accordingly.
It starts out simple, but you will see how addictive and fun it is when your character slices open a neck, smashes ahead into a carpet, or blows someone’s brains out. The second genius thing about this game is that you are punished for using guns, which makes the game very easy. Shoot someone, and every enemy on the level comes after you. You are to clear the rooms quickly, not quietly, which is the key here. There are a few different types of enemies, like dogs, which are really fast, and big, fat guys with scarves that can only be killed by gunfire. Save these guys last, so the entire level doesn’t come after you. A good strategy is to step out of a corner, hide again, and just stick out enough so you can whack anyone who walks by. This is another key strategy for winning the game.
The boss fights are really tough and require thinking outside the box to beat them. One enemy has two wild cats that come after you, a female ninja, and then he has two uzis that will pulverize you. You have to eliminate each one in sequence without dying. Remember, one hit, and you’re dead. Trial and error are very rewarding because it just feels good to clear a whole level without alerting anyone. The game is very fast-paced, so a level can be cleared in less than a minute or just seconds. Learning the strategy for each level allows you to get better scores.
You need to use combos to rack up scores, and gunfire is frowned upon in this game. Switch up weapons, use doors to knock enemies down, be bold and lure enemies around corners, and kill several enemies at once; it is all based on skill and not luck. This game just feels so good to play, and I couldn’t put it down. There are 18 chapters in this game, and in the end, I wanted more (hopefully DLC will follow).
There are some major issues that keep this game from scoring higher, though. When the game was released, it was nearly unplayable. Even now, the controller layout stinks; before, there wasn’t even controller support, and the keyboard and mouse controls are terrible. There are game-breaking bugs and glitches that don’t let you progress in the game, and while the music is pretty original, it repeats way too often, and you end up muting your speakers. The game should have just gone through some more testing or a couple more months of development before being released. Even now, there was a bug that kept me from advancing past Chapter 16. I finally tried it one more time, and I passed it—no idea how or why.
Hotline Miami is a fast-paced action game that has a genius-level strategy design. The graphics work very well for the setting, and the mechanics are just extremely solid. I just wish it was more stable and had better controller support. People with Alienware computers will get AlienFX support here, which is unheard of in an indie game. As it stands, this is one of the best games of the year.
Liberation is probably one of the most anticipated games for Vita, right next to Uncharted and Mortal Kombat. Like both of those games, it doesn’t live up to their console counterparts or everyone’s expectations. Liberation is probably the most disappointing of the three, but it is still a solid game. The problem with Liberation is that it is sloppy and felt slightly rushed to meet the Assassin’s Creed III console release. Aveline is an excellent protagonist and a very interesting character, but the narrative is very confusing and just feels slapped together. It only makes sense, or gets interesting, towards the last two sequences of the game.
Like all the other portable AC games, Desmond Miles doesn’t make an appearance in this game. You just started out as Aveline in New Orleans before the American Revolution started. New Orleans is occupied by the French, and the Spanish are busy selling slaves from Africa and trying to take control of New Orleans. Aveline, being a slave herself, is now freed by her stepmother but joins the Assassin Brotherhood by a leader who lives in the Bayou to free these slaves. This sounds very interesting, and it is, but it lacks the expansiveness of AC3. The story is very short, and it doesn’t allow enough time to tell a rich story. The side characters are forgettable, and Aveline barely gets enough time to really show her personality. I was highly disappointed with this, but the disappointments don’t end there.
The game is mostly like AC3, in terms of combat, animations, the control scheme, and whatnot. There are some Vita-specific features, but they fall flat. You pickpocket by zooming in on the character and running your finger down the rear touchpad; this makes it very cumbersome. You can open letters by pinching the top of the screen and sliding it, but it doesn’t work as it should. There’s even a weird puzzle thing that uses the Vita’s camera by holding it up to the light at a certain angle and turning a dial on the touchscreen. This also doesn’t work like it should and is confusing.
Combat is the same as AC3 and thankfully that hasn’t been broken. The combat system is very fluid and just feels so good. However, your assassin recruiting abilities are now gone. You have to use them in the world by interacting with an NPC and starting that ability. I really didn’t like this. Aveline has a couple new weapons, like the sugar cane machete and whip she can use to swing around some ledges. She has a pistol, as well as a blowpipe and parasol gun! The weapons are really neat and work well within the setting. Aveline can also use three different personas, which are an assassin, a lady, and a slave. The lady can’t climb around anywhere, but it is good for bribing certain soldiers to get into areas you need and blending in with certain crowds. The slave persona can blend in with slave workers, but the assassin has all weapons available but always has a minimum notoriety of level 1. The problem is that these personas are only useful during the main missions, but each one has a certain collectible that only that persona can get. Other than that, these personas feel useless. great idea, but not fully fleshed out.
Another issue is the world you’re exploring. The Bayou isn’t a fun place to be because you wind up swimming 70% of the area or being forced to climb around trees up top. Hunting was completely removed from the game, and the only animals that attack you are alligators. The game just feels very small in comparison to AC3. Let’s talk multiplayer. Don’t expect the addictive and excellent multiplayer from AC3. Instead, we get a cop-out of a strategy board game that is extremely boring. It requires 5% user input, and the game does the rest. You choose a faction (Abstergo or Assassin), pick your closest location on the map, then tap the icons of the opposite factions. You send off NPCs to fight a roll of the dice. Very boring and will keep you interested for all of 5 minutes. This is just like the assassin recruit missions in AC3, but used for multiplayer. There is nearly zero interaction with other players.
As it stands, Liberation is disappointing with its sloppy design. The story is confusing and not very interesting until the very end. The story is very short, the side missions aren’t very interesting, and the multiplayer is an absolute bore. The game is a fun weekend rental, but nothing more. I hope to see Aveline again, but the developers need to take more time. At least the game looks fantastic and is a huge technical feat for all portable games. It looks very close to the console games in terms of quality, but I know the Vita can do better still.
Doom may be the father of first-person shooters, but like the eldest man, you can’t teach it new tricks (or were those old dogs?). I was really excited about this compilation because I expect a nice HD upgrade to Doom 3 and a lot of cool extras, but nothing like that exists. Instead, we get all three Dooms just thrown together, with 3D capabilities for Doom 3. What a waste of money and time. This is pretty much for people who have never touched Doom before, but if you have played them all, just skip this. I will talk about each Doom game separately, so here we go!
Doom 3
I didn’t have a high-end PC when this was released, so I got stuck with the Xbox version. It wasn’t all that great then, and it still isn’t. The game is very straightforward, linear, and lacks the fast pace of older Dooms. There’s barely a story holding all this together, and one of the biggest issues with the last two games plagues this one: confusing levels. I can’t tell you how many times I got lost in this game because every hallway looks the same. The guns are boring to shoot, and the graphics today look terrible with really low-resolution textures, bad lighting effects, and cheap scares. The game doesn’t even capture the sick and twisted satanic cult stuff from previous games. There’s a lot of keycard finding and door opening like in the last game, so is it even worth playing? Sure, the first time through is a bit fun, but if you played this once, don’t bother again. BFG includes the Resurrection of Evil expansion, which is just more of the same, but at least the environments are a bit different. There’s also no one playing online, so you can pretty much forget that feature.
Doom
I had more fun with the older Dooms than I did with the younger ones, mainly because I had never played them before. The pace is really fast, and it just looks more interesting and is more fun to play. New gamers may be put off by the 2D graphics or the fact that you don’t aim up and down; just point at the character and shoot. The biggest issue with this series is the stupid keycard finding and switch finding. The levels are laid out so poorly that you always get lost for longer than you should. The best levels were the ones that didn’t have switches or keycards. There is also a very small enemy variety, which makes shooting boring after a while, and Doom has three expansions to play through. Each expansion looks different but is utterly the same, with nothing new added. This is a classic game, though, and should be played by every FPS fan out there.
Doom II
Not much has changed from the original except for a couple new enemies and different levels. Doom II was shorter-lived than the first game, with only one expansion, but contained 21 levels. Doom II is still worth a playthrough because it is mindless shooting that is fast-paced and just entertaining. These games are meant to be played in short bursts, not hours at a time, or you will get bored.
As it stands, BFG Edition is really disappointing, with no upgrades or extras. I at least expected Doom 3 to be upgraded to HD with a cleanup job, but none of that exists. Why id was so lazy with this is beyond me, but they have been pretty lazy lately (the terrible Quake 4 and Rage are examples). I do not recommend buying this if you have played any Doom before. This is for people who have never touched a Doom game and are interested. For the low price point, it is a good bargain, but fans will be sorely disappointed.
The Mark of Kri is a curse passed down from generation to generation, and each firstborn child bears the mark on their skin. There are six at all times, but some crazy guy wants to kill off the curse or something like that. The story isn’t explained very well and is not very interesting. The Mark of Kri’s strong points are its stealth, but it has sluggish combat and camera issues galore. It may have been pretty good ten years ago, but not today.
The game is very linear, with usually only one pathway to follow. You have a bird that is your companion that you can send off to certain points to scout ahead for you. This is mandatory; otherwise, you will be fighting off tons of guys all the time and dying. Once you use Kuzu to scout ahead, you can plan an attack. Use stealth by sneaking up, buckling against walls, or dropping down on enemies. You use the right analog stick to sweep a beam around that assigns a face button to an enemy; that’s their attack button. You can stealth kill two enemies by starting the attack on one and then pressing the buttons shown above the second enemy. Sometimes you need to distract guards by shooting bells with your arrow, scaring animals, and other things. This is pretty fun, and finding the right path through enemies can be fun. It is the actual combat that is sluggish and troublesome.
The right analog stick should have been used for camera control in this game because it gets lost all the time. It never focuses on enemies like it should, and it takes forever to sweep around. The combat is okay when there are just a few enemies, but later on, in the game, 15+ enemies will surround you. You get better weapons like the axe that can lock on up to nine enemies, but this whole lock-on business just doesn’t work. I would rather control the camera and have a more fluid combat system that way. The reason why I died so much was that Rau would stop and rub his head, trip constantly, bang his weapon off of stone walls, and get it stuck in wood, and this was frustrating. In the meantime, you are being hit and dying while all the unnecessary animations are playing out. Once you get surrounded or trapped, you’re dead. Backing out is impossible because once you unblock, you get bombarded by attacks.
If that isn’t enough, the save system is annoying. There are no save points, just save scrolls. You have to find these, and they don’t carry over to the next level. The same goes for max health upgrades. You will end up using your save scrolls or squandering them because you want to save a hard part. Another issue was using the bow. Aiming at enemies takes forever because you have to wander around the enemy until you get a lock on, and if the enemy is too high up, you have to fiddle with it until you hit the enemy. Not fun.
The graphics are just average, even for back then. The game is only 6 levels long and can be beaten in about 4–5 hours. The story is underdeveloped due to its short length, and you won’t care about any of the characters. The combat has sluggish controls, and the whole sweeping lock-on system is a terrible idea and doesn’t work right. The camera has a lot of issues, and the list goes on. For just a couple of dollars, this is a decent stealth game, but be wary of all the problems.
The Walking Dead has been a gripping and highly entertaining adventure game thus far, so now that the season finale is here we can see how every choice you made stacks up. Thankfully choices have impacted things throughout the series instead of stacking them up for the end. A few from each episode will affect this episode, but I have to say that this episode is extremely heart-wrenching and the most shocking of them all, not to mention the shortest.
Lee and your surviving gang are on their way to save Clem from a mysterious man who snatched her up. They leave their boat behind for a bit to go find her, but things go completely downhill because the zombies are in the thousands and not to mention all the shocking moments that lead up to the end. Something happens every 20 minutes or so that will make you set your controller down and take a breather and say, “How did that happen?!” That’s how great this series is. Each character is memorable and you will either love them or hate them depending on your choices. The system Telltale set up is so organic and smooth that you don’t really notice your choice caused this until you really think. That is excellent game design, but I will take some time to address issues that I have held off until now.
Firstly, the graphics are pretty dated which I mentioned in the first episode. The art style looks like the comics, but the graphics are about 7 years old. There are hitches and stuttering often which never got addressed. Each episode is extremely short, but this one clocks in at just a measly hour. Why this is a stand-alone episode is beyond me, they could have just made this series four episodes. The pacing is also all over the place. Episode 2 was probably the most disappointing of them all, and Episode 4 was lacking in the shocking moment department. There’s also no challenge in the game with this just being an interactive experience. This is one of my favorite adventure games of all time, but I would like to see some serious upgrades in Season 2.
With all that said Episode 5 ends on a cliffhanger and who knows when we will find out what’s happened next. After seeing how successful this series is I’m sure Season 2 will start pouring out through next year starting in spring. Episode 5 is very touching and after you finish the game you will realize that Season 2 will start with a whole new cast of characters. As it stands Episode 5 delivers a great ending and you really feel satisfied with your journey through Savannah and will sit back and wait for Season 2.
XCOM was a popular turn-based strategy game back in the ’90s, and everyone was surprised by how well this game turned out. Enemy Unknown keeps the series vibe and atmosphere updated to today’s standards. Enemy Unknown is one of this year’s best strategy games, but there is one reason why most people will never complete this game: It is too damn hard. Not the fun and challenging type of hard, but the kind that makes it impossible to move on no matter how well equipped your soldiers are.
The game does a very good job of introducing new things to you as you move on. The UI is very simple and uncomplicated, but pretty deep. You get to see a cut-a-way of a military base, and you can click on each department. Research is where everything starts. By gathering all intact materials from missions, you can research new things like weapons, armor, satellites, and various other things. Engineering is where it is all made and upgraded, as well as keeping track of other buildings. Workshops, laboratories, generators, hangars—all these things determine how fast you can upgrade and how you become more powerful. The barracks are where you can equip your squad’s loadout, upgrade soldiers, hire new ones, etc. Finally, there are the situation room and the command center. Here you can advance the days until you run into missions, trade alien parts on the black market, and view how in distress the world is. It is all very simple and almost revolutionary in design because most strategy games are Excel sheet-based and are pretty complicated and hard to navigate.
Once you assign things to engineers and do research, you can advance the days until you run into something, such as a UFO sighting. When this happens, you scramble your jets, and depending on how good the equipment you gave them is, they’ll take it down. Most of the time, you will run into abduction scenarios where you eliminate all hostiles or have to rescue someone. When this happens, you get a choice as to what country to help. Each one gives you a reward, such as money, scientists, engineers, or other items. Usually, you pick the one that’s in distress the most because if you don’t, they will remove themselves from the XCOM operation, and if they all withdraw, it’s game over. Once you go into battle, this is where you see how hard this game gets.
Each soldier gets two moves. The area around them is blue, which means that’s one move, and yellow, which means it takes both moves to get there. Performing an action takes one move, and that is usually shooting alien scum. All soldiers start out as regulars with assault rifles until after their first mission and they rank up. The class is chosen randomly, which I really hate because you can be stuck with five snipers and just one assault guy. When you are ready to shoot, you will see how accurate your shot is. Once all turns are taken, it’s the alien’s turn. This back and forth is normal for strategy games, but the objectives you are given, or the difficulty of aliens, are absurd and completely unfair. You will shoot down some small grays and get through a few thin men. Maybe you will lose 2 or 3 guys in the process, and then four freaking Mutons will show up and wipe the rest of you out in one turn. Or don’t forget the damn spider things that can turn your squadmate into a zombie in one hit. This gets frustrating because every mission is like this. I rarely got through any unless it was on an easy-difficulty mission.
This would be ok if it were during main missions, and you could go back and grind a bit to get better equipment, but you have to do that with every single mission. You fail almost more than you succeed, such as by losing so many soldiers. Once a soldier dies, they are dead forever and won’t come back. Once you lose a fully ranked soldier, you have to start from scratch again with a new guy. It is completely unfair in a game this difficult. In most missions, you will be lucky if you get out with 2 or 3 guys, but you are probably thinking that’s because I stink at the game. I would restart and try all different strategies, and nothing would work. The whole point of the game is to take cover and never be out in the open. Once you advance and are just standing there, you’re dead. The fog of war doesn’t help when you run around the map trying to figure out where all the enemies are. Forget a rescue mission where you have to save a certain amount. Saving 5/25 people is a lot harder than it sounds. All 20 will die before you get to your third guy. This game is just a nightmare, and not in a fun way.
That doesn’t make the game bad, though. There are a lot of great research projects that have a huge impact on everything you do. You have to decide carefully about what you want, or you’re screwed. You get a very limited amount of money every month, and you have to stretch it. I found this a bit unfair as well, because there’s no compromise. Even if just one element was easier, it could make this game more tolerable. As it stands, I had this game for over a month and barely got 25% through the game before I gave up. Spending 45 minutes on a mission and then dying at the end is just ridiculous. Reloading quick saves doesn’t always work, either because you realize you forgot to equip someone with a medkit or because you need to be more accurate on certain missions and forgot to equip scopes. This game is just a pain.
The production values are at least nice, with great-looking aliens and some decent voice acting, but overall, this game requires extreme patience more than skill or brainpower. The game is well done with intense battles, but maps repeat often, the camera is screwy where it zooms out of buildings, and the graphics are a bit underwhelming. The main thing is the extreme difficulty, which practically ruins the game. I have never played such a hard strategy game before, but there’s someone out there who will like this.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yeah, it's pretty damn awful. Notoriously one of the worst games on the PSP. A 4 was actually being generous.…