A turn-based strategy game after all these years? On consoles? As Mulder might say, believe it. XCOM distills (without oversimplifying) the best parts of what made the original 1994 PC game so captivating. And like that game, this one’s virtues lie largely in its spooky atmospherics: creeping through buildings or over rooftops after dark, hunkering along curbs, park benches, water fountains or inside abandoned buses, exploring a fire-lit forest in the wake of a UFO crash, wondering when some alien Sectoid or Muton or Floater might pop into view wielding a crazy extraterrestrial weapon that’ll drop any of your squad members dead with a single well-aimed shot.
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3. XCOM: Enemy Unknown
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