XCOM: Enemy Within

Now, after a week spent in close contact with the final and reviewable version of Enemy Within, all I can do is confirm all my initial impressions. We are dealing with a great expansion, which does not upset the original but adds many small elements of gameplay, renewing the experience. If like me you loved Enemy Unknown, in Enemy Within you will find a good reason to brush up on the game, enjoying it exactly like the first time.

If you didn't understand, I like MEC Troopers. Much. BLAM!

As in the Civilization add-ons, adding new mechanics serves two purposes: the first is to reinforce (or adjust) the weaker aspects of the gameplay, while the second is to pave the way for new game styles, allowing enthusiasts to discover new strategic facets. With this in mind, MELD is the real keystone of Enemy Within. This precious alien resource is found in special containers that self-destruct after a variable number of shifts. Getting it is very important, because it allows you to empower your soldiers with cybernetic or genetic modifications, which in addition to adding a little variety to the class system prove to be an indispensable strategic advantage.

The push to recover all the MELD possible gives more rhythm to the missions, eliminating some downtimes, but above all it gives a valid reason to adopt riskier strategies. Often, in fact, to arrive in time to a container it is necessary to discover oneself, exposing at least one soldier to enemy fire (or to potential aliens not yet appeared in the visual field). For this review, in addition to continuing the campaign that started in the preview, I started a new game with the "Ironman" option, in which every move is final (read: you cannot reload), and every single container of MELD has me put before real dilemmas. If you like intense experiences, Enemy Within in Ironman will give you even more satisfactions than Enemy Unknown.

Some genetic modifications are very expensive, but investing in soldiers' DNA is never a bad idea.

The other novelty concerns the cyber and genetic laboratories, which allow respectively to create the MEC Trooper (units that lose their original class and move with large enhanced exoskeletons, which ignore the roofing system) and to modify the DNA of soldiers, to gain tactical advantages such as health regeneration and improved aim. All these operations are linked to the available MELD, which in perfect agreement with the XCOM formula is always in short supply.

"Anyone who plays with the devil's toys will gradually learn to wield the devil's sword." This statement by the British futurologist Buckminster Fuller, quoted at the beginning of XCOM: Enemy Within , sounds very black and white - but in this case the devil's toy just too tempting. Especially when humanity is fighting an alien invasion with its back to the wall and has nothing to lose.

Power armor, superhuman strength, two hearts, self-healing, eyes with a target? The soldiers of Enemy Within, the add-on to the turn- around strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown, are no longer far removed from the posthuman Space Marines from the universe of Warhammer 40,000.

It is made possible by the so-called Meld, a nanomechanical-biological miracle substance of the aliens. Dr. Shen, the chief engineer of the XCOM project, wants to use this meld to build cybernetic combat suits, while the science director Dr. Vahlen wants to carry out genetic modifications on the bodies of the XCOM troops.

Not much remains of the standard human flesh-and-blood fighters from XCOM: Enemy Unknown. The problem of transhuman change processes through excessive use of technology was already hinted at in the basic game with its psionic research program - but XCOM: Enemy Within takes this idea much further: In order to survive the alien threat, sacrifices have to be made.

Expiration date? 30 seconds left

In principle, Meld can be found wherever the aliens strike, in large, conspicuously buzzing canisters - and that already during our first mission against the invaders. Unfortunately, the aliens have provided the containers with self-destructive detonators that destroy the precious contents as soon as a timer expires, which forces us to risky maneuvers: If we move too slowly in alien-infested areas to track down opposing troops one after the other and take them off, then we go the meld through our rags. If, on the other hand, we rush forward wildly to secure the two meld containers that are hidden on each map, we risk attracting too many aliens to us.

Meld is one of the first projects in the Enemy Within campaign that we at Dr. Vahlen can research in the laboratory; As soon as we have examined the substance, we are allowed to build the MEC workshop for cyber warriors and the gene laboratory for gene mod soldiers. When things get serious, we have to swallow a bit: The plans for the cybernetic MEC troopers ("Mechanized Exoskeleton Cybersuit") that Dr. Shen submits will require the amputation of both arms and legs of the candidate we have designated for MEC transformation.

Arm off, metal fist on

Whether this happens voluntarily or with pressure from the superiors, Enemy Within leaves our imagination. Only the head and torso of an MEC soldier remain, and he is given a few crude cybernetic metal prostheses. But they are only intended for the time after work and retirement: For combat missions, the metal limbs are unscrewed again and the armless and legless MEC fighter is put into a massive mech suit that looks like a mixture of a steel gorilla and a combat robot stamps along.

By the way, cybernetic martyrdom is worth it in two or three ways: the only disadvantage that MEC cyber fighters have in combat is their sheer size, so that they are not allowed to take cover behind parked cars or tree stumps. But they can take more hits than a regular flesh-and-blood soldier - certain skills such as damage control and repair servos as well as foundry research projects can improve this even further. The MECs thus become almost indestructible tanks.

In part, this also depends on what specialization a cyber warrior had before retraining: Heavy soldiers are MECs with an energy shield that is always directed towards the closest enemy. Former snipers will shoot more accurately as long as they are not moving. Supporters improve the coverage of comrades crouching in the vicinity by means of a distortion generator. Assault soldiers use their shock-absorbing armor to attenuate the hits of all enemies standing within four spaces.

Big MEC

With the MECs, the battles play out noticeably differently, with the new comrades single-handedly chasing most aliens cold. We usually only have enough reports for one or two MECs, but that's easily enough. The rest of the four to six-person teams are demoted to a certain extent to supporting actors who support, heal or cover the MEC if its gun is being reloaded.

With their thick miniguns, railguns and plasma guns, they can do something that normal XCOM soldiers cannot: They can target terrain, house walls or cover and destroy them with a volley - regardless of whether there are opponents there or not. After that, the magazine is usually emptied - exposed aliens who are standing in the open after the hail of bullets without cover, we easily snap out with the rest of the squad.

If a battle takes place in a confined space, the MECs are even more deadly: For the first stage of the MEC suits, we can choose whether we prefer to mount a flamethrower or a rocket-propelled melee metal fist on the left arm - the gigantic hunter mechs from Greetings from Pacific Rim. Later versions of the MEC suits (which of course also cost a lot of MELD), we are allowed to equip with a grenade launcher, a healing spray canister, a mine launcher or an electric pulse. To increase tactical flexibility, the »pilots« of the MEC suits and the armor themselves can be exchanged.

Supermen among themselves

The gene technology in turn is much less bombastic than the MEC trooper. The more different races of aliens that Dr. Having Vahlen autopsied, the more genetic upgrade organs we can add to our troops.

The gene laboratory has a set of either-or upgrades for the head, eyes, chest, skin and legs: for example, the practical self-healing bone marrow can be implanted in the legs or, alternatively, a jump muscle can be built in. Both are not possible together. In addition, the booster organs are terribly expensive, so we never have enough meld to transform our troops into a fully mutated team.

In addition, there are a number of new grenades in the form of blinding, needle, poison gas or decoys. XCOM veterans are grumbling: What's the nonsense, the soldiers can only take one piece of equipment with them anyway? Because of: Dr. Shen and his fellow engineers have a solution to this problem. With a new foundry project available very early on in the game, all soldiers are now allowed to fill two equipment slots. This improvement mitigates one of the criticisms of the base game: the very simple inventory management with only one item per soldier.

In addition, Enemy Within adds almost 40 new maps and lets shot UFOs no longer fall exclusively into the same forests, but also in urban areas - a nice and overdue change. The scenarios are still generically American, but one of a total of six languages can be set for the internationally recruited XCOM soldiers; a good idea, because now the supposedly international XCOM initiative really feels that way.

Sinister world domination plans

By the way, the title Enemy Within does not only refer to MEC technology and genetic manipulation, but also to a very specific group of traitors within the human race: the EXALT secret society. He's pursuing a perfidious plan: wait for the alien invasion, grab as much extraterrestrial technology as possible and then usurp world domination.

The EXALT cells distributed all over the world make life correspondingly difficult for us. Sometimes they steal urgently needed coal from us, then again they suddenly raise the panic level in a country. To track down these cells, we are sending an XCOM soldier undercover. Once he has discovered the location of the terrorists, the fight against the local EXALT agents begins: smartly dressed and armed to the teeth.

This narrative thread is always exciting, but it is not taken up in a new campaign, but simply interwoven with the existing story. We would have liked to have our own campaign at almost full price, especially since not all of the problems in the main game were eliminated. The console menus are still annoying on the PC, and why we are still not allowed to rotate the camera freely remains a developer secret. Nevertheless: If you still haven't had enough of the original, you won't go wrong with this addon.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a title that in 2012 inspired hope for all fans of turn-based strategies. After almost twenty years, a game has finally appeared, which despite many simplifications has become a worthy successor to the legendary UFO: Enemy Unknown . Earlier attempts to cut coupons from the popularity of MicroProse's hit, UFO: Extraterrestrials by Chaos Concept and UFO: Aftermath / Aftershock / Afterlight by Altar Games, were not good enough to give them more than a moment of attention. Boredom, schematic, lack of fresh ideas, and in the case of Altar Games ( UFO: Aftermath, UFO: Aftershock and UFO: Afterlight ) productions, the introduction of real-time are the main factors that made these items unsuccessful and basically gone unnoticed.

As a classic Enemy Unknown maniac, I did not believe that 2K Games would be up to the challenge. I was afraid that he would create another "monster" that no one would like. Fortunately, I was very wrong and the end result exceeded my wildest expectations. And not only mine, as this title has been enthusiastically received by fans and critics all over the world. No wonder that the manufacturer followed the blow and decided to launch a full-fledged accessory on the market. XCOM: Enemy Within , because we are talking about it, does not offer a new campaign, but it extends the one known from the original with a dozen or so fresh elements.

The most interesting change introduced to the game is the possibility of nanotechnological improvement of our soldiers. All this is due to a new resource called "meld". Generally speaking, it is a kind of nanotechnology swarm of microscopic robots that can modify the human genotype. This translates into the possibility of a genetic "improvement" of the human body or its seamless connection with mechanical elements. What does that really mean? More or less that our commandos gained a much wider spectrum of development than in the base . The most important are genetic modifications that allow a soldier to be turned into a real machine for killing aliens in a short period of time. Each subsequent autopsy of a new type of creature expands the range of available options, and these are really impressive. My favorite fixes are the adaptive marrow, which grants 2 health regeneration points per turn, and the spare heart, which ensures that the first hit of hit points to zero does not kill a squad member - he just starts to bleed out and can be stabilized. These two options mean that we have an almost immortal team, which, in addition, regenerates very quickly between subsequent missions. Together with the purchased tactics from the officer school "Zdrów jak fish", the convalescence time is reduced more than twice.

Of course, offensive modifications are also available. For example, depth perception improves accuracy and critical hit chance, and the adrenaline cloud provides an attack bonus for the entire squad after shooting an enemy. Other modifications allow, among others to jumping on roofs of buildings or sensing enemies before we are able to see them. In this aspect, the players have a lot of new products at their disposal.

Biomechanical modifications perform just as well. Through a series of medical procedures, amputations and replacing elements of the human body with cold steel, we adapt our subordinate to the use of the Mechanical Cyber Protection Exoskeleton, MEC for short. It is a huge combat machine, and its operator is a true master of life and death on the battlefield. The MEC comes in three types: guardian, guardian, and paladin, which differ in their special abilities. For example, the former is able to use a flamethrower that attacks with an area attack or a powerful kinetic blast.

Enemy Within introduces two new alien species and a human organization called EXALT to the game. The ranks of the UFOnauts were joined by the seeker and the mechtoid. The former remains invisible until the attack, which consists in strangling the victim who is unable to defend himself. Only her teammates are able to save her from death. At first, the seeker is quite a nuisance, but in the later stages of the game his effectiveness decreases drastically. This is mainly due to the bioelectric skin that detects it and the new object, the respiratory implant, which offers complete protection against suffocation. The more advanced armor also renders this attack ineffective.

Fortunately, the second alien, the mechtoid, is a real killing machine. He shows up more or less in the middle of the game and is one of the most dangerous opponents we will face. As befits a robot, he is characterized by high endurance, which can be additionally increased by psionic aid from other sectoids. Mechtoid has a plasma cannon and has a chance to fire twice per turn if not moving. Let's add that two hits from such a powerful weapon can easily kill a soldier wearing even the heaviest armor available in the game. Honestly, until the meeting with the mechtoid, it seemed to me that Enemy Within significantly lowered the difficulty of the game . Each subsequent nanotechnological modification provides a huge advantage on the battlefield and the first few hours of the game are basically a walk in the park. Fortunately, later it gets much more difficult, and the endgame itself is much more demanding than in Enemy Unknown .

The fight against the representatives of the transhumanist front is quite hard, mainly due to the fact that in most cases they have a three-to-one advantage over us. They also don't hesitate to use rocket and grenade launchers. I got the impression that they were much smarter than aliens who behave quite schematically even on the highest level of difficulty. This is, of course, a definite plus, as each subsequent covert operation presents a real tactical challenge. I also think I've seen similar character models somewhere before. Could it be in The Bureau: XCOM Declassified ?

Enemy Within also introduces some new and interesting missions to the game. During their performance, we learn about the fate of a girl named Annette, who is endowed with quite mysterious powers, we defend our base by taking part in a specific tower defense mini-game, and we bombard a fishing village dominated by chrysalides reproducing in the carcasses of a great whale. In this respect, the Enemy Within is very interesting, although I got the impression that there could be a bit more additional side missions. Fortunately , the number of combat maps has been increased, and epic moments, such as fighting on top of a burning skyscraper, remain in your memory for a long time .