Developers: 2K Marin
Publishers: 2K Games
Genre: Tactical Shooter
Release date: Augest 20th 2013(Out now!)
Buy it here:
Amazon, Gamestop, Green Man Gaming
Straight out of a 60’s inspired Sci-fi movie, involving invasion, suspenseful, and tons of 3rd person tactical fun, here is The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. You play the role of a CIA Special agent named William Carter. You are instructed on transferring a briefcase containing a unknown object to a director. The rest of the story follows very tightly as I inspired to believe after that point. While some side quests brought a sense of filler. The characters within this story felt a bit workable, and at the same time, forgettable.
Game play is all factored on you and your style. Which was nice, you could play defensive, where you brought a medic, and a Engineer, or aggressive, and brought two medics, and make William a powerhouse of offensive. Everything is handled well with a game pad, or a Keyboard and mouse. As this is somewhat of what seems like a console port(Do not worry PC Master Race, the game has DX11 so do not wet your panties). I preferred a controller because it felt more comfortable with the hands. The sub menus for picking out the many options you can use during combat, is thought out decently, but sometimes feels a bit awkward. For example, I would be having my Medic toss up a Combat Stem down on us and out of no where it would have selected the Shield instead, leaving me in confusion oh what my AI were not doing better damage. I would look over and see the force field up and in its full glory, me, sitting there in awe. Past some of these issues, you are just wondering is the games mechanics fun? Very much so, a more loose collared experience then its over head tactical shooter games, of which it is inspired off of. If you love small arenas of which you must react quick and keep on your toes, this game provides the sauce, a whole bucket filled with that yummy nectar. There are 4 classes the AI in this game can be, a Medic, a Soldier, Sniper, and a Engineer. All play a good role, if they worked 100% right. At points, while the AI instinctively rolls out of the way, or dodges grenades, sometimes is unresponsive to certain commands at fractions of the combat. Making you have to repeat the said command twice, and them carrying it out on par. This is not a fatal issue, and within half a second you can just activate the action skill over and you are great. At the main hub, via the location you hang out at while idling before any missions. You are greeted by decent collection of things to do, both unlocked via by story progression, or off the bat. With this you are allowed to customize some field agents, these are the AI I was mentioning before hand. All having a cap of level five. Which can hold there own, if some sort of wacky bug decides they do not want to listen to you or your commands. A pretty handy feature is there are off missions that you can send off a team of the other guys you can not fit into your squad to go kill some baddies, and get you some extra items. Which some of the said items are sort of pointless, or useless to even truly bother with, unless you are achievement hunting. Once they come back, you can go down a pretty basic grid and select what elements you want suited for them. Even to there names, and outfit colors. Fabulous. Items in the game, such as the alien weaponry you unlock, through doing side missions, or just progressing through are ten fold better then your old earth pistol. Mind you the ammo in the game is in fair supply, and cause you to think carefully with your bullets. Sometimes I was caught with my pants down, but a well equipped AI was able to pull my butt out of the fire pit a few times with there abilities.
Touching bedrock on this bit is something is the make or break of the game. The AI. While sometimes they work just fine, or points they perform some of the most clearly unscripted things I have ever seen. For example, I was going against a larger sub boss, called a Muton. I knew how to take this big bubblegum chewing hunk of steroids down. I had my AI kite him around, planting our points, and was going well. Mind you this was in the beginning of the game, so I was limited to powers to use. The soldier in the group, I called him “Tanky Hank” until I seen his performance, changing his name to “I go Derp Derp”. After a good laugh, I made it randomize the name. Otherwise I would not have made it through the game with a complete straight face. Anyway, the reason why for this was due to the fact, he would hug a wall I instructed him to do, then for no reason hop over it and run straight into the Mullin as if he was going to bear wrestle it, making me restart the checkpoint two times. After awhile, I got annoyed to the point, I needed to swap to use the Sniper. Otherwise there would be a reason for me to start to drink. I do not totally blame the game. Nor the team behind the game, making AI is a very taxing thing, that can never be perfected. The only thing we can settle on is put up with it, and over time you will ignore it, to not even noticing it. So the Soldier is the Tank. He has a provoke ability that draws attention better then a random tween on the former site, Stickam. On top of that can provide a enhancement to his team, giving them 3 bars of health/defense. As well as that, with the help of the medics force field area of effect, builds a great strategy for the Soldier to distract enemies, as you build a sneak attack. Or get in enough time to revive a AI party member. Next is the most important, the medic. At least to my play style, (until you unlock the friendly drone in the game that has healing beams, but I will break that down after.) With the Medic you have a great support. Which provides AoE’s that, if you or your characters are in the circles, are granted buffs. Engineers if you recall the Team Fortress two’s man with the erected sentry, generally a mix of that, include, some land mine. The fun times begin. Plus build a great defense. Next is the Sniper. You can be stealthy, or cloaked(a skill you unlock later on for them.) Are a heavy hitter, with a pretty powerful damaging ability called Critical Strike. Which takes a massive chunk off of health on the enemies, even one shooting some. For William Carter, he is given a pretty great bit of powers. Now while some reviewers out there failed to pay attention to most of the story, the device William is given was by a scientist. This said device enables him to use various powers that many of the enemies in the game use. Such as blobs, drones, and most importantly, healing. All of which play a great role in your placement in the game. After every new ability he gets, he is then offered two choices to power up that said fragment to his arsenal. As it was my first play through, and I prefer defense over offense, I made him more tank-like. Then when it came to my droids upgrade, I slapped Healing Drone on the ass and sent it in. Overall Carter has up to ten levels you go through with him alone. So pick carefully to meet your play style.
The story over all, was enjoyable. I flipped on my cheesy 60’s science fiction movie face watching mode on. I even grabbed some popcorn and placed it near by so if a cut scene began, or dialog, which I will break into in a moment. You first encounter a race called The Sectoid.
Then as the story thickens, The taller and skinner humaniod, The Zudjari. At first you are unaware of what the hell is going down as agent Carter. Things blow up around you, engulfed in a alien invasion. Given a brief instruction, as most games do to hold your hand in today’s gaming market. Then you enter a pretty awesome location, the Bureau’s hang out. They have party games, drinks, dis-pear, and high tech weaponry. While I was left back a bit disappointed, while you do unlock a good selection of weapons, you can not upgrade them. Like- at all. So they bring up a bit within the story, that when you find alien weaponry around, sometimes it does not explode, or disappear. Meaning you can pick it up and use it, then it will be added to your collection to swap out during any drop crate. That part is pretty decent, but left me wanting to be able to upgrade some of the more weaker weapons in the game, aside from the sniper rifle. The alien guns are pretty much beefy solid weapons. While the human counter parts, felt boring, and lacking to be helpful. Specially later on when you deal with heavily shielded enemies.
Facial expressions are very crisp and well rendered, specially since this game was tossed between 3 developers since 2006. Yes, this game was not a spur of the moment release per say by 2K, it was a thought out project that taken many forms, and refinements. The success of the recent release of Enemy Unknown, and its successful launch told everyone to be prepared for many games to run with the aliens fragment. Specially the name sake of Xcom, being brought up for most meetings. As I am aware this game has been around quite a bit via, the drawing board, for its presentation, I really got into it. However, I had a few bits about the story I wanted to express, felt like wet laundry. For example, you encounter, a Russian spy in the base. As a side story you then talk to him, and get him to go on a mission. After that, you never see the man again. As if, he got out of dodge, and went home to Russia to hide under his bed. However, I checked my agent list and a new agent was sitting there, or my mind was playing hopscotch with my sanity. The game looked close to the old Russian from before. However, the plot twisted even deeper. While the engineer had a Russian name. The voice actor was.. Southern, as in Paula Dean sucking on bacon fat, and listening to country at a Denny’s. Southern. I sat there in complete awe. It felt like trapped in the closet, without R Kelly singing over. After two minutes of collected my blown mind, I kept on playing. The story got actually better and better, and I got anxious to see the big pop, the big conclusion. I was not getting a vibe of LA Noire, or a well told Hitchcock movie, it felt rewarding, and I was content. I felt spent.
In closing:
The Bureau XCOM Declassified is a interesting and pretty fun game. It holds out to be something to grind many hours into. I spent a good amount of time, just doing all of the minor quests, along with hunting down notes, or audio recordings to learn about any sort of extra story possible, or just to be freaking noisy. This game, while you would play it through once and perhaps never play it again, other then to play any new DLC, if you are into that thing(I am). If they ever decide to make a sequel to this game, I would suggest the following. While I was able to understand most of the story on my own, some out there miss key points, or do not realize anything. If they are trying to appeal to shooting fanatics, be sure to provide a clear enough story for them, and for the Xcom fanboys (those little whiners), a bold connection to the whole series. Weapons,while the alien weapons being pretty cool out of the lot, would have made for some upgrades, or even attachments. I understand back in the 1960’s there was barely any of the advancements in the field of weapons. However if you were able to make a fully automatic sniper rifle from the sniper counterpart. Then something could be excused for realism here. Over all I actually enjoyed the game. It while can be improved if any plans for a new game comes around. It still stands as a fun game, however one you would play once and just move on after. It does on a plus give you a solid 36 hours worth of gameplay in a nutshell, which is pretty decent, for a third person Gears of Tactics game.
8.0
