Turn-based tactical games are all about tough choices, and XCOM: Enemy Within does an outstanding job of piling more of those into the first half of the campaign against the alien invasion that began in last year’s excellent XCOM: Enemy Unknown. But as awesome as it is that developer Firaxis has given us so many more toys in this expansion (on PC – it's available as a stand-alone game on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3), the aliens could’ve used some more help to keep the last months of the war competitive.
Performance Enhancement
There are a ton of great changes here, but the biggest is the addition of a new resource to most of the tactical maps. Known as Meld, it’s used to buy powerful new genetic and cybernetic upgrades, and Enemy Within deviously dangles randomly placed cannisters in front of our noses. Their ticking self-destruct timers forced me out of my usual conservative patterns by pushing me to explore the map quickly, and prompted me to take exciting risks with the lives of my troops. As a direct result, my XCOM body count was much higher in Enemy Within than it has been on recent Enemy Unknown playthroughs (on Classic difficulty), and that’s reinvigorated the sense of
The Late-Game Beatdown
Here’s the thing: even playing on Classic difficulty, once you reach the mid-game and build up some momentum, XCOM starts beating up the alien menace and taking its lunch money. If you thought the squad of high-ranking soldiers you had in Enemy Unknown was badass, Enemy Within’s enhanced squad puts them to shame. With a few well-equipped majors and colonels, neither the aliens nor the new Exalt faction have anything capable of standing in their way.
Endless Invasion
Over the past year I’ve grown to know Enemy Unknown’s maps like the back of my hand, so Enemy Within’s large injection of new maps and locations is a huge improvement. Finally, UFOs can be shot down in urban environments or a rural farm, not just in forests anymore. Just as importantly, it reuses lots of Enemy Unknown’s maps in new contexts, starting your squad in a different location or using them for terror missions. Combined with having to take different approaches to existing maps to chase Meld cannisters, there’s a lot more variety. Plus, a pair of new scripted story missions, which I won’t spoil here, are both surprising events that play out unlike any other mission in the campaign.
The Verdict
Enemy Within is an amazing expansion to a brilliant tactical game. It’s front-loaded with enticing new options that dramatically increase the replay value of the first half of the campaign, though the latter half is a bit neglected. More than ever, XCOM is a spectacular tactical game full of stories and characters you create for yourself, and is best enjoyed in Iron Man mode on Classic difficulty to enhance the emotional highs and lows of victory and permanent defeat.
