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The evolution of The Bureau


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The Bureau pays lip service to series essentials like permadeath and technology acquisition, but it fails to include these mechanics in the final product in a way that makes sense. But the biggest sin is that the terror and consequence that made me agonize over each and every decision in Enemy Unknown is absent here. The Bureau misses all of the things that make XCOM thematically interesting, and all that’s left is some imposter wearing nicely stitched XCOM clothes.

 

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PC Gamer review, 62/100.

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From the 19 hours of gameplay footage I've seen there's a few things I noticed:

 

1) M14s are your best friend in case of an alien invasion. They can be used to kill any alien badass that decides to show, even during the final mission.

2) Squad tactics aren't too imaginative. The gameplay I watched was on Normal difficulty and the player used a Sniper and a Support throughout the entire campaign, with the same tactics over and over (Stims, Silacoid, Drone, Shield Sphere, etc.)

3) The maps were most the same, with the half-cover positions being repeated over and over.

4) Why does the female officer shown at the beginning as an Infiltrator appears later at the base?

5) There were slight inconsistencies between the conversations and the events.

6) Weapons and ammo are laying everywhere, including the XCOM base (don't these people know a thing about gun safety?). Security at the XCOM base is a joke, regarding POWs. Period.

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But the biggest sin is that the terror and consequence that made me agonize over each and every decision in Enemy Unknown is absent here.

 

His is lying or playing on easy/normal. The terror is if you issue wrong command your agent might end dead. And trust me soloing Muton is not that easy.

 

From the 19 hours of gameplay footage I've seen there's a few things I noticed:

 

1) M14s are your best friend in case of an alien invasion. They can be used to kill any alien badass that decides to show, even during the final mission.

2) Squad tactics aren't too imaginative. The gameplay I watched was on Normal difficulty and the player used a Sniper and a Support throughout the entire campaign, with the same tactics over and over (Stims, Silacoid, Drone, Shield Sphere, etc.)

3) The maps were most the same, with the half-cover positions being repeated over and over.

4) Why does the female officer shown at the beginning as an Infiltrator appears later at the base?

5) There were slight inconsistencies between the conversations and the events.

6) Weapons and ammo are laying everywhere, including the XCOM base (don't these people know a thing about gun safety?). Security at the XCOM base is a joke, regarding POWs. Period.

 

1. Let's see, we are attacking aliens that aren't armoured, and in EU you could kill Sectoid, Floater, Snakeman with normal rifle too. Don't forget M-14 uses 7.62 rounds which are very powerful.

 

2. Well if you can't breeze through normal you shouldn't play tactical games. On normal you probably even could go solo without using any skills. I never found good use for Support here. At first I was using Sniper / Commando but then switched to Commando/Engineer. To be honest every mix of those 3 could be possible.

 

3. Well ain't that similar to most game - and let's not forget about our grandfather. The variety of maps wasn't overwhelming.

4. Probably re-used face? Hello, I saw 6 scientists in a row that looked liked x'let's. Let's not forget about most of the guards in the base.

5. Can't comment here as my memory is not used for that.

6. Ehm, mostly it's lying where there were fights? You know police, military and civilian skirmishes against aliens? It's america and mostly it was countrysides missions and there a single police station can have arsenal of small army. And XCOM base?

 

 

It was under attack, so imagine that guards/other agents died there.

 

 

 

I didn't find any single weapon during free roam.

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But the biggest sin is that the terror and consequence that made me agonize over each and every decision in Enemy Unknown is absent here.

His is lying or playing on easy/normal. The terror is if you issue wrong command your agent might end dead. And trust me soloing Muton is not that easy.

 

Eh... I dunno, I too think the terror is a bit lacking, even on Commander difficulty. With the Bureau the only real difficulty comes from bullet sponges and to be frank that's a little more boring than terrifying. You just de-buff it, shoot it a bit, then run away while you re-charge/heal. Lather, rinse, repeat. For an XCom game there is a significant lack of 'oh crap' moments.

 

Now the original UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994 edition), that had some masterfully done terror, and pretty much all of it revolved around the same concept: sudden, foreshadowed, inevitable, visible death. The classic example being the chryssalid; it pops up from out of the fog of war, runs half way across the map and turns half your squad into zombies. What makes it, though, is that you know there are chryssalids about - you've probably heard them during the alien's turn - but you don't know where they are, so you're already on edge. Then *bam* it's there, and you have just enough time to see it, fully understand what's about to happen, and watch as your team *just* fails to kill it before it reaches them.

 

You just don't get that with the Bureau. Pretty much all the cards are on the table, and if you bite off more than you can chew it's your own fault.

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  • 3 weeks later...
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  • 1 month later...

https://cdn.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/66002/capsule_467x181.jpg

 

In the days leading up to the events of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, Agent Nico DaSilva volunteers for a series of dangerous secret experiments to identify and treat a terrifying new pathogen. Maximize your combat skills and push your team to its limits to protect a friend from his own hallucinated terrors.

 

::

 

Now available on Steam here.

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  • 4 years later...

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