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So having started roughly a fortnight ago, I've now finished the new XCOM. Decent fun, will play again (and again and again and again, because OCD drives me towards that "A Continental Fellow" achievement...). Anyway, that frees me up to discuss the game without fear of having anything spoiled for me. First point on the agenda - those green pods. What are they? They're made of metal, but have green glowing points all over. You see them right at the very start during the intro, falling down into the city and seemingly EATING a citizen. During battles, unfortunate victims wrapped in green gunge are seen sprawled around them. And so it was that I spent my first few missions giving them a wide berth on the basis that they were clearly very dangerous and powerful... whatever they were. Back at base, the scientific team seemingly gave them a look, said "meh" and went back to looking at the exploded gun shrapnel. Hello...? Soon it became clear that the game wanted me to ignore them (other then as a fairly reliable source of random cover), though I hung on to a suspicion that later on the aliens would spring a trap with them or... something... and provide some acknowledgement that they were there. So to me, they beg for an explanation. On the surface, they appear to be nothing more then automated people-snatching devices, but why they show up everywhere (be it a populated area or a sparse woodland) and entirely ignore your troopers (who also seemingly neglect to tell any of the research staff back at base about them) remains a mystery to me.