It's choices like these, and their repercussions, that define XCOM: Enemy Unknown.%Gallery-167636%For the uninitiated, XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a turn-based strategy game. Little do I know that I have just wasted my only rocket, and that I'll really regret it later on. The entire exchange is exhilarating, and I pat myself on the back for a job well done. Thanks to some special training, he quickly settles into 'the zone,' taking out all three Mutons with three perfect shots in rapid succession. Now fully exposed, the beasts make easy targets for my sniper, Sheng 'Xeno' Lin.
Before they have a chance, my heavy trooper readies a rocket launcher, sending its payload directly into the aliens, scorching their hides and blasting their cover to smithereens. The Mutons scramble into cover, positioning themselves to fire. I have just enough time to wonder what they are before my point man, Cameron 'Shield' Robertson, discovers three Muton soldiers – ugly, hulking brutes with equally nasty plasma rifles. As my squad slowly creeps forward, wary of ambush, I notice strange pods scattered about the terrain. I'm the one who shot it down, and I expect its occupants are none too happy about it.
I inch my squad members forward, toward the crashed UFO. Dead animals litter the ground under the tree cover. The Skyranger's ramp lowers and my soldiers shuffle out. My squad touches down in a wooded area, somewhere in the continental United States.
