The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

Honestly? This one’s hard to recommend. The 1960s Cold War setup is genuinely cool…there’s something about facing an alien invasion with sixties tech and government secrecy that makes the whole thing feel scrappier and more desperate than your usual XCOM. The aesthetic does a lot of heavy lifting early on. Problem is it doesn’t really go anywhere with it. The premise sets up something interesting and then just sort of… doesn’t cash it in. The AI is terrible. Your squad sticks to walls, stands in fire, and generally behaves like they’ve never seen a gun before. But the enemy AI is equally hopeless so it kind of balances out in the most chaotic way possible. You can get away with murder because nobody on the field, yours or theirs…has a plan! It also crashed. A lot. Steam Deck and a decent gaming PC, didn’t matter. Same result. Thankfully it saves often. If you’re an XCOM completionist it’s a curiosity. If you’re not, there are better ways to spend an afternoon.

---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☑ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Game Size }--- ☐ Floppy Disk ☐ Old Fashioned ☑ Workable ☐ Big ☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☑ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☑ Average ☐ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☑ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☑ 9 ☐ 10

[h1]7,5/10[/h1] Surprisingly, this is a very decent game. I have never played anything from XCOM series before, so I do not share the sentiment some other players, who down-review this game, seem to have. I had no expectations whatsoever except that I thought it was an isometric strategy. To my surprise, it turned out to be a TPP shooter similar to Mass Effect. Combat revolves around hiding behind covers, shooting enemies during windows of opportunity and using pretty cool, special powers as well as issuing commands to two other squad members that follow the protagonist during missions. There are a couple of classes to choose from when composing your team. Each has unique abilities and can help the protagonist in different areas and fight the enemies in different ways. Most of the time I had with me a commando to boost the squad’s shields and lure enemies out from cover as well as a recon to taunt enemies using a decoy hologram, snipe enemies and deal high damage AOE. The story is interesting enough for a sci-fi fan such as myself, although it does seem to take a few shortcuts here and there, rendering the game pretty short. I finished it with a feeling that there was some more story to be told but for whatever reason it was not. For a game older than decade I did expect some aged graphics and quirky controls but was positively surprised. The game looks really nice and the controls are bearable - especially after changing a few keyboard bindings. It does feel a bit awkward at times, but by the time I finished the game, I got used to it to a comfortable level. If you decide to buy it, bear in mind there are some issues with the initial startup, crashes and sound. Fortunately there are fixes for all of them. 1. The game would not start for me at all at first. I tried a couple of things, but to cut to the chase - the solution is to keep on trying to launch until it just starts. It took me maybe around 10 attempts, after which the game successfully launched. After that, it kept on starting up without any problems. 2. Another issue is with the PhysX setting in the graphics panel. It causes the game to crash right after the start of the campaign. Simply turn off all PhysX settings and the game should run smoothly. 3. There are cases where the audio would not play in some cinematics. To be fair, I am not sure how to fix this one permanently. Somebody suggested lowering all volume settings in the game by a notch - I did not and the game played audio correctly via my gaming headset and through my 2.1 PC speakers. It still failed to play some audio when I was using my bluetooth earphones. Hope these save someone time looking online.

I don't get the bad reviews. The "acting" is perfect, really nails the time period. It feels like I'm playing in a 1960's movie. The combat is fun, the tension to save my subordinate agents is palpable, the relationships with the other NPC's feels semi-legit, the backstory of the main character rocks, and I'm having a freakin' blast! Once you get the controls down to muscle memory, it plays like a fast paced action movie, too. Use F1 and F2 along with the spacebar menu to your advantage. Also, your squad members gain experience for every kill and assist. When you send an agent on a side mission by themselves, they gain a level as well. See my reviews on the DLC's as well. I've had this game for 10 days and I'm on my 3rd playthrough. Can't put it down :) Also: If you're in a mission and it won't let you upgrade an agent, and it says hit "o" to upgrade over and over, sometimes hitting "o" will preview the wrong agent. Cycle through the agents and pick the new ability and it will go away.

If you pretend its not a XCOM game, its a decent game. Nothing special about it, nothing memorable but you'll have some fun with it

Игра хоть и захейчена фанатами XCOM не очень заслуженно (основная претензия тогда сводилась к тому, что это "тупой шутер", а не тактическая игра и вообще зачем вы пользуетесь ИМЕНЕМ, ведь вы сляпали ерунду), на деле же ей скорее соответствует оценка "ну норм". То есть не так плохо, как описывали фанаты, но и незаслуженно забытого шедевра из неё не получилось. А вышло по сути очень средне - как с шутерной составляющей, так и с тактической. Плюс, тут странный сюжет, который заканчиваются ещё более странно. Видно, что игра собиралась из кусков - тут вот кусочек Mass Effect с диалогами и выборами, а также бионикой, тут вот Gears of War с укрытиями и стрельбой, тут вот - ну типа X-COM, только совсем-совсем упрощённый. Можно ли в это играть? Вполне, игра всё ещё фановая. Надо ли? Вот тут я хз хз.

X-COM built around Mass Effect's combat system. This is the game for those of you that ♥♥♥♥♥ about missing your squad shots all the time in regular X-COM. If you miss here, its not the RNG's fault, you have only yourself to blame. Good Hunting Squadie

Calling this a broken mess would be a compliment. This game deserves all of the scorn people have for it. From nearly broken gameplay and mechanics, to a plot that was so heavily gutted that the cut scenes are strung together with the merest strands of tinsel and putty that its barely comprehensible. If abortion was legal in my state this would be a prime candidate for advocating for it.