The Bureau: XCOM Declassified Reviews

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is the second of the third-person shooter style game within the history of the series, which primarily takes on a top-down strategy style approach. The first title that took on a third-person shooter perspective was 2001's XCOM: Enforcer, which received mix reviews from fans and critics alike. Like all XCOM games before it, Declassified was published by 2K Games, but developed by 2K Marin instead of MicroProse Software, Inc., or any of the companies that worked on the Enemy Within release.

I'm not going to pretend to be some sort of XCOM enthusiast or expert, as I'm neither of those things; in fact, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is the first title in the series that I've ever played. With that out of the way, you can guarantee this review will not be pining over the fact that this release isn't of the same gameplay style of say, UFO Defense or Enemy Unknown. Even though this is the second of the third-person shooter XCOM titles, it's a great refresher of the franchise in general, and it has the potential to reel gamers into the XCOM universe who may not be so crazy over top-down strategy games. As I was playing, I never once felt like I was out of the loop when it came to plot, in all reality it actually felt like I was starting at the beginning of the story.

It's 1962, and you're Agent William Carter; a man who has some deep demons to face from his past, but who is also an excellent operative. You've been assigned to XCOM, a top-secret government organization that by all official accounts does not exist. It's your job to take out the alien scum, or "Outsiders", that are invading the United States, and possibly the world; their reach is unknown, as all communications outside of the immediate area have been blacked out. There are some survivors that have been infected by the Outsiders, known as Sleepwalkers, and it's your hope that a cure will be found for them. You and your crew must find a way to ensure that humanity prevails, and depending on your decisions it may cost a lot to do so. Be prepared to take on some of the most dangerous alien elites.

Without a doubt, this game is a definite merger of Mass Effect and Gears of War. Its primary combat system relies heavily on cover-based shooting, and even on the easiest difficulty if you do not make use of cover... you will die. Despite the third-person shooter aspect of XCOM Declassified, there is still a tactical influence that will make your gameplay experience a whole lot easier if you utilize it. You are able to bring two other agents on missions with you, and you can fully command them on the battle field; you can tell them where to move to, which foe to shoot at, and also make them use their unique skills which will come in very helpful at times. There are four types of agents that you can choose between, all of which have their own benefits and skills that will come in handy during the numerous Outsider onslaughts. New skills are unlocked as the agents, and yourself, rank up by earning kills in combat. However, it's an unfortunate downside that the agent AI in this game is mediocre at best, and if you do not keep your commands on them at all times, their helpfulness is extremely low.

The Mass Effect influence comes in to play via dialogue choices, and even the dialogue system itself. Once you complete a major or minor mission, you will return to the central XCOM hub where you are able to interact with certain characters. Generally, you will also have three dialogue options to talk about to any given person. Talking to them will reveal much more of the storyline and backgrounds, and many of the choices that you make will have an affect on the ending that you will receive; in total, there are seven different endings. There are also letters, photographs, and recordings that you can pick up throughout the game; while they aren't required for any advancement or achievements, they do add further depth to the story that helps bring everything together.

While the story is extremely well written and exceptionally executed, so long as you take the time to talk to people and review letters and recordings, XCOM Declassified really shines when it comes to overall atmosphere. The environments are lavishly detailed, and no two mission areas are alike. Hands down, even though the game is dated by three years now, this is one of the best looking titles that I've ever had the pleasure of laying my eyes on. Between the fog effects, dynamic lighting, the clashing range of soft pastel colors and cold metallic alien structures, and spectacular recreation of a 1960's environment, there's absolutely no denying that this release is a visual stunner. All of it is wrapped together with an equally amazing soundtrack that will keep you engaged from beginning to end.

There is an unfortunate downside to XCOM Declassified that has resulted in the largest amount of its negative reviews. The controls are fairly unpolished and convoluted, while they could've followed the formula of so many other titles of the same vein. The worst of all is how hard it is to aim, even if you set the controller and/or mouse sensitivity very low, if you nudge in the same direction for even a fraction of a second too long, you overshoot your target and end up missing your mark entirely. This happens more often than not, and causes a lot of ammo to be wasted; which is unacceptable in an environment that requires some moderate resource management.

However, given the utterly brilliant storyline, jaw dropping landscapes, immersive atmosphere, superb optimization (60+ FPS at all times), and the huge bang you'll get for your buck (13-15 hours of play time), it's easy to forgive the control flaws as you will become so engrossed in everything that's going on around you that you'll just... what's the famous XCOM term?... Adapt. Survive. Win. If you're looking for a long lasting, totally immersive third-person shooter experience that has a story and visuals that you won't soon forget, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is a must have for your Steam library. It'll leave you wanting more, and luckily there's some DLC for that.

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I haven't quite finished this game, but I'm going to go ahead and review it now to get my biggest complaint about it off my chest. Hopefully, I can nab my remaining 11 achievements without this game's biggest flaw weighing quite as heavily on my mind.

This is a decent game. Graphics are good for the time, voice acting is good, story is great. Controls are a little clunky, but so were the controls of every game of this era as we shook off growing pains from earlier eras in gaming. I'll address all that in a moment, though. Despite the surprising quality of this game going against all the reviews I've read, I cannot recommend this game. My reasons are entirely different from everyone else's reasons, though.

This game has one massive flaw. There is no option to manually save. Unless all of my poking and Googling failed to uncover the "how," the player is entirely reliant on the game's autosave feature. This would be fine, if clearing things in the base didn't take up to an hour at times. This would be fine if the entire game was built like the minor operations are built. This is unacceptable for the game in its final form, however. I actually missed some achievements on my first play though because I did the things that counted toward my goals, and then shut off the game, not realizing I hadn't managed to trigger autosave. I won't be doing a complete second playthrough, but in order to unlock my remaining four achievements, I'll have to complete another campaign at least partway. The decision to exclude a manual saving feature is baffling and hamstrings an otherwise playable and decent game.

As for the rest, graphics are pretty comparable to most other games of the time. Make sure you check your options and do a little bit of testing. Each option describes what it's for in the menu, and avoiding screen tearing is the key to making this game even playable. Most of the issues reported on in reviews could have been avoided if the review had just read the f*ing manual or even what was on the screen.

Controls are one of the weaker points of the game; this will lead us into voice acting. Issuing commands is pretty similar to the first game in the Mass Effect franchise; it's clunky but serviceable. Another reason this game is referred to as a "Mass Effect clone" is the dialog tree for each conversation: it's pretty similar too. While the game lacks "paragon" and "renegade" options, Carter's voice can definitely have more of a paragon or renegade quality to it, depending on the option chosen. The voice acting was certainly better than some other games of the era (looking at you, Skyrim), but some actors could have put a little more effort into earning their paychecks. No one will ever be able to convince me that Agent Percy's voice actor didn't just phone in his lines. There's only one point I can recall that alters your ending, though, and that's a choice between three other operatives at the end. According to the guide I glanced at while the credits were rolling, one choice locks in a "violent" ending, one locks in a "pragmatic" ending, and the ending I chose through the operative I selected was the "compassionate" ending. Back to sound quality, though, the sound effects weren't bad, but I did play much of the game on mute. Sorry, not sorry.

I haven't yet tackled the Hangar 6 or Code Breaker DLCs. Code Breaker doesn't have any achievements and pissed off a lot of the fan base, as it's apparently a short mission. I'll be doing this next, followed by Hangar 6 and then a return to the main game to mop up my remaining achievements.

Overall, this is a game that had potential to be 5 stars. I'm a big fan of the Mass Effect franchise, and I wouldn't have cared if the game had been a rip off of that series. The game was really a let-down though in the lack of improvement upon the control scheme and the obvious, glaring flaw of a lack of any player autonomy concerning save files. Since these concerns will likely never be addressed due to the age of the game, I can't recommend it despite enjoying it.