The Bureau: XCOM declassified is a single-player tactical shooter game where player jumps into the shoes of William Carter, a CIA special agent, who tries to stop a hostile extraterresterial invasion to earth. The game is pretty much in the vein of other notorous third-person shooter games, such as Mafia and Grand theft Auto series. The Bureau: XCOM declassified put more emphasis on the action rather than possibility to freely explore surroundings. However, the thing is that you still have to apply certain tactical skills and strategy in order to advance in the game. Team works is everything. Rambo mimics here won’t survive for long as you get yourself overwhelmed by aliens pretty easily.
The gamer controls the team on a battlefield by ordering them to act according to what seems strategically appropriate. Taking cover and using special skills of each member of the team is pretty much a key to success. Each of these skills. like healing and diversion tactics such as shouting and holographs become handy in tough situations. The more you play the more you aquire experience wich equals to advanced skills. Beside the skills one can find new weapon technology and equipment which improve the team’s combat efficiency (improved aiming, ability to take more damage etc.). All these equipments and skills are an important addition to surviving during missions.
The game could be a bit challenging even though you play it on normal difficulty. It takes time to master the controls – you really need to be at the cutting edge of the situations during the mission or you’ll most certainly get killed or be healing fallen members of your team. The game seem to control other members sometimes quite irrationally as you find them wandering almost without a sense in the middle of a crossfire and thus getting heavy damage. You better get used to commanding them all the time since their tactical or strategical skills may not be of the best one could wish for. This is also partly due to fact every member of the team have their strong skills which also convert easily to their Achilles heel, as well. Like acting like a Rambo going headlong toward a battle but without brains. Luckily there’s a way to update these skills for each member anyway. Controls are otherwise quite ok excluding situations where player runs to hide behind the cover by using same button (left shift). Its pretty annoying to gets stuck hiding behing a concrete block when you should be running away from the line of a fire.
This was my impression on The Bureau: XCOM declassified. I stumbled upon this game lately and I couldn’t get my hands out of it every since I gave it a try. Actually I got immersed into it that much I even decided to make a short video gameplay clip on it. As for the playing in this clip, don’t except any professionalism, it’s just kind of ”first impressions” caught on tape. :)This video includes boss fight of Rosemont university mission, which is the one of the first missions in the game. This is a great shooter game for every one who likes third-person shooting games. Highly recommended! Have fun!
Related articles
- XCOM shooter rebranded as ”The Bureau,” arrives in August (reviews.cnet.com)
- The Bureau: XCOM Declassified was ”announced too early” (vg247.com)
- The Bureau: XCOM Declassified Live Action Trailer Focuses on the Aftermath (news.softpedia.com)
- XCOM Declassified Launch Trailer Orders You to Adapt, Survive & Win (bagogames.com)
World Of Games 