2K Games preview - The Bureau: Xcom Declassified and Borderlands 2 DLC

2K Games preview - The Bureau: Xcom Declassified and Borderlands 2 DLC

E3 may have been and gone but it doesn't mean that there's nothing left to look forward to.

2K Games gave me time to spend with three of their upcoming titles and a chance to see them in action.

First up was The Bureau: XCom Declassified, a shooter which sees you plonked into the same universe as XCom Enemy Unknown but dropped into a 1962 rural America which is currently under alien invasion from the "Outsiders". Your job is to try and save the day, repel the aliens and of course, use your team to shoot the alien blood out of the bad guys.

Think B movie 1950s style look and feel with a touch of The X Files meets the Invaders and you'd be along the right lines. Tapping into the whole Men In Black feel along with the whole idea of the Roswell incident, it's a game which will rely more on tactics than blasting the heck out of everything.

Equipping you with some bad ass tech and some quite neat guns, as well as a team of two other agents, you can take control of all the action - and it takes you a little bit of time to get used to the actual mechanics of deploying troops around the place, setting up an attack and kicking some little alien butt. You have a wheel which you call up on the screen to help you deploy your troops and plan your strategy. My concern was that this wheel would slow things down and interrupt the action, but it doesn't as it all carries on around you, ensuring you have a level of immediacy and a sense of urgency when deliberating your tactics.

There's a strong emphasis on planning and even if you do manage to let off a series of blind shots which find their mark, you'll be lucky to move forward given that there's a team slant to the game. You get to level up your co-fighters and it means that you invest in them. What makes things worse though is that if they die, you lose all of that time and effort you've put into them.

Adding in the fact that part of the demo was a rescue mission to trace an agent who's gone AWOL, there's a reason to play. But there's even more reason when that agent you're trying to rescue is an active part of the game play, giving you a chance to use him to take on the baddies by swapping around in the wheel. It's a nice way to flesh out the scenario and gameplay and a great incentive to think about what you're doing.
I quite liked the pulpy Mars Attacks feel of the game - it's more about the aesthetics than the game play on that front. Ultimately though, you can dive into this and simply have a blast - we'll have to wait until August this year for the full game.



There's also an iPad version of the XCom game, Enemy Unknown, which follows a similar path to the original and is responsive and easy to play. Like many games on this platform, it's a point and press and it plays out in front of you. I had little time on this to fully go into it, but I could potentially see myself losing a lot of time playing on it while on the bus commuting back and forth.

The other big game which I really enjoyed previewing was Borderlands 2 - Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep. This is the latest DLC for Borderlands 2 and is utterly lunatic in nature and execution. I've not played Borderlands 2 before so it was a whole new world to me, but to be frank, it's one I desperately want to experience. The gameplay revolves around Lilith, Mordecai, Brick, and Tiny Tina playing Bunkers and Badasses, a tabletop role-playing game similar to Dungeons and Dragons and you get dropped right into the middle of it. 

With Gorillaz style graphics and an unreliable narrative from the somewhat erratic Tina meaning that once in a while the landscape is prone to changing, it's got real potential for some really fun elements within.The game within a game motif worked brilliantly, coupled withe medieval music and brilliant visuals, it's impressive on many many levels. The graphics themselves are clear crisp cartoony and really stand out on the wonderful HD.  It's tongue in cheek and much fun - this one's due a little later this month which should mean you won;t have to wait too long to take it on. You can take on more than one mission at a time, and the guys at 2K say there's around 10 hours of gameplay to be had with it - which for a DLC is pretty damn enticing.