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Firaxis has a daunting challenge to overcome with XCOM: Enemy Unknown. As a true successor to the beloved strategy classic, it has to sate the expectations of those that played the 1993 original. But, it needs to be flashy enough to catch the attention of the modern console gamer. How does one go about making a turn-based strategy game appeal to the masses?

Simple: stay as true to the original X-COM as possible. Fighting an alien invasion where the stakes are so high makes for great drama, no matter what the genre. Thanks to the game’s unforgiving and brutal difficulty, every move matters that much more. Whereas other games had me mowing down hundreds of enemies, Enemy Unknown made me feel like every decision I made was crucial.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Enemy Unknown has one of the most compelling tutorials I’ve ever seen. There’s a lot of ground to cover: the game has to teach you how to move your units, place them in cover, and take advantage of their class’ special abilities. By incorporating it into the narrative, Firaxis manages to teach players the basics in a way that’s comprehensive without being pedantic. It also does a great job of teaching players that humanity is absurdly underpowered compared to its alien invaders.

Gone are the “action points” from the original game. Instead, each soldier under your command can move and take an action, or rush to a greater distance every turn. As you move the reticule around, you’ll see how the unit can take cover. As in a chess game, your position is crucial. Do you take a more direct, exposed route? Or, do you try to flank enemies? Will you take higher position for your sniper? Will you break through a glass window for a surprise attack–or go in more stealthily?

The simple act of moving around is entertaining in XCOM, thanks to some great camera and animation work by Firaxis. The story unfolds dynamically as you play, and the camera cuts in close to show whatever you’re doing. Whereas you can feel a bit detached from the units in a typical strategy game, the intimate direction of XCOM makes it feel far more personal. Seeing enemies respond intelligently–getting into flanking positions, setting traps, and taking advantage of the environment–makes the moment-to-moment gameplay all the more exciting. If you have a unit that’s exposed for just one turn, the Sectoids will find a way to take advantage of the situation. And in XCOM, when a unit dies, he stays dead. Forever.

You will die if you’re not in cover

There’s good reason why you want to ensure your squad gets out of each mission alive. Every member of the XCOM can earn experience points and level up. At the start of the game, you’ll be able to set up your HQ at a locale of your choice. For example, do you station yourself in America where research might be faster? Or do you station yourself in Russia where aircraft might be cheaper? Once you set up your home, you’ll be able to develop your soldiers, change their loadouts, and tweak their abilities. Some of the later abilities will prove to be quite useful–for example, “In the Zone” will allow you to shoot twice in a turn. So, keeping your soldiers alive is quite helpful.

Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. There are flying aliens, berserkers that can break through walls, and there are psychic aliens that can take control of one of your soldiers and have them commit suicide via grenade. Even worse are the aliens that can turn humans into new aliens. The chess analog doesn’t work so well when dealing with encounters like this.

Excitingly, you’ll eventually be able to turn the tables against the aliens using their own technology–and your squad will be able to replicate many of these abilities for their own use. Unfortunately, my hands-on time only covered the beginning of the game, so I wasn’t able to get a feel for it myself–but given how much fun the beginning of the game is, I’m eager to see how these additional tactics play.

Whereas many games this E3 will try to wow gamers by showing off bleeding-edge tech, Enemy Unknown is a game that rests solely on its gameplay. Yes, even on PC, the game isn’t particularly attractive to look at. But given how riveted I was by every turn that passed, the game clearly doesn’t need bump-mapped, tessellated graphics.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be available this October on PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

Watch the Shacknews E3 2012 page to follow all our coverage of this year’s show. This preview is based on a hands-on demo shown at a pre-E3 event.

Did our preview of ShootMania Storm pique your interest in the game? Nadeo’s play-create-share shooter will have a beta, and applications are now open.

The process is absurdly easy. Simply visit the game’s official website, input your email address, and an invite should appear in your inbox in the coming weeks.

Zen Studios has been keeping busy with multiple pinball titles across multiple platforms. However, their next game is certainly unlike anything the team has done before. KickBeat is a “music combat” game for Vita, and its odd combination of martial arts and rhythm gameplay has us intrigued.

According to Zen’s Neil Sorens, the beat-matching central to KickBeat is “not complex and will be familiar to fans of the music game genre,” in spite of its unique look.

KickBeat

“We got rid of the bars, arrows, and button icons that other music games rely on for action cues and replaced them with fully 3D animated characters,” Sorens explained to the PlayStation.Blog. “Instead of just seeing characters in the background moving to a preset script as eye candy while the actual gameplay takes place in an abstract 2D interface, you actually control and react to those 3D characters.”

Enemy attacks are synced to the beat of the music in the background. To defeat an enemy, you press a button corresponding to their direction in sync with the music. For example, when an enemy attacks from the right, you press right on the D-Pad or the Circle button. Simultaneous attacks involve pressing simultaneous buttons.

The game will ship with eighteen tracks from names as eclectic as Rob Zombie to Shen Yi, a Taiwanese rapper. However, if that doesn’t suit your taste, you’ll be able to import your own music into the game. “Just put in a couple pieces of info, customize a couple settings to your taste, and the game creates a new level for you to play.”

symbolset writes “In the long running dispute between Motorola and Microsoft, Judge David Shaw of the ITC recommended Monday an import ban on Xbox 360 S consoles, as they are found to infringe Motorola’s patents (PDF). The judge also ordered Microsoft post a bond of 7 percent of the retail price of all unsold U.S. Xbox inventory. The decision will go to the ITC’s board of commissioners, who will either uphold the recommendation or overturn it. ‘Microsoft argued that Shaw’s exclusion order does not serve the public interest because it would leave consumers of video game consoles with only two options to satisfy their needs: the Sony Playstation and the Nintendo Wii. Shaw rejected that argument, finding that the public interest in enforcing intellectual property rights outweighs any potential economic impact on video game console buyers.’”
This follows news last week of Microsoft winning an import ban on Motorola’s Android devices.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For the first time ever, GameStop’s annual conference will be open to the public. For years, the expo served as a way for employees to get previews of upcoming games to better sell them to potential customers. With major publishers like Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Activision, and EA attending the expo, it’s essentially GameStop’s private E3.

Well, it’s not private anymore. The company has announced that its 2012 expo will be open to the public–so long as you’re carrying a PowerUp Rewards card.

Taking place on August 29th in San Antonio, Texas, the five-hour expo will likely feature many of the games we’ve been previewing in our ongoing E3 coverage. General admission costs $35, but the company is also offering a $100 VIP pass which includes access to VIP sessions, VIP lines for autographs and signings, and access to the GameStop hospitality room.

While it may not be as a lengthy, massive affair as PAX, it’s a rare opportunity for local Texans to get early access to this holiday season’s biggest games. It’ll be interesting to see if the demand will warrant a repeat for 2013.

Friends are okay, I guess. They demand your attention, take up your time, and somehow feel they’re qualified to give you ‘advice,’ but at least you can play video games with them. Like, say Scourge: Outbreak, a downloadable co-op shooter coming this summer to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and, Mac?

It appears to be an improved version of Tragnarion’s The Scourge Project, which was released for PC back in 2010. Reviews were far from glowing back then, so hopefully the extra development time has done it some good.

As well as a four-player co-op campaign lasting an estimated six hours, Scourge packs competitive deathmatch, TDM and CTF modes for up to eight. Each of the four characters has different weapons, stats and abilities, as well as their own flashbacks revealing more of the story.

Hit up the official site for more.

Many deemed the indoor rockery “creepy”

Diablo III is getting hit with a major change to the Monk class, after Blizzard determined that letting a overpowered rune exist in its current state was a “mistake.” This comes among other hotfixes that apparently weakened the Wizard class as well.

The change comes to the Mantra of Healing rune, called Boon of Protection. It now caps damage absorption at the amount of healing provided by the Mantra of Healing in the first three seconds after activation. Blizzard recommends discontinuing its use until the rune is replaced in a future patch.

“The Boon of Protection rune was approximately ten times over its budget on the benefits it provided, and it was quite simply a mistake on our part to let the rune ship as it was,” read a post from community manager Bashiok. “We don’t intend to take these quick and drastic measures often, but considering the severity of the issue, we felt it important to correct it swiftly.”

The post notes that other fixes are coming, and forum users seem to have spotted at least one of them. Many players are noting that the Wizard has had his Force Armor weakened without a notice yet.

So how is Blizzard just now catching such large problems after the game spent two years in “polish mode”? A follow-up post from Bashiok says that the game is adapting to player data. “The game is still young, there were some skills that threw things out of whack, and we expect the landscape to settle out a bit more evenly. Or at least change again so we can continue to monitor the impact,” the post read. “Maybe we’re wrong, maybe there’s no current chance for monk or barbarian to compete with ranged, but our current suspicion is that’s incorrect and until we know for sure we’re not going to turn any dials.”

And to assuage some fears that the Monk would be underpowered now, Bashiok points out that “general class balance is an ongoing investigation” and claims that “the monk and barbarian are not as bad off as they seem.”

If you want some tips on surviving Nightmare Mode, check out our latest Diablo III Diary. John Keefer is playing as a Monk, and “use overpowered rune” wasn’t even one of his tips.

Do you love Street Fighter enough to pay $150 for a fancy box packed with SF goodies including four games, an 11-disc soundtrack, an 8″ light-up Ryu statue, and a replica of the fighting man’s black belt? If so, why, what a happy coincidence, as Capcom today announced such a set to celebrate 25 years of the beloved franchise.

The Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set contains, deep breath:

• Past and Present Street Fighter Games - Playable on current gen PS3 and Xbox 360 console systems, the four critically-acclaimed titles selected from the star-studded catalog are: Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike Online Edition, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition with all costume DLC, and Street Fighter X Tekken including all character and Swap Costume DLC.

• Exclusive Video - The two-disc Blu-Ray set includes a documentary that highlights the profound influence the franchise has had on fans - and vice versa - throughout the years. The collection of videos also includes Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV Anime movies as well as all episodes of the Street Fighter animated series and Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie.

• Light-up Ryu Statue - A specially commissioned and highly-detailed collectable Ryu statue stands prominently at 8″ tall and features the iconic character in mid-Shoryuken, with flames lit from below.

• 11-Disc Soundtrack - Street Fighter game music spanning the past 25 years, in addition to remixes and fan-created music inspired by past Street Fighter games .

• 64-page Hardcover Art Book - A tribute to Street Fighter game fans from all over the world, the art book includes fan pieces submitted by professional and aspiring artists alike.

• Ryu’s Belt - Created to regulation specs, the full-size martial arts black belt is a replica of the one Ryu wears and even includes his classic “FÅ«rinkazan” in kanji!

• Certificate of Authenticity - Each Collector’s Set comes individually numbered complete with a certificate of authenticity.

Whew! It’ll be released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on September 18. Capcom’s also hosting special anniversary tournaments featuring the four Street Fighter games in the Set, held across the world between July and December, as detailed on the Capcom blog.

Click for a closer look

GameFly announced today that it plans to begin publishing mobile games for iOS and Android. The company is now inviting submissions from iOS developers seeking a publisher, and expects to put out its first title sometime in the summer. Submissions can be sent to GameFly’s GameDev group via email to gamedev AT gamefly.com.

The company also plans to launch an Android “GameStore” storefront this fall. The store will offer daily deals on Android games, similar to the mobile “Game of the Day” highlight in the iOS GameFly app.

“GameFly is dedicated to giving consumers the best user experience possible, and to be their single destination for console, PC and mobile gaming needs,” said co-founder and senior VP of business development Sean Spector, in the announcement. “We plan to be a leading player in mobile games by launching our retail GameStore for Android and helping to fund mobile developers of all sizes to publish, promote and sell their smartphone and tablet games.”

[Disclosure: Shacknews.com is part of GameFly Media, a wholly owned subsidiary of GameFly, Inc.]

Microsoft’s legal battle with Motorola has taken another large step towards a console ban, but the company could still narrowly avoid that fate. Judge David Shaw recommended to the International Trade Commission (ITC) that Microsoft be given a cease-and-desist order on sales of the Xbox 360 slim model in the US. He also recommended ceasing Chinese imports of the systems, and a payment of 7% of the value of unsold systems in stores.

Courthouse News Service (via Develop) reports that the ITC can now choose to let that determination stand, in which case it becomes the official stance of the ITC. Alternately, the commission could amend some terms, or send it back for a rewrite. If it does adopt Shaw’s recommendation, President Barack Obama will have 60 days to review the decision, after which it would have to be appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

This follows a one-two punch against Microsoft in this case, after Motorola won its patent ruling, and was subsequently hit with a German sales injunction — which won’t go into effect until the US case is settled. Motorola claims a technology used across several Microsoft devices, but Microsoft alleges that Motorola demanded an unreasonable licensing fee for the patents.

Microsoft has argued that banning consoles would not serve the public interest, but Shaw claimed that enforcing property rights takes precedence. Though Microsoft could still potentially appeal, the threat of a ban is more real now. Either way, this likely isn’t something Microsoft wants hanging over its head as we approach E3.