The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

- This review was made based on my experience playing on a Ryzen 5 3600, 16GBs of ram and a GTX 1650, be mindful that my experience can differ from yours depending on the hardware. - The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (TBXD) is a third person shooter that borrows some elements of tactical strategy from the classic Xcom games. I would like to make clear that this game is a third person shooter first and a Xcom game later. If you want something similar to Xcom: Enemy Unknown or Xcom 2 this is not the game for you. TBXD is a prequel to the new games and it explains who created the Xcom program back in the 60’s. The main character is an agent from the CIA called “Carter” and all I can tell about him for now is that he is a “classic protagonist” from the early 2010s … I would elaborate more of this later on. **Questions you might have if you're interested in playing it:** *What is it exactly that you do in the game?* It’s a third person shooter from the early 2010’s: so you can take cover, shoot aliens and carry only 2 weapons at once. There is also an element of strategy and squad gameplay that lets you select 2 more NPCs and give them orders to complete the missions that the game presents you. There is a bit of base management and crew management that awards you useful stuff to make you live easier. But nothing at the level of Xcom 1 and 2. *Will it make my eyes bleed?* For a 2013’s game it looks mostly great. The textures and the look are a bit outdated. The models are fine, nothing mind blowing for modern standards but I love how decent the lip sync for the time. The levels are where the game really shines, the lighting and the details are great, even today I really like them. Also the cinematics are pixelated, I don’t know in what resolution they were recorded, but at 1080 they are full of artifacts and missing pixels. Overall it is a decent looking game. *Does it have a good story?* This is going to be a controversial take, but I think that If you don’t take this game seriously and think about the story and characters as something from an old pulpy comic or a B-movie. You will enjoy yourself. The thing is that this game goes places, near the end it jumps the alien shark. I can understand someone that hates this story, especially with how “gritty” and “dark” it tries to be, but for me the game tries so hard that it is funny. *Does it have a good soundtrack?* No… It’s comically bad. Not sure if the composer went for this tone, but it really feels like...