Today I checked out XCOM: Enemy Unknown since, well, it just came out. It still feels like I’m in the tutorial, as things have been heavily scripted and railroaded so far, but a lot of the feel of the old X-Com is still there, which is encouraging. It’s a bit simpler than the original in some ways, having removed stuff like free aiming, action points, and kneeling/prone positions, but it adds in others like class specializations, skill choices, and varying mission and funding rewards. Combat is still as brutal as ever, with a high attrition rate among rookies and those damn lucky shots the aliens always seem to get. Definitely one I’ll be playing more of.
And I also checked out the Forza Horizon demo. Definitely a lot of similarity to Test Drive Unlimited, though you’re confined to the roads and it’s hard to tell from the demo just how much variety there really is. The events were decent enough, though occasionally kind of bizarre like the race against a plane. About the only thing I didn’t like is how it always asked if you wanted to do a Rivals race on the same track right after the event. NO, I want to do something else now, not just redo the same race again! A good chance I’ll pick it up, if I can find the time…