The story has a lot of government conspiracy in it, giving you a flavor for the paranoia of the time and the twin boogeymen of the Communist threat and UFOs. Part of your mission is to make sure the public doesn’t find out about how successful the aliens are. Once you complete a mission, you conceal the truth.
A hands-on mission
In the mission I played, Carter had to take a team to Jpima, New Mexico, where a previous team had already been sent to check out a tower that had been set up by the “outsiders.” A military helicopter drops your team off at the town.
When you land, you’re wearing a retro-looking backpack that you use to store your weapons, ammo, and other gear. When you arrive, you see a bunch of towns folk wandering around in circles, like zombies. They’re dubbed “sleepwalkers,” and they repeat the same things over and over, as if the aliens have brainwashed them.
In the actual combat, you can see how the game resembles Mass Effect and its sequels. You can target an enemy with a special gun that disables the alien and levitates him in the air, where your comrades can shoot it. You can also assign locations where you want your agents to move. But a location will flash in red if you try to send an agent to a spot where he will be exposed to enemy fire.
You meet a fellow squad leader named DeSilva, who is all that is left of the previous squad. He asks you to help him. Pretty soon, you find your way is blocked by aliens with a lot of firepower. If you charge them, chances are you or your squad mates will die. You can dispatch your squad using the D pad quickly, but I found that was best for sending them to obvious cover that was visible. But if you want to send them to the opposite sides of the battlefield, so they can try to be in a position to flank or to enable you to flank, then you have to use the Battle Focus and call up the move command. When you do that, you can assign them spots to move to more easily, even if those spots are out of your line of sight.
“You can use that to get precise control of your guys and when you do move that way, they stay where you tell them,” Finley said. “They will try to execute the orders you give them.”
If you want a squad member to set up a laser turret, you have to get close enough to get it in a spot where it can command a good chunk of the battlefield. That means you’ll put your squad member at risk when you order him to set it up. But once it is there, it can be devastating and it will hold the enemy in place, or even take the enemy out altogether.
Along the way, you run into different types of aliens The equivalent of an alien quarterback arrives to direct the battle. The enemy commander uses smart tactics to counter what you do. He drops a laser turret onto the battlefield for you to deal with. It pins down your soldiers and forces you to flank. They also send in a burly boss for you to attack. You have to concentrate all of your firepower on the boss and keep your agents alive at the same time. That’s not an easy task, especially if your agents are on the opposite side of the battlefield.
Summary
The game is certainly an original blend of story, familiar game controls, action, and interesting characters. If the game develops Carter as a personality, it could well turn out to be a very engaging game.
“At 2K Marin, we believe in making sure there is something there for the player to discover that is interesting to them and this story lives up to that promise,” Finley said.
The game is coming out on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 on Aug. 20 in North America for $59.99. It debuts in international markets on Aug. 23. The game isn’t rated yet.
That timing will be good for people who want to play a solid game with an extended story before the next-generation game consoles start arriving in the fall.