For a brief few seconds while playing through a 30-minute slice of 2K Gamesâ upcoming XCOM game, I thought I was in 2010. Now, you might say, âwaitaminnit, The Bureauâs set in 1962, isnât it?â Youâd be right. But, thereâs an unmistakable whiff of Mass Effectâspecifically ME2, when the series became much more combat-centricâaround The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.
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Right now, those similarities donât necessarily feel like a good or a bad thing; they just exist. But itâs the ways that The Bureau is dissimilar to BioWareâs sci-fi franchise that hold the most hope. My first hands-on taste of the prequel to last yearâs Enemy Unknown felt more tactical than any installment of the Commander Shepard trilogy. I played the Mass Effect games as shooters primarily, content to let my AI partners fight however their algorithms told them to. Iâd heal âem when they needed it, of course, and would aim biotics or special weapons attacks at particularly nasty foes. But, mostly, I let Garrus, EDI, Legion or whomever do what their behavior code dictated.
The Bureau isnât going to let you get away with any such laid-back squad management. When I tried the laissez-faire approach, Carter and his boys got cut up fast. The mission I played was called The Signal and it had the fedora-wearing agent taking Engineer and Commando-class operatives to Pima, New Mexico to hunt down missing explosives expert DaSilva. The pre-mission briefing said that DaSilva might have intel crucial to helping repel the threat of The Outsiders, which is what The Bureau calls its extraterrestrials.
I got to put some of Carter and the AI charactersâ skills through their paces as we picked our way through the semi-intact remains of the southwestern suburban town. Carterâs melee punch was fed energy from the backpack on his arm, showing how some of the tech harvested from Outsiders gets repurposed. Players can use alien weaponry like a scatter laser or laser rifle along with human grenades and firearms. I could command my Engineer to hunker down behind cover in one spot and tell him to place the turret in another nearby location. Then, I triggered Carterâs Pulse Wave ability, knocking enemies out of position from behind cover so the turret could blast them. After that, I could have DaSilva remotely set off charges heâd planted while hiding from the Outsiders. Once those orders were executed, I could switch things up as needed until all waves were dealt with. Enemy classes have varying levels of armor, intelligence and firepower, with the predictable mix of heavies, grunts and snipers all on display.
Cover-based shooting, real-time tactical commands, deployment of squadmatesâ special abilities⊠the mechanics I experienced were all familiar from what I could do in other games. Things felt tense in each firefight, though. In the last combat sequence of the preview, a big hulking Outsider stomped towards Carter and crew and I had to scramble to space out my squad so they werenât easy pickings. There was the sensation of having to flick a mental switch between two mindsets through the demo, too.
As satisfying as it is to mow down Outsiders yourself, the combat chatter of your allies constantly drove home the idea that they need to be told what to do. And while I was in slo-mo Battle Focus figuring out commands, enemies were still bearing down on me. Squadmatesâ dialogue let me know where enemy advancement was happening so lines like âtheyâre coming in on the rightâ helped my brain go from shoot mode to strategy mode. There was a bit of fussiness to the cover implementation. At times, I wasnât actually sure when cover-chaining would trigger and Carter would unexpectedly pop up to catch a laser right in the fedora. Itâs the kind of thing that I chalked up to playing a build that was still a work-in-progress. But that twitchiness is also the kind of thing that will ruin The Bureau if itâs still present in the final game.
Still, for me, the main draw for The Bureau is going to be how well it executes as a period piece. When the game first came out of the development shadows, much was made of its proximity to popular entertainments like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Mad Men. The voice acting reminded me of the tight, clipped cadences of old-school tough guys like Lee Marvin and my eyes feasted on the mid-century architecture and graphic design language. Seriously, the art direction kicks ass. Carterâs vest-and-slacks ensemble, the fins on the cars used for cover and the grainy film-stock effects used in some of the cutscenes all felt appealingly retro. Youâll be laser-sploding your way through a catalog of classic American cool looks.
And I saw a few signs that The Bureau would be poking beneath the shiny, happy mirage of Americaâs golden age. Audiologs, collectible notes and visual puns each exposed some sort of turmoil beneath the perfectionism of the 1962 setting. When you catch up with him, DaSilvaâs bleeding from his eyes and nose, trying to fight off some kind of biological subjugation that threatens to rob him of free will. Along the way, Carter and crew encountered other residents of Pima who fell to the plagueâwhich was reminiscent of The X-Filesâ black oilâand those poor townsfolk could only soullessly repeat the words and actions of their former lives.
Overly familiar though it might be, I canât deny the gameâs sparked a desire to control a character dressed like Eliot Ness and guys in original G.I. Joe fatigues and vintage mechanicâs coveralls. I didnât have either of them die on me, but the gameâs supposedly going to make you ache when that happens. Based on what Iâve seen so far, The Bureau might not be a whole new revelation on its own. However, there might just be enough to make it a retro-slick variant of already extant experiences. My half-hour session with the game has me imagining an episode of Dragnet where strategically complex shootouts happen with aliens instead of mobsters and where you find out that the guy you smoke Lucky Strikes with has a none-too-kosher secret, like being gay. Thatâs a game I would play. Thatâs the game that 2K Marin has to deliver.
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