Falling Skies: The Game
Little Orbit, 2014

I've just hit ten hours in a game that I can't really say anything positive about. It's an odd place to be. Everything that my rational brain tells me is that this game just isn't very good, and yet I can't seem to stop myself from continuing on. And no, masochism has nothing to do with it. I'm not forcing myself through something unenjoyable, quite the contrary. Instead, I'm having fun playing a bad game.



Full disclosure: I bought Falling Skies for one simple reason - it looked just like XCOM. Falling Skies is based on the show of the same name, which I've never seen. However, I have seen commercials for the show in the past and thought it looked like a low budget science fiction show that borrowed elements of XCOM as well. Not that "alien invasion" is such an original element of sci-fi, and obviously it existed before XCOM, but something just reminded me of the game - perhaps it was all those hours of playing that kept it front and center in my mind. When a licensed game was announced for Falling Skies, it could have been anything. Surely an FPS would have made sense, or a cheap platformer perhaps? But when it was revealed that it would be a pretty extreme rip-off of XCOM, I knew that I had to play it.


My adoration of XCOM is far from hidden. My Steam profile says it is by far my most played game, with 167 hours on record. I've played through both the "Unknown" and "Within" campaigns, as well as messed with the Long War mod. I say this to point out that no matter how much XCOM I've played, I just keep wanting more XCOM. This is exactly why Falling Skies was a day one purchase for me.

But looking like XCOM, playing like XCOM and ripping-off XCOM does not mean that it's as good as XCOM. In fact, Falling Skies is pretty much inferior in every single way you can think of. The controls are not nearly as polished and there's something that's just slightly more clunky about movement. It just doesn't feel as precise. Accordingly, the camera is a total mess most of the time and allows grass to cover the cursor or pieces of environment to block the entire screen instead of becoming translucent as they should. However, I'll at least give the developer credit for realizing that being able to rotate the camera during an enemy's turn is a plus.

Visually, the game looks about as good as a budget "last gen" game would. The maps aren't overly detailed, and after ten hours of playing, I've seen very little variety in characters (both friend and foe). You can recruit a number of 'volunteers' into your makeshift army, but the limit for your party size is six per mission. It's rare that you get out there without a palette swap or two in your party. There are customization options for characters appearances, though I've never felt compelled to investigate that myself. On the other side, you'll mostly see "skitters," which are fast moving, insect-like aliens that attack by scratching. Other than that, the most common aliens are ones that look like zombified humans using guns. Via cut-scene, I have witnessed some other alien breeds, though I've yet to actually face them in game. My thought is that if it takes longer than ten hours to see more than a couple of kinds of enemies, then it's safe to use the phrase, "lacks variety."


The audio department doesn't mix things up all that much either. Though there is some voice acting in cut-scenes (presumably from actors from the actual show), the music leaves a bit to be desired. It's not that the music is bad, there is a minimal piano theme that plays often and has a nice gloomy feel to it. The problem is that there's just not a lot of music, so you'll end up hearing the few pieces of score over and over again.

At least the gameplay of Falling Skies isn't awful. As mentioned earlier, it's a little rough around the edges, but it works. Playing with a controller is just as viable as playing with a mouse and keyboard and there is actually some variety in the sorts of missions you'll encounter. In some missions, you might have to locate and kill all of the aliens on a map. In another, you may have to detonate a bomb, rescue civilians, or complete various other goals. This feature at at least makes for a nice change throughout the campaign.

Base management in Falling Skies is kept to a minimum. Basically, between missions you'll research and construct new weapons, recruit new soldiers, upgrade their skills through different trees for each class, and so on. Another nice touch is that you can deploy a single soldier on a mission to collect supplies. These solo missions aren't played by you, instead you'll lose a soldier for the length of a main mission and he'll return with goods afterward. Good may be food (used to recruit soldiers), or materials, which are used to construct new weapons. This collection system is a nice touch and an easy way to level-up a new recruit without risking his life in your missions proper.


Ultimately, Falling Skies isn't a terrible game, it's just not a particularly good one. Looking at the source material, that's an appropriate assessment. Falling Skies is like a b-movie version of a much better movie, but with that said, sometimes b-movies are fun. Though I wouldn't recommend anyone run out and get this game at full price, I'd say that fans of the genre who've run out of new XCOM campaigns to play may get a kick out of it. More importantly, anyone who's been intimidated at the thought of jumping into XCOM might want to check this out first. In a sense, Falling Skies works much like Mystic Quest did for the Final Fantasy series; it takes an entire formula and oversimplifies it into a beginner-friendly affair.

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