More X-Com Alliance

4 man squads

Ordering teammates around can be pretty complicated since you're taking a strategy element and trying to put it in an FPS game. Microprose has simplified this with a very easy to use command and point system. You issue the command to your teammates (singular or grouped), and if the command involves them moving somewhere, your crosshair will change to an ordering crosshair so you can point and click to the place you want your team to move. It's a lot simpler than I can explain, but it's definitely intuitive and easy to use.

Definitely Unreal Engine

Cooperative!

Chris Clark also told us that they plan on including a multiplayer and cooperative game mode with X-com alliance. This means you can put real people into your teammates and play through all of the single-player missions in co-op mode. The multiplayer games will include specialized multiplayer maps for DM, CTF, and goal-based team games (capture and hold), and it will also allow you to play as both the humans and the aliens. Yes, the Ethereals are in the game, so prepare to float! Right now they haven't fully planned out how online games will work, but they will most likely have an in-game server browser with internet hosted game servers.

The story

The storyline is still being worked on, but the basic premise is that you are the leader of an X-Com squad sent to take the fight back to the aliens (since they've attacked Earth twice already). From the levels Chris showed us it looks like you'll see human space ships, infested alien levels, alien bases, as well as an alien world. That's about all they could tell us for today, but from what we saw it will definitely be an engaging storyline.

We're definitely looking forward to X-Com Alliance. The character of the old X-Com games is there, as well as the best elements of team-based FPS games. Not only that, but they are ambitious with the features they want to add into the game like the POV controls and the hundreds of model animations. X-Com Alliance could give Half-Life a run for its money as far as single player experience, as well as become a serious competitor to the team-based online FPS market.