Whether it be constant or considered, motion is arguably the last word on how a game rolls – and if the seventh generation is to be believed, turn-based is out. It's the HD DVD to your Blu-ray; the swiftly fading 3D to your indomitable 2D.

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Or, in this case, the X-Com to your XCOM . This is what X-Com was circa 1994:This is what XCOM will be in 2012:Quite the contrast. It also makes for a really easy game of spot-the-difference. A lot of people can't help themselves though, and the first thing they turn up is that the series' turn-based gameplay will now no longer define it.Interestingly, some of life's most enduring games involve two sides taking turns. Chess, for example. If chess was real-time – and, true, some big brains can play it fast enough that it sometimes feels that way – it wouldn't be chess anymore. It'd be a game that looks like chess but, simply by bogarting its back-and-forth, would be chess in name alone. You could change the perspective from which you play it, but ultimately you still have to queue in the checkmate line to take that other guy's king. Waiting to pounce is timeless.Old men in parks have been happily biding their time on chess boards for over 1,500 years. Gamers have been enjoying the identical methodology underpinning Civilization since 1991. In Civ-time, that's a whole lot longer than 1,500 years.So who told 2K Marin that envisioning the belated return of Mythos and MicroProse's X-Com franchise as a frenetic FPS was the way forward? 2K Games president Christoph Harmann did."Every studio we had wanted to do it and each one had its own spin on it," Harmann said to MCV back in July . "But the problem was that turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth. But this is not just a commercial thing – strategy games are just not contemporary."Has turn-based gaming really fallen completely out of favour, or is the current FPS status quo just giving silent orders to its partisans again? You could argue that it was always a niche brand of gameplay, but then, you'd also be hard-pressed to explain why Final Fantasy I through to X are so legendary. The very first Final Fantasy even has the distinction of bringing Square (when they were just 'Square') back from the brink of bankruptcy. The irony of that piece is, Square-Enix as they are now, has felt the need to do away with the very mechanic that spearheaded its greatest triumphs. Front Mission: Evolved , for instance, bears no gameplay relation to the slow-moving brilliance of the first five games in that underrated series. It fared poorly. Meanwhile, Front Mission 3 remains a cult favourite and Final Fantasy Tactics - recently released yet again in its War of the Lions form for iOS - continues to sell like the hottest of delicious cakes despite the fact it's almost 15 years old. Inexplicably or tellingly, it's also one of the most expensive games the App Store has ever seen.Maybe the stats don't flat-out lie, but maybe they aren't telling the whole story. The West's best-sellers are ablaze with fast-moving wildfire, sure: the Call of Duties, the Gears of War, the Mass Effects, the Killzones. All signs point to Harmann being right.Then your eyes drift up the list to the #1 selling game of 2011 It's Pokemon Black/White Some might say that turn-based gaming is primarily a Japanese concern. True enough, even a magnificent effort like Valkyria Chronicles faltered when released outside the Far Eastern motherland. Subsequently, its brilliant sequels were confined to the PSP and never heard from again. This isn't a crime, but it should be. Through little fault of the game itself, Valkyria Chronicles stumbled at our commercial finish line because Sega's overseas marketing department took one look at its oddly colourful anime facade, glanced sideways at What's Hot, and went, "Hmmm… nah." Your game can be the most stunning piece of software ever designed, but people still have to know it exists (just ask Michel Ancel).In stark contrast is the success of the just-as-unlikely Disgaea series. It's so beloved by international audiences, that by the time the end of October rolls around, all the major territories will be privy (Prinny?) to the franchise's fourth console iteration since the PS2 original came out in 2003. You don't get much more hardcore than Nippon Ichi's finest hour. Or hours. Many, many hours. (Get IGN's take on the game here.) Clearly, it's not the art of taking turns that gamers find wanting – it's the fact it's often paired with the kind of esoteric presentation that startles an industry increasingly reliant on guidance from threadbare trends. The result is that no-one behind the scenes has faith in any type of turn-based initiative, even when the truly spectacular make in-roads against all conditioned odds. Disgaea is ongoing proof, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars is one of the best reasons to own a 3DS, and how quickly we forget: the original PlayStation's most defining title is arguably Final Fantasy VII . If the Sega Saturn had been home to Cloud and co.'s materia and Knights of the Round, we might all be booting up our Dreamcast 3's every Saturday afternoon and Sony'd be on the cusp of releasing Ratchet & Clank Unleashed for it.The industry's perception of what gamers want right now is wrong, blighted by billion-dollar concerns and based on an uneducated bias they help to create themselves. In the same way that Metacritic is deceptively misrepresentative of how good or bad a game actually is, so too are the sales charts incorrect when it comes to quantifying who's enjoying what out there and why. The reality is, we're not being given the choice. We're being given shooter after shooter, year after year, because one company hit it out of the park one time and big money fell in line. How many turn-based games has the mainstream actually received this generation? Even if you're missing a few fingers, you can count them on two hands. It's a snowball effect only made bigger and rollier by the surface appraisals of guys like Harmann.Turn-based gameplay doesn't have the same limitations as point 'n' click. It's capable of modernisation. Unencumbered by the demands of a bottom-line and the need to juggle advertising budgets between titles, indie developers aren't giving up and therein lies broader hope. Some turn-based entrepreneurs like Mode 7 Games have even begun to experiment with compromise, aware that the mechanic is considered a corpse in need of new life. Apart from having the coolest music in the universe, their recent offering Frozen Synapse is also one of the first 'simultaneous' turn-based games ever made. It works on both levels; it's been a hit – but it's not attractive enough to make it on the consoles. With a slavering extraterrestrial makeover, it just might work. What if the vintage X-Com: Enemy Unknown formula was given the Frozen Synapse treatment instead of an unrecognisable and potentially ho-hum FPS overhaul?XCOM's latest trailer (embedded near the top of the page), however, suggests more an exercise in Call of X-Com than a respectful, contemporary take on a turn-based institution. Proof that what 2K Marin is doing can work can be seen in Fallout 3, a very effective transition from Black Isle's isometric originals to Bethesda's first-person, real-time remix – but should it even have to? 1,500 years, people.

Toby McCasker is a freelance games journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He's currently chargin' his ATB meter.

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