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   I don't think I have enough fingers on one hand to count all the times I wasted my enthusiasm on the idea of a UFO / X-COM sequel. And not just any kind of sequel, because there were plenty of mediocre ones, but one that would do justice to the classic UFO: Enemy Unknown (X-COM: UFO Defense), X-COM: Terror from the Deep and, let's say, X-COM: Apocalypse (although I didn't enjoy this as much). I remember getting my first false hope from Project Dreamland: Freedom Ridge, which was being developed by Mythos Games, creators of the first two games in the series. However this was cancelled not long after it was announced and, even though the project was continued by another studio (Altar Interactive), they mutilated it to such a degree, that in the end all we got was... UFO: Aftermath. And later Aftershock and Afterlight, hardly the most faithful games to the UFO spirit. And as for the others - X-COM: Interceptor, X-COM: Enforcer - I don't even want to think about it! There were also a couple of indie attempts at making UFO games, but let's just skip to the point.

   So, after running out of hope and fingers I could count on, here we are with a rumour seemingly dropped out of nowhere, according to which Irrational Games are working on a new X-COM title. Irrational Games?... X-COM?... "Since when?", you might ask. Well, there are more connections between these two names than you might think, and Shacknews has done a great job at piecing them together. Two notable aspects are that, on one hand, the X-COM franchise was bought in 2005 by Take-Two (who are also publishing Irrational's upcoming game Bioshock); and on the other hand, Irrational boss Ken Levine is known to be a diehard fan of X-COM, which influenced two of their games - Freedom Force and (somewhat) Bioshock.

   The piece of resistance from Shacknews' report, however, is a completely different one: a document found on the official website of law firm Fierst, Pucci & Kane, last modified on February 6, 2007. In its current form, there's nothing fishy about it, but the previous version (as cached by Google) includes the following fragment, among the firm's list of clients:
"Ken Levine and Jonathan Chey, founders of Irrational Games LLC, Boston and Canberra, Australia-based video game development company whose titles include System Shock 2, Tribes 3, SWAT, X-Com, BioShock, Freedom Force and others;" (ed. - our bolding)    Well, are you starting to see the flicker of hope at the end of the tunnel yet? The devs have obviously refused to comment on these speculations, and we can't expect anything more from publisher Take-Two / 2K Games either. But at least we now have a reason to look forward to something else beyond the summer of 2007, when Bioshock is supposed to come out.