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DISCUSSION: XCOM2
10 years ago
General
Hi everyone!
I wanted to post this before, but it kept slipping my mind. As many of you know, I am a bit of a strategy game guru, and so when a strategy game comes around that's high quality, I'm all over it. The industry has largely moved away from strategy games, preferring to produce games that port well cross-platform. Strategy games (or most games, IMHO) do not port well to console, and so most of the new strategy games are not "first class citizens" in terms of development or artistic effort. So when a game like XCOM comes out, being a first-class pure-strategy game, I get excited for it.
However, the initial XCOM (remake) really bothered me. It wasn't so much that it was a bad game, as the main game (which is actually the tactical game, where 90%+ of your time is spent), was superseded in a few very important ways by the secondary game (the strategic game). The abductions, and UFO landings especially in the early game can rob you of your council members, even if you play the Tactical game flawlessly. And you can't get them back. This left me with a feeling that I lacked agency - pretty much the opposite of the feeling players should have in a game, which is by-definition an interactive medium. Why play a game you cannot win? The mechanic didn't even make sense, really. I mean... if I have enough soldiers and tons of money, why can't I buy a second Skyranger? Didn't make sense at all.
Anyway, aside from this one (admittedly enormous and glaring) flaw, XCOM wasn't a bad game. It was further improved by Enemy Within, which was more difficult, but had more opportunities to reduce panic. I felt that it was a vast improvement. But even-so, the strategic map remained with the looming dread that if the dice rolled just wrong, you were doomed and would have to throw away hours upon hours of gameplay and start over.
I'm a bit of a strategy purist. I do not believe that dicerolls belong in strategy games - period. No hit percentages or crits, no diceroll invasion locations or random loot. If you want people to strategize, a game should be won or lost on planning and execution, rather than luck.
So how do I feel about XCOM2? GREAT. Huge improvement. Not only is the looming strategic enemy endgame much easier to counter, allowing you to focus on the tactical game (and giving some relief - only having to worry about 1 "panic bar" instead of 16). I felt it had a better story and generally better gameplay mechanics. I did like the weapon customization and the guaranteed hits afforded by stocks. Enhanced unit customization gave soldiers a bit of flare and eccentricity that sort-of made them feel more real. The best of these customizations IMHO was their attitude, or stance or whatever, which kinda gave them a backstory. In my mind, I would imagine what had happened in their lives to make them so cocky or downtrodden.
XCOM2 is not a perfect game. It still has flaws. One of the things that bothered me the most was the simplified (and mostly-improved) system or upgrading gear. You purchase the upgrade, and all of the characters with that class of item get it upgraded - except when they don't. Some items are one-offs, and its not clear which is going to be a general upgrade, and which are individual items. Furthermore, the customizations made to weapons do not translate when they are upgraded. Weapon enhancements do carry over, but the name and other customizations that gave the weapon character, are lost. I feel like it should be either-or. Enhancements should be much more powerful, but should be lost upon upgrade. This would make it so that you really are reluctant to part with a particular sniper rifle (or whatever), even if it means modernizing it. OR the carryover should be complete.
I think that's all I really had for negatives, aside from some minor glitches, a couple of really bull$h17 cheap enemies that are a bit OP, and the final boss area, which is very hard (but might just be very-hard because I took my time with it), and...
--SPOILER ALERT--
... and a slightly DBZ ending worthy of Matrix part 3... I really liked it as a game.
So have you played it? What did you think? Discussion down below!
Thanks,
~ Jaspian
I wanted to post this before, but it kept slipping my mind. As many of you know, I am a bit of a strategy game guru, and so when a strategy game comes around that's high quality, I'm all over it. The industry has largely moved away from strategy games, preferring to produce games that port well cross-platform. Strategy games (or most games, IMHO) do not port well to console, and so most of the new strategy games are not "first class citizens" in terms of development or artistic effort. So when a game like XCOM comes out, being a first-class pure-strategy game, I get excited for it.
However, the initial XCOM (remake) really bothered me. It wasn't so much that it was a bad game, as the main game (which is actually the tactical game, where 90%+ of your time is spent), was superseded in a few very important ways by the secondary game (the strategic game). The abductions, and UFO landings especially in the early game can rob you of your council members, even if you play the Tactical game flawlessly. And you can't get them back. This left me with a feeling that I lacked agency - pretty much the opposite of the feeling players should have in a game, which is by-definition an interactive medium. Why play a game you cannot win? The mechanic didn't even make sense, really. I mean... if I have enough soldiers and tons of money, why can't I buy a second Skyranger? Didn't make sense at all.
Anyway, aside from this one (admittedly enormous and glaring) flaw, XCOM wasn't a bad game. It was further improved by Enemy Within, which was more difficult, but had more opportunities to reduce panic. I felt that it was a vast improvement. But even-so, the strategic map remained with the looming dread that if the dice rolled just wrong, you were doomed and would have to throw away hours upon hours of gameplay and start over.
I'm a bit of a strategy purist. I do not believe that dicerolls belong in strategy games - period. No hit percentages or crits, no diceroll invasion locations or random loot. If you want people to strategize, a game should be won or lost on planning and execution, rather than luck.
So how do I feel about XCOM2? GREAT. Huge improvement. Not only is the looming strategic enemy endgame much easier to counter, allowing you to focus on the tactical game (and giving some relief - only having to worry about 1 "panic bar" instead of 16). I felt it had a better story and generally better gameplay mechanics. I did like the weapon customization and the guaranteed hits afforded by stocks. Enhanced unit customization gave soldiers a bit of flare and eccentricity that sort-of made them feel more real. The best of these customizations IMHO was their attitude, or stance or whatever, which kinda gave them a backstory. In my mind, I would imagine what had happened in their lives to make them so cocky or downtrodden.
XCOM2 is not a perfect game. It still has flaws. One of the things that bothered me the most was the simplified (and mostly-improved) system or upgrading gear. You purchase the upgrade, and all of the characters with that class of item get it upgraded - except when they don't. Some items are one-offs, and its not clear which is going to be a general upgrade, and which are individual items. Furthermore, the customizations made to weapons do not translate when they are upgraded. Weapon enhancements do carry over, but the name and other customizations that gave the weapon character, are lost. I feel like it should be either-or. Enhancements should be much more powerful, but should be lost upon upgrade. This would make it so that you really are reluctant to part with a particular sniper rifle (or whatever), even if it means modernizing it. OR the carryover should be complete.
I think that's all I really had for negatives, aside from some minor glitches, a couple of really bull$h17 cheap enemies that are a bit OP, and the final boss area, which is very hard (but might just be very-hard because I took my time with it), and...
--SPOILER ALERT--
... and a slightly DBZ ending worthy of Matrix part 3... I really liked it as a game.
So have you played it? What did you think? Discussion down below!
Thanks,
~ Jaspian
The first battle you have to fight are the system requirements. My potato laptop can barely keep up 20fps at low detail. While it's perfectly stable, I'd rather know the beauty of this game at maximum everything and that just isn't going to happen. You have to wonder where all the power is going; XCOM EW ran smooth as silk at maximum resolution.
Tactical play is evolutionary but I think it adopts different play styles better than the first game. The destructible environments seem radically improved (and hilariously exploitable); it's always fun dropping an entire building with well-placed incendiary bombs. Or chain-detonating an entire fuel train. (No points for guessing my favorite class.)
I'm assuming there will be at least two expansion packs/DLC for this. One has already been announced, called Shen's Last Gift. Expect mechatronics of some sort. The second one... well, I predict Vahlen. It's just too good of an opportunity to pass up. All those new aliens to interrogate...
...damn. Now I have this mental image of Nurse Jaspian interrogating our sexy Viper overlords...
If I suck at a game, I want to lose. That's a signal that I suck and I will try to get better. If I sometimes win... just by luck... the signals are all mixed. Did I do something right that time when I won? Or did I just get good rolls? (etc)
The infiltration concept and the enemy reinforcements were a nice touch. I found it really satisfying to drop a proximity mine right on top of where I knew the next dropship of bad guys was going to land, and have dudes on overwatch finish the rest. Speaking of overwatch, in the first one, everyone on overwatch could end up shooting the same guy, while the rest sneak through to really ruin your day, so that was a nice touch.
As an aside, I like the Psy Operatives, the fact that they level up by meditation rather than combat further emphasizes that they're "different" from the "regular" operators, you could believe that after a mission, these guys wouldn't be grabbing a beer with the other guys. They might not be the most like-able on the team, but you can't deny they have a power all their own.
If you enjoyed the tactical side more, I recommend "The Long War" mod for XCOM EU and EW, it takes things slower, and allows you more opportunities to do missions to mitigate the worldwide panic. That being said, it's going to take a lot of brave men and women to save the world. Even if everyone lives, you're going to have a huge line in the infirmary.
If the strategic level is more your thing, Xenonauts is great game on Steam. You can make as many bases as you can afford, and you manage each one's hangars, fighters, bombers, drop ships, armories and personnel individually. It takes place during the Cold War, and I ended up having a "Blue Team" of Americans and a "Red Team" of Soviets, sure they're all on the same side, but it was fun having a narrative of competition (like Stargate SG1 in a way).