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XCOM 2 is a Masterpiece

I disliked Midnight Suns, especially when compared to the Xcoms.
The card based combat was fun enough, but the social stuff was torture.
That's fair, I liked the social links part because it gave some airtime to some forgotten Marvel characters and existing ones were not as caricatural as their MCU versions. But it was very wordy indeed.

But I really loved the combat gameplay and how each character had a very defined playstyle. I blame the game's marketing more than anything else.
 
You felt wrong and you have no clue of what you are talking about.

The "timers" (which aren't real timers but just turn countdowns) are there for a specific reason and they do nothing but IMPROVE the gameplay experience.
Putting aside that just a fraction of the missions comes with a "timer", they are at the same time forgiving enough to leave the player plenty of leeway on how to act and pressing just enough to not let anyone sleep on his turns turtling in a corner with overwatch.

If someone needs to "mod out the timers" to enjoy the game he's probably playing like a spastic.

EDIT - Here's an example of how a "strictly timed" mission usually goes:



If you know what you are doing, you typically finish them with plenty of turns to spare.
And when that's not the case and you are pressed to act faster because you wasted a lot of time before, that only ADDS to the excitement and to the thrill of the action.
I say this as someone who already complete this game at its hardest difficulty (Legendary) more times that I could count.


If someone liked XCOM, WH40K Chaosgate DaemonHunters would be a far safer bet than Mechanicus, frankly.
Both are valid games in their own right, anyway. Even if I wouldn't really say that either is AS GOOD as War of the Chosen.

It was more than 'just a fraction'. What's wrong with turtling? Isn't it better to play how you want rather than being restricted to a smaller set of viable strategies?
 
I felt that the restrictive timers ruined a lot of the more tactical stuff. In the first game you could hunker down in a good position and fight more patiently. In 2 every mission was just a clumsy rush to the objective.

The timer is important. The game doesn't want you to relax, you are supposed to save humanity and every minute counts. Removing the time basically kills the soul of the game. I am usually against timers in games but in this case I think it's essential to keep the tension and engagement
 
I think i got it free on epic store, tried once and when this meme happened, i decided it wasn't for me.


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But i'm also not a fan of the genre so there is that.

Only "similar" games that i liked are vandal hearts 2 and mutant year one.
 
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I think i got it free on epic store, tried once and when this meme happened, i decided it wasn't for me.


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But i'm also not a fan of the genre so there is that.

Only "similar" games that i liked are vandal hearts 2 and mutant year one.

The problem you have papito is that you dont have patience. You try something 5 minutes and if you dont vibe immediately you drop it. I know you, you need to build patience and give the game more time, not everything clicks immediately
 
The timer is important. The game doesn't want you to relax, you are supposed to save humanity and every minute counts. Removing the time basically kills the soul of the game. I am usually against timers in games but in this case I think it's essential to keep the tension and engagement
You get the tension in the overworld map with the hours constantly ticking down. That's great. But giving you a turn limit during the missions is such a fun killer. It's okay for a couple of cinematic missions when something's about to explode or whatever, but there's no reason for a time limit when all your guys are in stealth and nothing's happening.
 
You get the tension in the overworld map with the hours constantly ticking down. That's great. But giving you a turn limit during the missions is such a fun killer. It's okay for a couple of cinematic missions when something's about to explode or whatever, but there's no reason for a time limit when all your guys are in stealth and nothing's happening.

I get you, like I said in my previous messages, I do hate timers in videogames too because I like to play games to release stress not to get even more. But in this case, I think if you do good planning when it comes to your decisions, you will have enough time to do everything. The game has as well an option to lower the speed of the Avatar Project for those who want a less stressful experience

I dont know man, i think that in this case the time thing is so well integrated that I cant argue with it, that being said, there are always mods to customize your experience and I am sure you can find whatever fits better your wishes
 
Incredible game. I love timers in videogames, and I appreciate that the devs added more timers to missions in general. That way you are forced to make bold moves to complete the objective in time, which can lead to some interesting situations instead of the usual slow crawl typical of XCOM 1.
 
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I get you, like I said in my previous messages, I do hate timers in videogames too because I like to play games to release stress not to get even more. But in this case, I think if you do good planning when it comes to your decisions, you will have enough time to do everything. The game has as well an option to lower the speed of the Avatar Project for those who want a less stressful experience

I dont know man, i think that in this case the time thing is so well integrated that I cant argue with it, that being said, there are always mods to customize your experience and I am sure you can find whatever fits better your wishes
Lucky there's a mod to make everyone happy.
 
It doesn't seem to have controller support right? I know many people love to shit on people like me, who play strategy games with controller but I play games in my sofa and I can't do it woth KB and Mouse
Real-Yakuza.png

I'm the same way, I played Xcom 2 on console originally and later on wanted to replay it on PC with a bunch of mods installed only to find out that the most popular one (long war) had no controller support. Instant deal-breaker.
 
I think i got it free on epic store, tried once and when this meme happened, i decided it wasn't for me.


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But i'm also not a fan of the genre so there is that.

Only "similar" games that i liked are vandal hearts 2 and mutant year one.

It's....not as bad as the meme makes it to be because it gets cancelled by the same amount of luck when you hit something with less than 50% chance to hit. You should give it a try. It has such a bad ass feel to it.
 
This game is the proof Einstein was looking for his theory of relativity.
You go: "Geez, those were some really fun couple of hours" and it's 3 a.m. on a work day.

I had to uninstall it just to have some sleep.
And now I'm back at it againg but with Hitman: World of Assassination.
 
It's such a shame nothing is happening to this IP. Chimera Squad was ultimately a letdown even as a smaller spin-off - I hated its aesthetic or how you were forced to keep your team alive.

There was a clear path to create XCOM 3 with some ideas borrowed from Terror from the Deep, but they picked other projects and now with so many layoffs at Firaxis I don't see this happening.
 
Hey Gonzito Gonzito I've been dreaming of playing this game for a while but not wanted to resort to PC. I'm not sure about switch or mobile versions but I ended up with xsx version and have not started because of the bug worry.

I wonder if any non-pc version is worth a shit.
 
Hey Gonzito Gonzito I've been dreaming of playing this game for a while but not wanted to resort to PC. I'm not sure about switch or mobile versions but I ended up with xsx version and have not started because of the bug worry.

I wonder if any non-pc version is worth a shit.

Hey man, to be honest I am not sure how the game runs on newer console version so I can't guarantee that your experience will be as good. That being said I am reading online a bit and apparently the game runs much better on PS5 and Xbox Series X. There are occasionally some crashes but nothing too bad and you'll be stuck with 30 fps. As for bugs I think War of the chosen is quite polished. I haven't encounter anything weird

But honestly, its such a good game that I would still play it that way, dont worry too much
 
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I felt that the restrictive timers ruined a lot of the more tactical stuff. In the first game you could hunker down in a good position and fight more patiently. In 2 every mission was just a clumsy rush to the objective.

The timers improve the "tactical stuff", IMO. Without the timers, cheese strategies become too powerful. With the timer, the player needs to formulate a plan that has the right balance of offense, defense, and forward progression with respect to the mob types and mission objective.

Even if a player still doesn't like/appreciate the timers, the game provides ways to increase the timer, too.
 
That's fair, I liked the social links part because it gave some airtime to some forgotten Marvel characters and existing ones were not as caricatural as their MCU versions. But it was very wordy indeed.

But I really loved the combat gameplay and how each character had a very defined playstyle. I blame the game's marketing more than anything else.
yes, I give Firaxis credit for makingthese three games - XCOM, XCOM 2, and Midnight Suns - and all making them very different. They easily could have just made XCOM three times. And all three games are 9/10 or 10/10 games in my opinion.

But unfortunately the reception to MS probably killed the studio as they had to rush out Civ 7 and it was a giant pile of shit.
 
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Its funny, I felt the complete opposite.

I sunk 100s of hours into EU, but xcom 2 I played for like 3 hours and just never felt like going back.

Something felt off about the sequel and I still cant fully tell what it is
 
absolutely love xcom2
the calm before the storm in the dropship... moving your squad in formation to cover all angles... sending a lone teammate up ahead of the team as bait to draw out enemies... having an elevated sniper watch everything... retreating to lure enemies into a tactical trap... color-coding my team's clothes based on class... getting emotional when it all fails miserably and my best soldiers die in a single mission...

love the game
but the highest difficult is brutal. dont know how anyone beats it.
 

I would also recommend this game for Xcom fans.

I personally found a lot off crossover qualities, especially combat and maintaining a party of misanthropes with RNG and permadeath
 
i like enemy uknown more but both are the best of the best in this genre.
XCOM 2 is better than the first by a significant margin and WOTC is better than both by a landslide.

It's not really a close contest when you take the mechanical improvements into consideration. And I say this as someone who spent a lot of hours on both games.
I basically can't go back to the first at this point without feeling like I'm dealing with a clumsy prototype of what the series would evolve into.
 
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As a fan of the OG XCOM games, I remember being incredibly hyped for the remake. Played it for a couple of hours and eventually deinstalled it after being utterly disappointed. I can't remember what turned me off exactly, but the game felt very shallow. I still haven't tried Xenonauts, which is supposed to be more faithful to the original. My favourite game in the genre (and one of my favourite games of all time) still remains Jagged Alliance 2 and unfortunately, it doesn't look like there'll ever be another turned based game that could top it.
 
As a fan of the OG XCOM games, I remember being incredibly hyped for the remake. Played it for a couple of hours and eventually deinstalled it after being utterly disappointed. I can't remember what turned me off exactly, but the game felt very shallow. I still haven't tried Xenonauts, which is supposed to be more faithful to the original. My favourite game in the genre (and one of my favourite games of all time) still remains Jagged Alliance 2 and unfortunately, it doesn't look like there'll ever be another turned based game that could top it.
Xenonauts is not bad but it has the design which is as exciting as a tax return.
Anyways i love Xcom UFO from 1994 but i also love XCOM 2. All games have positives
 
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As a fan of the OG XCOM games, I remember being incredibly hyped for the remake. Played it for a couple of hours and eventually deinstalled it after being utterly disappointed
Disinstalling it was probably a dumb overreaction, but Enemy Unknown makes so many questionable design choices compared to the original that it had me very lukewarm about the Firaxis reboot for a while.
The strategic layer in particular was complete shit, while the missions being all based on pre-made maps that never changed between playthroughs (and in fact were so low in numbers that they repeated even inside the same campaign) was a bummer.
The sequel improved on all these areas, incidentally.

I still haven't tried Xenonauts, which is supposed to be more faithful to the original.
It's shit.
It tries to stick "closer to the original" but it doesn't really manage to do it that well, not to mention I find it visually very unappealing during the actual combat (I like its art style in menus and shit, though).

My favourite game in the genre (and one of my favourite games of all time) still remains Jagged Alliance 2 and unfortunately, it doesn't look like there'll ever be another turned based game that could top it.
Probably not. But Jagged Alliance 3 was a very respectable entry in the series after two decades of garbage and the closest you're going to get for a while, probably.
It's almost criminal how little some of its features have been overlooked (like the best environmental destruction since Silent Storm).
 
The overwatch mechanics in the sequel are so much better by comparison.
It's not just overwatch.
Mission variety is better and the different goals you are asked to achieve are way more rfreshing.
Stealth mechanics are better.
The classes are better.
The progression system is better.
The procedurally-generated mission maps are better.
The strategic layer (map expansion and exploration) is better.
Base building is better.
Research and engineering are better.
The SPARK is a far better mechanical unit than the prosthetic "mechs" in the expansion of the first game.
The fucking option to pull out of a mission, call the avenger, carry corpses, injured allies or kidnapped enemies is better.
The covert missions are a great addition.
The LOST are a great mechanic.
The tiring mechanics that force the player to rotate its soldiers rather than sticking mostly to its main "alpha team" is a massive improvement.

And so on.
 
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you niggas lyin if you say you beat the hardest difficulty IDGAF not even Thanos beat that shit. You make one move, get spotted before you are in position and your entire team gets clapped in one turn
 
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It's not just overwatch.
Mission variety is better and the different goals you are asked to achieve are way more rfreshing.
Stealth mechanics are better.
The classes are better.
The progression system is better.
The procedurally-generated mission maps are better.
The strategic layer (map expansion and exploration) is better.
Base building is better.
Research and engineering are better.
The SPARK is a far better mechanical unit than the prosthetic "mechs" in the expansion of the first game.
The fucking option to pull out of a mission, call the avenger, carry corpses, injured allies or kidnapped enemies is better.
The covert missions are a great addition.
The LOST are a great mechanic.
The tiring mechanics that force the player to rotate its soldiers rather than sticking mostly to its main "alpha team" is a massive improvement.

And so on.

Yeah there's a lot. But the overwatch stuff particularly bothers me in the first game, how so many are wasted.
 
you niggas lyin if you say you beat the hardest difficulty IDGAF not even Thanos beat that shit. You make one move, get spotted before you are in position and your entire team gets clapped in one turn
I can clean a campain at Legendary in my sleep.
If I'm a bit lucky and I can go through the first three-four missions without too many casualties, probably even in Ironman mode (which is the one where you can't reload a previous save).

I have a bunch of unedited Youtube video of me cleaning Legendary difficulty missions in one go without a single reload, incidentally, if you are looking for a proof.
 
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I can clean a campain at Legendary in my sleep.
If I'm a bit lucky and I can go through the first three-four missions without too many casualties, probably even in Ironman mode (which is the one where you can't reload a previous save).

I have a bunch of unedited Youtube video of me cleaning Legendary difficulty missions in one go without a single reload, incidentally, if you are looking for a proof.
The Wire Wow GIF
 
you niggas lyin if you say you beat the hardest difficulty IDGAF not even Thanos beat that shit. You make one move, get spotted before you are in position and your entire team gets clapped in one turn

It's hard, but it's doable once you know what you're doing and can puzzle through tricky situations.
 
XCOM 2 with WOTC was one of those rare games where I literally played nothing else until I finished the full campaign. It was awesome every step of the way. love this genre and play a lot of the games, but still nothing has topped it.

I would recommend Xenonauts 2 for anyone looking for something closer to a modern version of the 90s games. Been in early access forever but 1.0 is coming soon. It's still a lot less colorful than XCOM2, but a solid improvement over Xenonauts 1 in every way.

Phoenix Point (on sale) is also a pretty good time, if you can appreciate the jank. It's like if they took every experimental idea that came along and said "YES, put it in the game!" Where XCOM is this finely tuned machine of balance and careful choices, Phoenix Point says "What if you could take Heavy Weapons Guy and give him a jet pack?"
 
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