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[TheTwelve]

As a huge fan of Xcom and the Mass Effect series (because this game plays action-wise like a Mass Effect 3 without the plot and character development) I'll give this game a big fat

"OK".

1.The character's powers make no sense. I realize that this is a work of science-fiction but the game doesn't even try to explain how these people in the 60's do such crazy things that are above and beyond even what they can do in Xcom: EU.

2.The game is EASY. I actually found Mass Effect 3 to be harder in terms of strategical thought and gameplay. All you have to do is throw some blobs and mines and airstrikes and turrets and who can resist you? Get a sniper and engineer with you and it's godmode.

3. Highly disappointed that you can only take 2 dudes with you to battle. I understand that in this case my expectations were too high...it would take a game engine greater than what we have this gen to be able to handle more guys on your team (I guess). It's just that I was expecting a 3rd person version of Xcom:EU. So yeah, my expectations were too high. But this led to me being bored.

4. The main character is a complete douche. Haha. Seriously annoyed me.

5. Little enemy variety (which also reminded me of Mass Effect 3), and this also bored me.

6. "Rough around the edges" is perfectly applied to this game.

7. Finally: Mass Effect 3 has better strategy if only because your characters do what they're told and remain in their posts. Or they will return to their posts if they must avoid something. Not in Declassified! I assumed that this would be superior in terms of tactics (It's Xcom!) but your boys are always moving from their locations and resisting your orders. Felt like I was trying to watch 3 year olds, pausing to check over and over, as they were constantly moving around at times and I wanted them to STAY STILL.

Sooooo, it's back to playing Xcom:EU and Tales of Xillia until the expansion on November 12th.

 

[Owzers]

My guys keep dying and don't seem very smart on the battlefield....it's getting annoying. Right now it just seems like a decent game that didn't really do anything that interesting.

 

[Lijik]

5. Little enemy variety (which also reminded me of Mass Effect 3), and this also bored me.

As someone who enjoyed the game I agree with this. Now they do give you new enemies up through the end, but most of them dont really feel that different to past troops compared to the moments of fighting a Sectopod or Muton for the first time.

There was a point inbetween halfway and when the narrative goes up to 11 where I was starting to get bored with the encounter setups. The plot stuff help rejuvenate my interest

My other main problem is how dull most of the secondary characters are. In Mass Effect, you wanted to run around and talk to everyone you could. Even characters like Pressly were interesting in some way and had their own internal conflicts and motivations. In the Bureau, talking with everyone feels more like a chore. The snarky analyst guy is just a snarky analyst. The peppy communications expert is just a peppy communications expert. No character development.

Yeah I started skipping a good chunk of the people in the base. But I liked talking with the solider guarding the Infiltrator, he always had interesting things to say and actually has a bit of a narrative involving his loved ones if you keep talking to him after the missions.

 

[chrominance]

You definitely are. Unless you've played a lot of Mass Effect 1 and 2 on hardcore, I definitely wouldn't suggest hopping into this on Veteran. The thing is, if you have a guy taking fire from multiple enemies at once from certain ranges, they're going to get ate up fast - especially if the enemy has a height advantage on them. Half cover should be seen primarily as transition-type cover. It can work out for your guys, but you should never assume that they'll be "set" behind it. Also, if enemies rush their position or your guys take too much damage there, they WILL retreat and fuck up your entire gameplan without any real heads up for you.

The game very briefly touches on this at one point, but I'll do it again - RANGE MATTERS. Keep it in mind at all times. Enemy types matter too. So don't have your snipers and engineers marking drones as targets and don't send your support to flank with his pistol. There's a significant difference in the performance of some seemingly identical weapons too. The Laser Rifle and Plasma Cannon will act differently so plan accordingly. Plasma does damage over time and is more of a long to semi-long range weapon that is basically semi-auto while the Laser is more of a rapid fire/burst style weapon. It is the best mid-range option. SO, knowing this, plan your backpacks out to make sense. If you've got a soldier that's meant to buffer enemy attacks and be a muton speedbump, then give him the gunner pack so that he can shoot longer bursts between moves and take more damage as he hauls ass. Give your engi recharge and ability range bonuses. Make sure your sniper is getting the most out of each critical strike. Etc. Most of all, make sure you plan out how your team should be killing the enemy. If you have a support and engineer on your team, know that you're the driving force behind every fight - every enemy reaction will be based on you since none of the other guys are good at initiating fights compared the sniper and commando.Commando/Sniper? You're the harassing agent - keep enemies busy and occupied between taunt and critical strike. Etc.

There's a lot to the combat system but it can give you problems if you don't want to flow with it.

Thanks for the tips, but I think I might have a more fundamental problem--I don't know HOW to flow with it. I just tried the last minor op on my list (the one where you have to take back a nuclear silo hidden in a barn in Idaho or something like that) and there's a Muton in one of the middle encounters. I feel like I'm doing everything the game's telling me to--I'm putting my guys in full cover instead of half cover, I'm trying to push harder because I brought my lvl1 engineer and my lvl2 commando with me and I figured I have to be more aggressive because the engineer can't. I'm trying to move everyone closer rather than hanging back re: your RANGE MATTERS comment (no sniper this round). But once that Muton comes out, we're all basically fucked--I have to be revived multiple times, as does everyone else. The only pieces of full cover available are very far from each other so it's really hard for anyone to get to any of the others if they get knocked out. And every time we DO manage to revive each other, the Muton's right there and the only option is to fire with the alien shotgun while running the fuck away from it before it kills you again.

I might have to drop this down to Rookie. I really don't understand. I think I'm beginning to hate this game.

(Also for anyone who saw my unfortunate post in the Puppeteer thread, yes feel free to use this post as evidence of my baby gamer status.)

EDIT: Oh jesus. The game decided to set itself BACK to Veteran. No goddamned wonder. Back to Squaddie and it worked out a lot better.

 

[TheTwelve]

But once that Muton comes out, we're all basically fucked--I have to be revived multiple times

Mutons are complete suckers for engineers with shotguns, anti-armor backpacks and landmines.

 

[Sober]

Been playing on the "hard" difficulty (third one down). Just got to the University and killed my first Muton. Maybe I made a bad pick but I had a sniper and engineer at the start, so I had a shotgun teammate to start off with, so it feels harder for me to put him to any use.

Battle Orders feels really cumbersome to use with kb/m sometimes. Is there a way to just have my squadmates hunker down? It feels like at times I'm fighting to keep them safe under half cover (there doesn't seem to be much full cover right up to where I am right now) and trying to flank and everything. They also like to poke out and return fire even if I don't mark a target for them (at least it seems that way). I am guessing for mark target command, the % that comes up is the damage that squadmate does to that enemy on a hit?

Shooting doesn't feel as satisfying but I wouldn't have any real problem with that if squad control on PC didn't feel really lazily done, where my mouse will bounce me around squadmates because of the cursor and the placement cursor for commands having to navigate geometry is kinda annoying.

 

[SlasherJPC]

Just uploaded my video review on this. Really, really enjoyed it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mit54VDrIVQ

 

[old manatee]

I just played the first mission on the hardest difficulty. I got 49 kills, 1 squadmate got 2 kills and the other squadmate got 0 kills. Are you fucking kidding me. Yet another shooter where I would give anything to just turn off my dumbass AI partners. Did they even playtest this at all?

 

[TheTwelve]

Is there a way to just have my squadmates hunker down? It feels like at times I'm fighting to keep them safe under half cover (there doesn't seem to be much full cover right up to where I am right now) and trying to flank and everything. They also like to poke out and return fire even if I don't mark a target for them (at least it seems that way). I am guessing for mark target command, the % that comes up is the damage that squadmate does to that enemy on a hit?

I don't know of a way to get squadmates to hunker down...and they love to stand up and stay within enemy fire until they cry for healing. =/

You just have to play with the understanding that your boys WILL get hurt and just plan to heal them regularly.

The % that comes up is what you say, yes.

 

[Fragamemnon]

If you manually issue move orders to your squaddies they will stay in that place unless they get a grenade tossed at them, at which point they will move to get out of the way and try to get back to that point afterwards. If you just do a quick move (F1 on PC) or have them follow you and take cover they will not stay in place.

You're not going to do much about them popping up and getting blasted, but what you can do is try to draw fire from things like turrets/sectopods and keep them out of harm's way-they move very fast on the battlefield and generally don't get hit too hard when moving from point to point, so positioning is valuable.

 

[antitrop]

I haven't played the game, but I was just wondering what anyone thought about the idea that some reviewers gave the game a lower score than it deserved in order to attempt some kind of messaging to publishers that "we" would rather see more of the strategy type of X-Com? I'm not trying to say that there was some kind of "vast games journalism conspiracy" to put down The Bureau, but I think the possibility is definitely there at least a little bit.

I mean, this game was having bad press from minute 1, and then the other game came out last year to critical acclaim and success (which I played and enjoyed)... I just don't know what to think about The Bureau. I'll probably get it on a sale later.

 

[SlasherJPC]

I haven't played the game, but I was just wondering what anyone thought about the idea that some reviewers gave the game a lower score than it deserved in order to attempt some kind of messaging to publishers that "we" would rather see more of the strategy type of X-Com?

I mean, this game was having bad press from minute 1, and then the other game came out last year to critical acclaim and success... I just don't know what to think about The Bureau. I'll probably get it on a sale later.

I get that vibe myself. I don't know if you watched my review yet, but I was extremely surprised playing the game. Going into it after seeing the reviews I was extremely disappointed to hear. Coming out of it after completing it, probably one of my top surprises this year.

 

[DJwest]

This game could easily pass as a Mass Effect spin off. I believe I'm on the last mission (god thry throw fucking everything at you), and I've really enjoyed the game so far. I simply can't comprehend those low reviews. 4.5? 5.5? Come on. Even though I didn't like the plot twist at the end and the A.I of my partners is sub bar, I'm having a total blast. This game gets a solid 8 from me.

 

[BoosterDuck]

Just beat the game, 15 hours. Did all the minor operations.

My god did the ending just keep dragging.

 

[Mustainium]

$40 at Gamestop, not sure for how long.

I have a $10 coupon, and after checking out Slasher's and Karak's reviews (both great work as always, by the way) I'm thinking of going out and picking this up, especially considering that I already have GTAV paid off. I just hope there's enough replay value.

For those who tried it at higher difficulties, is it more of a challenging experience, or a frustrating one?

 

[Miles Quaritch]

I still haven't played this... Was probably a stupid idea buying it at launch, I doubt I'll have time to dedicate any time to it before Puppeteer and GTA5.

 

[Truant]

Finished this a few days ago. It was alright. I felt the game was at its best when it was more like the 2010 game. I really wanted a period piece about the early Xcom.

Something about a bunch of regular FBIish dudes with cobbled-together alien weapons solving suburban alien mysteries just seems so cool to me.

 

[SlasherJPC]

$40 at Gamestop, not sure for how long.

I have a $10 coupon, and after checking out Slasher's and Karak's reviews (both great work as always, by the way) I'm thinking of going out and picking this up, especially considering that I already have GTAV paid off. I just hope there's enough replay value.

For those who tried it at higher difficulties, is it more of a challenging experience, or a frustrating one?

Thank you. As for on harder. I'd only reccomend Vetran and not the highest because it will indeed become a glutton for punishment at that level. I had to lower from Veteran personally. Now that I've beaten it, I think I could tackle it but it def takes much more micro management of your dudes every step of the way I think.

 

[Stronghammer22]

I just finished it tonight, honestly, I'd give it a 9/10. One of my favourite games of the year, for sure. I loved XCOM: EU and this is basically that converted into a third person shooter with a very interesting story. I'm glad I decided to give it a chance.

 

[chrominance]

Just finished on Squaddie. That ending is insane. I wish I could take some of the time I spent walking around the base talking to everyone in sight and somehow put that towards explaining some of the jumps in the ending, but whatever.

Spoiler

I didn't think about the implications of choosing a new host, but now that I've seen Weaver's ending I wish I'd based my decision on more than "gee it'd be fun to play as a woman for once." Turns out Weaver is both a monster and incredibly short-sighted. Sadly, it's probably also the ending I'd expect from humanity in general, so I guess I can't blame her too much for it.

Definitely needed some PC polish for the squad UI and annoying little things like the sticky cover and not being able to strafe while running (and half the time not running at all because the game didn't register you holding down Shift). Wish the base interactions either took less time or felt more substantial. Didn't really appreciate how at least one of the base investigations is easy to miss because it never explains to you what to do and you lose the ability to complete it after the next major op.

But all in all, it was an enjoyable game despite its flaws. It definitely doesn't deserve a 4, not when dreck like Homefront's single-player campaign and Brink's everything exist.

 

[SkyTurnsRed]

I'm not finished with this yet, so I won't quote you (don't want to reveal that spoiler) but I'm glad someone else has the same hatred for Homefront.

Two months ago I assumed this would be awful. Four hours in now and this is definitely my surprise of the year. I'm so excited to come home tonight to play it more! I don't understand the terrible review scores. Sure, it's a little rough, but 4s and 5s? Yeesh.

 

[Camp Freddie]

It deserves the poor reviews. While it's possible to enjoy parts of the game, that doesn't make it a good game.

The plot is awful. It jumps around with little or no explanation and the main character is a generic waste of pixels. The messing around at the base is incredibly tedious.
The illusion of choice is non-existent so you just get an utterly pointless dialogue wheel so the characters can throw endless cliches at you.
Your abilities as a player totally contradict the plot (Plot: "We are totally outgunned by their superior firepower and can't hope to defeat them in battle", Player: OK Dave, kill that group of aliens with an airstike and Paul, deploy your advanced laser turret, while I kill 40 power-armoured laser-weilding aliens with my WWII surplus carbine).
Hell, even the plot doesn't know if we are fighting the aliens with backward human technology or if we have advanced human fusion reactors. You're constantly being told how terrible our tech is, then in the next scene they reveal the super awesome antimatter nukes, fusion reactors and flying saucers that we developed 10 years ago. Then after that reveal, they go back to complaining about how our tech is so rudimentary.

The action is worse than Mass Effect 2/3. Your teamates AI is braindead. The enemies are boring.
The weapons are boring and there is very little variation. The enemies are HP sponges because apparently they couldn't think of an interesting way to make the combat challenging.
It takes every cliche of chest-high walls, museum piece-fight-museum piece level design, crappy one-button controls and other bullshit from every 3rd person shooter you've ever played.

The tactical stuff like flanking would make it cool, but it's linked to terrible controls and AI that make it impossible to set up flanking manoevres because as so as the AI is in flanking position, it's subroutine says "IF player > 10 feet away THEN run back over and give him a big hug, stopping to shake hands with any aliens on the way".

There are parts of the game where it can be fun, but mosly it's "okay, just hide behind that fucking barn and let me handle all the bad guys while you spam special abilities".

As a $10 steam sale game, it'd be quite fun but it doesn't get anywhere close to the standards I expect from a full-price title.

 

[SkyTurnsRed]

With all due respect to your opinion, knowing obviously that an experience with a game is totally subjective, I'd like to address some of your points and give you my experience.

It deserves the poor reviews. While it's possible to enjoy parts of the game, that doesn't make it a good game.

The plot is awful. It jumps around with little or no explanation and the main character is a generic waste of pixels. The messing around at the base is incredibly tedious.
The illusion of choice is non-existent so you just get an utterly pointless dialogue wheel so the characters can throw endless cliches at you.

This I'll give you and is definitely the worst part of the game so far, including the characters.

Your abilities as a player totally contradict the plot (Plot: "We are totally outgunned by their superior firepower and can't hope to defeat them in battle", Player: OK Dave, kill that group of aliens with an airstike and Paul, deploy your advanced laser turret, while I kill 40 power-armoured laser-weilding aliens with my WWII surplus carbine).

I have the difficulty bumped up, so even with my abilities, I tend to get outgunned quite a bit. My carbine does jack shit against them half the time, especially with mutons. For me, this criticism hasn't been a problem. Plus, I haven't unlocked any advanced laser turrets or airstrikes, so there's that. I may not be far enough in.

Hell, even the plot doesn't know if we are fighting the aliens with backward human technology or if we have advanced human fusion reactors. You're constantly being told how terrible our tech is, then in the next scene they reveal the super awesome antimatter nukes, fusion reactors and flying saucers that we developed 10 years ago. Then after that reveal, they go back to complaining about how our tech is so rudimentary.

Lumping this in agreement with you up top in regards to plot.

The action is worse than Mass Effect 2/3. Your teamates AI is braindead. The enemies are boring.
The weapons are boring and there is very little variation. The enemies are HP sponges because apparently they couldn't think of an interesting way to make the combat challenging.

Like I said above, with the difficulty bumped up, they have been using flanking tactics and are pretty aggressive against my characters. I've been caught off guard a few times by an outsider sneaking up on one of our flanks and pinning us down pretty hard. I'm not sure if it's like that on lower difficulties, but where I'm at, they haven't been complete idiots.
I haven't had a single issue with the team mate AI. They've done what I've told them to, and I've been able to run away a pretty far distance without them following me.

As for the weapons, what else do you want? What variation are you looking for? In a list I found, there are 16 weapons. There's both alien and human weapons. Given the time period, we didn't exactly have the most advanced weaponry. I would agree that I would like the alien weapons to be a little more distinct, but I don't think that they're boring weapons at all. Not the most innovative, but not really boring either. Here, I think you might be overanalyzing, but obviously this is subjective.

It takes every cliche of chest-high walls, museum piece-fight-museum piece level design, crappy one-button controls and other bullshit from every 3rd person shooter you've ever played.

Which games have the tactical orders menu that this does? The closest this comes to is Mass Effect - outside of that, I can't think of many third person shooters that do the tactical thing with a leveling system. One or the other maybe, but not both.

And while the rest is pretty standard third person shooter fare, if we're still talking about the reviews posted about this, then what sets the other third person shooters apart from this that makes them have higher scores, like Gears?

The tactical stuff like flanking would make it cool, but it's linked to terrible controls and AI that make it impossible to set up flanking manoevres because as so as the AI is in flanking position, it's subroutine says "IF player > 10 feet away THEN run back over and give him a big hug, stopping to shake hands with any aliens on the way".

AI addressed above - I haven't had a problem yet. And what's wrong with the controls? Pretty standard third person shooter stuff. I don't have a problem addressing orders.

There are parts of the game where it can be fun, but mosly it's "okay, just hide behind that fucking barn and let me handle all the bad guys while you spam special abilities".

Yeah, but then again, I'm not calling this my game of the year. I'm simply wondering why this is getting 4s and 5s - if it doesn't stand out, then why did these other third person shooters that do the exact same thing receive higher marks?

As a $10 steam sale game, it'd be quite fun but it doesn't get anywhere close to the standards I expect from a full-price title.

If a game is quite fun at $10, it simply does not deserve a 4. A 4 isn't even fun. A 4 makes you question whether any price you buy it at is worth it. This is coming from someone who hates the numbering system.

 

[TheTwelve]

I have the difficulty bumped up, so even with my abilities, I tend to get outgunned quite a bit. My carbine does jack shit against them half the time, especially with mutons. For me, this criticism hasn't been a problem. Plus, I haven't unlocked any advanced laser turrets or airstrikes, so there's that. I may not be far enough in.

You're not far enough in. Once you get an engineer maxed out, or once you get to a certain level, strategy turns into simply throwing everything out in the field and letting your weapons auto-kill the enemies. (Mutons fall very easily to mines, for example). Look out every now and then, make sure your guys are healed up, it's ok.

Higher difficult level in this game is Skyrim-style --- the strategy remains the same, just that enemies hit harder and you have to hit them more to kill them. That isn't really an advance in tactical strategy, just difficulty (annoyance).

Camp Freddie is pretty much saying exactly what I did about the game on the same page of this thread.

But I wouldn't give the game a 4 or a 5. I'd give it a 6.

 

[SkyTurnsRed]

You're not far enough in. Once you get an engineer maxed out, or once you get to a certain level, strategy turns into simply throwing everything out in the field and letting your weapons auto-kill the enemies. (Mutons fall very easily to mines, for example). Look out every now and then, make sure your guys are healed up, it's ok.

Higher difficult level in this game is Skyrim-style --- the strategy remains the same, just that enemies hit harder and you have to hit them more to kill them. That isn't really an advance in tactical strategy, just difficulty (annoyance).

Camp Freddie is pretty much saying exactly what I did about the game on the same page of this thread.

But I wouldn't give the game a 4 or a 5. I'd give it a 6.

I think I'd give it a 7. I dig the time period a lot, I'm generally having a good time. Of course, like you said, this could change the farther I get. I'm just surprised that it came out so... decently. I was expecting a complete and total trainwreck.

 

[clear31]

I rented this and it really isn't that bad. Maybe, I just set a really low bar but i'm enjoying it so far.

Seems like people are mixed on this title after reading the thread

 

[19Kilo]

Steam code is $19.99 right now on Amazon. Thinking I might finally bite on this.

 

[foxdvd]

playing this now...maybe 9 hours in.

This game is criminally underrated. Plot/Story is 60's sci-fi bad, but that is not a bad thing. I personally find it charming. Combat is just so good. Playing on the highest difficulty it is very satisfying getting through battles. I heard a lot of complaints that your team dies all the time, but I do not find this to be the case at all. You have to ALWAYS work on them, but that is how the game is suppose to be played.

So much Mass Effect love in this game, and that is a good thing. Someone mentioned above how this is like Alpha Protocol in that the reviews were low but the game was fun. I agree with that. One of the best games this year for me.

 

[Ultra Magnus]

playing this now...maybe 9 hours in.

This game is criminally underrated. Plot/Story is 60's sci-fi bad, but that is not a bad thing. I personally find it charming. Combat is just so good. Playing on the highest difficulty it is very satisfying getting through battles. I heard a lot of complaints that your team dies all the time, but I do not find this to be the case at all. You have to ALWAYS work on them, but that is how the game is suppose to be played.

So much Mass Effect love in this game, and that is a good thing. Someone mentioned above how this is like Alpha Protocol in that the reviews were low but the game was fun. I agree with that. One of the best games this year for me.

The comparisons to ME really makes me want to get this game.

 

[Tizoc]

What DLC missions are worth getting? Hangar 9 and Codebreaker?

 

[Kai Dracon]

Has anyone posted this game and all its DLC is on fire sale at GMG (with Steam codes)?

http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/us/en/pc/games/strategy/bureau-xcom-declassified-na/

The latest GMG discount code stacks on it. I just grabbed it and all the DLC.

 

[Dead]

I'm finally playing through this game and it's kind of awesome, warts and all. You can definitely tell it's from the Bio2 team as well.

It's obvious this final iteration of the concept didn't get the full development cycle it should have gotten, but if it had it would have been totally worth it. Love the whole mad men meets x-files vibes. Great music too. Shame it bombed but it's kind of understandable too.

 

[shintoki]

Been playing the title and it feels heavily underrated. Great atmosphere and interesting story. I do like how they aren't spelling everything out for me. I also like the control I have over my teammates, though unless you're telling them what to do. They do get kind of useless.