Xcom 2

little P

Super Mod
The reviews are in and it looks like it's everything I hoped it would be. XCOM is one of my favourite all time strategy games and the sequel looks nothing short of a masterpiece! Not long now to wait :icon_cool:

The multiplayer head to head game in XCOM was surprisingly good too, and it look slike it has been expanded on and improved too, if that was even possible...

http://www.pcgamer.com/xcom-2-review/

Anyone else an XCOM fan or looking at picking this one up?

Fantastic review scores across the board :)

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/xcom-2
 

little P

Super Mod
10/10 will not refund XCOM 2... I've been on a real streak lately of non-refunds. What's the world coming to. :p
 

Daunt

MLG Pro
You must play every game 2.1 hours. So many games you leapfrog to and from. If you can just reduce your attention span even less (what a scary thought) you could be done and move on before even the refund period is over.
 

little P

Super Mod
Lol I don't know about that, variety is the spice of life sir.

And there are so many damn good games coming out at the moment. Nothing on the horizon now though so I'm glad of the new games to see me through until the next big hitter releases.
 
I'm tempted to get it, but I'm gonna try to get it at around $35 or below. I really enjoyed XCOM EU/EW. My only real gripe is that the "canonical" ending of the first game is "Surprise! You lost."
 

little P

Super Mod
My advice at the moment is steer clear until a patch is released. There a ton of issues with this title.

I can't remember the last time I experienced issues like this with a game. In it's current state it's pretty broken. I'm sure that once the first patch is released it will fix a lot of issues but until then I'm not playing it.

The main one for me is cutscenes lagging out and audio being out of sync with the video by around two seconds, random crashes and complete loss of save games. Like, start from the beginning losses. Buggy workshop integration. Terrible optimization (It's PC only for now so it's not even a port....).

I can wait because I know the game is going to be insanely good, once they fix some poor coding. It's a disgrace it was released in this state to be honest but I love X-Com so am willing to forgive and forget if they get a patch out there soon. Lots of people complaining of the same issues so I know it's not just me.
 

little P

Super Mod
Well, after some extensive trawling of various boards some dude said he unplugged his xbox controller and it fixed everything for him. Worth a try I thought as I'd tried everything else. Lo and behold it has done the same for me... So weird. I remember something like this happening several years ago now so it must be something to do with a usb conflict or something. Everything is silky smooth now with no crashes.

The consoles are screwing pc games even when they are pc exclusives... Damn consoles...

Oh and btw, I knew it would be fantastic, and it is. Improves on xcom in every way and that was already a damn good game. Just don't have an xbox controller plugged in (way of pushing steam controllers perhaps as it is heavily advertised to work well with the steam controller? Hmmmmmm.....)
 

Jeeve79

Casual
I finished "XCom UFO Unknown" and "Terror from the Deep" both on a DX486 at 60 MHz. B-) Yes i am that old.

For now, I am still playing "The Long War" mod for Xcom1. It is huge and perfect for the wait for Xcom 2 to get cheaper and patched. Imo they should have optimized it before releasing, but like all games nowadays, nothing is finished product any more, so i will pay less for a more complete experience later on down the road.
I do recommend this game to anybody who is fed up with fast paced shooters and RTS and wants a relaxed tactics game full of surprises and progression. This is a turn based strategy and u will get hooked on to certain soldiers, if they die in combat, u will be cursing yourself looking for a replacement rookie noob that misses 60 percent of the shots. Yes, this game is "RNG city" (Random number generator), if u are not flanking your opponent. So get movement points in and run and gun those alien maggots.
 

little P

Super Mod
http://www.pcgamer.com/xcom-2-guide/

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/xcom-2-starting-guide/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/44b7pf/xcom_2_tips_megathread/

Some useful reads if you are new to the XCOM series or are curious about it's style of gameplay. Almost all of these can be found out and discovered/learnt the hard way during the first run through but I felt it would be useful for new players to know this stuff before starting out.

Jeeve - since I unplugged my Xbox controller when starting Xcom I have zero problems with it. No crashes, no stuttering, just smooth gameplay. So I think a lot of people complaining may not have found this simple solution yet. I for one was mortified at how it ran and it looked un-optimized but of course as I now know it was a simple solution that wasn't the devs fault.

The RNG can be countered in many different ways and yes it really does mean you get attached to your soldiers. I've lost two so far and nearly cried, especially as the second one I lost I sacrificed a V.I.P. for in the previous mission (had already got one wounded unconscious soldier out over anothers shoulder to an evac point then had to choose to extract the V.I.P. or my medic over the other soldiers shoulder under heavy fire). A neat touch is they are now memorialized on the wall of the bar on board the Avenger.

This is an amazing game but I always knew it would be. A nice change of pace where you have time to think/plan/execute your every move, with full steam workshop integration so you can tailor the experience to your liking.
 

little P

Super Mod
I already use two mods for my XCOM 2 experience; timer tweaks and free camera rotation, but a new "ultimate must haveTM" mod has been released.

[video=youtube;UIBGGp5Nv0E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIBGGp5Nv0E[/video]

The perfect game just got perfect...er?
 

Shilka

Hardcore
I actualy watched one of the twitch streamers I follow stream this game, and it actually looked like fun. Highlight was when when his team was on a roof, an alien threw a grenade, the roof collapsed and his entire team fell down in the middle of the enemy team a floor lower, lol. He still managed to survive, and it was actually pretty exciting to watch. Will watch for future sales on this.
 

little P

Super Mod
Oh yeah destructible environments can lead to some awesome moments. Like when a turret is mounted on the first floor and you have to decide to either go for a direct shot with a cannon and have a higher chance of hitting it but knowing that you can only destroy it if you get a critical hit or going for the structure which could miss entirely with an unguided rocket but if you hit it will bring that part of the building down turret included. And that's one decision in one turn of decisions that will number over ten in one go where there are often over ten turns. Man I love this game.

Oh and the thing we were talking about on TS where you said you don't like it when you can see the whole map etc. well in this there is fog of war so you only see what the soldiers can see. And even then you may see a building when the soldiers see it but until you open the door or peek through a window (or use a scanner etc.) you won't automatically know if there are enemies/loot inside.

It's a great system and works really well :)
 
I got the game on sale, and have been playing it a bunch. Overall, it's pretty good, but there are definitely some things that could stand improvement.

First, I'm gonna have to try that unplugged Xbox controller thing, in case my controller is currently plugged in. I've definitely noticed the video/audio sync issue. I didn't expect the game to look gorgeous on my 2010-era PC, but I'm pleased with how it does look.

Gameplay-wise, though, there are some definite issues.

1. The new in-cover system is nice, but it's a bit wonky. I understand that not seeing line of sight (LOS) indicators from enemies you haven't spotted yet means you can turn a corner into an "OH SHIT!" scenario, but I've had some instances where the "visible" indicator didn't appear when the enemy in question was spotted (but not by the soldier I was moving).

2. There are some other weird bugs/glitches from time to time. I had a snake man tongue-and-wrap a soldier of mine, but they were physically below the map. this has only happened once, but it was weird. They were still targetable, so I got my guy out, but damn. That's quite an oversight. Probably because I have an ATI card, and everyone shits on ATI nowadays.

3. I find the health bar thing to be irritating. The damage indicator for the weapon will say "4-6 damage", but the health bar when you're targeting will show all 6 bars. I think it'd be better if the health bar would show, like, 4 bars in red, and the remaining two in orange or something, to indicate those aren't guaranteed. (Yellow already applies to armor, and seems to also apply to crits.)

4. There are some serious bullshit mechanics in the game, like "Dodge Grazed." The game doesn't indicate that this is a risk, or which enemies can do it, or how it works. It just ends up being another mechanic that the game uses to fuck you. Now, if this comes from, like, an Avatar project advancement or something, ok, fine, my bad for not noticing it. But if it's just one of those "Surprise! The game got harder!" things, I think it's bullshit. It should be more transparent, at least, or apply by enemy type. While I dig that the game does advance the enemies over time, I find that it's not really transparent enough about what's happening and why. Maybe a notice from Tygan that "It looks like these enemies have been enhanced. I'll update the autopsy report from before," at which point it'd list what Advent has done to improve them.

5. There are other mechanics that just...don't really work. Say, did you know that there's the ability to bleed out before you die in this game? No? That's probably because it NEVER TRIGGERS. It's apparently tied to this calculation involving willpower, which means that, at best, a Colonel has a 50% chance of bleeding out, but a Rookie is guaranteed to die. Why? Willpower.

There's also the "wounded"/"gravely wounded" calculations. These seem off. You have your soldier's base health, which can then be increased by armor types (e.g., nanovest, E.X.O. armor, etc.). Then on top of that you have actual armor which basically just mitigates damage. Fine and dandy. But why is it, then, that if my armor-enhanced health takes damage that is all still ABOVE my base health, I'm indicated as wounded? I didn't suddenly get "healthier" by putting on the armor. I was "protected." So, how is my ARMOR taking hits being counted against me? Stuff like that I find to be more of just the Xcom attitude of "We stack the deck against you because, fuck you, that's Xcom, baby!" I'm all for difficulty, but I prefer FAIR difficulty, not "Fuck you" difficulty.

6. The timers could be a bit more generous. I don't mind having timers on a mission, but in some cases, the game is just full of shit on this. 8 turns to cross what is at least 5 turns' worth of movement alone, and you're throwing 11 enemies against me? Screw that. That's artificial difficulty that basically forces you to charge into the jaws of near-certain death. I downloaded a mod that allowed me to change the amount of turns. I increased it by four for most missions. In some cases, especially early on, it does make the turns basically negligible, but in others, I find it just makes them more fair, given the number of enemies out there.

7. There are definitely some "Are you KIDDING ME?!" moments in the game. I find the terror missions to be particularly bad, given how close to the civilians the aliens usually are, and how far my guys are from them. Like, within my first two turns, the aliens can usually kill between 2-3 civilians with ease, just because they spawn next to them. My recollection of EU/EW is that terror missions usually featured a bit more of an even mix of civilians across the map. But then, to be fair, terror missions were always my least favorite missions in any iteration of X-com or its clones.

The really GOOD news is that a ton of this stuff is moddable, and the community is rising to the task.


Outside of that, the game is a ton of fun. I did my first facility raid the other night (in a game I was bound to lose, but I did it anyway), and it was a blast. I had my one stealth ranger basically avoid all the enemies, while the rest of my 6-man team took out everyone they could (including a hacked level 2 MEC). She got into the building, armed the device, and then OH SHIT, triggered a pod of 2 sectoids and a codex, who were then reinforced by an officer and a stun baton guy, and a shield dude. Everyone else was dead by then, so my team dug in to heavy cover, dropped the evac zone near them, and I had my ranger haul ass across the ground while everyone else provided cover. the ranger took some hits, but my squad medic got her back up and running, and everyone managed to escape (albeit with two wounded). Great mission, though.


One piece of advice for folks: read up on things like base design, and DO NOT delay building Resistance Comms, or you won't be able to contact additional regions where enemy Avatar sites pop up.
 

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