Phantom Doctrine

It's a shame the developers went under because this is a great game and if they had just a little more time to cook this could have been one of the best turn-based strategy games of all time. If you want to play a stealthy XCOM-type game with a Cold War jazz vibe, if you love stringing up documents on the board like Charlie Day, and if you can tolerate it's relatively minor flaws (mainly some UI inconveniences and not enough unique assets) then this is for you! If you pick it up, definitely play on Easy to give you a bit of breathing room until you figure out the flow of the game.

This game is a tragedy. It has everything it needs to be successful, yet it falls flat thanks to horrible direction. Some smoothbrains might say this is an x-com clone, to which I would ask if castlevania is a mario clone. Or maybe need for speed is a spacerace clone. No, this has its own identity and unique mechanics. The concept is great; work for a shadow agency and try to disrupt and survive the onslaughts of other agencies in a grity and retro 80s setting. One would think with originality like that, it would be hard to ♥♥♥♥ up. Well, somehow the ♥♥♥♥ up was accomplished. To start, some 'genius' thought it would be good idea to have EVERY ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MISSION be at night and in rain. I'm not kidding. EVERY DAMN MISSION. Rain, at night. 'well, it was supposed to be like a noir thing', Really? Remind me what the setting was again? 80s counter intelligence? Smashing windows doesn't alert the guards. It could be right next to them, they, for whatever reason, can't see the smashed window, nor can they hear the breaking glass. Base raids: Your opponents ceaselessly work to uncover the location of your base. Matter of time before they find it. Awesome. That means a high-stake battle in which your agents guarding the base have to fight for their lives and to prevent enemy agents from taking your money and stealing your secrets right? Instead, through the almighty powers of cut-scene, you lose ALL OF YOUR MONEY, potentially agents, and others may or may not get wounded. Tragic sabotaging of something that could have been a classic. You then have complete lack of content, in that the so called 'starting factions' of which 2 are available, get around 25% original content. after that, the rest of the game, 75%, is identical. Funny thing is, you're supposed to play through the campaign over and over again to get unlocks that should have been available from the start. What could have and should have been an experience, was dumbed down to a bland, boring grind that feels like a chore to play. All it needed was 80s style counter intelligence with a splash of 80s sci-fi and a dash of 80s conspiracy (some of the most entertaining), and this would have been one of the greats. If this was adequately hacked, and modded, the potential is still there. Unfortunately, besides some cheat hacks, no real mods exist. It would be alot of effort to reverse the damage done by horrible direction and lack of imagination.

When are they going to drop the Epstein Doctrine for the US side

This game should be marked as playable on the Steam Deck, as it runs without issues, and controls work without any problems. Text is a little small but readable.

There's interesting ideas here--including a genuinely good turn-based stealth system--but the bulk of the experience is "what if XCOM was more granular and less satisfying?"

im totally pissed i have 32 hour in game so i know my rig can run it fine ,,... its a crash at launch no fix posted i want my money back last pos i buy from this company

Very fresh take on standard XCOM gameplay. You play as Cold War Era secret service. Pros: - Very nice and fitting soundtrack - stealth and infiltration (there are only like 3 missions and one generic ambush mission where you have to enter the firefight) - fun combat, when you get a grasp on it - fun base and worldscape management - interesting system of perks, trainings and "lab enchancements" - investigation board minigame - quite good amount of weapons, armors and equipment - quite long (50 hours) - overall interesting story - multi floor level design that is fun to explore, perform missions and run firefights - support team (e.g. snipers, observers, mop-up team) Cons: - firefights are stacked against you (timer and enemy reinforcements) - early combat can be irritating (but optional, if you go with stealth approach) - bit silly that jumping out of 2nd floor or breaking the window with witness doesn't cause alarm. - sometimes it's hard to spot all mission collectibles - sometimes investigation board get randomly re-shuffle which is very irritating. - get's a bit slow and tedious at the mid-end side of the campaign. 9/10 - I'd totally love to see a sequel in more modern times with more content.

Getting into this game is just too unclear for me, it TAKES a lot of want to, so many facets that are not clear or understandable. For example, I still don't fully understand how training works entirely. I will continue to try and slog through it for a bit more, but I kind of regret the purchase and will likely abandon - disappointed as I really like the the genre and concept of the game .. Edit: Learning Cruve needs to be over come