[h1] BETRAYAL! - Wait no. This isn't that bad [/h1]
This game was never going to be a runaway success, It’s design as a tactical action shooter left it firmly in the shadow of the unreleased X-com: Alliance. An FPS Squad shooter slated for 2001. But releasing this near simultaneously with Enemy Unknown was a detrimental mistake that buried this game.
Which is a shame, because its not bad- despite a few questionable design choices.
[h2] This doesn't make the best first impression [/h2]
Ahem. If you check out the steam discussions many will complain the AI is underwhelming, which it half-true. The companions are lobotomised, until you get them to level 5. Then they become responsive and more importantly have enough health to not immediately keel over & die to every encounter.
Any orders you direct to your squad are immediately carried out, they even change texture to illustrate they’re following your commands. Their actions are queued and each class has their own set of unique abilities all designed to synergise.
Support casts Disrupt, you use the ability levitate, then Recon uses Critical strike.
Congrats!
You just killed everything except for a Muton or Sectopod. If you time it right.
Commands are done through a proto Fallout 4 VATS system where time slows down, and there is even a mass effect dialogue wheel for interacting with characters. It’s neat.
The squad is limited just to three which sucks since the player counts as a unit.
Mind control is a late game action which really adds tactical variety. Deployable drones, Turrets and Silacoid’s all work surprisingly well.
The combat is satisfying once you level up your roster of companions. Don’t worry about the permadeath, you can simultaneously send new recruits off to do automated missions as you play which levels them up.
A Total party kill is easily replaceable with no disadvantage, just customise the new squad to look like the old.
By the mid game I didn’t need to micromanage my companions anymore, they could tank most things, the AI automatically avoids grenades to the point they’ll never be hit. It’s nice… You just have to get them to level 5 because the starting health pool and their lack of abilities really screws with the AI’s capability to dynamically react.
These soldiers were lobotomised in the early game, they do get better.
[h2] The difficulty is meaningless [/h2]
You will never fight more than two mutons until the final level, you will only encounter a maximum of two Sectopod’s, only a handful of optional side missions have Sectoid’s swam you on mass and the Outsiders and all their variants can be managed systematically. Difficulty has no bearing on the mechanics.
It just nerfs your abilities and turns everything into a bullet sponge if you raise it.
Whilst I completed it on Commander difficulty, I did replay a little bit on novice and the early game was more enjoyable. The spawns didn’t change, only the enemie’s health.
Call me old fashioned but a Muton shouldn’t have more health than a Sectopod, quadrupedal tank. But on commander oh boy they do.
There is no intended difficulty unlike in classic X-com or Enemy unknown. Play around with it.
Find a comfortable balance between your damage output and the enemy’s strength.
[h2] It has the spirit of X-Com [/h2]
It's no secret that a bunch of X-Com fans rejected [strike] Two & Chimera Squad [/strike] because it betrayed the core themes of the franchise.
The indomitable human spirit adapting and overcoming Alien, Lovecraftian and interdimensional threats. A rag tag group of rainbow resistance warriors isn’t X-com.
The idea that we’re in waters so uncharted that despite have an entire facility, bureau, military or even a full-on megacity at your disposal. And you’re still on the backfoot is X-Com. It’s the best of the best having to rise beyond their limitations to save humanity. It shouldn’t be a plucky underdog story.
It’s a war of attrition between the best & brightest and the horrors of the uknown.
The Bureau, X-Com declassified [i] gets [/i] this. It understands the necessity of having an established facility which is impressive considering there is zero research or base management.
Everyone around you is a highly trained professional from various background selected to defend humanity. It’s X-Com with a little more personality and a stronger than average narrative.
Is it a good narrative?
Eh, it has major pacing issues. There are only 7 mainline and 7 optional missions. But it doesn’t playout as predictably as the classics or Enemy Unknown does, someone was having fun writing this and whilst its brevity takes away from the intended emotional impact…
It has more going on than most 7th gen shooters.
[h2] The none existent technical hic-ups [/h2]
A lot of people state this game doesn’t run on windows 11.
I have the dreaded 24H2 build and it runs perfectly. [b] First time booting the game did take several minutes [/b] but every start up afterwards was immediate.
I’m running an Integrated RTX 3050 4gb, hardly cutting edge stuff for the 2020’s and the game ran with out a single crash.
The cutscenes are pre-recorded in 720p with some terrible compression. It looks bad.
There is full controller support right out of the box, plays well with my 3rd party Xbox One controller. No issues.
The texture work is surprisingly great, you can read almost all the chalkboards, posters and graffiti present in the environments. It adds to the conspiracy latent atmosphere the game is striving for.
[h2] It’s well worth it when on a sale [/h2]
For $2 of $5 it’s a fun little distraction, it’s hardly the betrayal Spoony [Godspeed my sweet prince, find the help you need] led me to believe it was back in 2012.
It’s far from the worst entry in the franchise.
Sure, if Alliance was playable this would be a redundant entry (Unless you really liked the cold war aesthetic) but as some one who brought this after sinking 150+ hours into Enemy within in the space of two weeks, yeah this has the X-Com spirit I yearn for.
10-15 Hours of gameplay, if you get the DLC then I could see 20 at a push. There is no new game plus or randomly generated missions everything in this game was purposely designed which is something of a lost art now-a-days.
I will add the marketing for this game did it no favours, like seriously. This isn’t a bad game it’s just that everything surrounding it, including its marketing absolutely betrayed it. Heh. I guess there was betrayal after all.
