![]() XCOM 2 attempts to throw nearly all of that out and starts from scratch, and the first step towards rebuilding it into something better is taken by giving XCOM a flying base: the Avenger. In XCOM 1 the geoscape layer just didn’t work for long-term play once you figured out what to research when and what you could get away with in terms of the panic meter and the plot missions it became an almost braindead experience. This is a great excuse to completely overhaul the geoscape layer – this is XCOM’s name for the strategic part of the game where you spend resources to research and develop new equipment and weapons, build new base facilities and decide which missions to take on next. XCOM is no longer a legitimate entity fighting from a position of relative strength that’s backed by all the resources of Earth’s governments they’re a quasi-terrorist organisation that has to engage in guerilla warfare against an entrenched alien enemy, and which is forced to scrounge up supplies ( XCOM 2’s money) from a variety of sources in order to carry on the fight. There are various underground resistance groups fighting against these plans, coordinated by a still-operational XCOM that’s led by a scarred, embittered Bradford - whose sweater was presumably one of the many casualties of the First Alien War - but thematically there’s a definite role inversion here compared to the first game. Fast forward twenty years and the aliens have an ironclad grip on things via their quasi-militaristic front organisation ADVENT, which has gifted the population of Earth many marvellous scientific advances derived from alien technology that mask their nefarious true plans for the human race. ![]() The aliens annihilated Earth’s military and gave XCOM enough hard knocks that the remnants of the Council were all too glad to surrender by signing an Accord that handed over control of the planet 2. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past twelve months you’ll be aware by now that XCOM 2 does do something pretty daring for a sequel: it sets itself against the backdrop of a future Earth where XCOM lost the first game in a matter of weeks. Just as with the first XCOM, though, “at first glance” is liable to lead to an unduly favourable impression of the game it takes time to get under the hood and fully understand the new and improved systems and mechanics of the sequel, and my conclusion is that while XCOM 2 is a worthy sequel and a great game in its own right, it’s not quite the revolutionary experience it would like you to believe it is – both figuratively and mechanically. At first glance XCOM 2 is specifically set up to counter nearly all of the criticisms that had become so apparent after several years with the first game. Any trulycomprehensive cure would require a complete restructure of XCOM’s systems that only a sequel could provide.įast-forward three years, and my initial impression on playing XCOM 2 was that series lead Jake Solomon had been reading this blog 1 and had made a game that directly incorporated all of that feedback. The Enemy Within expansion pack alleviated some of these flaws, but it couldn’t fix the worst of them as they were baked into the very structure of the game itself. A whole host of paper tiger systems (such as panic), where the various NPCs screamed at you to play the game in a certain way in an attempt to mask the fact that playing slowly and cautiously - and liberally vomiting explosives anywhere in direct contravention of Vahlen’s instructions - would result in flawless completion of 95% of missions. An inverse difficulty curve where the first three months of the game were by far the hardest as you desperately tried to keep your rookies alive with only basic weapons and equipment. ![]() The introduction of new, tougher enemy types being linked to your completing plot missions that had no time factor involved, allowing you to game the system by researching endgame weapons and armour before tackling any of them. The aliens’ completely passive presence on the geoscape. About six months after my glowing review of the original XCOM reboot I wrote a followup piece that comprehensively laid into the game for flaws that had become apparent on subsequent playthroughs.
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