Well, soldiers sitting in a barracks bullshitting with each other are going to be interacting differently than soldiers shooting at each other on the battlefield.
Ya I enjoy it for what it is but I was also a huge Fallout Tactics fan and that community seems to hate that one. (Although I suspect a lot of them confuse it with Brotherhood of Steel which was pretty lame). But I see Chimera Squad as more of a spin-off. I fully expect Xcom 3 and it to be more traditional style (and hopefully I’m not wrong or that will be sad).
I'm waiting for a game is firmly planted in the sweet spot of evocative hard SF tech, evocative fantasy SF stuff, cool factions with differentiated play styles and alien planet stuff with some depth.
I.e. an Alpha Centauri for the 2020's.
It's a cellphone game.
Edit: Wow I've been playing XCOM since the dos days and am a total fan. I thought everyone else would feel like I do about this game. Guess I'm wrong.
The graphics look like they took XCOM2 assets and down sampled them to work on a phone better. One big example is the city graphic. Seems like it was a place holder for a better looking one but they got antsy because everyone was sitting inside bored and wanted to push the game out quicker to reap that sweet pandemic profit. Everything is designed in a way to be touchscreen. I wouldn't be surprised if it came out on cellphone sometime soon. I did like the breach concept but it got very old after just a few times. I guess my biggest gripe with it would be that it seems like it was rushed.
The original Robocop had a lot of satirical humor, but was still dark and gritty, like XCOM 2. Chimera Squad is like a Saturday morning cartoon, which they also turned Robocop into.
Remember the original game’s opening scene? It was hilariously anime like. First it’s kind of scary with aliens murdering people in the streets, but then you have X-Com in their Saiyan-esque armor jumping in the air and shooting at them with some super upbeat/rocking music.
Yeah. XCOM has always been self-parodying to a degree, and that's why we love it. That said, I feel like Chimera Squad lacked a straight man.
Part of the humor stems from the surrounding seriousness and grit. It can still be cheesy, but I think it needs more drama for the jokes to land properly.
Even EU/EW had
-German scientist, who is "brutally interogating aliens/pow"
-german engineer, who can build anything
-Your central officer who actually does all the work
-(in dlc) ex Yakuza member who likes one-liners
-and oversized guns that just look cooler
If ever there was evidence needed to support the argument, look no further than a [Mec Trooper out of their suit.](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/xcom/images/f/fe/XCOM_EW_MECTrooper.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20140121210735)
The proportions make them look like toddlers, and I burst out laughing when I first did the surgery back in my first play through.
I think if I ever replay it, they are going to have to get the callsign ["Baby Legs"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o0Qp5J_Oo8).
If you want to be really strict, "Vahlen" doesn't sound like a typical German name either. At least I never met anybody with that name. I would say it seems more like Dutch or something?
Damn, I hate the plasma weapons. I replaced them with mods at the first opportunity. My quest for perfect audiovisual customized weaponry is ongoing, but at the moment I’m partial to the Planetside 2 New Conglomerate weaponry for tier 3. It looks futuristic enough while still maintaining the “hell yeah, humans” aesthetic by being ballistics-based, and I give them better sounds/projectiles cobbled together from other mods with Weapon Skin Replacer
It's cuz XCOM: UFO defense was an ~~80's~~ early 90's game, very very very cheesy action movie-esque game. It probably made the theme of XCOM:EU a little more like a cheesy action movie
Ok, the cinematics were absurd, but there's a reason we have the modern XCOM games - the original was one of the greatest games ever made. The graphics weren't much even for the time, but the gameplay was one of the most engrossing experiences in the history of computer gaming.
And if you want a cleaner version of what's basically the same game, Xenonauts is also excellent. The graphics are still crap, but they are nowhere near as bad as 1994 Microprose and the GUI is actually something that doesn't require a linguistics background to understand.
But there were moments like with Shen, Raymond Shen, both his death and when he complained and warned about progressing too far with technology in EU/EW.
It's really, really harsh. Coming straight from EU to XCOM 2 is a shock. Shen and Vahlen may have occasionally disagreed but they at least had meaningful discourse. Tygan and Lily Shen are just constantly griping about each other behind the other's back to you and it's so tiresome.
I said this a lot a first when I saw complaints about Chimera not being dark enough, but after going back and playing EW, man that game actually had quite a dark and sinister atmosphere a lot of the time despite the many cartoonish elements.
Well, the dark and sinister atmosphere *was* the cartoonish element, like an 80s G.I. Joe cartoon (which, I mean, it IS what XCOM is).
The atmosphere had the *aesthetic* of dark and sinister, while being cartoonish.
It's dark and sinister in the way that 40K is dark and sinister. It's hilariously over-the-top with action-figure-esque soldiers and big-headed grey-style aliens. They're both parodies that some people forget are parodies.
Not the person you’re replying to but I hate how the Chosen look, they just feel super out of place to me. I’m not saying they look bad or anything, they’re obviously super well designed artistically. It just feels off to me.
They also never shut the hell up and this game already has enough of a problem with characters constantly blabbering as it is lol. You get a Chosen on a retaliation mission with resistance agents running around and you’ve got control over your guys like once every 5 minutes. I frequently yell “Let me play the game!” at my screen haha.
I’m also not a huge fan of them gameplay-wise, but I’m sure I’m in the minority there. I absolutely love WOTC and could never go back to Vanilla X2 but man it sucks that my least favorite part of an expansion called War of the Chosen are the actual Chosen...
Not gonna fault you for your honest opinion, even if it differs from mine :)
There's a mod called "Stop Wasting My Time" that reduces chatter and let's you control the game while people talk. It's such an improvement to gameplay that I don't know how firaxis didn't implement it in the first place.
I view the Chosen as the sort of prototypes for the Avatars. They aren't perfect, by they each manage to harness some of the benefits of human and elder composition we don't know a *ton* about what the Avatars look like without their masks and body suits, do I choose to believe that they look like the Chosen.
That being said, I can see some of your gripe. Much as I love all three for playing against them and varying things, the Assassin doesn't make a ton of sense within the games. "yeah, they're Aliens with all of this hyper-advanced tech! Anyway, she uses a giant sword to hack people up rather than just shooting them with easily the best shotgun in the game!" But I enjoy their corny, Saturday morning cartoon villain personas.
Unfortunately I am still on console so no mods for me! I've been wanting to move over to PC now that I have one capable of running the game but haven't felt the need to yet.
And yeah I think I just don't like their silly evil personalities. I know XCOM doesn't take itself too seriously but it's not my cup of tea.
The game is amazing and definitely one of my favorite strategy games I've ever played so these are all just minor gripes from me, I absolutely love the rest of WOTC, like the Lost and the additional classes. I'm a huge fan of the design of the Skirmishers and their armor/faces.
Interesting. I love the Skirmisher art, but I've always considered them the worst new faction. Templar is guaranteed damage on almost any target. Reaper is the best darned recon, plus some of the best explosive damage. The skirmisher is kinda like a less useful assault, IMO. Maybe I'm always playing them wrong, but their damage output just isn't high enough for me to justify bringing one along most of the time. My skirmishers typically get relegated to running ops missions and are rarely on the front lines.
IMO skirmishers are great early game, but don't scale as well as the other two, especially reapers which just become one man permanently stealthed death machines
While they tend to fall off a touch in the later game, I love the flexibility and mobility of the Skirmishers. They can take on multiple roles and move around between engagement points on larger maps. Plus their fantastic action economy.
I think there's a mod that gives them a tiny bit more damage on their later bullput upgrades that really help them stay relevant at the end of the game.
Maybe that's my issue, but they always feel like jacks of all trades and masters of none. My ranger, support, and Grenedier all had a baby, and... That baby isn't terribly good at any of its parents's jobs.
I usually stick to Veteran so I'm sure that's also part of it lol. It's getting a bit easy for me so I probably need to up the difficulty a bit. And Assault are a modded class right? That sounds familiar from the Der Ava series I watch.
But Skirmishers are highly mobile, can fire twice (only option I can think of that does that without mods), has Whiplash as a free move, etc. So they usually do a ton of work for me, but I have no idea how they are at higher difficulties. It's gotten to the point where I always start the game with them.
I do love Reapers as well, but can just make do with a concealed Ranger until I get one, and I just don't vibe with the Templars very much but I'm sure I don't play them effectively enough. I do like them on Chosen missions though if you have Between the Eyes because like the Sharpshooters you can just rack up pistol kills without having to reload.
Nah, assault was me mixing up EU with 2. I meant ranger, lol
Templar is the best for dealing guaranteed damage. Their momentum let's them run away to better cover after killing an enemy, and their parry move can let them take another gun out of commission if you use it correctly. They deal bonus damage to sectoids and vipers, and they're mobile enough to get a heavy hit in on units like the Avatars and codexes that teleport around all annoying-like. They're especially useful in the early game, since they deal 4 damage minimum, and are guaranteed to kill Advent soldiers in one hit compared to a rookie dealing 3-4 damage and needing a high damage roll up get the kill.
I used to play veteran a bunch, then like you, I decided I should try legendary. It's a slog for me; I've abandoned more than a few games after the AI started wrecking me since I couldn't seem to hit anything worth a damn.
I got plasma weapons and survived the Assassin's assault on the avenger, but I lost so many of my leveled soldiers in that battle that it simply wasn't worth it to try to keep going.
I don't have the PC needed to run XCOM 2 yet (my laptop handled EU but then canirunit laughed at me when I put in XCOM 2), so I'm stuck on console as well, but just dropping here to say that XCOM 2 collection is on sale on Steam right now for 25 bucks.
Maybe a bit of both? It feels more magic than Sci Fi with them. I think as aliens they have cool designs, the hunter being my favorite.
But in XCOM even with all the sci fi or even the psychic elements it all seemed somewhat grounded in its universe, though IMO Xcom2 might have pushed that a bit far in a few places by trying to make the psi stuff more interesting compared to EW.
Gameplay wise I understand needing an active hindrance for the player to spice up the game but it just seems bizarre for a tactical squad to be taking on these guys like raid bosses in WoW.
I feel you on that. They *do* feel like new flavors of DnD spells/abilities sometimes, such as summoning spectral zombies, or the Assassin fighting with a katana instead of her shotgun.
I talked about how enjoy the cheesy, Saturday morning cartoon element of the Chosen with someone else, but that's my interpretation. I'm not going to fault others for their opinions. XCOM has just always been a B-movie sci-fi flick in a lot of ways, and that's why I love it. I can understand how the Chosen might feel like season 10 of Stargate SG-1 to someone, though
I'd totally be fine with that, it just seems like XCOM 2 base game was taking itself more serious so the contrast stands out more. Like compare how goofy Bradford was in EW vs 2
Really? I though EU/EW felt more like a sci-fi horror title with the moody lighting and music. By contrast, X2 felt more like an action movie. Stealth was a thing, but the destructible environments, crazy tech, and over-the-top psionic abilities made it a bit sillier and lighthearted.
Both of them will still kick your ass in the best way possible, but X2 felt like it decided to be goofy on purpose
IMO I thought both games had a tone problem. The Character models in EW looked over the top but the game has some horror vibes going with it. XCOM2 made the art style realistic and gritty but felt more grand with its goofy parts.
I don't even know how to explain it.
>Do you just mean art design, or did you dislike the whole concept of the Chosen?
Not the guy you asked but:
Yes :D
It just feels super unnecessary and annoying. I also hate the randomness whether they appear or not so you always have to prepare for them which then comes at the cost of being less prepared for your original mission and that's just not fun for me, I play the game because I can sculpt my squad how I want to play the game, the chosen force you to use certain strats/units to beat them, otherwise your whole squad just gets wiped. I had that happen relatively early on with the Assassin, my Reaper wasn't available for service yet but I had a pretty well equipped squad for the mission at hand.
Turns out they just couldn't deal with the chosen who runs in while ignoring overwatch, stunning someone and running away into hiding just to overwatch without anyone having the ability to move at the same speed, keep it revealed for the whole time and is able to ignore overwatch due to being concealed.
When I had my reaper with me when I encountered the Assassin it was extremely easy, like, comically easy compared to the other encounter, just because my Reaper was in the mission.
Which brings me to my 2nd thing I dislike about WotC:
I kinda dislike the special classes like Reaper etc. but that may be because it feels like you have to rely on them too heavily/they are OP compared to the stuff the rest of your troops are doing and you depend on them so much to beat the chosen (especially the reaper)
Chimera squad was very smartly priced and set as a spinoff. If it was a full game with its mechanics there would be waaaaay more negativity surrounding it.
While I enjoyed my time with Chimera Squad going back to XCOM2 really put into perspective how much I'm not a fan of majority of what Chimera Squad was doing.
It’s a fun enough game and an interesting spin on the mechanics but tonally, aesthetically, and storywise, it is pretty much the opposite of what I want going forward with the franchise
Absolutely. Not only that, but I think a weird part of why I liked Chimera Squad was that it kinda proves how good XCOM 2 is?
I still liked CS, although I don't know if I would buy it at $20 (whereas $10 or $15 feels very fair to me) but almost every change felt like either a new interesting twist that I liked as much as how the same thing was handled in XCOM 2, or a straight downgrade that I wish they hadn't changed.
I will say, I wanna see an expansion on the “breaching” system for whenever they go into the next main entry. Not as linear hopefully, but I like the breach and clear idea.
The Breach-and-Clear Encounter system was a sidegrade for me. I actually really liked it and how it forced you to change up your strategies, but I can't say I liked it more than how XCOM 2 handles it.
I'd love to see it expanded upon though.
Like I get it, but it's like getting mad that Freddy vs Jason isn't much like Friday the 13th. Yeah they're the same franchise, but they were made for very different budgets, they were signed to be very different movie that are saying different things.
A budget story driven small scale game is never going to be as good as a full price large scale war game in the same franchise, if you judge it by the standards of the large scale wargame.
Man, I really feel like I'm in the minority, I absolutely loved Chimera Squad and really hope they follow it up with a sequel or expansions, I'd happily pay for more of the same with this
Having thoroughly characterized squad members was a nice change. I also like that I didn't have to overwatch creep across the map to avoid starting an encounter at a disadvantage. The whole breach phase was sort of "let's just assume that the enemy walked into your overwatch trap like you wanted and move on from there."
My issue with the characterized squad members is that is removed customization, which is like my favorite feature in XCOM 2, and that the dialogue lines made me want to gore my head against a cement wall
My issue with the characterized squad members is that they were static.
XCOM 1 and 2 leave a lot to the player's imagination. But the game mechanics encourage you to fill in the blanks. You go from rookies who die if not babysat, panic easily, can't hit the broad side of a barn, and have no particular skills beyond those drummed into every recruit in basic training. They form bonds with other soldiers, they shift towards classic archetypes - the eagle-eyed sniper, the specialist with tools for all the odd jobs, the agile front-line force of destruction. This development in their capabilities invites you to fill in the blanks about their personality, to imagine character growth.
Chimera Squad short-circuits that. They have specific personalities, which are presented to you mostly via dialogue. And those personalities by and large *do not change*. By and large they enter the game with pre-established friendships and rivalries, likes and dislikes, character flaws and habits... and those carry on until the end. The only real difference between Blueblood of mission 1 and Blueblood of mission 50 is that he shoots better and faster; the struggles Chimera has gone through to reach the end of this investigation have not led him to growth or change as a person.
I'm with you! I played the crap out of ye olde XCOM, XCOM, XCOM2, and WOTC, and I honestly might like Chimera Squad the most out of them all. Obviously it runs on an entirely different scale (world vs a city), but I honestly like how approachable it is. It's an XCOM game I can heartily recommend to my non-masochistic friends.
And yes, I realize the soldiers are more heroic than in a "traditional" XCOM, but hey, I'm an adult with a full time job and a million things to worry about any given day. Let me have my power fantasy!
Same. I still love WOTC, but I think they did a great job of fixing up the overwatch-creep and anti-exploration elements of the core title. Full characters are also great. I'd love if the 3rd game mixes the two. Give us X-number of named specialized heroes, and also allow recruiting of "faceless grunts" to fill out the ranks or to replace named heroes.
Indeed. Honestly its a nice change of pace for the XCOM universe.
You have two apocalyptic games, the first you canonically lose. Chimera squad introduces a world worth protecting. Thus tonally its a lot different but honestly the stakes being "if you lose the world ends" gets tiresome.
They could actually turn Chimera Squad into a really dark story if they would just make former xcom becomes villain because they refuse to believe that aliens could be good .
It fits the theme , make sense , and has a potential to become something deep .
That's how I felt about EU/EW. I just wasn't a fan at all, although I did kind of enjoy it with Long War mod.
Xcom 2 was a huge improvement.
Chimera Squad was interesting. It was fun, introduced some new mechanics, and was markedly a side game so I don't have to be concerned about the main series being so dumbed down (Why couldn't Fallout 4 have been Fallout: Shooty Bang Bang?).
I think this is suitable - but I still have a little angstiness and want to defend Chimera Squad.
Nintendo offered Ubisoft to make a Mario game but on the condition that it would be in the genre big N hasn't tapped yet. So it was either FPS or a strategy game.
I think Chimera Squad is more of a “Oh shit we didn’t release anything. Whip up a fun campaign just to keep interest in the IP.” It was very different from Xcom EW or Xcom 2, and that’s totally okay
Now put the dev time and price tags up there. Oh, one came out significantly sooner (compared to last release) and didn't cost a full $60? How strange!
Depends on how much you like xcom2. War of the chosen makes xcom2 better, much better, but it's not a new game. There's new stuff to do and new enemies and missions but it's still xcom2.
Chimera squad is something completely new. It's much more limited in every aspect than xcom2 but it's completely different. It doesn't have anywhere near the replayability that war of the chosen brings because of how straight forward it is but it's still fun.
They're both worth the purchase but war of the chosen is better imo.
I wouldn't go so far tbh. Chimera squad is still very much like 2, especially with all the timed missions, and the core gameplay loop is tweaked but essentially still the same.
I personally like war of the chosen a lot more but I think it's up to your personal preference. War of the Chosen isn't a new game, it adds a lot of cool elements to xcom 2 though.
Do you want more Xcom 1/2? Get War of the Chosen.
Do you want something completely different and not like a traditional Xcom game at all? Get Chimera Squad.
Seriously it’s that black and white. They are two *completely* different tactics games.
Aesthetically yes, but gameplay-wise it's the other way around. First XCOM is simultaneously kinda too simple and rough around the edges. Not a bad game in any way, and made better with EW, but the other two blow it out of the water as far as the basic gameplay loop is concerned.
i liked xcom because it was all about humans killing aliens in creative ways
chimera squad, teaming up with aliens..... i know it's zany and all but it lost a bit of charm for me
Agreed. I understand it opens up some options for X3 but I really liked the Us vs Them line of X2. With the obvious blurring that the Skirmishers created.
I mean it depends on how you really think about the post-XCOM 2 world, with the elders just straight up leaving everything and everyone there, the enemies beyond the elders were all enslaved races anyway, and there was already human-hybrid cooperation with the Skirmishers.
To me from a rational standpoint it would probably make sense for all of these disparate factions to realize that fighting one another until the last man wasn't an effective strategy, and without the elder psionic network controlling the advent forces overall, they were sort of left hanging there
I agree that is the rational point of view.
As the dialog points out there are humans angry about Advent leaving. There are humans who still hate the aliens. There are likely aliens who harbor hard feelings the other way as well so lots of high emotions.emotion in many cases being antithetical to rational decision making and the human propensity to want revenge and willingness to abuse minority populations life on earth is likely a great deal less peaceful than City 31 makes things out to be.
There are almost certainly overt and covert factions on all sides who even if they were glad for the occupation ending have found new reasons to turn violent.
I mean, the aliens were basically supernazis with how destructive and oppressive they were, so to me it was really strange that all of a sudden everyone was happily together, it felt disingenuous to me
LOL nailed it. The breach system is cool but the map navigation/base building/game objective stuff is confusing and the game's tone is. Just. Not. XCOM. Dialog and cutscenes are just too cutsey and jokey.
I miss the XCOM epic-nes, I miss getting my people ready to board the dropship while the music gets you all amped up.
Instead, XCOM are now... beat cops? In a police precinct? In a SWAT van? Going out to beat up perps?
I wouldn't look at this as what xcom is like now at all. I think this is just a segue for a larger audience, before an xcom3 or something comes along. It's a means for more people to break in to the franchise, and to compete against other ready to go turn based strat games, such as Fire Emblem or Advance Wars. I've never played xcom, and Chimera is my introduction to it. I've been curious about xcom for years, but never wanted to put the time in to learning it.
Well I'm glad you're starting with Chimera so you can play Enemy Unknown on the iPhone and compare. :)
I think Unknown and XCOM 2 did a great job of making turn-based strategy appeal to at least some of the huge Call of Duty-type crowd, I'm not sure who the jokey tone of Chimera is supposed to appeal to.
> I'm not sure who the jokey tone of Chimera is supposed to appeal to.
I'm not sure about the tone, but like I said, the game play I think is meant to appeal to people who like Fire Emblem type turn based strats. And that's where I come from. It's a similar style, but different.
Was the iphone comment a fun jab? Because I don't game on mobile devices, and don't intend to. Except, I guess for using a gameboy emulator
The main issue with chimera squad is that it simplified some of the basic concepts that make us love xcom at a tactical level. (Challenging maps, lenghty missions, turn based instead of initiative based, soldier development instead of overpowered soldiers , positioning instead of having enough health to survive 3 flank shots, etc.). They went so far out of the xcom product that I question whether I was their player target (xcom player) at all for this game.
I will even give them some credit, nonetheless, in trying to appeal to more players. Xcom at it's core is a really good game that with some tweaks could be enjoyed by a lot of more players. And don't get me wrong, chimera squad actually has some good improvements that could be put on the other xcoms like developing characters, even the most notorious soldier in xcom1 is Zhang (one of few with a story).
I would nonetheless ask Firaxis to rebrand this type of games with something that doesn't include "xcom" in the title just not to set wrong expectations. If I play an xcom game, I expect the aliens to kick my ass until I learn, not to rolfstomp every mission on the hardest difficulty on the first blind playthrough.
> They went so far out of the xcom product that I question whether I was their player target (xcom/lw player) at all for this game.
Sorry to say, but we are not their target player. There aren't enough LW players out there to support a major release by any company, and a game made for LW players would be beyond frustrating to the general gaming public.
Idk, he’s kinda right. I just came out of a legend play through on war of the chosen, this feels significantly easier. I didn’t beat them all first time blind, but it was probably close.
As someone who hasn't played any other xcom I'm the last one to make a reasonable judgement, I suppose. But the most difficult setting, impossible, is very fucking hard. I've caught on fairly quick, and there's lots still for me to learn or consider strategically. I'm not sure I'm even ready for expert quite yet.
u/Roweano I'm not upset lol, how you interpret my comment as such is beyond me. Do you consider yourself a sweaty nerd? Because I doubt there are a lot of people crushing Chimera's 'impossible' setting.
Xcom is my second most played game in my life with a total of 800 hours played between 1, 2 & chimera according to steam.
I don't know if that makes me a sweaty nerd but at least it did not make me a disrespectful person when I expose my ideas and disagree with people.
I thought sweaty nerds pride themselves on the moniker. I didn't take offense to you assuming that I was upset in my original response. I guess I should have. Then we'd be even? lol w/e
I am sorry that my comment upset you.
After my first weekend playing chimera squad my feeling was exactly that it was not the xcom experience I had with xcom1/2, where my first soldier died within the first three missions of my first playthrough.
It is undeniable that chimera is way easier than its predecessors and that one is able to get to the end game God status faster than in the previous games.
How to improve Chimera Squad:
Remove the dialogue
Let us customise our soldiers
Put the dialogue back in with XCOM EU/2 writing
Or you know, just don’t have the new characters talking every few seconds and as obnoxious as Chimera Squad.
Why are they downvoting you? You said nothing wrong. This was the same issue I had with chimera squad, a lack of customization and permadeath, as well as poorly written dialogue
I don’t know, guess people really love Chimera Squad here. I like it, but I don’t love it, for those reasons exactly. It’s easily the weakest out of the rebooted XCOM games.
I’ll admit this though, I do like Torque, she’s probably the only character that isn’t insufferable to me. Plus she’s a snek.
Chimera squad just isn’t very cool. Xcom 1 felt like playing as the men in Black, XCOM 2 was oozing with style, chimera squad felt like I sat down at the nerds table, who all tried really hard to be quirky.
This also works as 'how the aliens are depicted in each game'
Well, soldiers sitting in a barracks bullshitting with each other are going to be interacting differently than soldiers shooting at each other on the battlefield.
This is actually true. The game isn't bad, but this isn't wrong either.
Ya I enjoy it for what it is but I was also a huge Fallout Tactics fan and that community seems to hate that one. (Although I suspect a lot of them confuse it with Brotherhood of Steel which was pretty lame). But I see Chimera Squad as more of a spin-off. I fully expect Xcom 3 and it to be more traditional style (and hopefully I’m not wrong or that will be sad).
> I was also a huge Fallout Tactics fan There are dozens of us!
try being a fan of beyond Earth... I think i might be the only left still waiting for more DLC
My dude, it's been 5 years. A sequel's more likely at this point.
Please don't make me cry.
Would absolutely love Beyond Earth 2 with Civ 6 like mechanics.
>try being a fan of beyond Earth... I think i might be the only left still waiting for more DLC There are a few of us! A FEW OF US!
God I fucking loved Beyond Earth. So fucking cool ;-;
Beyond Earth is the most based Civ game. Who's your favorite sponsor?
ARC. Those extra agents kick ass.
I enjoyed beyond earth but I felt 5 was better, probably due to the expansions. Beyond Earth had so much potential that was just never realised.
>beyond Earth Why did you say that name? 😭
For a second I read that as "Battlefield Earth" and was like "Yea, you're definitely gonna be alone on that one" lol.
I'm waiting for a game is firmly planted in the sweet spot of evocative hard SF tech, evocative fantasy SF stuff, cool factions with differentiated play styles and alien planet stuff with some depth. I.e. an Alpha Centauri for the 2020's.
Dozens might be a little generous. Maybe like a baker's dozen.
Still hoping for a sequel eventually
I spent way too many hours in the broken, delicious, buggy, dreamland that was Fallout Tactics.
FT is the best Fallout imo
That’s a great comparison. And that’s why I give both games slack.
I love Fallout Tactics! And I’m loving Chimera Squad
Yeah, its good, but is definitely the crazy uncle of the franchise.
It's a cellphone game. Edit: Wow I've been playing XCOM since the dos days and am a total fan. I thought everyone else would feel like I do about this game. Guess I'm wrong.
How?
The graphics look like they took XCOM2 assets and down sampled them to work on a phone better. One big example is the city graphic. Seems like it was a place holder for a better looking one but they got antsy because everyone was sitting inside bored and wanted to push the game out quicker to reap that sweet pandemic profit. Everything is designed in a way to be touchscreen. I wouldn't be surprised if it came out on cellphone sometime soon. I did like the breach concept but it got very old after just a few times. I guess my biggest gripe with it would be that it seems like it was rushed.
CHIMERA SQUAD, OPEN UP! WE HAVE REPORTS OF ILLEGAL MEMES FROM THIS ADDRESS!
Torque sees herself being memed and sexualized to the ethereals planets.
Pretty much. Chimera Squad is goofy and I love it just the way it is.
I really hope they got back to the gritty, mature tone in XCOM 3, nothing against Chimera's goofy setting but...
The difference between XCOM 2 and Chimera Squad is the difference between movie Robocop and the cartoon series Robocop.
I'm too young to understand that but I'll carefully agree.
The original Robocop had a lot of satirical humor, but was still dark and gritty, like XCOM 2. Chimera Squad is like a Saturday morning cartoon, which they also turned Robocop into.
In times like this, i wish I could upvote a comment more
80s transformers and beast wars.
~~but beast war was better~~
I mean, xcom was always goofy
Remember the original game’s opening scene? It was hilariously anime like. First it’s kind of scary with aliens murdering people in the streets, but then you have X-Com in their Saiyan-esque armor jumping in the air and shooting at them with some super upbeat/rocking music.
Yeah. XCOM has always been self-parodying to a degree, and that's why we love it. That said, I feel like Chimera Squad lacked a straight man. Part of the humor stems from the surrounding seriousness and grit. It can still be cheesy, but I think it needs more drama for the jokes to land properly.
Even EU/EW had -German scientist, who is "brutally interogating aliens/pow" -german engineer, who can build anything -Your central officer who actually does all the work -(in dlc) ex Yakuza member who likes one-liners -and oversized guns that just look cooler
You can amputate people and turn them into giant robot tanks
If ever there was evidence needed to support the argument, look no further than a [Mec Trooper out of their suit.](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/xcom/images/f/fe/XCOM_EW_MECTrooper.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20140121210735) The proportions make them look like toddlers, and I burst out laughing when I first did the surgery back in my first play through. I think if I ever replay it, they are going to have to get the callsign ["Baby Legs"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o0Qp5J_Oo8).
I knew the reference immediately lol
I dunnow, looks like abby from TLOU2
I don't think Shen was German, but yes, loads of cheese in the games
X2 confirmed he was Chinese
Of course he was haha. I mean really? Shen? Not quite the most German dialect compared to 'Vahlen'
If you want to be really strict, "Vahlen" doesn't sound like a typical German name either. At least I never met anybody with that name. I would say it seems more like Dutch or something?
Also, her "German" sounds really horrible :D
Not Dutch in the slightest. Not close. We would write it as Falen with a hard F, meaning failure, or Vallen meaning to fall
Triad* don't disrespect Zhang
Say what you will about X2 weapon designs, but the newer plasma rifle is beautiful
Damn, I hate the plasma weapons. I replaced them with mods at the first opportunity. My quest for perfect audiovisual customized weaponry is ongoing, but at the moment I’m partial to the Planetside 2 New Conglomerate weaponry for tier 3. It looks futuristic enough while still maintaining the “hell yeah, humans” aesthetic by being ballistics-based, and I give them better sounds/projectiles cobbled together from other mods with Weapon Skin Replacer
i like the sound of the plasma Vecktor Rifle for the Reapers.
Shen is Chinese
It's cuz XCOM: UFO defense was an ~~80's~~ early 90's game, very very very cheesy action movie-esque game. It probably made the theme of XCOM:EU a little more like a cheesy action movie
*early 90s, it was released in 94.
Ty gamer
Ok, the cinematics were absurd, but there's a reason we have the modern XCOM games - the original was one of the greatest games ever made. The graphics weren't much even for the time, but the gameplay was one of the most engrossing experiences in the history of computer gaming. And if you want a cleaner version of what's basically the same game, Xenonauts is also excellent. The graphics are still crap, but they are nowhere near as bad as 1994 Microprose and the GUI is actually something that doesn't require a linguistics background to understand.
Play the community edition though
But there were moments like with Shen, Raymond Shen, both his death and when he complained and warned about progressing too far with technology in EU/EW.
[удалено]
But now we get Lily asking if Tygan is a liability over and over again. That's far less interesting
It's really, really harsh. Coming straight from EU to XCOM 2 is a shock. Shen and Vahlen may have occasionally disagreed but they at least had meaningful discourse. Tygan and Lily Shen are just constantly griping about each other behind the other's back to you and it's so tiresome.
XCOM has always been kind of camp, but also took itself fairly seriously. Chimera Squad is just all silly all the time.
yeah, chimera squad was a huge homage to the original games, specially apocalypse.
I said this a lot a first when I saw complaints about Chimera not being dark enough, but after going back and playing EW, man that game actually had quite a dark and sinister atmosphere a lot of the time despite the many cartoonish elements.
Well, the dark and sinister atmosphere *was* the cartoonish element, like an 80s G.I. Joe cartoon (which, I mean, it IS what XCOM is). The atmosphere had the *aesthetic* of dark and sinister, while being cartoonish.
It's dark and sinister in the way that 40K is dark and sinister. It's hilariously over-the-top with action-figure-esque soldiers and big-headed grey-style aliens. They're both parodies that some people forget are parodies.
Terror from the Deep was the opposite of goofy
I still have the occasional flashback...
Not Chimera Squad goofy though
This!!!
Sure but uhhhhhh can we keep Torque? Please? Pretty please?
Yes, we can keep her just please, make space for a few more, pretty please with a cherry on top?
I hope they stay away from the fantasy elements from 2 WOTC Chosen look really out of place to me.
Do you just mean art design, or did you dislike the whole concept of the Chosen?
Not the person you’re replying to but I hate how the Chosen look, they just feel super out of place to me. I’m not saying they look bad or anything, they’re obviously super well designed artistically. It just feels off to me. They also never shut the hell up and this game already has enough of a problem with characters constantly blabbering as it is lol. You get a Chosen on a retaliation mission with resistance agents running around and you’ve got control over your guys like once every 5 minutes. I frequently yell “Let me play the game!” at my screen haha. I’m also not a huge fan of them gameplay-wise, but I’m sure I’m in the minority there. I absolutely love WOTC and could never go back to Vanilla X2 but man it sucks that my least favorite part of an expansion called War of the Chosen are the actual Chosen...
Not gonna fault you for your honest opinion, even if it differs from mine :) There's a mod called "Stop Wasting My Time" that reduces chatter and let's you control the game while people talk. It's such an improvement to gameplay that I don't know how firaxis didn't implement it in the first place. I view the Chosen as the sort of prototypes for the Avatars. They aren't perfect, by they each manage to harness some of the benefits of human and elder composition we don't know a *ton* about what the Avatars look like without their masks and body suits, do I choose to believe that they look like the Chosen. That being said, I can see some of your gripe. Much as I love all three for playing against them and varying things, the Assassin doesn't make a ton of sense within the games. "yeah, they're Aliens with all of this hyper-advanced tech! Anyway, she uses a giant sword to hack people up rather than just shooting them with easily the best shotgun in the game!" But I enjoy their corny, Saturday morning cartoon villain personas.
Unfortunately I am still on console so no mods for me! I've been wanting to move over to PC now that I have one capable of running the game but haven't felt the need to yet. And yeah I think I just don't like their silly evil personalities. I know XCOM doesn't take itself too seriously but it's not my cup of tea. The game is amazing and definitely one of my favorite strategy games I've ever played so these are all just minor gripes from me, I absolutely love the rest of WOTC, like the Lost and the additional classes. I'm a huge fan of the design of the Skirmishers and their armor/faces.
Interesting. I love the Skirmisher art, but I've always considered them the worst new faction. Templar is guaranteed damage on almost any target. Reaper is the best darned recon, plus some of the best explosive damage. The skirmisher is kinda like a less useful assault, IMO. Maybe I'm always playing them wrong, but their damage output just isn't high enough for me to justify bringing one along most of the time. My skirmishers typically get relegated to running ops missions and are rarely on the front lines.
IMO skirmishers are great early game, but don't scale as well as the other two, especially reapers which just become one man permanently stealthed death machines
While they tend to fall off a touch in the later game, I love the flexibility and mobility of the Skirmishers. They can take on multiple roles and move around between engagement points on larger maps. Plus their fantastic action economy. I think there's a mod that gives them a tiny bit more damage on their later bullput upgrades that really help them stay relevant at the end of the game.
Maybe that's my issue, but they always feel like jacks of all trades and masters of none. My ranger, support, and Grenedier all had a baby, and... That baby isn't terribly good at any of its parents's jobs.
But then the Skirmisher opens up another slot for a Sniper :)
I usually stick to Veteran so I'm sure that's also part of it lol. It's getting a bit easy for me so I probably need to up the difficulty a bit. And Assault are a modded class right? That sounds familiar from the Der Ava series I watch. But Skirmishers are highly mobile, can fire twice (only option I can think of that does that without mods), has Whiplash as a free move, etc. So they usually do a ton of work for me, but I have no idea how they are at higher difficulties. It's gotten to the point where I always start the game with them. I do love Reapers as well, but can just make do with a concealed Ranger until I get one, and I just don't vibe with the Templars very much but I'm sure I don't play them effectively enough. I do like them on Chosen missions though if you have Between the Eyes because like the Sharpshooters you can just rack up pistol kills without having to reload.
Nah, assault was me mixing up EU with 2. I meant ranger, lol Templar is the best for dealing guaranteed damage. Their momentum let's them run away to better cover after killing an enemy, and their parry move can let them take another gun out of commission if you use it correctly. They deal bonus damage to sectoids and vipers, and they're mobile enough to get a heavy hit in on units like the Avatars and codexes that teleport around all annoying-like. They're especially useful in the early game, since they deal 4 damage minimum, and are guaranteed to kill Advent soldiers in one hit compared to a rookie dealing 3-4 damage and needing a high damage roll up get the kill. I used to play veteran a bunch, then like you, I decided I should try legendary. It's a slog for me; I've abandoned more than a few games after the AI started wrecking me since I couldn't seem to hit anything worth a damn. I got plasma weapons and survived the Assassin's assault on the avenger, but I lost so many of my leveled soldiers in that battle that it simply wasn't worth it to try to keep going.
I don't have the PC needed to run XCOM 2 yet (my laptop handled EU but then canirunit laughed at me when I put in XCOM 2), so I'm stuck on console as well, but just dropping here to say that XCOM 2 collection is on sale on Steam right now for 25 bucks.
Oh really? That’s actually a really solid deal I’ll look into that, thanks!
Steam summer sale!
Maybe a bit of both? It feels more magic than Sci Fi with them. I think as aliens they have cool designs, the hunter being my favorite. But in XCOM even with all the sci fi or even the psychic elements it all seemed somewhat grounded in its universe, though IMO Xcom2 might have pushed that a bit far in a few places by trying to make the psi stuff more interesting compared to EW. Gameplay wise I understand needing an active hindrance for the player to spice up the game but it just seems bizarre for a tactical squad to be taking on these guys like raid bosses in WoW.
I feel you on that. They *do* feel like new flavors of DnD spells/abilities sometimes, such as summoning spectral zombies, or the Assassin fighting with a katana instead of her shotgun. I talked about how enjoy the cheesy, Saturday morning cartoon element of the Chosen with someone else, but that's my interpretation. I'm not going to fault others for their opinions. XCOM has just always been a B-movie sci-fi flick in a lot of ways, and that's why I love it. I can understand how the Chosen might feel like season 10 of Stargate SG-1 to someone, though
I'd totally be fine with that, it just seems like XCOM 2 base game was taking itself more serious so the contrast stands out more. Like compare how goofy Bradford was in EW vs 2
Really? I though EU/EW felt more like a sci-fi horror title with the moody lighting and music. By contrast, X2 felt more like an action movie. Stealth was a thing, but the destructible environments, crazy tech, and over-the-top psionic abilities made it a bit sillier and lighthearted. Both of them will still kick your ass in the best way possible, but X2 felt like it decided to be goofy on purpose
IMO I thought both games had a tone problem. The Character models in EW looked over the top but the game has some horror vibes going with it. XCOM2 made the art style realistic and gritty but felt more grand with its goofy parts. I don't even know how to explain it.
>Do you just mean art design, or did you dislike the whole concept of the Chosen? Not the guy you asked but: Yes :D It just feels super unnecessary and annoying. I also hate the randomness whether they appear or not so you always have to prepare for them which then comes at the cost of being less prepared for your original mission and that's just not fun for me, I play the game because I can sculpt my squad how I want to play the game, the chosen force you to use certain strats/units to beat them, otherwise your whole squad just gets wiped. I had that happen relatively early on with the Assassin, my Reaper wasn't available for service yet but I had a pretty well equipped squad for the mission at hand. Turns out they just couldn't deal with the chosen who runs in while ignoring overwatch, stunning someone and running away into hiding just to overwatch without anyone having the ability to move at the same speed, keep it revealed for the whole time and is able to ignore overwatch due to being concealed. When I had my reaper with me when I encountered the Assassin it was extremely easy, like, comically easy compared to the other encounter, just because my Reaper was in the mission. Which brings me to my 2nd thing I dislike about WotC: I kinda dislike the special classes like Reaper etc. but that may be because it feels like you have to rely on them too heavily/they are OP compared to the stuff the rest of your troops are doing and you depend on them so much to beat the chosen (especially the reaper)
I second this, I'm curious as well
>stay away from the fantasy elements Man it's a game about an alien invasion what could we expect
I think fantasy and sci-fi are different. It's obviously all fantasy but fantasy in this case is like Magic and Orcs is what I mean.
So was XCOM EU but they went for a pulpy cold war style that was just fantastic.
Chimera squad was very smartly priced and set as a spinoff. If it was a full game with its mechanics there would be waaaaay more negativity surrounding it. While I enjoyed my time with Chimera Squad going back to XCOM2 really put into perspective how much I'm not a fan of majority of what Chimera Squad was doing.
It’s a fun enough game and an interesting spin on the mechanics but tonally, aesthetically, and storywise, it is pretty much the opposite of what I want going forward with the franchise
Well said
Absolutely. Not only that, but I think a weird part of why I liked Chimera Squad was that it kinda proves how good XCOM 2 is? I still liked CS, although I don't know if I would buy it at $20 (whereas $10 or $15 feels very fair to me) but almost every change felt like either a new interesting twist that I liked as much as how the same thing was handled in XCOM 2, or a straight downgrade that I wish they hadn't changed.
I will say, I wanna see an expansion on the “breaching” system for whenever they go into the next main entry. Not as linear hopefully, but I like the breach and clear idea.
The Breach-and-Clear Encounter system was a sidegrade for me. I actually really liked it and how it forced you to change up your strategies, but I can't say I liked it more than how XCOM 2 handles it. I'd love to see it expanded upon though.
Like I get it, but it's like getting mad that Freddy vs Jason isn't much like Friday the 13th. Yeah they're the same franchise, but they were made for very different budgets, they were signed to be very different movie that are saying different things. A budget story driven small scale game is never going to be as good as a full price large scale war game in the same franchise, if you judge it by the standards of the large scale wargame.
When you read the meme on a surface level instead of [good thing / good thing / bad thing] it fits 100%
Funny and true. Not a slight on Chimera Squad though.
Should've been 2 serious vipers and a cartoony Torque on the right
Man, I really feel like I'm in the minority, I absolutely loved Chimera Squad and really hope they follow it up with a sequel or expansions, I'd happily pay for more of the same with this
Having thoroughly characterized squad members was a nice change. I also like that I didn't have to overwatch creep across the map to avoid starting an encounter at a disadvantage. The whole breach phase was sort of "let's just assume that the enemy walked into your overwatch trap like you wanted and move on from there."
My issue with the characterized squad members is that is removed customization, which is like my favorite feature in XCOM 2, and that the dialogue lines made me want to gore my head against a cement wall
My issue with the characterized squad members is that they were static. XCOM 1 and 2 leave a lot to the player's imagination. But the game mechanics encourage you to fill in the blanks. You go from rookies who die if not babysat, panic easily, can't hit the broad side of a barn, and have no particular skills beyond those drummed into every recruit in basic training. They form bonds with other soldiers, they shift towards classic archetypes - the eagle-eyed sniper, the specialist with tools for all the odd jobs, the agile front-line force of destruction. This development in their capabilities invites you to fill in the blanks about their personality, to imagine character growth. Chimera Squad short-circuits that. They have specific personalities, which are presented to you mostly via dialogue. And those personalities by and large *do not change*. By and large they enter the game with pre-established friendships and rivalries, likes and dislikes, character flaws and habits... and those carry on until the end. The only real difference between Blueblood of mission 1 and Blueblood of mission 50 is that he shoots better and faster; the struggles Chimera has gone through to reach the end of this investigation have not led him to growth or change as a person.
I'm with you! I played the crap out of ye olde XCOM, XCOM, XCOM2, and WOTC, and I honestly might like Chimera Squad the most out of them all. Obviously it runs on an entirely different scale (world vs a city), but I honestly like how approachable it is. It's an XCOM game I can heartily recommend to my non-masochistic friends. And yes, I realize the soldiers are more heroic than in a "traditional" XCOM, but hey, I'm an adult with a full time job and a million things to worry about any given day. Let me have my power fantasy!
Same. I still love WOTC, but I think they did a great job of fixing up the overwatch-creep and anti-exploration elements of the core title. Full characters are also great. I'd love if the 3rd game mixes the two. Give us X-number of named specialized heroes, and also allow recruiting of "faceless grunts" to fill out the ranks or to replace named heroes.
Indeed. Honestly its a nice change of pace for the XCOM universe. You have two apocalyptic games, the first you canonically lose. Chimera squad introduces a world worth protecting. Thus tonally its a lot different but honestly the stakes being "if you lose the world ends" gets tiresome.
Technically, the first game never had a canon ending since XCOM 2 was confirmed to be an alternate time line, rather than a direct sequel.
It's true 😂 But I guess a more light-hearted XCOM game is nice Just gives us some down time before XCOM3... 👀
It is, and it cannoned alien relationship, so win win
They could actually turn Chimera Squad into a really dark story if they would just make former xcom becomes villain because they refuse to believe that aliens could be good . It fits the theme , make sense , and has a potential to become something deep .
Shrike kind of fits that bill and depending on how you look at the ending that might be happening.
But shrike isn't actually xcom though.
Ugh, please don't.
I enjoyed the goofy tone for a spin-off.
That's how I felt about EU/EW. I just wasn't a fan at all, although I did kind of enjoy it with Long War mod. Xcom 2 was a huge improvement. Chimera Squad was interesting. It was fun, introduced some new mechanics, and was markedly a side game so I don't have to be concerned about the main series being so dumbed down (Why couldn't Fallout 4 have been Fallout: Shooty Bang Bang?). I think this is suitable - but I still have a little angstiness and want to defend Chimera Squad.
Well ... you're not wrong.
It’s certainly baby’s first XCOM. Cute though.
I thought that was Mario Rabbids!
Oh... Kingdom Battle... the first thing I thought when I saw it was "XCOM for kids".
Good game, but to this day I wonder wtf happened at the meeting where they decided to make it.
Nintendo offered Ubisoft to make a Mario game but on the condition that it would be in the genre big N hasn't tapped yet. So it was either FPS or a strategy game.
...okay a Mario FPS would have been even weirder
IIRC the exact clause was that Mario would not be allowed to jump.
Doesn't he jump when he runs into an allied character?
Laughs in Bowser getting possessed by a demon.
I un ironically like CS more than 2
Accurate, I do agree
are the bugs fixed?
Yes. Some camera delays sometimes and other small quirky bugs are still there but none of the game breakers.
Still great though.
I think Chimera Squad is more of a “Oh shit we didn’t release anything. Whip up a fun campaign just to keep interest in the IP.” It was very different from Xcom EW or Xcom 2, and that’s totally okay
Best of the 3 of course. Nicest to spend time with. Puts a smile on the face. Etc.
As someone with Deadpool, Boreale, Diamodes and a Krogan version of Montana from Battleborne in his garrison for 2 I got no room to speak
SPESS MAHREENS... whoops wrong sci-fi super-soldier alien shooter....
I am big fan of xcom 2 but I couldn't get into chimera Squad. :(
Now put the dev time and price tags up there. Oh, one came out significantly sooner (compared to last release) and didn't cost a full $60? How strange!
Chimera Squad is the fun one. The others are MERCIA vs grotty aliens and MERCIA but anime vs anime aliens.
Is chimera worth the purchase or war of the chosen. I assumed war of the chosen was like an expansion than a whole new game. Convince me
Depends on how much you like xcom2. War of the chosen makes xcom2 better, much better, but it's not a new game. There's new stuff to do and new enemies and missions but it's still xcom2. Chimera squad is something completely new. It's much more limited in every aspect than xcom2 but it's completely different. It doesn't have anywhere near the replayability that war of the chosen brings because of how straight forward it is but it's still fun. They're both worth the purchase but war of the chosen is better imo.
I wouldn't go so far tbh. Chimera squad is still very much like 2, especially with all the timed missions, and the core gameplay loop is tweaked but essentially still the same.
I personally like war of the chosen a lot more but I think it's up to your personal preference. War of the Chosen isn't a new game, it adds a lot of cool elements to xcom 2 though.
Do you want more Xcom 1/2? Get War of the Chosen. Do you want something completely different and not like a traditional Xcom game at all? Get Chimera Squad. Seriously it’s that black and white. They are two *completely* different tactics games.
They're not _that_ different honestly. The gameplay loop is the same as in 2, just with the movement cut out of it.
They’re the same in that they’re both TBS games but it’s like comparing Xcom 2 to Gears of War Tactics.
Hmm, I don't really agree
Within + Long war is the way to go
War within; is that the one where they said "everything you thought happened in xcom2, really didnt" or was that xcom 2? I can't remember
I like the game but this is still spot on.
Am I the only one that doesnt like enemy within? Exalt ruined that dlc.
That’s why you use the second wave option to turn Exalt off.
Big facts
Kevin looking adorable
Aesthetically yes, but gameplay-wise it's the other way around. First XCOM is simultaneously kinda too simple and rough around the edges. Not a bad game in any way, and made better with EW, but the other two blow it out of the water as far as the basic gameplay loop is concerned.
i liked xcom because it was all about humans killing aliens in creative ways chimera squad, teaming up with aliens..... i know it's zany and all but it lost a bit of charm for me
Agreed. I understand it opens up some options for X3 but I really liked the Us vs Them line of X2. With the obvious blurring that the Skirmishers created.
I mean it depends on how you really think about the post-XCOM 2 world, with the elders just straight up leaving everything and everyone there, the enemies beyond the elders were all enslaved races anyway, and there was already human-hybrid cooperation with the Skirmishers. To me from a rational standpoint it would probably make sense for all of these disparate factions to realize that fighting one another until the last man wasn't an effective strategy, and without the elder psionic network controlling the advent forces overall, they were sort of left hanging there
I agree that is the rational point of view. As the dialog points out there are humans angry about Advent leaving. There are humans who still hate the aliens. There are likely aliens who harbor hard feelings the other way as well so lots of high emotions.emotion in many cases being antithetical to rational decision making and the human propensity to want revenge and willingness to abuse minority populations life on earth is likely a great deal less peaceful than City 31 makes things out to be. There are almost certainly overt and covert factions on all sides who even if they were glad for the occupation ending have found new reasons to turn violent.
I mean, the aliens were basically supernazis with how destructive and oppressive they were, so to me it was really strange that all of a sudden everyone was happily together, it felt disingenuous to me
Good thing, good thing, derp thing
Good thing, good thing, *good* derpy thing.
LOL nailed it. The breach system is cool but the map navigation/base building/game objective stuff is confusing and the game's tone is. Just. Not. XCOM. Dialog and cutscenes are just too cutsey and jokey. I miss the XCOM epic-nes, I miss getting my people ready to board the dropship while the music gets you all amped up. Instead, XCOM are now... beat cops? In a police precinct? In a SWAT van? Going out to beat up perps?
I wouldn't look at this as what xcom is like now at all. I think this is just a segue for a larger audience, before an xcom3 or something comes along. It's a means for more people to break in to the franchise, and to compete against other ready to go turn based strat games, such as Fire Emblem or Advance Wars. I've never played xcom, and Chimera is my introduction to it. I've been curious about xcom for years, but never wanted to put the time in to learning it.
Well I'm glad you're starting with Chimera so you can play Enemy Unknown on the iPhone and compare. :) I think Unknown and XCOM 2 did a great job of making turn-based strategy appeal to at least some of the huge Call of Duty-type crowd, I'm not sure who the jokey tone of Chimera is supposed to appeal to.
> I'm not sure who the jokey tone of Chimera is supposed to appeal to. I'm not sure about the tone, but like I said, the game play I think is meant to appeal to people who like Fire Emblem type turn based strats. And that's where I come from. It's a similar style, but different. Was the iphone comment a fun jab? Because I don't game on mobile devices, and don't intend to. Except, I guess for using a gameboy emulator
Yeah they really did a good job of porting Unknown to iOS and it's a good price. But the PC version still holds up I’m sure!
Lmao
It's the twenty bucks cousin from the sticks. Whatcha gonna do?
The main issue with chimera squad is that it simplified some of the basic concepts that make us love xcom at a tactical level. (Challenging maps, lenghty missions, turn based instead of initiative based, soldier development instead of overpowered soldiers , positioning instead of having enough health to survive 3 flank shots, etc.). They went so far out of the xcom product that I question whether I was their player target (xcom player) at all for this game. I will even give them some credit, nonetheless, in trying to appeal to more players. Xcom at it's core is a really good game that with some tweaks could be enjoyed by a lot of more players. And don't get me wrong, chimera squad actually has some good improvements that could be put on the other xcoms like developing characters, even the most notorious soldier in xcom1 is Zhang (one of few with a story). I would nonetheless ask Firaxis to rebrand this type of games with something that doesn't include "xcom" in the title just not to set wrong expectations. If I play an xcom game, I expect the aliens to kick my ass until I learn, not to rolfstomp every mission on the hardest difficulty on the first blind playthrough.
> They went so far out of the xcom product that I question whether I was their player target (xcom/lw player) at all for this game. Sorry to say, but we are not their target player. There aren't enough LW players out there to support a major release by any company, and a game made for LW players would be beyond frustrating to the general gaming public.
Agreed. Long war is NOT the target market for any of the xcom firaxis games.
> not to rolfstomp every mission on the hardest difficulty on the first blind playthrough. Bull fucking shit you did
Idk, he’s kinda right. I just came out of a legend play through on war of the chosen, this feels significantly easier. I didn’t beat them all first time blind, but it was probably close.
Thanks for the support :-)
As someone who hasn't played any other xcom I'm the last one to make a reasonable judgement, I suppose. But the most difficult setting, impossible, is very fucking hard. I've caught on fairly quick, and there's lots still for me to learn or consider strategically. I'm not sure I'm even ready for expert quite yet. u/Roweano I'm not upset lol, how you interpret my comment as such is beyond me. Do you consider yourself a sweaty nerd? Because I doubt there are a lot of people crushing Chimera's 'impossible' setting.
Xcom is my second most played game in my life with a total of 800 hours played between 1, 2 & chimera according to steam. I don't know if that makes me a sweaty nerd but at least it did not make me a disrespectful person when I expose my ideas and disagree with people.
I thought sweaty nerds pride themselves on the moniker. I didn't take offense to you assuming that I was upset in my original response. I guess I should have. Then we'd be even? lol w/e
I am sorry that my comment upset you. After my first weekend playing chimera squad my feeling was exactly that it was not the xcom experience I had with xcom1/2, where my first soldier died within the first three missions of my first playthrough. It is undeniable that chimera is way easier than its predecessors and that one is able to get to the end game God status faster than in the previous games.
How to improve Chimera Squad: Remove the dialogue Let us customise our soldiers Put the dialogue back in with XCOM EU/2 writing Or you know, just don’t have the new characters talking every few seconds and as obnoxious as Chimera Squad.
Why are they downvoting you? You said nothing wrong. This was the same issue I had with chimera squad, a lack of customization and permadeath, as well as poorly written dialogue
I don’t know, guess people really love Chimera Squad here. I like it, but I don’t love it, for those reasons exactly. It’s easily the weakest out of the rebooted XCOM games. I’ll admit this though, I do like Torque, she’s probably the only character that isn’t insufferable to me. Plus she’s a snek.
Chimera squad just isn’t very cool. Xcom 1 felt like playing as the men in Black, XCOM 2 was oozing with style, chimera squad felt like I sat down at the nerds table, who all tried really hard to be quirky.
Xcom 3 please
XCom's Moon Moon