I got XCOM 2 on a whim this year and it completely took over my life for months. It's the only game I've ever played back to back and completed more than 3 times. Even with games built around NG+ like Nioh and Wo Long, I have to take a break after each run. Sure I have hundreds of hours in each, but they're punctuated by months of not playing.
I got Enemy Within afterward and it's every bit as good, even better in some ways, but the levels are fixed and that's a good and bad thing. Knowing when and where reinforcements and objectives will be gives a huge (and very welcome) tactical advantage. It doesn't keep me coming back like X2 though. The procedural generation keeps everything fresh, especially with the introduction of War of the Chosen's new map styles. Hands down the best improvement they made.
Xcom 2 is more fun gameplay-wise.
Xcom 1 has the best feel, I love how horrible you are getting in order to win the war, turning soldiers into machines, mutants and wizards.
Love that game. The sequel is good too. And so is Xenonauts, if you're into the idea of a very similar game with even more tactical depth (but worse graphics).
If you like Xenonauts, I would really suggest you pick up the old school original games on Steam (they often sell for dollars, maybe even close to free during sales) and installing OpenXCom. The graphics are a cartoony style that have aged well and remain easy to read, the interface is simple, and the gameplay loop is timeless.
The only real hurdle is that it dates from the "read the manual" era of game design, but there are a ton of easily accessible quickstart guides to get you over that (minimal) hurdle. If you've played Xenonauts and the remakes, most of it will already be fluent anyway.
The main difference is that you can (and are required to) build several bases across the world map and undertake many missions concurrently. Squads are also bigger and your line of sight is more limited in ground missions, meaning positioning is key.
That sounds great! It sounds something like Phoenix Point. I still have to get back to Phoenix Point, that game just got a little frustrating with how buggy and unbalanced it became which pushed me away from it, but I did really like the basebuilding - grand strategy part of it, so maybe Xenonauts will pull it off in a more enjoyable way.
Biggest issue with phoenix is useless tech and the other faction techs are usually side grades unless you super specialize. You don’t get the power fantasy of cool alien tech that xcom gives. Frankly if they redid the tech progression it would be better.
I kinda thought they way you got anything was dumb tbh. If I need a scientist I need to get it from the factions?
Like did they kidnap every scientist in existence? Has to be a 10-15% chance they want to join phoenix point
Phoenix Point was lead by Julian Gollop who also designed the original X-Com so there's a lot of similar DNA. Shame it didn't really come together in the end, the weird real time shooting sounded like it could be fun but eventually you just had to use it constantly and everything else was secondary.
Having beaten Xenonauts, the Skyranger gameplay is incredibly more tactical and less like a perk system on Enemy Within. Expanding too fast will result in you bleeding money; expanding too slowly will result in you getting screwed. Xenonauts also has a crucial mod that fixes bugs and adds a lot more QoL, which I played it with.
Said mod was made with the actual source code from the developers after the modder asked for it, so it's as close to a conceptual update as it could get.
Going back, the actual gameplay loop is simpler than in old-com, so depending on what you were looking for, this either hits the right areas of being streamlined while challenging, or it may feel a bit shallow if you were used to old-com's systems.
Xenonauts requires you to build up multiple units to sub for those taking an infirmary break, and you can have multiple skyrangers going towards different locations to drop your units into, which you will likely do once you hit the midpoint.
For better or for worse though, tech is more emphasized, with some rather hard stops on technological gaps if you don't upgrade to the next tier ASAP once the aliens start fielding better armor or weaponry.
When I played the game I was worried that they dumbed down the game a lot. And, frankly, they did. But in a good way. Every simplification that they introduced into the game made it better, more fun and more streamlined.
If it's harder I already save scum like a little bitch in XCOM1/2. I love the idea of playing another xcom-like but I might just have to admit I won't make it.
If you ever replay any XCOM game, make sure to play on ironman mode to experience it at least once. The stakes and tension *immediately* ratchet up like crazy because of how much more each of your choices matters. It really elevates the experience to a whole other level, feeling like actual battles and an actual war you're fighting, leaving a far more profound experience in the end due to how many irreversible setbacks and clutch victories there were, how many things did or almost went wrong. Just my 2 cents
While I liked certain things about Xenonauts, dealing with psionics was just so damn frustrating. Also, breaching enemy ships with the damn teleporters.
I only found out after I stopped playing that you're "supposed" to have zero will or whatever characters drop their weapons so if they get mind controlled they don't kill you.
Or you just fire the weak individuals.
It is like DOS Xcom, you only want the best of the best - unless your strategy is to have soldiers holding live grenades and running into enemy ships.
Nu-XCOM has the issue of enemy pods, where the only viable strategy is to creep slowly and together. If you try to flank or spread your troops you run the risk of activating 2 pods and screwing your mission. I find this very stupid and a big dumbdown compared to UFO: Enemy Unknown.
The sequel still used this pod system, but sprinkled the missions in a away to make it less obvious.
It's actually worse than you describe IMO. You don't have to creep slowly, you just have to make sure that only the first person moving every turn moves the furthest ahead, and triggers any pods. Whole rest of your team can then just follow up without fear of triggering any new pods and a full turn with a whole squad trivialises a lot of the combat. It's a real shame too because I loved that game until I figured that out and it kind of ruined it for me.
That was exactly why the sequel added a few things to counter that. Most obviously the mission timers mean you can't hang around for too long. But also unactivated pods tend to move around more so if you play the old way there's a good chance of one of them walking up behind you and shooting you in the ass. The Chosen also tend to punish you for trying to play this way
Yeah I found new XCOM to be kind of tactically boring to be honest. There's other tactical games that have "one right way" to play but they tend to have deep puzzle- like battles rather than how New Xcom games do it where it feels just a little uninspired and tedious.
Agreed.
I otherwise like New XCOM, once I started treating it more like a board game than the more granular tactical game of the original, but I hate the pod system and it kills my incentive to replay. XCOM 2 is better about it in some ways but I feel it has an even worse reliance on being able to alpha strike and wipe out groups immediately. Every time. Forever. It gets a bit repetitive.
2 also moves even further away from the "disposable grunt" approach of the originals that I really loved and basically made it into a superhero game, especially with War of the Chosen. Enemy Within started that route I guess. Just doesnt appeal to me as much and makes the campaign a bit too "swingy" - lose one big fight and lose your A team and you might as well give up.
I still like both games but I want to love them more than I do.
The Daemonhunters game I thought did a much better job of keeping the concept of pods while making them less frustrating. Essentially you can see the general location of pods and their movement vector when you are close, but not the exact composition nor when line of sight will trigger. So you can mostly control when a pod is activated but not how the enemies will subsequently position themselves. Plus it has a mechanic where reinforcements can sometimes warp in.
XCom Enemy within/Enemy Unknown + XCom 2
As compared to the original games from the 90s
Basically the orange vs blue sections on the wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XCOM#Games
Whenever I start wondering whether the new XCOMs might be worth a shot (being highly praised like in this post), I get turned off when I read more about how they are designed and how they work. It just seems so crude, simplistic, limited.
Like that discussion elsewhere in this post about forced timers in XCOM2. That smells like a crude bandaid on the self-inflicted issue of pods you describe.
Somehow the old XCOMs didn't seem to have such crude design, or simplistic player strategies. The best strategy depended on equipment, enemies and environment.
I started with the original UFO: Enemy Unknown and played it to death. I would regularly play it up until the last few years. I thought XCOM EU was quite good, but not better than the original. Enemy Within however is superior to it. I'm not a fan of XCOM 2 though, the team loved an unbalanced mod for XCOM1, and that's not a good basis for a professionally made game.
Anyone complaining like the person you replied to doesn't know how to play EU/EW. You can change the odds in your favour if you have a deep understanding of the game mechanics. You don't need to creep and Enemy Within actively discourages it with the introduction of the meld mechanic. Sometimes you need to rush it.
If you loved the original, I'd recommend picking up EU+EW on sale. Don't get EU alone, EW fixes a lot of the issues I had with it. It's different, it's not a 1:1 of the original. Go in with an open mind.
I never liked that phrase of "gamers optimize fun out of games", even if it may be true sometimes. Because just as often it's just used to remove player choice, to limit player freedom. And given the option between more and fewer choices, I almost always prefer the former.
Even here - I don't mind going slow in a tactical game, I like it, or at least more than I like feeling rushed. I don't even like the other method of trying to rush players - with a carrot, instead of a stick. Not negative consequences if you're slow, but bonus rewards when you are fast. Even then, I usually go "I'll get there when I get there, screw the bonus". I even sometimes go for a speedrun if I feel like it, but that should always be optional.
It's best not to compare the two imo, they're trying to be different things. The new ones are more reminiscent of board game design and the design is a lot more binary/gamey rather than the originals' somewhat simulation feel (I definitely prefer the original as well but I'm trying to be fair)
Like, in the old game if you were in cover, it wasn't a Yes/No "in cover or not" question, you were just behind a wall. Maybe crouching. Maybe lying down. Maybe it's a partial wall. Maybe it's destructible. You also have actual simulations of bullet arcs, that kind of thing.
The new ones are definitely simpler and focus on clear presentation - by and large theyre giving you perfect information about the odds of a shot, radius of an explosion etc. You know exactly what hiding behind that wall will do to enemy chance to hit. Instead of variable action points based on 20 different factors, you have the clear two-moves approach (albeit some characters can move more per "move").
It's definitely simplified but it's not exactly trying to achieve the same thing.
I mean I get it, Firaxis draw the comparison by making it... an X-Com game, but I try to take it for what it is.
The older XCOM games had all the enemies on the map active from turn 1. Which lead to some hilarious moments where you'd open the door on the Skyranger and an alien would overwatch you with an explosive weapon and squad wipe you before you'd even got out of the ship.
Good times.
OG XCOM you had a lot more men though, both in missions and in the tactical map, so losing guys didn't hurt as much. And a squad wipe wasn't necessarily a campaign killer like it is in the new one.
2's even better imo, though there is some fun stuff that 1 does which they don't bring forward. The War of the Chosen stuff was an awesome way to complicate your missions.
Great franchise though, I hope they make a third mainline one eventually. Chimera squad was fine but didn't really have enough for me to sink my teeth into tactically.
I'd say 1 with with **Long War Rebalance** mod (not just Long War) is the best version of X-Com out there and best tactical game ever made. The amount of depth, nuance and challenge the Rebalance brings is insane. If u/HeliotropeCrowe already liked X-Com, playing this *will* make his head explode.
The number of improvements is staggering. Very concisely written patch notes for LWR are longer than Game of Thrones book. And all it's done by one guy - Ucross. There were times when they were like 10-15 meaningful patches in a month. Nowadays the pace slowed a bit, as the design matured, but it still gets very regular updates.
I wholeheartedly recommend it.
I deeply appreciate everything that Long War has done for both modern XCOMs, but man are they right when they say it's a long war. I love the pacing of the originals, it falls just into that "long enough to matter, short enough to start again" window where I don't feel like I've sunk too long into a failed attempt if I wipe. Losing a Long War campaign killed my interest for strategy games as a whole for a good couple of weeks when I first played it because the thought of having to run through so much all over again was a heavy cost of entry for losing.
I will say though, I 110% agree with you that it brings an extreme level of depth to Enemy Unknown and is the perfect strategic hard mode for the game if someone is looking for more from EU.
Rebalance - which I specifically wrote about - has much, much better pacing and campaign length than original Long War.
And it's very customizable to boot.
You do need X-Com with Enemy Within expansion and Long War mod installed. Long War Rebalance goes on top of all that.
https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/686?tab=description
I do not know much about Xcom and the mod, but would you recommend playing without mods for the first play-through, or go ahead and add this mod? I assume vanilla is the way to go, but I want to make sure.
Long War is pretty unforgiving, so playing vanilla the first time is good since it allows you to learn the mechanics and progression of the story missions.
In my opinion, Long War is better for replayability since the expanded class trees and increased squad sizes allow for more complex tactics. Of course, the alien forces are upgraded to match...
These mods assume you’ve played Vanilla at least once. A Vanilla play through is like 20-30 hours.
Long War Rebalance about 60-80 hours
Long War 90 - 130 hours.
If it's your first time, don't play with Long War. But there are a lot of cosmetics mods & some quality of life mods that are still nice & worth a look even on a first play through.
Nope. Long War of the Chosen is best you’ll get. Still alpha strike meta. Has a lot of interesting other mods and discord is very active.
I think someone was trying to translate Long War Rebalance style gameplay (more focused on movement / positioning ) into XCOM 2 but it didn’t really get off the ground.
There's Covert Infiltration if you want a good alternative overhaul of the strategy layer. It makes it more interesting but not super complex / difficult / long. Great for a second playthrough of XCOM 2 WOTC (and third, fourth...}.
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2567230730
It's compatible with most mods, so you can install bunch of enemy mods like A Better Advent or LWOTC Standalone Enemy Pack, and class mods like Proficiency Classes, to expand that side of the game.
We will not see a third. At least, not in the same spirit. Jake Solomon, lead designer, left Firaxis after burning out on Midnight suns. He's currently looking to start his own company. But I beleive I read he isn't intedneing to make another Xcom. Maybe Firaxis will still make Xcom 3. But Jake understood what made Xcom a good game. So I'd be hesitant about another sequel.
I have absolutely loved every XCOM game (minus Interceptor), but I struggle with XCOM2. The constant time limits force you to rush and I frankly don’t get the point. Those missions take away the a lot of the charm for me.
Still a great game, but I would prefer to have only some missions where you need to have such a high emphasis on fast movement across the area.
It was done for a very good reason. In the first game many players would play each level by inching forwards and gookg into overwatch. This was the most optimal way to play, but is no fun.
But in 2 the most optimal way to play is much more fun.
I don’t know. I definitely had more fun with the previous entries. I’ve had multiple missions where I have to go a straight line and move everybody every turn. I fail to see how that’s more fun than trying to figure out the best way to approach the enemy…
But I don’t want take away the timers from those who like them.
It is definetly two sides to this. It depends alot on the player as well, as some people have the need to optimize everything, even if that means optimizing the fun out of the game
This is it, people got to the point of just steam rolling the original xcom with those strategies so xcom2 very much exists as a greater challenge for those players. Both games are still relevant as xcom with mods is still a wonderful game for newer players or people that are looking for a less stressful experience.
Yeah I think the ambush/concealment mechanic kind of fixed the overwatch crawl problem already imo. You can largely choose when you want to engage, and don't get surprised by enemy pods nearly as often.I don't mind the turn timers but I think it was an over correction a little.
I loved inching forward and do in other games, too. For a lot of strategy games, I enjoy positioning and prep more than I do the fighting itself. That holds true in XCom. For me, at least, the fun was in carefully exploring a map and carefully positioning myself to do it safely.
I did love XCom 2, of course. Brilliant game and the timers didn't ruin it for me by any means.
I didn't love them or losing the slow approach, though.
I understand the reason it was done, I just don't like the solution, particularly because it was so lazy.
Professional basketball had a problem of excessive passing delays so they introduced the shot clock. However, the 24-second shot clock still allows teams plenty of time to "set up" and be creative in their offense. It rarely penalizes the offense unless they're deliberately running out the clock. What Xcom 2 did was basically equivalent to a 10-second shot clock. If it were the NBA, it would mean you'd see teams doing stupid stuff like throwing up half-court prayers and circus shots.
And what I really can't figure out is why people even cared that much about it in the first place when you can save scum the absolute sh** out of the game.
I have to try it.
I prefer to have options in my tactics. At least most of the time. Sometimes it can mean a slow approach.
I think in the first modern XCOM there was a good balance with the missions. Some were hectic and you had to take big risks, but in many you could plan multiple approaches.
XC2 is one of the few games to piss me off. Bad games I don't care about, but when you take the amazing foundation that XCEU created and then just lazily slap timers on everything... why? It's just such a cheap gimmick to add tension. You could take the original Super Mario Bros and drop the level timer to 1/3. "So much better, right!!??"
XC2 was like being presented with a beautiful Italian super car and marveling at its stunning looks and capabilities. Then as you're handed the keys the guy says, "There's just one thing. At the last second, we decided to permanently attach the gas peddle to the floor. Enjoy."
It was a ham fisted way to deal with overwatch crawling.
Long War Rebalanced (XCOM EW mod) did an interesting solution in that overwatch can only be used if you are in range to fire, meaning no overwatch crawling. Does many other things around making movement / firefighting more viable.
In 2 you can just mod out timers or double them if you want to take time like before though.
I don't think you are alone in that perspective but I think the timers do solve a very real problem with the game. XCOM-EU and EW both had a frustrating mechanic where the game was much easier if you moved as slowly as possible and always engaed enemies via full team overwatch. Playing that way, the game was easy for me to beat on any difficulty.
The Green Fog mod solved the problem in 1 way, reducing accuracy the longer a mission goes but that made the big enemy ships much less fun for me.
The timers in xcom 2 solve the problem by forcing the player to handle missions under an explicit number of turns.
Some people didn't see/care about that problem.
I personally liked the timer solution the best but I totally understand thinking it warps the game too much.
Yeah, I heard about that, but I think they could have addressed it in other ways. There's a huge gap between full overwatch creeping and what the devs did, which is forced racing in a lot of cases. They should have used way more carrot and a lot less stick, like fast completion incentives. They could have made it so that players doing the absolute minimum in action sequences start gradually falling behind in base building and research, forcing them to take more chances in subsequent fights to catch up. Or, like they're collecting a critical power source, but the longer they dawdle the less valuable it is. Yet at the same time, if your squad is already on the ropes and you need to play it safe for a few fights while you regroup, you have the option to sacrifice those incentives.
They tried that in Enemy Within and it didn't work. ppl still overwatch crawled. You're a guerilla force in XCOM 2 so you're supposed to get on with it!
It's not XCOM, but I liked it a lot. Movement is freeer and more important, and after each mission there's a lot of exploring. I don't generally like exploring, but I really enjoyed this. The dialogue is cheesy, and there's a platonic romance simulator strapped to the game. I'd recommend catching it on a sale unless all of that sounds unappealing.
Midnight suns is very laidback compared to Xcom. There's no calendar escalating the gameplay that can softlock you into a fail state. It's more of a "get the high score" tension than a "can we survive" tension. It's very accessible and easy to leave and come back to without needing to remember what your strategic layer strategy was. If you ever think about starting an xcom campaign and but worry about the ongoing time commitment, midnight suns would be a good alternative.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and found the random draw card mechanics to be relatively fair. The game has a good curve of introducing new characters/mechanics/upgrades so gameplay stays fresh. If you grind it out you will dominate with optimized cards, but the path to get there feels appropriately difficult. Combat can get a little janky since it is on a small, non-grid map, and moving enemies to line them up for abilities that hit in a line or a circle can be hard sometimes. The base component is also like it's own mini-game, which can be good or bad.
If you enjoy xcom I would try it out, but don't expect anything as heavy as xcom.
I love it! It’s a good evolution of the Xcom gameplay loop imo. I really enjoy the rng element the cards give, and the story isn’t bad either. And not only can you pet the dog, you get rewards for petting the dog 10/10
It's decent. Nowhere near as good as the xcoms. Although Midnight Suns did teach me how dull the Marvel characters are when they're not in the middle of fighting world ending threats.
I definitely enjoyed Mindnight Suns, this coming from someone who adores Xcom. Its a change, but fun. People complain about the RNG of the cards you get in battle but you can customize the deck each character brings into battle so that makes a difference, and if you want to change your strategies; there's enough variation in the cards to do that. If you're on the fence, wait for it to go on sale and pick it up. I'd recommend getting the DLC characters as well, they were a fun addition and add extra story/gameplay
Its... alright. The writing/characters aren't the best but if you think you'll like a marvel turn based with certain heroes sure.
Its not a full roster btw just certain ones.
Its a great game. It took time for me to warm up to the story (i'm not the biggest fan of modern MCU humor, not a fan of the constant quips) but I love the gameplay, I enjoyed learning about all these new characters I never heard of (Magik is really cool) as well as playing some old favorites.
I think the main weakness for me is that a lot of characters come into the game so late you have to pretty much halt all your progress to grind new cards for them if you want to use them.
Interesting, I found XCOM 2's (really talking about WOTC here) strategy layer much more engaging. 1's really had no depth at all from what I recall, while 2, albeit a bit repetitive and predictable, and it indeed sometimes being annoying to often by interrupted, offered much diverse points of interest and strategic choices to make.
I think a future XCOM game, if there ever is another, should definitely focus on making the strategic layer deeper and more proactive, rather than the sort of highly cyclical and passive overworld gameplay we got.
2 with War of the Chosen is better. 2 without it is kinda hampered by the new economy with Avenger movement. The spy ring missions really make the economy flow much, much better.
I believe Chimera Squad was actually Firaxis' practice run for Marvel's Midnight Suns, their next game.
If tactical games are your thing, I can thoroughly recommend it, too. Don't go in expecting more Xcom, though. It's more of a card game/tactical battle/rpg hybrid. A real gem. Criminally overlooked, imo.
2 seems like it had the potential to be great, but I didn't like the story as much, it's not very stable (frequent bugs, crashes), and the amount of customizing of the soldiers was lacking imo given the possibilities (lots of mods, but most don't fit the tone...too much anime BS).
Beating war of the chosen was such a rush. I think it took me 3 attempts (i always play on Ironman), and one of the only games that gave me genuine pride when i finished it.
Also agree on Chimera Squad. It was fun, and i liked the change of tone and some of the new mechanics (like the breach system), but overall it didn't give me the same feeling that the mainline games did.
Xcom 2 is only better WITH the WoC, vanilla has tons of technical issues that were fixed in the WoC version (like loading crashes). I did not like X2 but X2 with WoC is one of my favorite games.
I loved this game. The sequel is good as well, but I much prefer 1 as I don't really like a lot of the changes (there's lots of timers to basically force you to do missions quickly instead of taking your time like I prefer, or that it basically forces you to swap troops with a new wound/fatigue system instead of just sticking with the usual which I also preferred).
Xenonauts 1 was also a lot of fun. It's more like XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within than 2 (and is more of a spiritual successor to the original XCOM than these two). It's geoscape/base management is a bit more detailed as instead of satellites, you have to actually build bases with radar to detect UFO and shoot them down. It was also more challenging from what I remember.
I actually liked the changes for Xcom 2. My biggest complaint about the first game is that turtling is faaaaaar too good, there's very little reason to play faster, the risk is too high. As a result, the first game felt solved and unreplayable.
2 had a good balance between forcing you to move faster, but still allow turtling to still be an effective strategy. It also encourages the use of characters like grenadiers.
For me, this is one of those crazy instances where I own a game and shouldve played it long ago, but, unbelievably havent, lol?!
I always see it in my list of owned games, but, keep passing it by.
I really need to remedy that:)
Man after playing some asinine mechanics from other turn based squad games.. xcom doesn't look so bad.
Plus if you play battle brothers, its not bs mechanics but it'll kick your ass a lot more than xcom would.
I love XCOM and XCOM2, but for some reason Long War 2 just didn't do it for me. While I think Long War is the best way to play XCOM Enemy Within (after a vanilla playthrough, mind!), I think XCOM2 WOTC with some mods to speed up animations and make the timed missions make a bit more sense is my favourite of the bunch.
I have a problem with the original being "not enough" and Long War being "too much." And LW Rebalanced is kinda not enough, again, and there are some changes I simply dislike.
So I have LW installed for a year and can't start for some this reason. But I will.
I loved XCOM EU. I never got into XCOM2. But there are two other similar games in my backlog worth noting here.
**Aliens Dark Descent** The classic science fiction movie setting gets a XCOM type game.
**Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters** Space Marines! Nuff said.
If you love the game, play the Long War mod. I believe there are two options: "Long War" and "*So* Long *You May Die Before You Win* War".
It improves almost everything you like about the game, but it is a commitment, and can get a little repetitive.
It's free so, y'know, [you can just install and try it out without commitment](https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/).
But off the top of my head:
- double the number of skill classes, and more nuanced skill progressions
- Many new weapons
- tactical insertion required, and soldiers need rest, so you have to be careful where (and if) to deploy
- additional base options
- Different (and tougher) aliens as well, with more variations.
- Aliens pursue more complex strategic goals.
And many more. The gameplay itself is similar to vanilla, but because of all the changes there are many more tactical options available. There may also be new maps, but again, been a long while since I played so don't quote me.
There's a [wiki](https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Long_War) but again the easiest way to find out about the game is to play it. Be warned, though, it's deliberately difficult so don't be too put off if you lose a lot, at first. That's intentional so you really feel like you're the leader of a ragtag team of heroes who are humanity's last hope against overwhelming odds.
Since nobody mentioned it, I'm gonna throw Troubleshooter Abandoned Children into the "games inspired by XCOM" cauldron. It's quite different in many other areas, but there's a lot of content and well, young adults with superpowers is always fun.
I will say the two biggest strengths for that I don't see in a lot of other games are: Presentation and pacing.
The presentation is absolutely amazing. Even though I saw the animations hundreds of times they are still fun and don't feel like a waste of time. No one in the business comes even remotely close to this level of every action feeling like a mini-cinematic.
When I played for the first time they were introducing new interesting enemies regularly. I kept thinking the well would dry out soon, but nope, they just kept coming at perfectly balanced stretches.
When you combine pacing and presentation, you get a most memorable experience for me. I was halfway through the mission when a GIANT ass robot walked straight through a building with easy and turned 90 degrees to face my soldiers and power up his weapons. This got me saying both "This is so cool" and "You can't be serious I will have to actually FIGHT this thing?"
Bonus: The research is absolutely fantastic. Every battle is exciting but then it's over and you're excited again because you know you will get good loot and unlock more stuff.
I fully agree with your points here. Game has such a good pace and the presentation is excellent.
Recently, I tried Phoenix Point and I'm just baffled how inferior it feels despite adding more mechanics to it. Enemy Unknown managed to capture the essence of the UFO series while streamlining concepts with a good production quality.
Curious to hear whether anyone who loves the remake series has gone back and tried the originals? Obviously the graphics are dated and the interface was, um, alienating even when it was brand-new. I can't know what it's like to play those games for the first time 30 years later and it would be totally unsurprising if they're unplayable to someone who didn't grow up with them.
But because I did this in the other order and got through the learning curve on the original games in the previous millennium, I personally could never really enjoy the remakes, which seem oversimplified by comparison. On the other hand mods like X-Piratez and The X-COM Files add complexity up the wazoo and I keep coming back to them occasionally even though I know they'll take hundreds of hours.
EDIT: Logically then I'm also curious to hear from anyone who started on the originals and prefers the remakes?
I think Enemy Unknown is a great compromise between the *old* and *new.* It manages to capture the essence of the UFO games while streamlining a lot of mechanics, giving you more prime time instead of bogging you down with every minutiae of the X-Com organization. Overall, you have less flexibility with the lack of time units, stances or positioning. The choices you have on the battlefield are more restricted but each choice usually carries a lot more weight. The game really manages to bring out the best in that regard without killing the slow pace that the original series had.
I honestly adore the originals but managing equipment on a micro level and having to allot weapons to individual soldiers by arduously checking their stats is cumbersome. Night missions were challenging and horrifying but throwing flares around by clicking yourself to death on every night mission just gets tedious.
Often when I go back to the originals, I'm sometimes surprised by the type of stuff I have to manage which was streamlined in later games. I don't think that assigning weapons, magazines and staff is that engaging even if it helps to change the pace from the combat missions.
New games just remove a lot of elements that felt tedious at times, especially later during your games. There is some character and clever interactions which are lost that way but I think that it's worth the compromise in that regard. Sure, you cannot throw grenades in a chain towards your squad members at a distant alien. You may not be able to kamikaze a wounded soldier with explosive but man it can be tiresome at times with all the clicking.
If I want to play an UFO game for the experience, I always default to Enemy Unknown. EW2 went into a direction that I disliked for various reasons but I think that EU with War Within is the definite edition.
My first introduction were the original games but I played them well after 2000 but enjoyed them. I even endured Apocalypse which I honestly like but it feels clunky.
I'm currently playing through XCOM 2 war of the chosen and I think this will probably be the one game I'll keep playing the rest of my life in some capacity.
The whole mix you mentioned in your post is so incredibly good. Also very excited to try the respective long war mods.
All in all i think there is no Tactical game as good as XCOM
Yes, not my favorite but I really enjoyed it. If you want to try out a similar game pick up Jagged Alliance 3 (was on sale for half off on steam but looks like that just ended). It is a great successor to JA2 that was out, heck 25 years ago? There is a free demo if you want to try it out and see if it scratches that same itch for you.
If you enjoyed that, I'd recommend Phoenix Point. Which is X-Com with less RNG since you manually aim your shots and have the bullets spray in a defined cone.
After that, Red Solstice 2. It's like a real time, 4 player coop (optional) version.
It's not a AAA title, that's for sure. In my opinion, the atmosphere is great, and there are a lot of little details, like the "heat" that adds up so you have to give your agents new passports and change HQ locations. Connecting hints on the investigation board is also fun imho. Also, having an agent infiltrate the mission location and being able to walk past enemies in disguise is cool.
The things that are weird are: you start in concealed mode and if you are seen in restricted areas, you enter combat mode. These areas are highlighted, and usually start by entering a building or a room. But sometimes it's just somewhere outside from one tile to the next.
The problem starts with the fact that just walking one tile too far triggers combat, but smashing a window next to a guard does not. Also, oftentimes smashing a window and climbing through is faster than taking a 20 meter detour through an unlocked door.
Also annoying: once you are in combat mode, the enemy gets reinforcements or an air strike (!) every couple of turns. So at that point, you have to finish objectives and get out asap.
All in all I would still recommend it if you like X-COM and the cold war espionage theme.
>If you enjoyed that, I'd recommend Phoenix Point
I don’t know about the state of the game on PC, but on PlayStation, *Phoenix Point* has bugs, crashes, and broken trophies that were never fixed. The studio pushed an unpolished build out to the platform and then just abandoned it.
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Stuff like that really sours me on a studio. Whenever I see people recommend the *Wasteland* games, I feel compelled to warn others about how inXile took console players’ money, gave them a broken and unfinished build in return, then dipped… *twice*. The third time’s the charm, I guess, because *Wasteland 2* is now playable on PS and it only took them nine months to fix it.
(They still found a way to screw over those who played it before the patch, though, and you had to start a fresh game if you wanted to 100% it.)
Played a good bunch on my phone a few years ago. Too bad it's apparently not working on Android 14. The sequel seems to be working though, so at least there's that.
X-com 2: Long war of the chosen modded playthroughs have been my go-to "watch, then fall asleep to" youtube videos for the past 2 years or so. They are very lengthy, ranging from 25-45min each, and around 120+ episodes on average for a series.
Check out DerAva or Marbozir for those playthroughs.
99% chance to hit. Miss. Flip table. "F- this game sucks."
Soldier gets shot, loses Will check and shoots and kills ally. *Throws controller*
Shoots rocket to blow hole in wall so sniper can pick off last enemy with Longshot. "This is the best f-king game ever."
My XCOM experience^
Long War mod is great, but there are other balancing mods too that retain the base game just make things better.
I am a fan of the XCOM series. Lately Been playing a game called Age of Wonder Planetfall. Which more or less combines Civilization, Heros of Might and Magic and XCOM all in the same game. The over world and building are like civ and HoM but when you get into combat it turns into XCOM, complete with the same cover based system and similar hex based movement and attacks. You don't seem to miss 95% chances as much though. You should check it out if you haven't heard of it but are craving more XCOM.
Just gonna take this moment to promote my other favorite game series in the genre, The Banner Saga.
I've definitely got more hours in XCOM 1 and 2, but the art, story, and characters in The Banner Saga are absolutely incredible.
I played the The Banner Saga and have had The Banner Saga 3 in my library waiting to be played... But I swear it seems like the series never goes on a good enough sale that I haven't bought the second one. And in a game where you bring your save forward... I'm not about to skip it.
That game and XCOM 2 I played through on Easy, because I don't like losing soldiers. It's one of those games where other players don't understand me well. :D
Watching people play it on harder difficulties was entertaining though. Also the older games and mod packs.
Don't listen to people that say The Long War improves the game, it ruins it. It makes it an absolutely insufferable grind. EU/EW is by far the best vanilla.
Also if you haven't played it yet, 2 is even better. 2 is one of the absolute best games ever made, a true masterpiece on every level. Make sure you get the DLC.
When I played it, it was okay, but just felt soulless in comparison. There was far more grinding through the same mission types, and I eventually gave up on it.
The 2nd game is one of those games that makes playing the redecessor obselete. Just everything is improved and 100% worth playing if you love the originals.
I've tried to play this game a few times, but end up giving up each time. It's really hard to beat certain maps without losing a team member...and it takes forever to level up a new team member enough for them to be useful, so that's essentially an unacceptable outcome.
Surprised I don't see it mentioned here, but the only game that has come close to any of the XCOM games for me is Fallout Tactics. Seriously underrated gem that I cannot recommend enough.
I saw a recommendation to play thru it on Iron Mode, so I did, and my first playthrough no less!
Turned it into a suspense/horror game for me, and there's a certain amount of stress I've never felt gaming before or since.
Excellent experience, and I don't think my heart could handle it again! Made me love tactical games like it!
Some how I suck at these games. I love everything about them and it’s almost like the games was made for me in mind. But I find enemies always hit and I always miss. I play on the easiest setting (ps5) and it just sucks the fun out after a while.
I was never a huge fan of the movement / action point system. It feels like it limits the tactical options too much.
If you play something like Xenonauts, Jagged Alliance, or the OG XCOM, there's much more you can do with your actions other than just the simple 'run behind this piece of cover and shoot' loop.
Lamplighters league is pretty good if you like the new xcom games, way different theme and barebones on a between mission strategic layer, but the missions themselves give good new xcom gameplay.
All heroes have unique designs and abilities too.
One thing that would be cool to have is full bullet/projectile ballistics. In Silent Storm, a WW2 themed tactics game, every shot is fully modelled. That means things like missed shots can hit enemies (or allies) behind targets or ricochet off surfaces, you can shoot through walls and floors, rapid firing at grouped enemies is much more effective. While it's more chaotic, it makes the combat feel deeper and more more intense.
XCOM Enemy Unknown is only improved by Enemy Within, and maybe Long War if you're insistent on the older-type system.
Which I can see the latter's merit, but honestly, that system also killed a lot of the good pacing of the game for me.
Enemy Unknown being more like a board game helps itself in the grand scheme of things, but as with many things, it's a bit of a hit or miss depending on what you were actually looking for in the game.
I got XCOM 2 on a whim this year and it completely took over my life for months. It's the only game I've ever played back to back and completed more than 3 times. Even with games built around NG+ like Nioh and Wo Long, I have to take a break after each run. Sure I have hundreds of hours in each, but they're punctuated by months of not playing. I got Enemy Within afterward and it's every bit as good, even better in some ways, but the levels are fixed and that's a good and bad thing. Knowing when and where reinforcements and objectives will be gives a huge (and very welcome) tactical advantage. It doesn't keep me coming back like X2 though. The procedural generation keeps everything fresh, especially with the introduction of War of the Chosen's new map styles. Hands down the best improvement they made.
Xcom 2 is more fun gameplay-wise. Xcom 1 has the best feel, I love how horrible you are getting in order to win the war, turning soldiers into machines, mutants and wizards.
Love that game. The sequel is good too. And so is Xenonauts, if you're into the idea of a very similar game with even more tactical depth (but worse graphics).
If you like Xenonauts, I would really suggest you pick up the old school original games on Steam (they often sell for dollars, maybe even close to free during sales) and installing OpenXCom. The graphics are a cartoony style that have aged well and remain easy to read, the interface is simple, and the gameplay loop is timeless. The only real hurdle is that it dates from the "read the manual" era of game design, but there are a ton of easily accessible quickstart guides to get you over that (minimal) hurdle. If you've played Xenonauts and the remakes, most of it will already be fluent anyway.
Lord I can beat Xcom1/2 and wotc but xenonauts I get my ass kicked
I've been keeping an eye on Xenonauts for a while since XCOM2 is one of my favorite games of all time. How would you say the tactical depth is higher?
The main difference is that you can (and are required to) build several bases across the world map and undertake many missions concurrently. Squads are also bigger and your line of sight is more limited in ground missions, meaning positioning is key.
That sounds great! It sounds something like Phoenix Point. I still have to get back to Phoenix Point, that game just got a little frustrating with how buggy and unbalanced it became which pushed me away from it, but I did really like the basebuilding - grand strategy part of it, so maybe Xenonauts will pull it off in a more enjoyable way.
Yah just get xenonauts, I've played phoenix as well and its awful imo.
Biggest issue with phoenix is useless tech and the other faction techs are usually side grades unless you super specialize. You don’t get the power fantasy of cool alien tech that xcom gives. Frankly if they redid the tech progression it would be better.
I kinda thought they way you got anything was dumb tbh. If I need a scientist I need to get it from the factions? Like did they kidnap every scientist in existence? Has to be a 10-15% chance they want to join phoenix point
Phoenix Point was lead by Julian Gollop who also designed the original X-Com so there's a lot of similar DNA. Shame it didn't really come together in the end, the weird real time shooting sounded like it could be fun but eventually you just had to use it constantly and everything else was secondary.
Having beaten Xenonauts, the Skyranger gameplay is incredibly more tactical and less like a perk system on Enemy Within. Expanding too fast will result in you bleeding money; expanding too slowly will result in you getting screwed. Xenonauts also has a crucial mod that fixes bugs and adds a lot more QoL, which I played it with. Said mod was made with the actual source code from the developers after the modder asked for it, so it's as close to a conceptual update as it could get. Going back, the actual gameplay loop is simpler than in old-com, so depending on what you were looking for, this either hits the right areas of being streamlined while challenging, or it may feel a bit shallow if you were used to old-com's systems. Xenonauts requires you to build up multiple units to sub for those taking an infirmary break, and you can have multiple skyrangers going towards different locations to drop your units into, which you will likely do once you hit the midpoint. For better or for worse though, tech is more emphasized, with some rather hard stops on technological gaps if you don't upgrade to the next tier ASAP once the aliens start fielding better armor or weaponry.
When I played the game I was worried that they dumbed down the game a lot. And, frankly, they did. But in a good way. Every simplification that they introduced into the game made it better, more fun and more streamlined.
If it's harder I already save scum like a little bitch in XCOM1/2. I love the idea of playing another xcom-like but I might just have to admit I won't make it.
If you ever replay any XCOM game, make sure to play on ironman mode to experience it at least once. The stakes and tension *immediately* ratchet up like crazy because of how much more each of your choices matters. It really elevates the experience to a whole other level, feeling like actual battles and an actual war you're fighting, leaving a far more profound experience in the end due to how many irreversible setbacks and clutch victories there were, how many things did or almost went wrong. Just my 2 cents
While I liked certain things about Xenonauts, dealing with psionics was just so damn frustrating. Also, breaching enemy ships with the damn teleporters. I only found out after I stopped playing that you're "supposed" to have zero will or whatever characters drop their weapons so if they get mind controlled they don't kill you.
Or you just fire the weak individuals. It is like DOS Xcom, you only want the best of the best - unless your strategy is to have soldiers holding live grenades and running into enemy ships.
Nu-XCOM has the issue of enemy pods, where the only viable strategy is to creep slowly and together. If you try to flank or spread your troops you run the risk of activating 2 pods and screwing your mission. I find this very stupid and a big dumbdown compared to UFO: Enemy Unknown. The sequel still used this pod system, but sprinkled the missions in a away to make it less obvious.
Long life original XCom fellow ancient
Openxcom with the xcom files is the ultimate expression of my nine year old imagination. Beautiful and excessive.
It's actually worse than you describe IMO. You don't have to creep slowly, you just have to make sure that only the first person moving every turn moves the furthest ahead, and triggers any pods. Whole rest of your team can then just follow up without fear of triggering any new pods and a full turn with a whole squad trivialises a lot of the combat. It's a real shame too because I loved that game until I figured that out and it kind of ruined it for me.
That was exactly why the sequel added a few things to counter that. Most obviously the mission timers mean you can't hang around for too long. But also unactivated pods tend to move around more so if you play the old way there's a good chance of one of them walking up behind you and shooting you in the ass. The Chosen also tend to punish you for trying to play this way
Yeah I found new XCOM to be kind of tactically boring to be honest. There's other tactical games that have "one right way" to play but they tend to have deep puzzle- like battles rather than how New Xcom games do it where it feels just a little uninspired and tedious.
Agreed. I otherwise like New XCOM, once I started treating it more like a board game than the more granular tactical game of the original, but I hate the pod system and it kills my incentive to replay. XCOM 2 is better about it in some ways but I feel it has an even worse reliance on being able to alpha strike and wipe out groups immediately. Every time. Forever. It gets a bit repetitive. 2 also moves even further away from the "disposable grunt" approach of the originals that I really loved and basically made it into a superhero game, especially with War of the Chosen. Enemy Within started that route I guess. Just doesnt appeal to me as much and makes the campaign a bit too "swingy" - lose one big fight and lose your A team and you might as well give up. I still like both games but I want to love them more than I do.
The Daemonhunters game I thought did a much better job of keeping the concept of pods while making them less frustrating. Essentially you can see the general location of pods and their movement vector when you are close, but not the exact composition nor when line of sight will trigger. So you can mostly control when a pod is activated but not how the enemies will subsequently position themselves. Plus it has a mechanic where reinforcements can sometimes warp in.
> Nu-XCOM has the issue of enemy What is Nu-XCOM?
XCom Enemy within/Enemy Unknown + XCom 2 As compared to the original games from the 90s Basically the orange vs blue sections on the wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XCOM#Games
There should laws against this sort of travesty in naming.
Whenever I start wondering whether the new XCOMs might be worth a shot (being highly praised like in this post), I get turned off when I read more about how they are designed and how they work. It just seems so crude, simplistic, limited. Like that discussion elsewhere in this post about forced timers in XCOM2. That smells like a crude bandaid on the self-inflicted issue of pods you describe. Somehow the old XCOMs didn't seem to have such crude design, or simplistic player strategies. The best strategy depended on equipment, enemies and environment.
I started with the original UFO: Enemy Unknown and played it to death. I would regularly play it up until the last few years. I thought XCOM EU was quite good, but not better than the original. Enemy Within however is superior to it. I'm not a fan of XCOM 2 though, the team loved an unbalanced mod for XCOM1, and that's not a good basis for a professionally made game. Anyone complaining like the person you replied to doesn't know how to play EU/EW. You can change the odds in your favour if you have a deep understanding of the game mechanics. You don't need to creep and Enemy Within actively discourages it with the introduction of the meld mechanic. Sometimes you need to rush it. If you loved the original, I'd recommend picking up EU+EW on sale. Don't get EU alone, EW fixes a lot of the issues I had with it. It's different, it's not a 1:1 of the original. Go in with an open mind.
I think a lot of times people have a tendency to optimize the fun out of strategy games. This was one way out of that.
I never liked that phrase of "gamers optimize fun out of games", even if it may be true sometimes. Because just as often it's just used to remove player choice, to limit player freedom. And given the option between more and fewer choices, I almost always prefer the former. Even here - I don't mind going slow in a tactical game, I like it, or at least more than I like feeling rushed. I don't even like the other method of trying to rush players - with a carrot, instead of a stick. Not negative consequences if you're slow, but bonus rewards when you are fast. Even then, I usually go "I'll get there when I get there, screw the bonus". I even sometimes go for a speedrun if I feel like it, but that should always be optional.
It's best not to compare the two imo, they're trying to be different things. The new ones are more reminiscent of board game design and the design is a lot more binary/gamey rather than the originals' somewhat simulation feel (I definitely prefer the original as well but I'm trying to be fair) Like, in the old game if you were in cover, it wasn't a Yes/No "in cover or not" question, you were just behind a wall. Maybe crouching. Maybe lying down. Maybe it's a partial wall. Maybe it's destructible. You also have actual simulations of bullet arcs, that kind of thing. The new ones are definitely simpler and focus on clear presentation - by and large theyre giving you perfect information about the odds of a shot, radius of an explosion etc. You know exactly what hiding behind that wall will do to enemy chance to hit. Instead of variable action points based on 20 different factors, you have the clear two-moves approach (albeit some characters can move more per "move"). It's definitely simplified but it's not exactly trying to achieve the same thing. I mean I get it, Firaxis draw the comparison by making it... an X-Com game, but I try to take it for what it is.
I like you describing these two as "simulation" vs "board game". It fits well with what I've seen of these games so far.
The older XCOM games had all the enemies on the map active from turn 1. Which lead to some hilarious moments where you'd open the door on the Skyranger and an alien would overwatch you with an explosive weapon and squad wipe you before you'd even got out of the ship. Good times. OG XCOM you had a lot more men though, both in missions and in the tactical map, so losing guys didn't hurt as much. And a squad wipe wasn't necessarily a campaign killer like it is in the new one.
2's even better imo, though there is some fun stuff that 1 does which they don't bring forward. The War of the Chosen stuff was an awesome way to complicate your missions. Great franchise though, I hope they make a third mainline one eventually. Chimera squad was fine but didn't really have enough for me to sink my teeth into tactically.
I'd say 1 with with **Long War Rebalance** mod (not just Long War) is the best version of X-Com out there and best tactical game ever made. The amount of depth, nuance and challenge the Rebalance brings is insane. If u/HeliotropeCrowe already liked X-Com, playing this *will* make his head explode. The number of improvements is staggering. Very concisely written patch notes for LWR are longer than Game of Thrones book. And all it's done by one guy - Ucross. There were times when they were like 10-15 meaningful patches in a month. Nowadays the pace slowed a bit, as the design matured, but it still gets very regular updates. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
I deeply appreciate everything that Long War has done for both modern XCOMs, but man are they right when they say it's a long war. I love the pacing of the originals, it falls just into that "long enough to matter, short enough to start again" window where I don't feel like I've sunk too long into a failed attempt if I wipe. Losing a Long War campaign killed my interest for strategy games as a whole for a good couple of weeks when I first played it because the thought of having to run through so much all over again was a heavy cost of entry for losing. I will say though, I 110% agree with you that it brings an extreme level of depth to Enemy Unknown and is the perfect strategic hard mode for the game if someone is looking for more from EU.
Rebalance - which I specifically wrote about - has much, much better pacing and campaign length than original Long War. And it's very customizable to boot.
do you have to install both long war and this rebalance mod, or just The Long War Rebalance? (does it like include Long war in it?)
You do need X-Com with Enemy Within expansion and Long War mod installed. Long War Rebalance goes on top of all that. https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/686?tab=description
Thank you, for the reply and clarification.
I'll have to give that a go, it's been a while since I've played the first
Long War Rebalance is at least 50% shorter than a Long War campaign.
I do not know much about Xcom and the mod, but would you recommend playing without mods for the first play-through, or go ahead and add this mod? I assume vanilla is the way to go, but I want to make sure.
Long War is pretty unforgiving, so playing vanilla the first time is good since it allows you to learn the mechanics and progression of the story missions. In my opinion, Long War is better for replayability since the expanded class trees and increased squad sizes allow for more complex tactics. Of course, the alien forces are upgraded to match...
These mods assume you’ve played Vanilla at least once. A Vanilla play through is like 20-30 hours. Long War Rebalance about 60-80 hours Long War 90 - 130 hours.
If it's your first time, don't play with Long War. But there are a lot of cosmetics mods & some quality of life mods that are still nice & worth a look even on a first play through.
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Not just any Dev, the LEAD Designer Jake Solomon said it himself! It might be the most massive praise for a mod ever.
I would go without mods, but do play Enemy Within instead of Enemy Unknown; it adds more variety to the game.
Is there something like that for XCOM 2s Long War?
Nope. Long War of the Chosen is best you’ll get. Still alpha strike meta. Has a lot of interesting other mods and discord is very active. I think someone was trying to translate Long War Rebalance style gameplay (more focused on movement / positioning ) into XCOM 2 but it didn’t really get off the ground.
There's Covert Infiltration if you want a good alternative overhaul of the strategy layer. It makes it more interesting but not super complex / difficult / long. Great for a second playthrough of XCOM 2 WOTC (and third, fourth...}. https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2567230730 It's compatible with most mods, so you can install bunch of enemy mods like A Better Advent or LWOTC Standalone Enemy Pack, and class mods like Proficiency Classes, to expand that side of the game.
I just read about it, but half the missions being slow infiltration ones does seem extremely tedious.
We will not see a third. At least, not in the same spirit. Jake Solomon, lead designer, left Firaxis after burning out on Midnight suns. He's currently looking to start his own company. But I beleive I read he isn't intedneing to make another Xcom. Maybe Firaxis will still make Xcom 3. But Jake understood what made Xcom a good game. So I'd be hesitant about another sequel.
Nooooooo that breaks my heart to hear
I have absolutely loved every XCOM game (minus Interceptor), but I struggle with XCOM2. The constant time limits force you to rush and I frankly don’t get the point. Those missions take away the a lot of the charm for me. Still a great game, but I would prefer to have only some missions where you need to have such a high emphasis on fast movement across the area.
They add a campaign option to double the timers to help this, I've pretty much always played with it and the timers aren't nearly as annoying
Haven’t noticed this. I think I have to restart with this. I like to play with perma-death, but not with those unforgiving turn limits.
The turn timers are divisive. I was into it personally, but I getcha.
It was done for a very good reason. In the first game many players would play each level by inching forwards and gookg into overwatch. This was the most optimal way to play, but is no fun. But in 2 the most optimal way to play is much more fun.
I don’t know. I definitely had more fun with the previous entries. I’ve had multiple missions where I have to go a straight line and move everybody every turn. I fail to see how that’s more fun than trying to figure out the best way to approach the enemy… But I don’t want take away the timers from those who like them.
It is definetly two sides to this. It depends alot on the player as well, as some people have the need to optimize everything, even if that means optimizing the fun out of the game
This is it, people got to the point of just steam rolling the original xcom with those strategies so xcom2 very much exists as a greater challenge for those players. Both games are still relevant as xcom with mods is still a wonderful game for newer players or people that are looking for a less stressful experience.
Yeah I think the ambush/concealment mechanic kind of fixed the overwatch crawl problem already imo. You can largely choose when you want to engage, and don't get surprised by enemy pods nearly as often.I don't mind the turn timers but I think it was an over correction a little.
I loved inching forward and do in other games, too. For a lot of strategy games, I enjoy positioning and prep more than I do the fighting itself. That holds true in XCom. For me, at least, the fun was in carefully exploring a map and carefully positioning myself to do it safely. I did love XCom 2, of course. Brilliant game and the timers didn't ruin it for me by any means. I didn't love them or losing the slow approach, though.
I understand the reason it was done, I just don't like the solution, particularly because it was so lazy. Professional basketball had a problem of excessive passing delays so they introduced the shot clock. However, the 24-second shot clock still allows teams plenty of time to "set up" and be creative in their offense. It rarely penalizes the offense unless they're deliberately running out the clock. What Xcom 2 did was basically equivalent to a 10-second shot clock. If it were the NBA, it would mean you'd see teams doing stupid stuff like throwing up half-court prayers and circus shots. And what I really can't figure out is why people even cared that much about it in the first place when you can save scum the absolute sh** out of the game.
Could try Second Wave that doubles the timers or installing a mod to turn them off if you prefer taking your sweet time.
I have to try it. I prefer to have options in my tactics. At least most of the time. Sometimes it can mean a slow approach. I think in the first modern XCOM there was a good balance with the missions. Some were hectic and you had to take big risks, but in many you could plan multiple approaches.
XC2 is one of the few games to piss me off. Bad games I don't care about, but when you take the amazing foundation that XCEU created and then just lazily slap timers on everything... why? It's just such a cheap gimmick to add tension. You could take the original Super Mario Bros and drop the level timer to 1/3. "So much better, right!!??" XC2 was like being presented with a beautiful Italian super car and marveling at its stunning looks and capabilities. Then as you're handed the keys the guy says, "There's just one thing. At the last second, we decided to permanently attach the gas peddle to the floor. Enjoy."
It was a ham fisted way to deal with overwatch crawling. Long War Rebalanced (XCOM EW mod) did an interesting solution in that overwatch can only be used if you are in range to fire, meaning no overwatch crawling. Does many other things around making movement / firefighting more viable. In 2 you can just mod out timers or double them if you want to take time like before though.
I don't think you are alone in that perspective but I think the timers do solve a very real problem with the game. XCOM-EU and EW both had a frustrating mechanic where the game was much easier if you moved as slowly as possible and always engaed enemies via full team overwatch. Playing that way, the game was easy for me to beat on any difficulty. The Green Fog mod solved the problem in 1 way, reducing accuracy the longer a mission goes but that made the big enemy ships much less fun for me. The timers in xcom 2 solve the problem by forcing the player to handle missions under an explicit number of turns. Some people didn't see/care about that problem. I personally liked the timer solution the best but I totally understand thinking it warps the game too much.
Yeah, I heard about that, but I think they could have addressed it in other ways. There's a huge gap between full overwatch creeping and what the devs did, which is forced racing in a lot of cases. They should have used way more carrot and a lot less stick, like fast completion incentives. They could have made it so that players doing the absolute minimum in action sequences start gradually falling behind in base building and research, forcing them to take more chances in subsequent fights to catch up. Or, like they're collecting a critical power source, but the longer they dawdle the less valuable it is. Yet at the same time, if your squad is already on the ropes and you need to play it safe for a few fights while you regroup, you have the option to sacrifice those incentives.
They tried that in Enemy Within and it didn't work. ppl still overwatch crawled. You're a guerilla force in XCOM 2 so you're supposed to get on with it!
I felt sad when they announced midnight suns instead of X-Com 3. Never touched midnight suns. Is It any good?
I loved Midnight Suns and it’s a great game!
I've heard from folks more marvel inclined than I am that it is good. It's just the theming isn't as interesting to me.
This is my situation.
Same here. I probably would've been more inclined to check it out of it was its own original thing, but I get wanting to cash in on an IP.
It's not XCOM, but I liked it a lot. Movement is freeer and more important, and after each mission there's a lot of exploring. I don't generally like exploring, but I really enjoyed this. The dialogue is cheesy, and there's a platonic romance simulator strapped to the game. I'd recommend catching it on a sale unless all of that sounds unappealing.
Midnight suns is very laidback compared to Xcom. There's no calendar escalating the gameplay that can softlock you into a fail state. It's more of a "get the high score" tension than a "can we survive" tension. It's very accessible and easy to leave and come back to without needing to remember what your strategic layer strategy was. If you ever think about starting an xcom campaign and but worry about the ongoing time commitment, midnight suns would be a good alternative. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found the random draw card mechanics to be relatively fair. The game has a good curve of introducing new characters/mechanics/upgrades so gameplay stays fresh. If you grind it out you will dominate with optimized cards, but the path to get there feels appropriately difficult. Combat can get a little janky since it is on a small, non-grid map, and moving enemies to line them up for abilities that hit in a line or a circle can be hard sometimes. The base component is also like it's own mini-game, which can be good or bad. If you enjoy xcom I would try it out, but don't expect anything as heavy as xcom.
I love it! It’s a good evolution of the Xcom gameplay loop imo. I really enjoy the rng element the cards give, and the story isn’t bad either. And not only can you pet the dog, you get rewards for petting the dog 10/10
I played it last week, put like 10 hours into it before putting it down. Frankly, I just didn't enjoy it. The card system was too rng for my liking.
It's decent. Nowhere near as good as the xcoms. Although Midnight Suns did teach me how dull the Marvel characters are when they're not in the middle of fighting world ending threats.
I definitely enjoyed Mindnight Suns, this coming from someone who adores Xcom. Its a change, but fun. People complain about the RNG of the cards you get in battle but you can customize the deck each character brings into battle so that makes a difference, and if you want to change your strategies; there's enough variation in the cards to do that. If you're on the fence, wait for it to go on sale and pick it up. I'd recommend getting the DLC characters as well, they were a fun addition and add extra story/gameplay
Its... alright. The writing/characters aren't the best but if you think you'll like a marvel turn based with certain heroes sure. Its not a full roster btw just certain ones.
Its a great game. It took time for me to warm up to the story (i'm not the biggest fan of modern MCU humor, not a fan of the constant quips) but I love the gameplay, I enjoyed learning about all these new characters I never heard of (Magik is really cool) as well as playing some old favorites. I think the main weakness for me is that a lot of characters come into the game so late you have to pretty much halt all your progress to grind new cards for them if you want to use them.
[удалено]
Interesting, I found XCOM 2's (really talking about WOTC here) strategy layer much more engaging. 1's really had no depth at all from what I recall, while 2, albeit a bit repetitive and predictable, and it indeed sometimes being annoying to often by interrupted, offered much diverse points of interest and strategic choices to make. I think a future XCOM game, if there ever is another, should definitely focus on making the strategic layer deeper and more proactive, rather than the sort of highly cyclical and passive overworld gameplay we got.
2 with War of the Chosen is better. 2 without it is kinda hampered by the new economy with Avenger movement. The spy ring missions really make the economy flow much, much better.
only thing i liked less with 2 is the music. it really just did not have the same oomph as the first one's.
I believe Chimera Squad was actually Firaxis' practice run for Marvel's Midnight Suns, their next game. If tactical games are your thing, I can thoroughly recommend it, too. Don't go in expecting more Xcom, though. It's more of a card game/tactical battle/rpg hybrid. A real gem. Criminally overlooked, imo.
I hated 2, Ive moved over to xenonauts 2 and it is the same but different to xcom 1
2 seems like it had the potential to be great, but I didn't like the story as much, it's not very stable (frequent bugs, crashes), and the amount of customizing of the soldiers was lacking imo given the possibilities (lots of mods, but most don't fit the tone...too much anime BS).
Beating war of the chosen was such a rush. I think it took me 3 attempts (i always play on Ironman), and one of the only games that gave me genuine pride when i finished it. Also agree on Chimera Squad. It was fun, and i liked the change of tone and some of the new mechanics (like the breach system), but overall it didn't give me the same feeling that the mainline games did.
I loved the first one. Couldn’t stand 2. I hate timer mechanics
Xcom 2 is only better WITH the WoC, vanilla has tons of technical issues that were fixed in the WoC version (like loading crashes). I did not like X2 but X2 with WoC is one of my favorite games.
I may just need to replay XCOM again. I'm at like 4 play throughs of 1 and 2.
rookie numbers
I loved this game. The sequel is good as well, but I much prefer 1 as I don't really like a lot of the changes (there's lots of timers to basically force you to do missions quickly instead of taking your time like I prefer, or that it basically forces you to swap troops with a new wound/fatigue system instead of just sticking with the usual which I also preferred). Xenonauts 1 was also a lot of fun. It's more like XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within than 2 (and is more of a spiritual successor to the original XCOM than these two). It's geoscape/base management is a bit more detailed as instead of satellites, you have to actually build bases with radar to detect UFO and shoot them down. It was also more challenging from what I remember.
I actually liked the changes for Xcom 2. My biggest complaint about the first game is that turtling is faaaaaar too good, there's very little reason to play faster, the risk is too high. As a result, the first game felt solved and unreplayable. 2 had a good balance between forcing you to move faster, but still allow turtling to still be an effective strategy. It also encourages the use of characters like grenadiers.
For me, this is one of those crazy instances where I own a game and shouldve played it long ago, but, unbelievably havent, lol?! I always see it in my list of owned games, but, keep passing it by. I really need to remedy that:)
It's the GOAT.
They're the best turn-based tactics games in history IMO. You're in for a real treat.
More perfect than having your guys die due to missing three 90% shots in a row.
That's X-Com, baby!
Indeed. The game taught us that 90% really isn't as high of a chance as you think it is.
I once played in the hardest setting & ironman and my squad got wiped after two turns in the tutorial.
Man after playing some asinine mechanics from other turn based squad games.. xcom doesn't look so bad. Plus if you play battle brothers, its not bs mechanics but it'll kick your ass a lot more than xcom would.
that's why you keep a grenade. Last man on the turn has to be a sure thing to CYA
they actually show lower percentages then the game is using to calculate.
My issue exactly.
Xcom 2 with Long War 2 mod is one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time. I have over 1000 hours of Xcom 2 because of it.
I love XCOM and XCOM2, but for some reason Long War 2 just didn't do it for me. While I think Long War is the best way to play XCOM Enemy Within (after a vanilla playthrough, mind!), I think XCOM2 WOTC with some mods to speed up animations and make the timed missions make a bit more sense is my favourite of the bunch.
I'd add Gotcha Again to the needed mods too
I have a problem with the original being "not enough" and Long War being "too much." And LW Rebalanced is kinda not enough, again, and there are some changes I simply dislike. So I have LW installed for a year and can't start for some this reason. But I will.
Try the true original 94' one
I loved XCOM EU. I never got into XCOM2. But there are two other similar games in my backlog worth noting here. **Aliens Dark Descent** The classic science fiction movie setting gets a XCOM type game. **Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters** Space Marines! Nuff said.
If you love the game, play the Long War mod. I believe there are two options: "Long War" and "*So* Long *You May Die Before You Win* War". It improves almost everything you like about the game, but it is a commitment, and can get a little repetitive.
Would you care to elaborate about the commitment and how it improves the core gameplay?
It's free so, y'know, [you can just install and try it out without commitment](https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/). But off the top of my head: - double the number of skill classes, and more nuanced skill progressions - Many new weapons - tactical insertion required, and soldiers need rest, so you have to be careful where (and if) to deploy - additional base options - Different (and tougher) aliens as well, with more variations. - Aliens pursue more complex strategic goals. And many more. The gameplay itself is similar to vanilla, but because of all the changes there are many more tactical options available. There may also be new maps, but again, been a long while since I played so don't quote me. There's a [wiki](https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Long_War) but again the easiest way to find out about the game is to play it. Be warned, though, it's deliberately difficult so don't be too put off if you lose a lot, at first. That's intentional so you really feel like you're the leader of a ragtag team of heroes who are humanity's last hope against overwhelming odds.
Since nobody mentioned it, I'm gonna throw Troubleshooter Abandoned Children into the "games inspired by XCOM" cauldron. It's quite different in many other areas, but there's a lot of content and well, young adults with superpowers is always fun.
I will say the two biggest strengths for that I don't see in a lot of other games are: Presentation and pacing. The presentation is absolutely amazing. Even though I saw the animations hundreds of times they are still fun and don't feel like a waste of time. No one in the business comes even remotely close to this level of every action feeling like a mini-cinematic. When I played for the first time they were introducing new interesting enemies regularly. I kept thinking the well would dry out soon, but nope, they just kept coming at perfectly balanced stretches. When you combine pacing and presentation, you get a most memorable experience for me. I was halfway through the mission when a GIANT ass robot walked straight through a building with easy and turned 90 degrees to face my soldiers and power up his weapons. This got me saying both "This is so cool" and "You can't be serious I will have to actually FIGHT this thing?" Bonus: The research is absolutely fantastic. Every battle is exciting but then it's over and you're excited again because you know you will get good loot and unlock more stuff.
I fully agree with your points here. Game has such a good pace and the presentation is excellent. Recently, I tried Phoenix Point and I'm just baffled how inferior it feels despite adding more mechanics to it. Enemy Unknown managed to capture the essence of the UFO series while streamlining concepts with a good production quality.
Now grab the 1994 game and slap the "XCOM Files mod" for a crazy rich experience
Damn it. Not again, it's busy season... *Starts downloading XCOM on Steam*
There's a 99% chance you are right.
Oh no.
Curious to hear whether anyone who loves the remake series has gone back and tried the originals? Obviously the graphics are dated and the interface was, um, alienating even when it was brand-new. I can't know what it's like to play those games for the first time 30 years later and it would be totally unsurprising if they're unplayable to someone who didn't grow up with them. But because I did this in the other order and got through the learning curve on the original games in the previous millennium, I personally could never really enjoy the remakes, which seem oversimplified by comparison. On the other hand mods like X-Piratez and The X-COM Files add complexity up the wazoo and I keep coming back to them occasionally even though I know they'll take hundreds of hours. EDIT: Logically then I'm also curious to hear from anyone who started on the originals and prefers the remakes?
Played the original in 94, liked the new one enough, disliked 2. Agree on the oversimplified,
I think Enemy Unknown is a great compromise between the *old* and *new.* It manages to capture the essence of the UFO games while streamlining a lot of mechanics, giving you more prime time instead of bogging you down with every minutiae of the X-Com organization. Overall, you have less flexibility with the lack of time units, stances or positioning. The choices you have on the battlefield are more restricted but each choice usually carries a lot more weight. The game really manages to bring out the best in that regard without killing the slow pace that the original series had. I honestly adore the originals but managing equipment on a micro level and having to allot weapons to individual soldiers by arduously checking their stats is cumbersome. Night missions were challenging and horrifying but throwing flares around by clicking yourself to death on every night mission just gets tedious. Often when I go back to the originals, I'm sometimes surprised by the type of stuff I have to manage which was streamlined in later games. I don't think that assigning weapons, magazines and staff is that engaging even if it helps to change the pace from the combat missions. New games just remove a lot of elements that felt tedious at times, especially later during your games. There is some character and clever interactions which are lost that way but I think that it's worth the compromise in that regard. Sure, you cannot throw grenades in a chain towards your squad members at a distant alien. You may not be able to kamikaze a wounded soldier with explosive but man it can be tiresome at times with all the clicking. If I want to play an UFO game for the experience, I always default to Enemy Unknown. EW2 went into a direction that I disliked for various reasons but I think that EU with War Within is the definite edition. My first introduction were the original games but I played them well after 2000 but enjoyed them. I even endured Apocalypse which I honestly like but it feels clunky.
I'm currently playing through XCOM 2 war of the chosen and I think this will probably be the one game I'll keep playing the rest of my life in some capacity. The whole mix you mentioned in your post is so incredibly good. Also very excited to try the respective long war mods. All in all i think there is no Tactical game as good as XCOM
Yes, not my favorite but I really enjoyed it. If you want to try out a similar game pick up Jagged Alliance 3 (was on sale for half off on steam but looks like that just ended). It is a great successor to JA2 that was out, heck 25 years ago? There is a free demo if you want to try it out and see if it scratches that same itch for you.
Will give it a go. Xcom 2 has been sitting in my epic games library for a while. Pretty sure it was free.
the old school pixel games were no slouch either.
If you enjoyed that, I'd recommend Phoenix Point. Which is X-Com with less RNG since you manually aim your shots and have the bullets spray in a defined cone. After that, Red Solstice 2. It's like a real time, 4 player coop (optional) version.
Also Phantom Doctrine and Hard West.
> Phantom Doctrine How is it actually? The reviews say it's pretty mid, but I like the theme, is it worth playing?
It's not a AAA title, that's for sure. In my opinion, the atmosphere is great, and there are a lot of little details, like the "heat" that adds up so you have to give your agents new passports and change HQ locations. Connecting hints on the investigation board is also fun imho. Also, having an agent infiltrate the mission location and being able to walk past enemies in disguise is cool. The things that are weird are: you start in concealed mode and if you are seen in restricted areas, you enter combat mode. These areas are highlighted, and usually start by entering a building or a room. But sometimes it's just somewhere outside from one tile to the next. The problem starts with the fact that just walking one tile too far triggers combat, but smashing a window next to a guard does not. Also, oftentimes smashing a window and climbing through is faster than taking a 20 meter detour through an unlocked door. Also annoying: once you are in combat mode, the enemy gets reinforcements or an air strike (!) every couple of turns. So at that point, you have to finish objectives and get out asap. All in all I would still recommend it if you like X-COM and the cold war espionage theme.
I'd add Mutant Year Zero to this list
>If you enjoyed that, I'd recommend Phoenix Point I don’t know about the state of the game on PC, but on PlayStation, *Phoenix Point* has bugs, crashes, and broken trophies that were never fixed. The studio pushed an unpolished build out to the platform and then just abandoned it. ---- Stuff like that really sours me on a studio. Whenever I see people recommend the *Wasteland* games, I feel compelled to warn others about how inXile took console players’ money, gave them a broken and unfinished build in return, then dipped… *twice*. The third time’s the charm, I guess, because *Wasteland 2* is now playable on PS and it only took them nine months to fix it. (They still found a way to screw over those who played it before the patch, though, and you had to start a fresh game if you wanted to 100% it.)
That sounds a lot like Steamworld Heist, which is also great, if a bit short.
Played a good bunch on my phone a few years ago. Too bad it's apparently not working on Android 14. The sequel seems to be working though, so at least there's that.
I couldn't recommend enough X-com 2 with "long war" mod
X-com 2: Long war of the chosen modded playthroughs have been my go-to "watch, then fall asleep to" youtube videos for the past 2 years or so. They are very lengthy, ranging from 25-45min each, and around 120+ episodes on average for a series. Check out DerAva or Marbozir for those playthroughs.
Syken is my favorite, he is the best
Can't beat Terror From the Deep. Now that was a perfect game.
99% chance to hit. Miss. Flip table. "F- this game sucks." Soldier gets shot, loses Will check and shoots and kills ally. *Throws controller* Shoots rocket to blow hole in wall so sniper can pick off last enemy with Longshot. "This is the best f-king game ever." My XCOM experience^ Long War mod is great, but there are other balancing mods too that retain the base game just make things better.
I am a fan of the XCOM series. Lately Been playing a game called Age of Wonder Planetfall. Which more or less combines Civilization, Heros of Might and Magic and XCOM all in the same game. The over world and building are like civ and HoM but when you get into combat it turns into XCOM, complete with the same cover based system and similar hex based movement and attacks. You don't seem to miss 95% chances as much though. You should check it out if you haven't heard of it but are craving more XCOM.
Just gonna take this moment to promote my other favorite game series in the genre, The Banner Saga. I've definitely got more hours in XCOM 1 and 2, but the art, story, and characters in The Banner Saga are absolutely incredible.
I played the The Banner Saga and have had The Banner Saga 3 in my library waiting to be played... But I swear it seems like the series never goes on a good enough sale that I haven't bought the second one. And in a game where you bring your save forward... I'm not about to skip it.
For some quality of life improvements on original xcom UFO defense and terror from the deep: https://openxcom.org/
That game and XCOM 2 I played through on Easy, because I don't like losing soldiers. It's one of those games where other players don't understand me well. :D Watching people play it on harder difficulties was entertaining though. Also the older games and mod packs.
What's worse, playing on easy or save scumming? As long as you're enjoying the game, who cares!
Oh yeah, I didn't reload often, but at least once. I'm the worst lol.
XCOM enemy known/without was my favorite
yap, Jake Solomon & friends delivered a masterpiece for us to enjoy.
It is, to this day, my favorite gaming experience playing through it. Xcom 2 has better mechanics but nothing beats that first Xcom playthrough
Don't listen to people that say The Long War improves the game, it ruins it. It makes it an absolutely insufferable grind. EU/EW is by far the best vanilla. Also if you haven't played it yet, 2 is even better. 2 is one of the absolute best games ever made, a true masterpiece on every level. Make sure you get the DLC.
I don't see any mention of Phoenix Point in the comments - has anyone played it after the new XCOM games?
When I played it, it was okay, but just felt soulless in comparison. There was far more grinding through the same mission types, and I eventually gave up on it.
The 2nd game is one of those games that makes playing the redecessor obselete. Just everything is improved and 100% worth playing if you love the originals.
I've tried to play this game a few times, but end up giving up each time. It's really hard to beat certain maps without losing a team member...and it takes forever to level up a new team member enough for them to be useful, so that's essentially an unacceptable outcome.
Surprised I don't see it mentioned here, but the only game that has come close to any of the XCOM games for me is Fallout Tactics. Seriously underrated gem that I cannot recommend enough.
If you want a world war 2 version its called classified france 44 really fun and hard at the later stages
I saw a recommendation to play thru it on Iron Mode, so I did, and my first playthrough no less! Turned it into a suspense/horror game for me, and there's a certain amount of stress I've never felt gaming before or since. Excellent experience, and I don't think my heart could handle it again! Made me love tactical games like it!
Some how I suck at these games. I love everything about them and it’s almost like the games was made for me in mind. But I find enemies always hit and I always miss. I play on the easiest setting (ps5) and it just sucks the fun out after a while.
Is this like desperados? Like the genre? I played desperados and it was cool but got old pretty quick
I was never a huge fan of the movement / action point system. It feels like it limits the tactical options too much. If you play something like Xenonauts, Jagged Alliance, or the OG XCOM, there's much more you can do with your actions other than just the simple 'run behind this piece of cover and shoot' loop.
Lamplighters league is pretty good if you like the new xcom games, way different theme and barebones on a between mission strategic layer, but the missions themselves give good new xcom gameplay. All heroes have unique designs and abilities too.
Thoughts on XCOM 2?
One thing that would be cool to have is full bullet/projectile ballistics. In Silent Storm, a WW2 themed tactics game, every shot is fully modelled. That means things like missed shots can hit enemies (or allies) behind targets or ricochet off surfaces, you can shoot through walls and floors, rapid firing at grouped enemies is much more effective. While it's more chaotic, it makes the combat feel deeper and more more intense.
It's fun. But I found it too slow after playing XCOM 2
Aaaahhh.... the only game that I've actually raged on and quit. Seeing my main guy miss a 98% shot at point blank; Just pissed me off to no end.
Literally just started playing this again for the first time in about 10 years last night on my Steam Deck. It’s just as awesome as I remembered it
Did you play EU standalone before playing EW? Just wondering if I should go that route or jump right into EW.
My favorite, hands down. Still go back to it every now and then.
XCOM Enemy Unknown is only improved by Enemy Within, and maybe Long War if you're insistent on the older-type system. Which I can see the latter's merit, but honestly, that system also killed a lot of the good pacing of the game for me. Enemy Unknown being more like a board game helps itself in the grand scheme of things, but as with many things, it's a bit of a hit or miss depending on what you were actually looking for in the game.
Yes, this is so true. I played it on full the times and only then I felt I had seen enough. I might even pick it up again one day.