XCOM 2 Review: The Stress Of Strategy Now On Consoles

As the rescued and restored Commander, the player takes on a challenge and campaign that is, in many ways, an inverted form of the original. Now operating as the resilient infection the aliens posed previously, the gameplay, mood, desperation, and constant threat of failure and death have been completely twisted. The main difference is the element of surprise: allowing players to operate unseen prior to attacks, scouting enemy forces, planning and executing ambushes, fundamentally changing the complexion of the standard miss


Across the series, players need to use their wits and maximize their roster of characters. After all, at the end of the day, the goal is to bring the fight back to alien colonizers. The squad-based nature of the SLG Game community means players can upgrade individual units, equip special abilities, and use even the environment against their oppone

The core XCOM 2 gameplay, at least for those who have played Enemy Unknown, remains mostly intact. This is still a third person, isometric strategy shooter that focuses on dice rolls each turn to determine the outcome of battle. There are times when things will go in the player’s favor, and then there are times when it goes the complete opposite direction. This can be a random experience, and most of the time it becomes very stressful. Unless you save scum all the way through the campaign, the chances of surviving every battle with no casualties is highly unlikely. That problem derives mainly from some occasional confusing hit percentages and reactions. There’s nothing like seeing a soldier stand two feet in front of an enemy with a gatling gun and shoot through the unfazed alien with a big failure text pop up taunting you. At the very least there should be more animations showing the opponents dodging your bullets, not just standing there clueless.


Early on, pistols deal lacking damage and have few ways of bypassing armor, making this skill somewhat lacking. Once you unlock plasma weaponry or, better yet, get the Hunter's revolver, this skill becomes one of the best in the game. Few things are more satisfying than seeing your Sharpshooter single-handedly kill nearly a dozen enemies in a single act


The core thrill of seeing a squad erupt from 'Overwatch' to let barrages loose on an unsuspecting enemy is augmented by the new tweaks to Squaddie classes. The standards remain (Sniper, Grenadier, Specialist), but the 'Assault' class has been replaced with the fearless and furious Rangers. And before player assume the name means these fighters are ranged characters, realize that sprinting across a battlefield to unleash a sword attack point-blank has a distinct melee feel. The turn-based gameplay remains the same (although clearly increased in difficulty), leaving the fiction to inform the meaning of the mechanics - scrounging alien technology, attacking research centers and extracting assets - and in turn, letting the desperation of the campaign amplify the story ramificati


Players of grand strategy games might have heard of Endless Legend. Moreover, it's perhaps one of the most interesting fantasy-science fiction 4X titles to have graced the PC. In this game, players end up as one of the many remnants of races in a changing Auriga. The game features 14 playable factions, with five others in expansi


The coolest non-hero class, the Ranger wields both a shotgun and a sword and can make great use of both. The Ranger has two ability trees that give it either great damage or great utility, and a mix of both is also a real possibil


Many XCOM fans were shocked that Firaxis announced and released a new XCOM game within the same month. XCOM: Chimera Squad is a strange title that changes much of the core XCOM formula. Regardless of someone's stance on the game's changes, it was intended to be a giant experiment and entry point for the ser


They can do some decent melee damage, but the Ranger and Templar do significantly more. They're like a jack of all trades but master of none in a game where the classes are all specialists in a different fi

XCOM 2 is not a game for those who think about what’s going on in a single instance. Everyone will need to think three turns ahead in every aspect of the campaign, and even then, it’s mostly about luck, creating an incredibly random experience in the process. Even from the beginning, players believing they’ll be able to keep everyone alive will run into a harsh reality check, whether they’re on the easiest or hardest difficulty settings. It’s not primarily the combat that can be difficult though, it’s the world management that can be a bit stressful. Similar to Enemy Unknown, there’s a time component to XCOM 2, ensuring you don’t take your sweet time to level up characters and accept every side mission that becomes available. There will be crucial choices to be made, but instead of ruining reputations based on countries and risking resources, these are classified as larger reaching outcomes to alien progression in the world. There’s so many systems at play that anyone could easily see themselves overwhelmed, and it doesn’t help that there’s an unfortunate lack of explanation on the various mechanics.