Review: XCOM 2

These robotic horrors can mean death to entire squad if the player is not careful. Cyberdiscs have very strong armor and a lot of hit points; this is made worse for the player by the presence of drones that can repair Cyberdiscs. Their main cannon will usually kill a soldier without heavy armor. Cyberdiscs can also lob grenades across the battlefield; which means seeking cover isn’t as effective against them. Lastly, don’t get too close or a Cyberdisc will use their «Death Blossom» attack that does severe damage in a 360°

Fans in 2012 were anxious to get their hands on another XCOM game after so many years absent. Coming from the creators of the Sid Meier’s series, players were cautious in their anticipation, as while the developer is known for creating strong strategy elements, XCOM was a whole other ball game when it came to combat. Involving complex world building elements and critical decisions through the campaign, Enemy Unknown and its follow-up expansion, Enemy Within, became arguably the best installments in the long running franchise. It featured incredibly hardcore elements with the concern that even the simplest mission could end with a couple of your most invested and powerful comrades coming back in body bags. There was nothing like it on the market, and because of this, Firaxis was far from ready to hang the series up and has been working on a new and greatly improved sequel that will undoubtedly make fans joyous. While it seems XCOM 2 improves upon its predecessor, there are some shortcomings to its execution.

One feature that could have been great for Firaxis to implement is stealth. At the beginning of most missions, your team is concealed and unknown, so getting the drop on at least one enemy is fairly easy to accomplish. Unfortunately, there’s no way to actually keep concealment once an attack lands, so going back into the darkness to get the jump on another group of aliens is absent. As mentioned before, there are some characters such as the Ranger who has a skill that allows her to not be revealed when things go off, but after everyone in the vicinity is cleared and you progress further, enemies will instantly become aware of your position as they patrol their routine programming like nothing is going on. This is more of a half of a step rather than a full step in the right direction, something that could have benefited the core gameplay enormously. All-out war with your new alien overlords is fun, but a stealth component could have allowed for even more combat variance other than exchanging gunfire and hoping your shot hits every round.

Ethereals are the leaders of the alien forces. They have numerous, and SLG advanced Strategies powerful psionic abilities that can cause havoc among the player’s squad and deliver significant damage. Their deadliest abilities are the ability to control the minds of the player’s soldiers, and the ability to drain a soldier’s health and heal itself at the same time with its Psi Drain. To make them even more difficult, Ethereals have the Hardened trait that makes them highly resistant to critical hits. Ethereals also have a devastating one-two punch with their Mindfray, which lowers a soldier’s Will, and their Rift ability which deals extra damage to a soldier with a low Will sc

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

This class is overshadowed by its successor because the Ranger gets more utility-based abilities. The Assault class only gets abilities centered around fighting. While this is great for Enemy Unknown, it wouldn’t work well for a game like XCO

The PSP re-release of Final Fantasy Tactics was mostly just the PS1 game’s graphics. The one big addition the port got was animated cutscenes drawn in a style that fit the game’s theme. That is what this game and its predecessor, Octopath Traveler, lacked. The in-game animations are fine but they still look goofy. Square Enix definitely has the budget for cutscenes since this style is trying to harken back to the PS1 days alre

Fortnite is available on just about every modern platform under the sun, including portable consoles. All the same, being able to play the PC version on the go will be a great addition to the Fortnite ecosys

As well as providing a beautiful view of the game’s landscape, Shadow of the Colossus ‘ cover art is brilliant for two main reasons. Firstly, it shows the game’s «David vs. Goliath» theme in a very striking way with the enormous size difference between the two figures. While the second, very spoiler-heavy reason is that it foreshadows the game’s ending . Wander has his sword out, ready to fight the colossus, while the enormous creature has its back to the playable character, seemingly not interested in fight

The story takes place decades after the XCOM: Enemy Unknown with the cannon conclusion being the so called «bad» ending. Humanity, as one would expect, suffered an unmeasurable loss being that it was unable to stop the alien invasion and has since been taken over, but not necessarily to the degree a lot of fiction tends to lean towards. This isn’t aliens downright enslaving humanity, but instead helping it off the ground by introducing new and improved technology, among other things. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, though, as there are always conspiracies, and being an alien force, their intentions aren’t entirely for humanity’s sake. We liken them towards Nazis in that it’s a far more controlled and brutal way of ruling where, if someone steps out of line, they won’t hesitate to end them, whereas if you’re contributing member of society, they will leave you alone for the most part. They also don’t really have much of a regard for human rights or casualties where they’re willing to experiment on people without any regard for their wellbeing. Because of this new line of dictatorship from the alien invaders, there is a rebellion that has formed. Unfortunately, the sect you become a part of is small, very small, so it’s difficult to make a meaningful impact like you did in the original game. Your resources are limited, your time is short and your man power is usually understaffed. It’s a grueling situation, and for that, the story feels far more intriguing as you progress.