Your main goal in XCOM 2 is to stop the mysterious “Avatar Project,” which is represented by a meter at the top of the strategic map. Strategic Tipsĭon’t Panic About the Avatar Project. Let’s avoid those mistakes! First at the strategic layer, then at the tactical. It’s a tough game up-front, and can be even less forgiving than that over time - enough small mistakes and suddenly you’re doomed. With 4.5 million squaddies dead after the first week of release, it’s clear there are many, many ways to die. Or to chainsaw them in half-at the very beginning of a new strategy game, that's the kind of choice I really appreciate.So you wanna get good at XCOM 2. Gears gives you as much time as you want to customize your squad, and then sends you into the action to shoot baddies. You can't spend more than a few seconds on it before a menu pops up asking you to do something else. Once I got over the initial deluge I started to enjoy XCOM 2 more, but I'm still annoyed by how spastic the world map experience is. It's simply trying to do too much, too fast, at least for a new player-if you roll straight from a base XCOM 2 campaign into the War of the Chosen expansion, it might not be so jarring. As if The Assassin wasn't hard enough, she started spawning freaking alien priests into fights, too! Utterly vile.īut the Chosen, of course, also introduce another system into the mix, and for awhile I was lost on what missions I needed to be doing. It's so fun to have an imposing nemesis, and to figure out how to bring a whole squad to bear to take them down. I love how much personality they bring to what is otherwise a very high-level strategy game. Earning new tiers of weapons is exciting, and the Chosen, introduced in the expansion, are awesome. And the mission itself mixes portions where you have to press forward to seek out enemies, and defend against an onslaught of reinforcements. (Image credit: The Coalition)Īfter a cutscene and a few minutes in the menus, I was on to my next mission, which introduced two new recruits and let me learn how to use their classes. But that was a deliberate choice on the part of the developers, to just let you get to the fun.ĭespite being a streamlined game, Gears Tactics still has some great skill trees. That's about it, so of course it's less overwhelming than XCOM-it simply has less going on. Between the missions and cutscenes you can upgrade your soldiers via their skill trees, augment their weapons with items you get on missions, and customize their looks. Gears Tactics doesn't have any of XCOM's base-building or much meta strategy outside of combat. The pacing's so manic it feels like every element of XCOM has been stuck in a blender, slurried up and then poured down my throat with a funnel. And if I say no to that mission because I just want some damn supplies, it pops up again three seconds later saying "SKIP THIS MISSION AT YOUR PERIL." New research something bad the Advent are doing a mission I have to go on now. Meanwhile, when I try to navigate the Avenger around the world map to pick up supplies or a new engineer, I'm interrupted every 10 seconds by something the game wants me to do. I barely remember the story of XCOM: Enemy Within, but I definitely remember my superstar sniper Lola Bunny and my best assault trooper, Yosemite Sam. When I think of XCOM's defining traits, I think of the freedom it gives you to play how you want (and to fail horribly), the brutality of your life hinging on a 40% probability shot, and the stories that I make myself as I bond with my squad. It's in service of setting up an exciting, narrative-heavy introduction in which "you" the commander are rescued from Advent servitude. XCOM 2, by comparison, has a strangely scripted intro, forcing you to move troops to exact spaces on the map and use the exact attacks or abilities it tells you to. I was a bit overzealous and almost let my protagonist Gabe die, which added a fun bit of tension to the escape. After only a few minutes of introducing systems like taking cover and using overwatch, it gave me an objective-get the hell out of a burning city alive-and let me do my thing. Both begin with linear missions meant to teach you the basics while setting up the campaign, but I was surprised that Gears had the more freeform tutorial. On first impression, Gears Tactics is a more polished and better-paced strategy game.
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