Showgunners

I really enjoyed my time with it. Gameplay consists of walking around in a gameshow avoiding traps and doing some very light puzzling in realtime. But the meat and potatoes are Xcom style grid/turnbased combat. There isn't an overarching strategy layer like Xcom besides taking interviews with a certain tone (silly, rude, nice) so you can get sponsorship rewards from certain companies to give you gear or discounts. In order to more quickly level up and get more abilities for your characters and gain more sponsorships, you play as stylishly as possible to get bonus experience. The world and story exposition isn't all too in depth or amazing, but it doesn't waste your time either. I was afraid the characters would be a little obnoxious, but they were never too annoying. In fact the Main characters Scarlett's voice actress surprised me and I think elevated the material making her rather likeable. I played some other Xcom games and picking Hard immediately was the right call. Took me about 20 hours to beat. Enjoyed my time with it. Now curious to see what Artificer has in store next. If you liked this check out Hard West 1 and 2 if you want more Xcom style battles with some light palatecleanser storytelling in between battles.

xcom style combat but with fixed characters. It's well implemented, the characters are unique and fill their roles well. You can flavor them a bit to your taste with weapon and implant choice. I really like the colorful game show setting, it gives the game a nice funky vibe. The game is split up into episodes where you move over a proper 3D map where you look for chests and solve puzzles for extra weapons and items in between encounters. The maps aren't all super memorable but there are a few nice eye catching set pieces. And it gives the game a great pacing. It never felt like a drag and I was always excited to get back to the game. Also you get a new enemy type every episode. Great fun

It is stylish, interesting turn-based strategy with exploration mode where you search items and resolve puzzles in dark future wrestling show. Many different game mechanics and relatively short total duration makes this game almost impossible to get bored with. Little lack of balance in characters (but may be it depends on playstyle). Characters with higher damage and health were better for me that ones with some special abilities. Also, the impossibility to sell old equipment for money is sometimes frustrating (for example, you just wasted 10k+ for new rifle and now you got better new one from loot box, but you can not sell old one to purchase equipment for other teammates, only give it to charity for honour). Bright and beautil masterpiece in TBS genre of this year. If you like XCom-like games you mush try it

This is a very streamlined game - the combat is stripped to simple but versatile rules, there's no ammo pickups or inventory sorting, and the story gives you only as much as is needed to get you shooting up the next level. The downside is that the plot is very Video Game™, though the companion characters are still likeable and have fun dialogue. The upside is that Showgunners plays smoothly, with each character really having a unique playstyle that you can still get used to quickly because of how no-frills the combat rules are. My main complaint is that I wish the reality tv angle was expanded on - before the game released, I really hoped there would be more interviews to do, a stupid gameshow the characters would hate doing, artificial drama drummed up by the producers. I understand it's not what the game wanted to be, but I'm still sad this setup wasn't used to its full potential, I was looking forward to it. :( I don't regret buying it on release and I'm wishing Artificer that they get to follow up on that sequel hook at the end. I would be happy to see another game with these characters and get to know them better.