Phantom Doctrine

Yes, the comparison to XCOM is unavoidable, but this doesn't detract in any way. I've just finished playing this through in the standard campaign mode (ie, not the extended campaign) and it was a mostly positive experience all the way through. That said, there was still _something_ missing for this be a game I could rave about, but I just can't put my finger on it. I had avoided this game for a while because of some negative review I had read making me - incorrectly - believe that it was not quite a full game. On the contrary, the balance between story and side missions keeps the game going for a long time. You CAN control how long it lasts - either rush through the story missions and face a steep increase in difficultt or take your time with side-missions and build up your squad and experience a mostly flat difficulty curve. For better or worse: - There are a number of different mission types/modes, but they do get repetitive - almost a chore - after a while - It took quite a long time before I started recognizing maps, and even so I still had new maps thrown at me all the way to the end. - Depending on mission type, most maps were still new experiences when I encountered them again - There seemed to be no end to the base upgrades, although it seemed limited at first. I still kept unlocking valuable buffs and upgrades all the way to the end, and there was still more to be had if I had held off on doing the final mission. - The investigation boards and especially clicking on keywords in the same few redacted documents that are recycled and recycled gets old quickly. So to the point that I just wished that all pieces of evidence would just come with the keywords ready and done. - The in-mission action UI felt a bit unwieldy at first, but after a few missions it starts to feel natural. - The base facility UIs and selecting and assigning agents took a lot longer to befriend. All in all a solid piece and entertaining experience.

I came into this looking for an XCOM style of experience. In a number of ways I received that. I got the home base, characters that go through different experiences, permadeath, research. However, in many others I got a very odd experience that didn't gel. Dossiers didn't make much sense in terms of how I interacted with them, it just seemed like an almost pointless clicking mini-game that wasn't even a game. Stealth was not much to speak of unless you can sneak up on someone with no witnesses or cameras, no silenced weaponry in the early game. And when I did manage to pull off a perfect in and out mission, including secondary objectives, without having to fire a gun that was in the main storyline it wasn't reflected in the dialogue that took place afterward which really hollowed out the experience for me. It does do some cool things, like multiple ways of completing research, figuring out how to deal with potentially back-stabbing agents, and solid customizability. The part that lead to me quitting so early in my gameplay experience was the a bug I encountered repeatedly. In a seemingly random fashion, I would choose to open fire on an enemy and the animation would freeze with my character pointing a gun at them and about to fire and never doing it. And it would stick there. This happened at least twice and the only remedy I could get was to exit the mission and come back. When I had already completed the objectives and was just getting into evac it was the last straw. The fact that I didn't even care enough about the story or the gameplay experience to seek what forums had to say tells me and hopefully should tell you enough that this game isn't worth the time. Go play XCOM again.

A decent game, definitely captivating for about 6-10 hours, but it got repetitive after that for me. If you were ever a fan of commandos, this would suit you!

If you like Xcom, you'll definitely enjoy this one. I really liked the recent Xcom games but couldn't find others that satisfied that itch. Xenonauts in particular was very lacking. However, Phantom Doctrine is really nice and the whole "spy vs spy" feel is fun, story is nice and the puzzles where you have to connect clues together add to the overall atmosphere. It's not perfect but it's really good.

I love this game so much! Specially the strategy part