Posted on: January 24, 2022
Firekracker
Games: 608 Reviews: 8
Wait for it to hit the bargain bin
My personal regrettable purchase of 2020 over on Steam. This is a story sequel to XCOM 2, but an entirely different genre. This is probably best described as a puzzle game with some tactical elements and RPG mechanics. The gameplay loop consists of your team breaching a room or otherwise closed-off area, entering bullet time, and solving a turn-based puzzle of killing the baddies and clearing the room. Rinse and repeat in the next room. The gameplay is not terrible, but it's sadly not exactly good either, and it gets repetetive really fast. Unfortunately this is the strongest point of the game. The story starts with a promising concept (baddies from XCOM 2 leave, leaving hybrids and the problem of integrating them behind) but falls flat in the execution with a completely predictable "baddies want to kill all nonhumans, let's stop them with the power of friendship" narrative. The characters are now center of the story (so there now is no permadeath), terribly one-dimensional because they are exclusively defined by two or three character traits each, and especially the dialogue is just cringy. It's clear that someone tried to recreate colonial marines from Aliens, but didn't understand their social dynamic and just created Mean Girls with guns. Graphics and Music are par for the XCOM course. Not special either way. Overall don't bother unless you are really a fan of the series, or are in a serious slump. For everyone else, the gameplay itself can be fairly enjoyable if you manage to shoot the game for five bucks or less.
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