XCom2, War of the Chosen via Steam

 This Week I played XCom2, War of the Chosen. It was available for free play, for a limited time on Steam.

This is a turn-based strategy game, and I typically don’t like those types of games, but I figured it would be good for me to try a style of game that doesn’t appeal to me. As I start to play the game, I wonder why I don’t like these types of games, as it’s really just like a board game, where a player wait’s his turn. With that realization, I then wonder if I have been spoiled by video games and the immediate “action” so many of them provide, and I think that must be the reason. And so, as I start the game, I choose the novice level and the tutorial so that I can acquaint myself with the game. It is 2035 and an alien race has taken over the world. Initially, it seems this was supposed to be a beneficial undertaking, but now more earthlings are protesting and a rebellion against the aliens has begun.

Out of the turn-based games that are out there, I think this one might be the closest to a first-person shooter/action game. And, the turn-based aspect for a combat-style game did add some stress from the forced patience: waiting to defend yourself, while an enemy is attacking. There were also surprising moments during play, such as when one of the aliens who happened to be unarmed and without armor, generated a purple electricity from his hands that spread throughout the battlefield reanimating the other dead, armed aliens. I had mostly ignored this alien, thinking him not a threat, since he essentially looked naked. However, his action brought up another interesting variable in this game: psychological warfare. After his action, my closest player to him retreated from the battlefield, claiming she couldn’t handle it anymore.

Since I am a novice at this game, it was nice to not have the constant adrenaline rush of real-time combat, struggling to remember what key to hit to throw a grenade, shoot your gun, or swing your sword. Nevertheless, maybe that adrenaline rush is what draws me more to the first-person style games. I did feel, at times, that I was a spectator watching a sci-fi movie due to all of the interstitial clips of storyline.

Home base appears to be a ship, possibly scavenged from the aliens. Story-line-wise, it probably would have been better for me to start with the first XCom, but it wasn’t on sale this week, so here I am, in medias res. The first mission, which just seems like a tutorial, surprises me, because we end up rescuing a kidnapped commander from a cryogenic-style chamber. After the team’s evac, as the storyline plays, you are the commander as you hazily view the lead scientist, Tygan, remove an implanted chip from your brain. I’m pretty sure he says that it was in your occipital lobe. But, as you watch him do it, it seems like it’s in your throat, because it’s just below your eye-level. Later, when Tygan debriefs you about the surgery, the diagram shows it in the back of your head. This is a minor thing, but I bring it up, because at some point you see Tygan from behind and he has several scars on the back of his head. I wonder if there’s a story there, and also, if I can really trust Tygan.

The storyline and game progresses through missions to gain new scientists and equipment for research, new soldiers and weaponry for combat, and new data or intel and technology for expanding the mission of turning earth against the alien overlords. After missions, you are returned to the ship, which you view as a cross-section of its rooms, and you can select rooms to view different storylines, such as labs for scientific research, engineering for tech research, or the bridge for a map of your missions on earth.

This game, perhaps due to the subject of earthlings fighting aliens, reminded me of Microsoft’s Halo. At various points in the storyline, I think they refer to the aliens as “the Elders,” and that just furthered the connection, as I think Halo used similar terminology in its storylines. Overall, although I’m not typically drawn to turn-based games, I did enjoy this one, and found myself wanting to keep playing to see how the story developed.