The enemy learns to use your weapons and develops new capabilities, further adding to the scenario that the world really is ending if you can't stop it.Īll in all there is not much I disliked. Where you start off fighting weak melee-based weaklings with no armor, by the end the game throws literal biological tanks at you.
Factions unlock new tech through research, Pandorans simply get better every few in-game hours, with new enemies appearing or existing enemies getting new variants. The factions as well as the Pandorans will continue to evolve throughout the game as well. I guess, you can raid your allies or really dig deep into the trade system, but I'm not sure that's worth it or viable. The only resource I had in abundance was food, despite not producing any. Resources are ALWAYS tight, so I have no idea how you can actually build up to the maximum of aircraft for instance. The map will turn red, havens will fall, the Pandorans will start to constantly attack not just your allies, but your bases as well. You will actively see things get progressively worse. The whole game is tied together by a surprisingly interesting narrative with some twists and turns and good voice acting, as well as the general threat of the Pandoravirus. Only at the very end of my almost 70 hour campaign did I feel fatigue setting in. or fighting the various factions, stealing vehicles, aircraft, research, destroying nests, lairs or citadels. Whether it's just gathering supplies and getting out before you're being overrun.
Which also means that mission variety is pretty solid for such a game. Here you can reactivate bases, gather supplies (I hated those missions), go on missions, destroy nests, defend havens, etc. The "geoscape" is the tactical layer of the game. But you can only finish the game supporting 1 faction. For me it was easily doable to win over all 3 factions, but the longer the game goes on the more they start hating each other, culminating in global warfare (quite ridiculous, given the apocalyptic circumstances). There are 3 factions you can choose to support (or raid to get supplies for instance), each offers you unique research and their own soldier class. The faction system is another intriguing part of the game. Oh, and you also have vehicles that can be used in strategic battles, and different planes to fight on the tactical map. There seems to be some variance as well, so not every soldier will be exactly the same. I just wish the game would tell you BEFORE choosing a class what skills it possesses. Or how about a Berserker that can cloak itself? Or a Technician that can also wield heavy machine guns? All of that is possible. You want a Sniper that always shoots back when he's attacked? Gotcha. There's different classes that can all be combined with other classes. There's regular damage, shred (destroys armor), piercing (circumvents armor, but doesn't destroy it), blast (AOE, heavy body part damage), Bleed, Poison, Acid (eats through armor, then flesh), Virus (reduces enemy will points causing them to panic and basically be helpless), paralysis (similar to virus, but reduces action points, until enemy is fully paralyzed, meaning you can capture them), and a few more. But they have different properties that are better or worse in certain situations or if you build your squad around it. Overwatch is entirely manually aimed and to be frank, it's the weakest system in the game in my opinion.Īpart from that you have LOADS of different weapons, most of which aren't per se "better", apart from your base equipment you start with. There's still low and high cover, but they matter differently. But the same also goes for your soldiers. You can also focus on disabling body parts to inflict status effects and render those limbs useless. You can circumvent heavily armored parts to get to the soft spots and deal massive damage. Flanking isn't just "more damage" or "guaranteed crit" it can be the difference between a kill and 0 damage, since all enemies have different body parts that you can target, each with their own unique properties, armor values, sometimes even shields. That means that positioning is even more important in this game. The better your aim, and the closer you are, the more you guarantee your shots to hit your target (the inner circle gives a 50% chance to hit, the outer a 100% chance). Instead of chance based hits you have a "targeting reticule".
Maybe it's even better than XCOM, that is up to individual preferences. To sum it up: This is probably the best XCOM style game that isn't XCOM. I could write a very detailed, very long review, but I think that would just spoil too much, so I'll concentrate on the main points and the various DLCs.