XCOM 2 (PC)

XCOM is the gaming equivalent of crack. I know I shouldn’t be playing it – I need to write this review, I need to do the dishes, I need to leave my house, preferably after showering. I know it’s bad for me but I just … can’t … stop. XCOM is the type of game you start playing at 9pm, just for a mission and maybe a couple upgrades, then you find yourself blearily stumbling off to sleep at quarter to four in the morning. When XCOM 2 was announced, a few of my friends sent me texts and links to the announcement. I just sighed heavily, hung my head, then turned to my calendar and scratched a big “X” over a thirty day block of time (albeit with a slight smile). I love XCOM. It’s very, very fun. Let’s just get that out of the way now.

So, You Thought You Won?

The Known and the Unknown

As usual, your time is divided into fighting battles and base/resource management, but this time around there are even more ways to customize your squad and base and a ton of new ways to adapt your squad to your personal playstyle. Want a sniper who also doubles as a magnum-wielding cowboy? No problem. Want to build an assault trooper that doubles as a psionic shadow-dwelling stealth ninja with a shotgun that fires poison-tipped rounds? Go for it. Perma-death is still in full force, so go ahead and fall in love with your squad at your own peril. If you’ve played XCOM: EU there will be a lot here that’s familiar, but there’s plenty of new stuff to drool over as well.

Fighting in the field is pretty similar to XCOM: Enemy Unknown. You move from cover to cover (if you don’t want your squad to die immediately), laying down lines of overlapping fire as you inch across the battlefield. Don’t worry though; there are plenty of fun new twists. Loot drops are a new addition, where random deceased enemies will occasionally drop loot with a timer attached to it and you never know what the loot is going to be; a scope, extra clips for no-movement-cost reloads, new grenades etc. You can enhance loot drops with a costly perk that will cause foes to drop two items instead of one, making the drops even tastier. It adds some excitement and tests your greed; is it worth potentially stumbling upon a new group of enemies to make a dash for the dropped loot? What if the loot isn’t any good and you sacrifice your best ranger to get it? Make your decision fast, because that timer ticks away quick.

Covering All Your Bases

Another new addition is concealment. Your squad begins every mission in concealment and you remain concealed until you stumble into an enemy’s field of view, represented by a red square pattern around groups of aliens. This is great for laying ambushes for enemies and also opens up new stressful options for combat, as once you are spotted, you can’t re-enter concealment, even if you wipe out the group. Say you have a viper and a mech to the north and two sectoids (mind controlling bastards!) and a stun lancer to the west. What do you do? Who do you ambush, knowing that the other group will be closing in on your unprotected side once you fire your first shot? Many, many times I sat there checking distance, checking my enemies’ line of sight (LOS is another excellent addition to combat in XCOM 2, represented by a small crosshair when you can be seen), weighing pros and cons, weighing enemy skills verses my own squad’s, cursing myself for not bringing another ranger, checking where half and full cover is, agonizing over my decision. This is where XCOM 2 succeeds so well and is so damned fun. Knowing the right move will power me to victory and the wrong will spell ruin for my favorite soldiers is a thrill, and always requires a lot of thought. Also, using concealment to lay a perfect ambush is so rewarding it’s ridiculous. Setting up your troops perfectly on overwatch, kicking off the festivities with a well-timed grenade fired into a cluster of enemies, then sitting back, watching the aliens scramble around desperately, blundering into your waiting lines of fire is crazy fun.

Classes and Skills

Nothing's Perfect

There are also graphical hiccups, sound freezes and the occasional slowdown, even though my machine has capabilities far beyond what I needed to run the game. Online you can find multiple webpages dedicated to fixes, proposed fixes, tweaks, and complaints and I ended up lowering my settings to get some of the worst problems to calm down. There’s also the odd Caps Lock trick that will substantially decrease load times between missions (what?). All of this is a real shame to see, especially in a game this highly anticipated.

On the Other Hand...