Yes. This is gaming.

High stakes, dare-to-be-great situations, customizable soldiers, and plenty of explosions and pewpewpew! The sequel and most recent iteration of the Xcom franchise is not PERFECT, but is a worthy edition and worthy of a playthrough.

As the game opens, it is revealed that all the struggle to boot the alien menace off planet was for naught, and the invasion force has insinuated themselves as a mildly sinister "first among equals".

Yes, all those hours playing the first game are not part of this narrative. Get over it.

Similar to the formula of the series, you are the direction and driving force of the resistance movement, allocating resources of various types in order to create an irresistable tide of cash, supplies, sentiment, and artillery to send them bug-eyed aliens back where the come from. The planetwide metagame is familiar, as is the squad-based encounter maps, as you equip your troop carrier with strike teams for defense, or targets of opportunity.

Part of the fun of this game was the customization of the individual soldiers as they increase in their individual class-based proficiencies and as your rag-tag resistance movement comes into more potent technology. Over the course of the game, an individual soldier can go from the equivalent of hitting oogga-boogas on the head with a stick to "Over 9,000" cyberwarriors laying waste to the countryside. The game fights back by introducing aliens of different strains with different strengths to force changes in squad tactics.

The limitations of the game become evident on the first playthrough as the technobabble from your chief science officer can be omitted from the story with a mouse-click and a "Yeah, whatever. What can I blow up now?", and the mission objectives don't have a lot of variety. Overlooking these glaring flaws, the rest of the game is straight-up fun strategy.

Now that the game is no longer a new release, the expansion packs will be added, giving new life to new baddies, and further customization options. As of this date, I have only played the core, game, but I recommend it VERY highly.

XCOM 2: The people of Earth need you, WILL YOU HEED THE CALL?

Honestly my biggest beef with this game is the step back it took from Enemy Within. No gene mods, no MECs (the new SPARK units from Shen's Last Gift are a very poor replacement), no alternate mission types (covert Ops), no third faction (EXALT).

The biggest problem is just how boring the strategic layer is. Not saying XCOM:EW was massivly interesting in that deparment, but at least with EXALT & controlling terror, it felt like you had more choices. Here it's just "fly to scan site, get interrupted by a mission, fly back to scan site".

After some consideration, I've opted to re-review this game with the new content added. For reference, my original review did recommend this game. However, I have changed my mind because the DLC has actually made things worse, not better. I will also attempt to avoid spoilers as much as possible.

CORE GAME:

In this game, you are once again the Commander....however, in this game's universe, XCOM lost the war, and humanity gave in to the aliens. The aliens have taken over and have convinced humanity that they're looking out for the human race. Obviously, this is not the case, as people still seem to be going missing and there's word of an "Avatar Project" under developement by the aliens. Thus, you must once again lead XCOM to victory against the alien menace. You now manage a rag-tag group of rebels with limited supplies and troops at your disposal. The theory behind this is simple: because of your limited resources, you must pick and choose your battles, deciding what to focus on and what to leave behind. In theory, it's a great idea, and the core game itself is an enjoyable experience.

Unfortunately, it's marred by several design decisions that were clearly intended to help it better resemble the "Long War" mod from the previous game, to the game's overall detriment.

The game has done away with satellites and replaced them with a new mechanic. You instead fly around the world uniting local resistance groups to obtain your monthly funds. While this mechanic is preferable in my mind to the satellite system, it still requires you to build unique buildings in order to collect all the sectors and their bonuses. Further, as the enemy works towards its secretive "Avatar Project", many of its facilities will be planted in regions you haven't reached yet, forcing you to dump resources into expansion instead of making your troops better, which could hurt you in the long run.

Resource generation is extremely random, often to the point of frustration. This will often happen even if you're not really mismanaging your resources at all. As a result, you'll be scrounging for everything in the early game and may even find it hard to keep your troops properly equipped against your enemy's increasingly stronger armies. Finding resources on enemies can help matters, but you have to move in range to pick them up, and you only get a limited number of turns to do so. This also holds true of your own gear: if a soldier goes down (unconscious), you must retrieve them in order to save them. Otherwise, they and their gear will be lost forever.

But perhaps the biggest problem that most people have with the game is the very strong emphasis on timers. I think they make sense in many cases, but there are serious issues with the way some of these missions are timed, and the timers are often extremely unforgiving. I have had missions where I was simply unable to complete the mission due to a combination of any number of factors: the number of enemies thrown at me, the way the map had been laid out, the number of turns I'd been given, as well as DLC factors (more on that later). And the Avatar Project itself loves to play unfairly, building facilities much too far away from you to reach quickly. I once had a facility constructed several regions away from any of my existing ones, and I had to watch helplessly as the project ticked down to my doom because I lacked the resources to reach it and it was rapidly speeding up the project's progress. So many elements in this game are random that it's entirely possible to fail, with no recourse to save yourself, through no fault of your own.

DLC CONTENT:

The DLC adds interesting story elements that could have been quite wonderful. Unfortunately, the design of the DLC will often give you these new quests very early into your game....which is typically well before you've got the firepower to deal with these threats.

I remember finding myself staring down a Sectopod in one of these missions, with my squad of five solders armed with conventional weapons and not one of them high enough to have a lot of reliable means of armor-shredding. I was fortunate that the Spark soldier provided to me had armor-shredding of his own, and that my troops all carried grenades, or I probably would have lost at least one soldier in that mission. Instead, I limped through with multiple injuries which crippled my roster for the weeks to come. Similarly, in another story mission, I was facing a monstrosity with two separate health bars (yes, two) that apparently received a free turn every time I made any sort of move. Naturally, he decided to show up during an extraction mission with a limited timer, knocked one of my men unconscious, and through his distractions made the mission impossible to complete in the time alloted, resulting in a loss of over half my men and a failure to save the VIP.

And that's what I meant earlier when I said "the DLC made the game worse, not better". Shen's Gift is perhaps the least offensive DLC because it's over in short order and provides useful benefits for the long term in the form of Spark soldiers (XCOM 2's version of the MEC), but its "boss" is ridiculous for such an early level encounter, and unless you've got lots of armor shredding handy, the generic MECs and turrets could end up turning this mission into a meatgrinder for you. The three "rulers" from the Alien Hunters DLC, on the other hand, refuse to stay in their own missions and will make a habit of showing up in missions they don't belong. They will even show up in limited time missions, which can often ruin your entire day. It is truly infuriating to be playing a mission well, only to have your mission spoiled through no fault of your own by the sudden appearance of a boss monster that doesn't belong in the mission in the first place. Anarchy's Children is barely worth mentioning as it only really adds a lot of Mad Max-esque gear which you'll use on a few toons, maybe, and then never again.

CONCLUSION (TL;DR):

All in all, XCOM 2 has the core of a great game, but is ultimately ruined by its attempts to appeal more to the minority "hardcore" crowd that loves Long War than to its original XCOM 1 audience. The only means by which I can recommend this game is if you install a number of mods through the Workshop to decrease the game's reliance on randomized nonsense. Otherwise, you will find yourself very frustrated, very fast.

I have 400 hours on this game and I love it.

I do not recommend it.

Don't support a company that takes giant backwards leaps in performance and features. The bugs, crashes, core technical faults, and issues won't be fixed because they can't be fixed. Seeing units through walls as you pass by, a character being unusable until reloading (bad luck if you're not smart enough to make manual ironman backups this far in) because they fell through a roof onto a prop, the objectives being destroyed instantly by fire and environmental-destructive enemies (Andromedon's natural walking behaviour will destroy it if it comes into contact), as well as a myriad of other issues; almost all are inherently part of the games creation and will not be "fixed".

I am under the assumption Firaxis's publishers rushed the game out of the door to meet deadlines, because I struggle to believe the developers and entire team(s) thought the game was in a "version ready" state, and not late-beta.

XCOM 2 is the sequel to 2012's XCOM: Enemy Unknown, developed by Firaxis Games (Civilization) and published by 2K Games. The game is the latest in a long history of infamously unforgiving XCOM games, dating right back to 1994's cult classic, UFO: Enemy Unknown. The premise for the series is that a hyper-intelligent alliance of aliens invade earth, and the player, known in the modern games as "The Commander", must lead a group known as Extraterrestrial Combat (X-COM) to defend the Earth. The series was rebooted in 2012 with Enemy Unknown, bringing the dated series back into the public eye and gaining newfound popularity.

XCOM 2 takes place 15 years after the events of Enemy Unknown, of which the canon ending was that the player failed to defend the Earth from the alien invaders. Firaxis have said that they decided that the canon ending is failure who have now taken root on Earth as a governing body known as ADVENT, parading as something akin to prophets of the benevolent Elders, providing cures to many diseases through gene therapy and bringing a newfound unity to the human race. A sinister new "Avatar Project" has been discovered by the XCOM Initiative, and it's up to you to investigate and combat the threat to humanity, and hopefully liberate Earth from the Elders.

The gameplay of the game is threefold: first, you have the turn-based combat. This makes up the very core of the game, and the vast majority of your time will be spent blowing aliens sky-high. The combat system is deep, and easy to come to grips to, with 5 classes for your soldiers to experiment with (6 with the Shen's Last Gift DLC). Missions vary, but all take place on procedurally generated maps. The objectives differ as well, you control your squad of up to 6 to complete goals such as stealing sensitive data, protecting a resistance camp from an alien counter-attack or recovering a VIP to gain precious intel - an important currency in the game. In addition to the combat side of the gameplay, there is a large element of base management whereupon you build facilities with different functions, research new tech, develop upgrades for your soldiers' arms and armor, as well as decide what areas of the "Geoscape" to scan. Your base is a flying ship, and the Geoscape presents you with different options to explore to recover currency, new troops or investigate new leads. The third facet of gameplay is managing your emotional wellbeing. I'm still not quite over losing my favorite sharpshooter, Captain Yoko Littner.

XCOM 2 is perhaps one of the best examples in the video game industry of evaluating your risk vs your reward. As a tactical game notorious for its difficulty, literally every decision you make has an impact on the game. Across the roughly 20-hour campaign, decisions you made near the start can come back to haunt you. A misplaced power relay in the base or a poorly chosen skill selection on your soldier can have serious ramifications. Perhaps the best testament to the difficulty of the series is shown in the plot of the game: Enemy Unknown's canon ending is a failure because "everybody fails their first XCOM campaign".

Normally in strategy games, you can afford to make a mistake or two, but XCOM 2 takes no prisoners. Leaving a soldier without adequate cover can have disastrous effects: not only may your soldier be killed, but its death may send the rest of your squad into a panic, causing them to fire off randomly (possibly at your own troops!) or unusable on the next turn. Similarly, if you hold off researching new armor for even a week too long eventually the aliens' tech will begin to vastly outclass the HP bar of your soldiers, and you will find yourself being steamrolled time and time again. The difficulty takes some getting used to, and can be infuriating on your first campaign after failing your sixth mission in a row, but once the learning curve has been surpassed and the various nuances of the games tactical turn-based combat have been mastered, the game becomes a lot fairer. If The Commander makes good choices, your greatest enemy will become luck.

This, however, leads me onto one of my only criticisms of XCOM 2, and generally one of my only criticisms of the entire series. Luck can be your greatest friend in this game, but mostly you will find it to be your enemy. Chance-to-hit percentages feature prominently in the combat of XCOM 2, and there is nothing worse than your soldier missing a crucial 90% chance shot, or scoring the lowest possible damage and being killed by that same enemy with 1hp left. There is a lot of discussion as to whether players simply seem to notice their failures more than their victories, but while playing the game I couldn't seem to shake the feeling that a 90% chance to hit was something closer to 60%. Similarly, ordering your soldier around a corner and activating three separate groups of enemies at once because the game generated the "pods" unfairly close together is equally as rage-inducing.

Outside of that gripe, however, the rest of the game is an absolute gem. Visually, the game is a huge step up from the previous game, with stunning landscapes and wonderful character design. The models for the aliens are brilliant, and the character creation is incredibly pleasing, and all of your changes are realised on the battlefield. That is, until the soldier you spent an hour customising panics and shoots the soldier you spent TWO hours customising in the back of the head. Wonderful stuff.

Coupled with the gorgeous graphics the game comes with a stellar soundtrack (composed by Tim Wynn), which is well worth a listen to on its own. The atmospheric music sets the tension for the game, adding a wealth of depth to any skirmish. A personal favorite of mine is called "Lazarus", which plays while overlooking the world map on the Geoscape. The deep bass with anxiety-inducing strings complete the wonderful package that is XCOM 2, and bring it to an all-new level of awesome.

XCOM 2 also features Steam workshop support, which adds a fantastic array of community-made mods to the game, with everything from complete gameplay overhauls (a favorite of mine is a wave-based Tower Defense take on XCOM), to cosmetic upgrades and even fan-made soldier classes. With mods, the replayability is endless.

In short, XCOM 2 is a fantastic game, and more than lives up to its predecessor's legend. Simply a must-have for any sci-fi or strategy nut, and will surely give them something to enjoy. It improves upon the tried-and-tested XCOM formula in every way, and I can only wait with baited breath for what Firaxis has in store for us. I just hope they don't decide that the canon ending is my poor squad dying a horrible death and failing to complete their mission.

This review was written on behalf of TeamTom's Reviews. You can check out the steam group here, or visit us on our website

I was a newcomer to the XCOM series, picking up Enemy Within during the summer sale last year. I was quickly engrossed by the game's mechanics, and when I found out a sequel had been announced I knew I'd have to jump on it. With two DLC packs and a cosmetic add-on released now, as well as several patches, I believe it's just about time to take an in-depth look at the latest product of Firaxis Games.

The most apparent improvement in XCOM 2 is the graphics. XCOM: Enemy Unknown had a distinct art style, but it didn't appeal much to me and the game itself also just didn't look that great because of its low level of detail. There are almost no such issues here. Your troops have realistic proportions, their weapons are properly sized, and the models and textures themselves have improved greatly from Enemy Unknown. This extends to your opponents, as well, each of which receiving a fantastic face-lift. The animations are relatively fluid, and XCOM 2 also offers a host of new customization options for making every XCOM trooper feel just a little more unique and personal. The environments are also much more detailed than they were before. Utopian cityscapes maintain an eerie sterility, which contrasts with the wilderness of the cold wastelands of Siberia and the unbearable heat of the Sahara. XCOM 2 definitely earns itself some praise here, and really raises the bar in its genre, even if it isn't groundbreaking.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=685060326

Another big improvement in presentation over Enemy Unknown for XCOM 2, audio design has been greatly enhanced. Each environment features appropriate ambient sounds, adding to the suspense before you engage. Your enemies all have unique responses to whatever situation they're presented with, from the hiss of a Sectoid to the Earth-shattering stomp of a Sectopod. XCOM's own weapons all sound satisfying, and there are a variety of options for your troopers' voices. Voice acting is of similar quality to that found in Enemy Unknown; while I hoped for an improvement it is still perfectly acceptable. Perhaps one of my favorite parts of Enemy Unknown was the soundtrack, and I am once again greatly impressed by XCOM 2. Every track is splendid, from the suspenseful main menu score to the theatrical combat music. There's no doubt in my mind here: Timothy Wynn's work definitely doesn't disappoint, and XCOM 2's soundtrack stands up nicely alongside that of Enemy Unknown.

I'm afraid that this is going to have to be the unfortunate low point of the review. XCOM 2 still doesn't perform well, even on a PC that exceeds the recommended requirements by a great deal. It's very unfortunate that this game suffers from such lackluster performance, as it drags down an otherwise well-rounded performance from Firaxis Games. The 40 frames per second I maintain is simply unacceptable given my hardware; there's no excuse for it, and there's even less of an excuse for the 10 frames per second I maintain on the so-called Geoscape. With that said, I haven't had many issues with crashing, but there are some bugs and glitches that have yet to be officially fixed. These aren't game-breaking in my experience, but they are very annoying. Fortunately, there are a variety of modifications on the Workshop which address almost all of these issues, but I would expect an official patch by now.

XCOM 2 shares many gameplay elements of its predecessor, Enemy Unknown, as you might expect of a sequel. It is a turn-based tactics game focusing on the control of multiple units, each of which with their own unique equipment and abilities. The game uses a two-moves-per-turn system; every unit has two available actions by default, and moving any amount within a radial area consumes one movement point; typically, activating abilities consumes one or two movement points, and firing always ends that unit's turn. This comes together very well, and makes for a game that is in-depth enough to excite while not being overly complex. There is a line-of-sight system which is used to reveal enemies and parts of the map, and a variety of units to choose from in both single- and multiplayer. These include ordinary humans, cloned government troopers, a specially engineered flying humanoid designed to look like an Egyptian god, xenomorph-esque arachnoids, and massive bipedal robots. With this variety, it will take some time before one becomes bored of the game's cast.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=632670080

The singleplayer campaign of XCOM 2 places you in the shoes of the illusive Commander, a faceless strategic genius in charge of the XCOM organization. This time around, you eschew the underground command center in favor of a massive VTOL supply spacecraft, the Avenger. This mobile base completely overhauls the strategic world map, known as the Geoscape, forcing you to manage your resources carefully since the nations of the world have capitulated to the alien menace, ADVENT. You'll face these human enemies more often than not, but after you escalate and take the fight to ADVENT's strongholds, you'll encounter aliens more and more. Missions are similar to those of Enemy Unknown, but some enforce a turn limit before your objective fails, which is both challenging and very annoying. There are more ways to customize troops than before, with the classes of Enemy Unknown completely replaced by five new ones. New technology and stat-improving items provide various bonuses to troopers, giving players the edge they need to destroy ADVENT and incite a worldwide uprising. From start to finish, the singleplayer keeps you on your toes and the tutorial familiarizes new players with gameplay while being integrated directly into the campaign. Most players will spend most of their time here, as it is the focus of the game.

XCOM 2 also features multiplayer, which allows for players to assemble a cadre of troops from both ADVENT, alien, and XCOM forces, with similar abilities to those of singleplayer units. There are a handful of map types to choose from, but the big issue with multiplayer is the lack of options. The adversarial gamemode quickly becomes uninteresting, and other ways to play would greatly improve the game. One idea is singleplayer gamemodes being introduced to multiplayer; one player must defend an objective, the other must destroy it; perhaps one player is attempting to defend a stronghold of civilian units against another. No matter how you look at it, more variety is needed for multiplayer, and as a result you probably won't spend a ton of time on it.

XCOM 2 earns fantastic praise here. A full suite of development tools, workshop integration, and bringing the Long War Studios modding team in to work with Firaxis Games on XCOM 2 modding features shows how dedicated the developers were in their integration of community content support. Take one look at the workshop and you can already see a fantastic variety of modifications: New enemies to give you an even bigger challenge. A total overhaul to how the game is played, making it more like the previous XCOM games. A new weapon tier, or new weapon classes. And a host of new trooper voices and customization options, to scratch whatever science fiction itch you have. This plays a big part in my recommendation of the game.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=638409582

XCOM 2 is definitely a worthy sequel to the previous reboot, Enemy Unknown. It changes enough to justify its purchase without changing too much from the XCOM formula, and once again sets the gold standard for the turn-based tactics genre. Fans of strategy and tactics, as well as those who enjoy Sid Meier's Civilization V, are sure to enjoy this title.

I recommend XCOM 2.

Get the game if it is on sale, otherwise it's not worth the $60 USD asking price (Australian store).

The game is still broken months after release:

-Frame drops at the start of every mission (and loading main menu).
-Buggy animations, such as characters shooting through walls or breaking already broken windows to shoot.
-Load times to return to base are still stupidly long, which can be reduced to a few seconds if you hit "caps lock"... no joke just google it.
-Line of sight is still broken, enemies can see you through some walls, while other times you can't see enemies that are out in the open.

Also don't buy the DLC. It's super lazy and not worth the price... the free mods add more to the game than the paid DLC.

On one last note, still no word on controller support, even though a console port is coming.

The game in itself is fun. However it keeps crashing and it spoils all the fun for me. I finished it the first time; and excused the bug on the youth of the game at the time. I even bought one of the DLC thinking that the bugs would be patched after all that time. There is less slowdown however the game stills crashes. Savegames are corrupted too, they load but the game will still end up crashing for example when you complete a mission.

Some Spoilers, so be warned:

















While I love the universe and atmosphere of the game, I have one huge gripe that many others have voiced, that of the RNG. There are some fights that you'll face especially if youre attempting a no-death campaign, that will make you tear your hair out, and the only solution is save-scumming (and this with the best of tactics, flanking, optimal-builds). Also some enemies will make you shake your head, facepalm, or some other reaction as to how irritating (not, necessarily dangerous, just plain irritating) they are, IM LOOKING AT YOU CODEX!

If you're a fan of the original xcom, this game fits the bill though, but be warned, the "free-enemy turn" mechanic can annoy and frustrate at the higher levels (versus what we had in xcom when an enemy could easily be caught with their pants down), when you get 2+ groups activating at the same time, though this is generally through bad scouting or bad luck, not design.

On a personal note, I would recommend some mods for an initial playthrough, mostly slowing down the timers, as this can provide an excessive note of frustration/consternation for some that expected the more "let me play at my pace" game setting. The timer still provides an incentive to hurry while the mod allows for a bit of leeway (and you don't feel the need to bullrush your squad into an area you KNOW is full of enemies just to get lose 1 or 2 of them simply to satisfy a stupid timer).

XCOM2 is just as enjoyable as 1 was a few years ago. There are multiple things which I feel are missing or not as polished as I have wished, considering the success of these releases, however, if the game remained as it is at the time of the review (Shen's gift DLC released), it will still offer a compelling experience.

In the end, the pacing of the action and the improvements to the tactical battles, plus wanting to get more of the story it's what gives me confidence to recommend it.

I've played so far on Veteran (completed the game surprisingly fast, 30 battles after starting, with the highest soldier rank Captain), on Legendary (plus some mods for extra content, which is badly needed and this will take me a lot of time to finish).

There are multiple issues that are worth discussing, but others did a good job at explaining them (story, silly animation issues similar to those of the previous release, DLC stuff, performance, many others). But they don't make a significant dent into the experience, overall. At least not for me.