From the second I loaded up Xcom 2 and got into the action from the very first cinematic, I knew that I was in for a very enjoyable ride. With great graphics, great sound and great combat Xcom 2 looks to be as promising as what it sounded out to be.
Xcom 2 is a turn based strategy game from 2K games the publisher that also bought us Boarderlands 2 and Civilization V. You control a squad of soldiers from Xcom as you fight ADVENT the aliens that have taken over the world following losing the war in the original Xcom (2012’s reimagined remake of the 1994 version) 20 years earlier.
Gameplay and Controls
Set in the year 2035 the tutorial level chucks you straight into the action as you raid ADVENTS gene bank to rescue the Commander who had been captured and put into stasis. During the tutorial you learn the basics of the game and the HUD is very easy to navigate with either every action having a set keybind or if you’re feeling a little lazy you can just click away. Each solider only has 2 actions per turn and if you mess them up you leave yourself open to be instantly killed, by the ADVENT threat if they get sight of you to be able to shoot. At the start of every level you start in concealment a way of using the shadows and cover to your advantage to create ambushes on your enemies, however get spotted or engage in combat to early and your whole squad loses concealment making you all vulnerable to ADVENTS relentless assault. During the mission you have set objectives, and a set amount of turns to complete the objectives set. If you succeed to meet the objectives in the turn limit then the mission is passed fail to meet them and face your demise on the battlefield. Although the game feels very unforgiving at times even on the easier difficulties I can see people getting highly frustrated or having a huge amount of enjoyment seeing the tactics they use succeed or ultimately fail. Each mission needs you to use each squad member differently and even during the missions one ADVENT move can put your tactics out of the window and you will need to figure something else out in a matter of seconds to save yourself.
In between missions you find yourself on the Avenger although I am yet to figure out what sort of ship the Avenger is with all its Alien tech and rooms you can excavate to make more rooms for whatever you fancy it’s a pretty big looking ship regardless of if it used to belong to the ADVENT or if it is some sort of Resistance tech. The character development and research facilities are fairly basic and straightforward to learn how to do it and research new tech in the lab has a timer on which it will be completed. I think that’s a nice touch so you’re not OP as soon as you step out of the gate. Here you will also find the bridge where you will be sent on your next objective. The bridge the Tech lab, the Engineer, the Armoury, and the Command rooms are the main 4 where you’ll spend most of the time whilst on board the Avenger, these are also the 4 at the bottom of the HUD for easy mobility around the ship.
At the end of each mission you are shown your squad and if a member is injured it will tell you how badly, if a solider is KIA this screen will remind you and it will inform you if a squad member was captured or MIA based on what happened during the mission. Whilst here, you will have the option to promote your troops, and unlock more abilities for their role.
The controls are the pretty basic hotkey or point and click style, once you’ve used both your action points that characters turn is over and the game moves on. At first the moving around in the game seems a bit daunting move too far and you’ve used both your action points without being able to active overwatch mode, the games concealment feature where you will automatically ambush a unsuspecting enemy if it moves into your line of sight getting this spot on with all 4 characters simultaneously feels great and it looks great too. What’s better than seeing a perfect move being made even better when the enemy get blown apart as they move into your line of sight whilst under overwatch? However if you do not move enough you risk not being in cover and ADVENT will spot you.
Graphics
The graphics on the highly enjoyable PC game are insanely good! The humans look human and the aliens look like the kind of aliens you would have nightmares about. Base that on the higher the graphic settings in game things only look better. Even on the lower graphic settings (yes I went there for the purpose of my review.) The graphics are really nice and smooth I found. Even when you’re deep in combat I didn’t notice a loss in my FPS or any screen lag/ loss of processing regarding of what was going down in combat. The weapon firing looks good (Call of Duty players take note on how to spray and pray accurately) and the ADVENT abilities look as weird and menacing as they do themselves overall in the graphic section this game hasn’t let me down yet!
Sound
When not hearing an eerie nothing or a creepy ambient sound of an ADVENT solider nearby the sounds in this game suite the moment really well. The soundtrack might not be as good as that of Witcher 3 but it certainly doesn’t disappoint regardless of what situation you are in the music playing will definitely be suiting.
Replayability
Although I am only a fair few hours into this game with good characters strong combat and a strong story to run alongside it all I feel that this game has huge potential to be replayed through the higher difficulties. I have already replayed through some of the missions to do things differently so I can loot enemies and not blow up their loot to enhance my own equipment through the game. So far Xcom 2 has been a good time and great fun regardless of its really unforgiving tactical gameplay; I’m going to be playing this for a long time.
Final Thoughts
Xcom 2 is so far delivering on what I love in a game it requires different tactics for different situations, the story is really good, the combat is amazing, graphically amazing and the soundtrack does well to back up a great time. My only frustration so far is how unforgiving the game is when you make a mistake especially on the tutorial/ earlier levels regardless of what difficulty you are playing it on. I don’t think I have had this much fun with a game since I picked up The Witcher 3
Recommendation Level 8/10
I would recommend this title to anyone however if you don’t like hard tactical games and failing a few times regardless of what you try this game might be for you!