We're not getting X-Com 3, are we?

 

To think there was a time I was so afraid of the dense nature of tactical games that I never once engaged with them. I felt the entire genre was type was so very niche there wasn't any inroad for someone who fell in love more with the storytelling or action of games- I just didn't see a path where those sectors of game entertainment interjected. And that panned out in a lot of my attempts to get involved with this style of game, not least of all my attempts to play the original X-Com which, to this day, I cannot get my head around on the most basic level. At least, that was until I stumbled upon the X-Com revival games which not only brought the tactical gameplay down to a comprehensive level for new comers who don't feel like browsing several pages worth of tutorials in order to play their first battle, it also awoke me to the endless dynamic storytelling potential of titles just like this.

Enemy Unknown was a revolution for that entire subgenre of games, not just the brand which had been dormant for over ten years at that point. The tooth'n'nail pressure of managing a squishy group of mortal soldiers battling to keep together the crumbling embers of a collapsing world against a threat far outpacing them, ever present that with ever mistaken call, and often times ever with totally perfect calls, a grim grave can await anyone at anytime. There's little which can encapsulate that level of tension, those crushing blows and those miraculous wins, all decided by the fate of an offscreen die spinning your fate in the moment. And the make-up of what Unknown was became the basis of most boots-on-ground tactical games from then on in. 

What I respect most about X-Com's series is the way they always endeavoured to make every game good enough to stand on it's own, to such an extent that all sequels had to try something a little bit different rather than just spin the ol' wheels as usual. Even as Enemy Within was building upon the base product with new ways of playing the game in both a moment-to-moment sense as well as overall meta- X-Com 2 totally flipped the gameplay dynamic on it's head, making the player the invaders attempting to overthrow an alien controlled world- with the guerrilla tint to gameplay not just being Ubisoft-level set dressing but a total revision to the presentation of gameplay and wider tactical narrative progression. And don't even get me started with War of the Chosen- perhaps one of the greatest expansions of it's age for the way it acted as practically a whole new game on it's own!

Chimera Squad was where the team started to fall off some small degree in my opinion, with the focus taken away from consequence and greater emphasis placed on tailor crafted 'hero units' the dynamic storytelling potential which seemed to be heart of the franchise seemed burnished somewhat. I respect Chimera for what it was trying to do and I still think it's a damn good time that once again shifts the core gameplay in just enough of a manner to justify itself as a standalone- but I'm not surprised that franchise fans felt a bit underserved by it. But it wasn't a break between audience and developers. Not in the way that their next game would be- to such a degree that even after all these years I don't even think the creators knew what went wrong.

Marvel's Midnight Suns promised so very much, bringing the X-Com style of play to a brand we all know whilst throwing something totally new in there to boot. The new card-based system of play was not received well upon reveal but I think it would be a little disingenuous to claim that alone turned people off to the game entirely. You also have the fact that as the marketing trucked along everyone became increasingly aware that the game's X-Com connections would not carry that same spirit of the original two games, with the dynamic storytelling potential, and instead be more like Chimera Squad with it's 'follow along the dotted lines' approach. In fact, Midnight Suns is entirely a driven story game that happens to share DNA with X-Com, once again not quite catering to the audience who had been patiently waiting all this time.

Now it's not as though a follow-up to X-Com was never considered. 2 literally ends with a tease to a subterrain menace mimicking the original X-Com sequel 'Terror from the Deep'. A tease we have been waiting to be fulfilled for about 8 years now. And in the time not only have the team decided to go other directions with their style of development, they've also started breaking off! The big gambit of Midnight Suns ended up not paying off, and underperformance leads to layoffs. The lead designer even left the company and is now off making Life Sims of all things. We lost Jake Solomon to perhaps the single worst genre of non-mobile game out there, the hilariously over commercialised parody-genre of Life Sims. Oh the humanity!

Which of course means that Firaxis are in a worst position than ever before to finally buckle down and make the follow-up to the franchise that put them on the map. They're going to have to build back up to it, proving themselves with smaller titles that score some success, all the while the people will be patiently waiting for X-Com three and won't respond well to these other titles that don't capture those same emotions. All along the way other teams are moving in on their territory and releasing their own takes on the genre, peeling off players this way and that, until eventually no one even remembers what it was they were so worked up expecting all along. In fact, I'd bet most are already at that point- given the 8 years and all that.

Which is all to say we're not getting an X-Com three. Not because the team no longer exists to do it, but because they missed their moment in time, can't capture that lightening in a bottle now that it's out in the wild and won't draw the crowd they once would. In some ways it's a sad state of affairs, but in another sense if we had to pick between getting X-Com three or X-Com becoming the influential phenomenon that influenced so many other incredible titles, I'm glad we got the latter outcome.  Maybe the promise of what X-Com 3 might have been is greater than what we ultimately might have received if it came out and... well, ended up like Vampire the Masquerade 2 is currently looking. (Yikes.)

Midnight Suns: The Hero's XCom

 

I'm far from finishing the Midnight Suns game, but given that I've been playing for the last few months and recently took the step of buying the season pass, I figure I've enjoyed myself enough to talk about the XCom-style new wave game that Firaxis broke their streak of in-universe tactical games in order to create. Which I'm not at all bitter about. How could I possibly be bitter about the fact we've waited something close to seven years in order to hear some update on the cliffhanger ending for XCom 2 and in that time have received a half-sequel re-release of two, (which is a lot of fun but I can honestly say I've never finished a game of War of the Chosen) a completely bizarre cop-level spin-off game that seemed to be like an 'outsiders introduction to XCom' or something, and this- a card-based XCom game built around a Marvel brand that most people don't remember anymore.

Of course I appreciate that nobody wants to be stuck making the exact same sort of thing for their entire career, least of all creatives- and I appreciate the fact that this team at least remained with the tactical genre, knowing well their strengths and playing to them- but it's clear that nothing has landed with that same impact XCom: Enemy Unknown did. I think it's the sheer level of versatility in situation and gameplay that made those original two games (and their update DLC re-releases) so iconic. XCom are essentially story-making engines that utilise their vast network of possibilities and randomly generated scenarios to mount a desperate and daring tale of battling against the odds in a world where failure is ever present, but not always the end of the world if you know how to pick yourself up. The key to XCom, in my mind, is it's fairness. The player enjoys no plot armour. No Deus Ex Machina. They bleed and die like the bad guys do. And in that humbling mortality comes an intensity few other games can really match.

Which might be why the very prospect of playing as an unkillable superhero in Midnight Suns felt so very bizarre. Kind of like the cop-hero characters from Chimera Squad, who similarly felt more unkillable than the soldiers who won the war some several years prior- removing the mortal peril of being in combat would surely confer some sort of confident cocksureness that delineates the intensity of the tactical risks! And... well, it does. In Chimera Squad and Midnight Suns- but that is kind of the point. The intimidation factor of having the lives of everyone hang on your tactical prowess is surely a barrier of entry to the Xcom franchise for some, and there's a comfort in knowing that the worst that can happen, even on a total party wipe, is a brief relaxation period or a restart. No permanent death, and in the case of Midnight Suns- no fail state for the entire campaign whatsoever. You can fail time and time again to your heart's content. Maybe that was what influenced Firaxis' direction.

But I have to admit upon playing, that my biggest concern- the removal of the tactical soul of Xcom in favour of card game tricks, was decidedly overblown on my part. Anyone who has spent time getting involved with games like 'Guild of Dungeoneering' or 'Slay the Spire' might have known that concerns this direction were foolish. Hell, I'm sure Magic the Gathering fans could also protest, but I haven't enough knowledge of that game to know. There's certainly a decent amount of decision making that goes into synergising characters, choosing when to play attacks, redrawing card and picking who to take down first. But tactical positioning is completely gone from the game. There are situational environmental attacks that are in the player's arsenal, but they are the exceptions- never the reward of carefully managed footwork. Almost like a consolation prize to all those that felt abandoned by Firaxis' newest digs.

The big rub when coming to XCom Marvel edition is the obvious fact that no one, ever dies. How could they, we're talking about immortal Superhero's here- they couldn't be killed if you ran them through with a 4x4. The lack of fatalities does intrinsically mean that as a player I'm less inclined to care about the choices I make in combat, or forgetting to do my environmental attack one turn. It's more forgiving, sure, but it's also less engaging. The worst case scenario is my A-team getting injured and having to do a couple nights of easy missions while they recover, a waste of my time but hardly anything to lose sleep over. It really comes down to a matter of taste and how hardcore you are happy with your gameplay experience being. But for a certain vintage we expect, the Midnight Suns body tastes watered down and less sharp. Not worse exactly, but unfulfilling. 

On the otherhand, Midnight Suns does feature a decent degree of enemy variety with mechanics that can't always just be punched to death. Some enemies explode on death, punishing melee players, some put up shields to guard the weaker buff providers of the match, some are summoners, others are one-hit-kill trash specifically existing to provide opportunities to proc knock-out-building abilities. With the positioning factor removed from the equation Midnight Suns really does shine as a puzzle planner game where the solutions are as complicated as you, the player, are willing to make them. This especially shines with the infuriating bosses with their special little match-changing abilities that shift the battlefield with their mere presence, it's all additive to the play experience and keeps playthroughs feeling fresh.

Something else that I think Midnight Suns does surprisingly well is the character drama between the Heroes in the Suns. I expected iconic and unimpeachable icons to the calibre of Tony Stark and Captain America to be blank pieces of cardboard similar to how they appear in Marvel's Avengers, but there's a bit of personality to them. Most of the actual depth is reserved for the B-Team however- Nico Minoru, Magik, Robbie Reyes: these are the people you'll really start digging to the route of as you hang around the abbey, get into extracurricular clubs with them and touch on the various traumas and tribulations that make them who they are. Replacing the mortality of Xcom units, the relationships you build with the other heroes goes a long way to establishing a heart behind the missions- and even make you care about the emotional swells even when the middling presentation doesn't quite pull them off to the utmost justice. No romance though. They were explicitly strict on that front for some reason. All heroes are celibate, apparently.

As I am with the game right now, I enjoy Midnight Suns as an alterative to the XCom brand, but nowhere near a replacement. It just doesn't scratch those same itches and doesn't dig anywhere near deep enough under the tissue layer to leave me satisfied. But there are some half decent new ideas that this game gets exceedingly right and those alone manage to justify it's existence. (Of course one of those good new ideas is not the focus on being more cinematic, I have to assume this team didn't even consider bringing on anyone with actual cinema-experience because it's pretty poor on everything except the quality of the animations themselves.) Still, there's something stopping me from getting as red-hot addicted to Midnight Suns as I was with XCom in it's heyday, and maybe that deficit will become more clear the deeper I delve into it.

XCOM Enemy Unknown versus XCOM 2

 The favourite child

I've made no secret of my love for the Firaxis XCOM games that pit the tactical mind of the player against hoards of AI Alien invaders in an endlessly replayable campaign of one-up-manship. They are brilliant revivals of the XCOM brand, bringing with them a resurrection for that entire sub-genre of games that have spawned an entire cadre of similar style titles across some niche tactical corners of the industry. Though I yearn for the third entry, the first two are just so good on their own- bringing to their favour almost entirely distinct styles of game such that they can be experienced again and again in succession without the titles becoming stale- that I'm perfectly happy for the team to take their sweet time reimaging the idea in another manner that is just as good, and worth coming back to, as the first two entries. But we never can leave it just at that, now can we?

Afterall, who wants to just be cordial when you can be aggressive and pick sides in a conflict totally of your own fabrication? Why say both games are perfectly as fine as one another, and XCOM 1 still holds up fine against it's younger sibling, when you can instead pit both games in a death battle against one another, in an attempt to figure out who holds the superior position? Actually, I've pondered for a while which of the two games I like more, and outside of the obvious improvements in elements such as unit customisation and graphical yield, the margin is remarkably thin. It's often said that a sequel is about improvement, but I think one that can step to the side and achieve as high marks as the original and deserve every bit as much praise, if not more so for not retreading what has already been carved out. Which I guess means we're going to have to get objective about this.

Such as by analysing which of the two games handles their DLC better. In which I think XCOM 1 actually might do a superior job. Now I've forgoing the 'rerelease' expansions in this comparison and thinking more of the raw DLC snippets that were injected into both games, for which there is little competition in my mind. XCOM: Enemy Unknown included a few unique operatives that could be unlocked through special missions that were slotted into the rotation of randomly generated missions and one complete chain of quests. It was simple and neatly fitted within any campaign with tipping the boat. XCOM 2 were a lot more ambitious with their DLC, but a lot more sloppy with their implementation. The Alien Hunters DLC is notorious for introducing new Boss aliens that fundamentally broke the balance of the base game, turning the turn based tactical shooter into a randomly luck dice roll for getting lucky spawns. And selling cosmetic packs felt real weird for the PC audience, who had just been given access to easily accessible mods in the same game.

Shrinking into the base game itself can offer us a more concentrated comparison of the game flow, and the way that XCOM 1 has us affixed to the eb and flow of a 'disaster clock' whereas XCOM 2 is more freeform but shackled to an unescapable doomsday clock that limits the length of any campaign with an unescapable full stop. XCOM Enemy Unknown's clock is more of a workable and playable system of managing various countries 'panic' level, which can wind itself into the tactical planning of what mission to pick or when to execute certain 'clear the board' missions that relieve the whole world's tensions all at the same time. XCOM 2, on the otherhand, held it's campaign time limit like a sword over the player's head at all times, unflinching and unmanipulable. Yes, there were small actions to stall the march, but you can only every pause the needle, never halt it. Personally, I prefer the storytelling range of XCOM 1's system, over the static and oppressive inevitability of XCOM 2's.

Character class systems also received something of an overhaul in XCOM 2, both to match the thematic shift from 'protectors' to 'freedom fighters' and to provide greater opportunity for build variation even when playing two pawns of the same class. Now the XCOM line-up of classes does provide everything you need on a basic level when it comes to RPG progression and within the scope of the tactical gameplay that's actually more than enough to keep most players busy and satisfied when squad crafting. However, XCOM 2 does correctly identify that in games like these, the more unique our characters are the more of a soul they feel like they have. The subclasses of XCOM 2, alongside the levelling paths it borrows from one, lay out a better spread of possibility- there's little spin to really apply here, the sequel just does it better hands down.

As these games are built around the concept of replayability, these game's ability to conjure up unique feeling play arenas based on the assets provided to the computer is important to making each playthrough feel somewhat fresh. Which is probably where XCOM: Enemy Unknown really starts to show it's age in an unescapable. It isn't long into anyone's XCOM career when they start to recognise the exact layout of locations they've cleared that were allegedly in another country altogether, which in turn makes the memorisation of Alien placement fairly trivial once you know your areas well enough. The solution to this is conceptually simple, and it's exactly what XCOM 2 does. More variety, both in potential map layouts and the archetype of those maps; creating maps that feel distinct, even when you're treading the same basic sort of themed location you've done before.

There are also the full conversion DLCs. The big DLCs that take the base game and shuffle it around a bit with focuses on whole new factions, or gameplay systems, which typically create the 'final form' of these XCOM Games. XCOM 1's 'Enemy Within' gave us a new faction and questline, alongside a new class of Mech Units that totally changed up the power dynamic of the late game now that players had a foil to big Alien Mechs. But it also introduced a new resource in a haphazard implementation that threw off the carefully designed gait of the basic gameplay too. 'Meld' kind of sucks to collect in the early game for it's time limit, but at the same time the resource ends up being an essential collectible for enjoying all the really cool mech and psionic systems in the late game. XCOM 2's 'War of the Chosen', on the otherhand, is a total powerhouse. Throwing in several new classes, an entire new breed of unique boss that actually works within the established game, reworking some of the badly implemented DLCs that I mentioned earlier and providing a new playthrough full of enough content to feel like a follow up entry. 'WOTC' is a must play for any XCOM fan, 'Enemy Within' is more of a nice cherry atop of the XCOM 1 cake.

At the end of the day, the thing that makes the XCOM games special is that there is no one game that is all around better than the other, as I said they're such different beasts they can co-exist as partners within this expansive industry of ours completely happily. Personally, I'm drawn by my mood to one game or the other, because I favour them both equally, even as one handles certain aspects better than the other. In my mind, the ideal sequel is one that can live like this, in those instances where people throw up their hands wondering how a follow up could even be conceived. Hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, equals in quality and worthy as competitors. And then there's XCOM Chimera Squad. That game was alright as well, I guess...

Sid Meier's Console Civilisation

 If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't

I'd imagine that a lot of you out there have heard of Civilisation, (not the concept, the game) and maybe even enjoyed the game yourself once or twice. Maybe you're a mega fan and it ranks as one of your favourite game series' of all time, or maybe you hate these overarching strategy games that threaten to swallow up entire weeks worth of your life. Personally, this game and others like it should have been the furthest from my radar, what with how genuinely strategically challenged I am, but somehow this series has been a gateway for me falling into an absolute rabbit hole of the later Civilisation games themselves, Star Wars Empire at War, Stellaris, Divinity Dragon Commander (although in fairness that game was more just laying in my way to total Divinity franchise ownership) and the XCom games. All of which I'm pretty terrible at, but I keep picking them up and submitting myself to their torture time and time again. And when I think about how I got to this self-flagellation, I think it all comes back to my discovery of a Civilisation game that not many know exist; the console version.

Civilisation is an absolutely huge title, no matter which entry of it you pick up. That comes from it's very core premise, which attempts to simulate all of civilised human history from initial tribal floundering to the prosperous industrial ages and further to our eventual ascent into space. Every game has to tell this simply epic tale which means even in the quickest of games you've got a lot of ground to cover, and in the more complicated games it's entirely feasible to be juggling a match for months. Typically Civilisation 'difficulty' comes in managing how cities are founded, the direction development takes, the acquisition of land and resource nodules, diplomacy with neighbouring states, and handling military might. The late game of Civilisation typical changes things up with a lesser weight on violence and much more in on the diplomacy (especially given how any war is within reach of going nuclear) but apart from that most games just 'evolve' by giving you more systems to juggle and manage as the ages go by and life becomes more complicated.

All of these is what makes this a '4X game', and is why it's the sort of game best suited for the PC audience. Afterall, decisions about how to build your ideal society are going to be informed by pausing and taking stock of everything you have at your disposal, what your best move might be and (crucially) what your opponent's response to that move will be. (it's that last one which I always have trouble with) All of which are traits typically more in line with PC gamers and the way that they plan their games, which is why strategy works best for them. Alongside RPGs. (Which is the reason why it's simply insane for Persona 5 Royal to not have been ported to the PC yet, ATLUS! At this point now I want 5 and Royal to show up as a package deal, just to make up for all this infernal 'will they, won't they' you've subjected us too!) So with those prejudices/rules to mind, why exactly is there a Civilisation on the Xbox 360?

Well the obvious answer is reach, given back at that time in 2008 PC gaming was big, but not as big as the very many popular consoles that were bubbling around then. The PlayStation 3, the Xbox, The Nintendo DS, even App stores. These were all fertile grounds for picking up players, many of which hadn't even heard of this venerated series before simple due to the tech gap. (like me) Then there's the fact that Civilisation had gone two years without an entry already and it felt like time. Civilisation V, the one which is considered the definitive by many, even today, would come out in two years from then, and the staying power of these games meant that the Firaxis didn't necessarily have to feed the PC audience just yet to keep them interested, and therefore the team could focus on cultivating a new and expanded fanbase instead.

I came upon this game back in a time before I had disposal income to really pursue the games that I'm interested in, but I was still invested in the gaming world and that led to me seeking out publications and magazines that touched upon it. That was how I learned about a lot of games that would file away in the back of mind only to be teased out years later when I saw them pop up and went, "Well I have the money now, why not give it a go?" One such magazine would come every other issue with a demo disc loaded with little snippets of upcoming games, which is where I got into the habit of seeking free demos. The Xbox 360 had an entire infrastructure built to support demos and dish them out to the public, which was how I ended up coming across Civilisation Revolution. Quite simply, I happened across a game I never would have attracted to normally and played it simply because it was free; let that be an example of how genuinely helpful it can be to have a game demo out there.

The demo put you in the shoes of either Caesar and Cleopatra and would let you play out a chunk of the early game for Civilisation, namely founding a few cities and researching and creating until the 1200's. Just before the game really kicks into the renaissance age and the more complicated mechanics rear their heads. And let me just say right now that I was hooked. Likely due to the way the game was set to quicker matches, I could slip into a civilisation and immersive myself in the daily running in no time flat. Thus I started to really pick up on some of the finer details. What were the best places to found a city, how defending the first city isn't necessarily worth situating a home army for because barbarians don't really have a chance against fortified gates. I learned that World Wonders are an early game must-have, and how there's a lot more to city composition than "just pick what the game recommends and hope for the best." This demo proved long enough to show me what this series was about, and then cut me off just when it was getting good. So of course I would go on to buy the game.

You can find the Civilisation Revolution game today on the original consoles (or the sequel on IOS) and even though both games are dated, I will say right now that if you've a passing interest in the franchise than this really is a fantastic way to get a foot in. It's incredible how much of the core experience was preserved in this smaller, quicker, and streamlined product. And in many ways, I actually prefer the late game of Revolution because it allows you to win by specialising in whatever area you want to, such as simply by being an economic powerhouse, instead of having to use that money to further your goals towards another victory. (Perhaps some might find that a little passive of a way to win at Civilisation, but to my little console gamer brain that's just fine by me.) Late game has a lot of it's systems stripped, making it so that you don't really have to start micromanaging relationships across the entire world like the main games would. Combat is simplified, research trees are shorter (and more legible) and we're all around looking at a game which managed to stick the unwieldy package that is Civ into a weekend party game box. Genuinely impressive.

Sid Meier's games could really use with more efforts to open themselves up to the casual crowd, because as evidenced by myself it really does open up the doors for the series to gain new, unlikely fans. Revolutions proved enough to get my beak wet, but it wasn't until Civilisation V proper that I truly felt part of the grand strategy experience, and that is the exact purpose a small spin-off title like this should serve. It's only a shame that they never managed to get the game working for the Nintendo Wii, because with the proliferation of games like 'Fire Emblem', I think that Firaxis would have gained to score a fair few fans from that crowd. I hope the future might see some more accessible spin-off titles lure the curious into the fold, with the provision that whatever is offered in no way resembles 'XCOM: Legends'. (Making a game that encapsulates the core mechanics of the main game is typically where you should start, Firaxis.)

Marvel's XCOM Suns

 Pick a card, any card

Woah boy, talk about a surprise gift out of nowhere! I full expected we'd rush by this Gamescon event with nothing but a reveal and limp speculation as to what Marvel's Midnight Suns would hold for us, but instead we've been gifted pretty much a total blowout topped with the sweet desert of a release date. Who could ask for more than that? It's really put some force behind the vague words that this is 'not like any Firaxis tactical game before it' whilst still leaving me utterly perplexed as to how this will actually play when push comes to shove. But come on, it's Firaxis. I literally preordered Chimera Squad and I never do that. I'm going to buy this game one way or another, getting to know my purchase before the fact is just a bonus. So I guess now I have a chance to totally disseminate the project standing between me and XCOM 3: Terror from the Deep. (It better be good!)

First I'd like to touch upon an expansion of something we already knew was coming to the game; the Character customisation. By the very nature of the story, the Marvel heroes will be digging up and reviving the wayward child of this game's big bad; Lilith. But if you got worried about that default-npc looking character who was leading the trailer, don't be; she's totally customisable. Option wise things seem mostly the same as any XCOM game, with four basic faces, but I'll imagine the slack will be made up through all the hair, helmet, armour and accessories that make these games typically shine in the imaginative character department. (As well as prove a hotbed for modding potential) Unfortunately we're only looking at one customisable character. (heroes will get outfits too, but I'm expecting that'll be more similar to 'Ultimate alliance' unlockable costumes rather than a modular affair.) Everyone else in the game will be another Iconic hero. Which means yes, we're getting yet another Firaxis tactical game without permadeath. (Should we begin interpreting this as a bad sign?) 

But what about the core gameplay? You know, the stuff that matters. Much ado was made about the fact that this would play nothing like XCOM before it, but considering they'd made slight variations to that formula over their three game tenure, that didn't really mean all that much. That being said, there does appear to be some vast new additions to the formula to change things up, with the biggest one to me being; randomness. Or, should that be more randomness? (Wait, what?) You see, combat isn't going to be throwing us into arenas with nothing but our strict toolset and our wits to out-chess the enemy and there doesn't even seem to be hit percentages at all. (What blasphemy is this?) Rather, players will be granted random cards to be chosen from that then dictate their actions, presumably picked from a pre-assigned deck that the player builds throughout the game, meaning that you'll never quite know what's in your handbag of tricks today. It's- different, that's for sure.

Something like this makes the game look much more like Slay the Spire or Guild of Dungeoneering; as they both utilised random card based deck-building strategy to great effect in their own ways. However both of those titles are rougelites, wherein having a terrible fight due to the random hand of luck isn't the greatest feeling in the world, but it's the nature of the game to fail and start from scratch the next time around. I'm not sure how that'll feel in a tactical campaign similar to XCOM, and this is what I mean about us being told a great deal about the system, but knowing nothing about how it'll play out until we get our hands on the thing. A huge positive I won't forget to commend, however, is that the level design appears to be leaning much more into environmental interactions. (such as explode-able barrels and precarious ledges) That's something I've literally begged out of all turn based tactical games, and I'm giddy to see it getting a due here.

Outside of combat, the way we wind down has also been fundamentally changed through the addition of the Abbey, a real-time break spot for the player and the various Marvel heroes of the team to partake in good-old-fashioned simulated social gameplay. (Start playing "Persona 4 'Specialist'") Yes, that means hanging out, building relationships and getting stronger with the likes of Wolverine, Magik, Doctor Strange, Tony Stark, Blade and others I've forgotten about already. But no romances! There's no way in hell Marvel would ever entertain a character in their licence being part of a romance sub-plot; so don't get your hopes up! These will be entirely platonic super-powered training sessions where you and Tony Stark spend all morning working out in the Gym right next to each other, becoming so humid and sweaty that his gym wear seems to stick to his strapping, pounding chest. That is, until he slowly peels the material off... That'll be the extent of it, you perverts! No Smooches for you!

Of course, the relationships you build will grant benefits in battle and I somewhat suspect it might be linked to those cool dual-moves we've seen advertised in the gameplay. Let's hope that these moves come in handy for the missions; speaking of which, why didn't we hear about the missions? XCom have always gone back and forth on whether or not they want to get creative with mission objectives (2) or simplify things down to very basic 'kill everyone' jobs. (1) I think that a company self-styling themselves as "Gaming's greatest strategy and tactics experts" should definitely branch into more styles of mission for this new venture of theirs. Wait sorry, what was that they called themselves again? I couldn't make it out through all the smacking-slurping sounds of the autofellatio. (I just watched 'Helluva Boss' and 'Hazbin Hotel' through for the first time, if you're wondering why I'm so crude through this blog)

If I can make one sleight plea, which at this point in development it's more like a hopeful prediction, it's that the actions of the player will have some bearing on the narrative. Just a little! We already know that the Hunter (that's the player character) will have access to Dark and Light powers, the former of which is said to 'take a toll' on the team, whatever that means. It's just that, Firaxis games of the past have always been about supplying the tools for players to craft their own storylines for themselves, and this game seems to be moving away from that; so just a little bit of narrative interaction like a good and evil meter would go a little way towards putting that control back in the player's hands. I'd still prefer telling my own journey fraught with the potential for superheroes to perish on the journey to stop the mother of demons, but I'll take that prototypical 'your actions will have consequences' tag at this point. Just feed me a bone!

So what are my thoughts on the game I'm going to own? I'll still buy it, although I'm not so blindly in love to preorder it, and I think we'll need an actual livestreamed playthrough of a level to show us how the moving parts fit together sometime between now and launch. (Which isn't actually out of the realms of possibility for Firaxis, so I hope they do) Pretty much none of the choices made for this game, save the social simulation elements, match what I would have chosen, and that's left me puzzled but not utterly repulsed too yet. I'm familiar with this team's work. They're talented. And if they tell me this game has every bit the care and love which is usually in a Firaxis game, I'll stick around long enough to hear them justify it. Consider my expectations firmly tempered, and the hype train slowed, but still moving. (I still kinda hope they knock it out the park again) Oh, the game comes March by-the-way. Which sucks.

Marvel Midnight Suns

 Or is it 'Sons'?

Sometimes the best treats are those you don't expect, or to be more accurate, the ones you knew of but forgot about for some backwards reason, such as the fact that Firaxis have been working on a game up until now. Whilst we've all been waiting around and drumming our fingers impatiently for the next entry in the XCOM saga, they've been doing every little thing they can to subvert our expectations and throw up road blocks. But because it's Firaxis, those road blocks are turning into worthy distractions anyway. Chimera Squad was a ton of fun and remain my goto for recommending anyone who wants in on this franchise, and their next game sounded incredible, what with their partnership with Marvel comics. Well seems I totally forgot about that because I sat through that entire reveal trailer wondering how Marvel's Avengers was possibly going to transition to all this metal insanity before the studio logo dropped. ("Oh wait, this is a game to actually get excited about!") 

If only we actually saw some gameplay. I don't what it is about this Gamescon, maybe I've just turned into more a grump or maybe we're just encountering an age allergic to gameplay. And I am a lover of cool CG, I am, but when I desperately want to see the game in action and can only rely on vague non-specific buzzwords tossed out in interviews to inform my expectations, I just get a mite frustrated. However, that being said I at least had fun with this trailer, and who wouldn't; it follows a crossover Marvel event where the vibe is all metal rock, Lilith mother of demons shows up and they play a cover of Enter Sandman. (Kinda sad they couldn't get the Metallica version, we are talking about Disney money here, but I understand.) Also, I absolutely adore the redesigns of the cast to fit the mystical, metal, soldiers-of-the-damned aesthetic, great costuming job there.

But what exactly is 'Midnight Suns' and why are so many press outlets screwing up the name in their articles? Well, that might be because this game is based on a 90's Marvel comic run which just happens to be a favourite of Firaxis' creative director, Jake Solomon; a series known as Midnight Sons. So why the change of name? Well my first guess was because the original had all male members and this adaption has introduced more female characters, hence the switch from 'Sons' to 'Suns', but according to Wikipedia the original lineup actually featured one woman named Victoria, so I have no earthly clue why the mix-up is there. In fact, it almost feels like it exists just to confuse us all and spark debates about what the right title is. (I don't know why, but I desperately need an Interview where Solomon explains the name change, it's bugging me much more than anything like this rightly should.)

As for the actual context: The Midnight Suns are described as a group of characters that all have 'a touch of the damned' to them, hence Ghost Rider, Blade, Doctor Strange, Wolverine and- Iron man? Captain Marvel? (To be fair, I don't think those last two were in the original comic) They've delved heavily into the supernatural in their stories, as they duel the eldritch and arcane, and essentially do Marvel's version of a John Constantine. For this story the team have tapped into their original purpose, of coming together to stop Lilith, a character I had no idea was even in the Marvel universe at all, but am glad because a super-cool final boss only makes the journey more exciting. (Also, her design looks like a first draft of something from Diablo III. Thus is unfortunately completely outshined by Lilith from Diablo IV's appearance. Not their fault, I just found the comparison interesting.)

Now I'm sure you're thinking, as I still am, what does Firaxis bring to the table in order to make this a game worthy of their time? And I, again, have no idea. (it sucks having to say this so much about a game I'm dying to learn more about) They've come out and confirmed that this is a strategy game, so we can rest assured that the talents over there are going to get to shine like they should, but they've also said that the gameplay will be "nothing like" XCOM. Okay... so what does that mean? Telling me what the game isn't takes me no closer to knowing what it is; come on, marketing team! All we've been told for certain is that the main focus of the game isn't going to be any of the heroes themselves, but a brand new player created character known as The Hunter who will be the child of Lilith. (Baalspawn again, is it? >sigh<)

From gut reaction I'll admit I wasn't too happy about that. I don't really want to play a nobody surrounded by cool heroes, especially when this 'Hunter's power are going to be split between angelic and demonic extremes; and we're all just supposed to pretend that isn't exactly Dante's whole deal from DMC. But the team managed to hit the right notes when they revealed that this new perspective will serve as a perfect way to integrate something I never thought I'd see, but have literally just been asking for... (in a blog which hasn't come out just yet) Social simulation elements. That's right, slap on the radio, we're going Persona, baby! Solomon spoke about how this Abbey space you retreat to within missions serves as a Hub from which you can socialise with these various heroes and strike up friendships, thus fuelling your battle bonds within mission. That is exactly what Persona does! Good golly, social simulation is taking over the world and I'm here for it!

Unfortunately, this yet again highlights the fact that we know more about the inbetween parts that make up non-active gameplay than we do the meat and potatoes themselves! And of course downtime is important in the makeup of a game, I've argued for such myself endlessly, but when I'm still in the wide-eyed 'love at first sight' stage I need the real stuff in order to keep me attracted. The only reason I didn't cover this game first was because I was convinced it would come with gameplay, because why wouldn't you? How hard could it feasibly be to cut off a single level and show us just the bare minimum? Is this game still even turn based? I want to lose myself in rabid excitement but I just don't have enough rope to wrap around myself yet and that's deeply frustrating. (Don't toy with me, Firaxis-san!)

XCOM Legends

A 98% miss on this one

What shocking news to wake up to right out of the stark blue of oblivion, materialising fully formed and unveiled, sneaking up on you like a stealth combat round; because we have a brand new XCom game out! That's a pretty dirty way for Firaxis to let me know that I have to step up my game on my Ironman Classic playthrough of the Original, but as I said I'm taking my time so that I don't end up inadvertently hating the game, thus I will respect Firaxis to back off. Let me play the games that are out already you absolutely crazy men! Stealth releasing a new XCom right out of nowhere, who do you think you are? And with absolutely no farfare too! Even XCom Chimera Squad had a month or two of agonising wait time before launch, whereupon I watched more back-lore videos than I had for any XCom game before. It's honesty pretty impressive that they managed to hide the development of  a whole new game from their seminal franchise until launch, especially one that was made during active development for their Marvel title- wait what? That's right- they're already making a Marvel XCom-style game, or at least that's what the rumours say, so how did they have the time to make- this was handled externally? Who was the studio? Iridium Stafish? That sounds dumb, and their website is almost entirely bare except for their own logo. What is this- oh god; it's a mobile game isn't it?

Yes. And I already hear the screaming calls of defence from those Mobile diehards out there who's job it is to swing for the throat whenever anyone dare imply bad things about their platform. "There are good games, you just have to find them!" "Not everything is a Microtransaction fuelled Gacha hellhole!". And you know what? This time they are wrong, XCom Legends advertises itself as a Gacha fuelled experience and something tells me they're not going to have nearly the amount of freely accessible fun that a game like Genshin Impact does. What is that cold feeling I have running down my arteries, trailing a web across my nervousness to my core? Is that my blood running cold at the realisation that yet another studio who has, up until now, done most everything right, has given up the struggle in favour of the quick path to cheap buck? "Whore out that popular name a little bit, remember to spit on the loyal fans whilst your at it, some of them are freaks they'll like it" . It's not disappointment, because I'm not really capable of trusting game studios, it's just exasperation at this point.

"But (I'm) being exasperated without giving it a chance", some very misplaced kind souls might argue, and they are right so I'm give it the rundown, for prosperities sake. XCom Legends is set during the events of the Xcom 2 timeline, so just after the failure of XCom during the initial alien invasion but before their victory in the subsequent guerrilla war of XCom 2 and the resulting rebuilding that integrated Alien races into Human society in XCom Chimera Squad. It follows a system whereupon players build a crew and fight hoards of aliens whilst supplementing their soldiers with powerful premade soldiers who cost premium currency in order to roll for in loot boxes and- god I'm so sick of these games. It doesn't even make sense, who are these 'legendary' characters from the XCom universe? Aside from the main cast and Kelly, who actually went on to become main staff in Chimera Squad, everyone else is a made by the player and thus comes their personal connections to each individual. There's no decades of comics to pull ancillary characters from, or tons of side reading material; so why even pursue a game literally labelled 'legends' if it's meaningless? Shall we ease of a bit? Sure, let's just chalk this nonsensical money-dependant progression system up to yet another aspect of core Xcom being stepped on here.

What else is being trampled out like the head of a dying wick? Oh yea, the gameplay. You know; the thing that makes XCom, XCom. You might be forgiven for thinking this would be another game laid out with tactical matches, focused on positioning and hit percentages; choosing your battlefield and playing bonus actions at the right moment. . I mean that would make sense, wouldn't it? That's exactly what XCom is about, and has been about, for nigh-on years now. I'm talking before Enemy Unknown and back to those originals; XCom core essentials go back to the turn based hit percentages. And the very fact that I'm drumming this home for you should portend exactly what I'm about to say, no? They butchered it. The gameplay has died. Look what they've done to my boy. Silly you for having hope, didn't you know that the original newage XCom game was already ported to Mobile, thus this new game is mandated to be considerably less creative. Typical stuff which makes this sort of game an absolute institution for lovers of tactics across the industry

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever played a Mobile game before? Chances are that if you have you've played one of two types of game. Either it's a city builder game, maybe with a popular property stitched ontop of the gameplay, maybe without; or else you're looking at the Shadow Legends model (which predates RAID, but I'm feeling unimaginative; just like Iridium Starfish.) There I'm talking about the gameplay model which is basically just building a team of characters who move from static encounter to static encounter, usually auto attacking the enemies in front of you. Sometimes there's an absolute basic level of tactical cohesion wrapped into the gameplay model, maybe you get to choose your target or use super moves, but at the end of the day the side with the higher 'combat rating' will win. Combat rating will never hit the heights you need without buying microtransactions, suddenly this free game ain't so free anymore; rinse repeat. If you're familiar with that latter model, as much as I hate to say it; you've already played XCom Legends.

I'm only being a little bit facetious there, this is a game that's as cookie cutter as they get and there's probably an online template for these games you can pick up nowadays. (Last time I checked there was one for the city builder type mobile game) It makes you wonder how little the licence holders must care for the integrity of their product if they'll just commission and put out a product this soulless for a quick buck. I mean even Bethesda, in all their infamy, put some originality into both of their mobile games to make them at the very least a value to the franchise instead of an abject drag. Heck, one of the key 'reasons to play' that Iridium Starfish listed on their description was the fact that the game gets resources for you while you don't play it. (Whilst likely leaving out the way the app tells you every time it collects a pebble) Those aren't features, it's a list of all the worst things to include to make your game as much as a sellout as possible.

So now comes the fun game, who do we blame for this monstrosity? Firaxis are the developers, but 2K are the publishers, so we could call this a mandate from 2K, but in my heart of hearts I'm not letting Firaxis off the hook for this one. Take 2 might hold the licence for the moment, but I just know that somewhere down the line the suggestion was raised to their offices from Firaxis. "Hey, while we're busy why don't you commission a cool spin off? That'll go great!" One of theirs pitched before driving home and realising halfway how the soulless vampires he was talking to would take such a proposition. I'm not saying they had the power to stop this, but they could have at least warned us. Maybe try to push 2K to spend more than minimum wage commissioning it? I don't know what they could have done, okay! All's I know is that there has to be a multiverse where this doesn't happen, and I don't care if Kang has already conquered that one; I want in.

But at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, does it? XCom is going to stay on ice for the foreseeable future until Firaxis are done with their Marvel engagements, and rather than having the decent Chimera Squad be the game they left us on, filled with curious memories of a fun Xcom-done-quick approach to the formula we love; instead we have Legends, reminding us that all good things are owned by bad/stupid people. And for the record I hold no- well not a lot- ill will towards Iridium Starfish. I'm sure with a name that bizarre they hold a promising future in this industry, I just hope it's one where titles like this end up as an anomaly on their future resume, just as it'll be a scratched-out blip on the XCOM release timeline. 

XCOM Avengers? Yes please!

 When... I need it...

Let me clear something up real quick about myself. Though I may have criticked Square Enix's Avengers heavily, will continue to do so, and even shared my misgivings about the project before it was even launched, do not for a second believe that I am not a fan of Marvel or Earth's Mightiest Heroes. I mean I grew up reading and watching this stuff years before the MCU, so I've got Marvel deeply ingrained in my bones and even closer to me than DC, even if a lot of the times I prefer Detective Comic's approach to character driven storytelling. And I have, for a stupidly long time now, been wanting that perfect team-Marvel game to come out for so very long, which is why when it looked like that game would be Square's Avengers, I was super critical in ensuring it would be exactly what we needed. X-men got a stellar game in 'Legends' (and also 'Children of the Atom', but that's neither here nor there. Love that game though.) I just wanted the rest of universe to get the game they deserved. Marvel Ultimate Alliance is great, and I'm so happy that franchise came back, but I want something that can focus in on a single team and give us their strengths and weaknesses as closely to the source material as possible, without having to worry about 'larger balancing' or any of that administrative stuff.

These are the sorts of ideas I used to spend a lot of time dreaming about before the MCU started and it became clear that Marvel no longer considered pursing games of viable interest anymore. (With the few that were put out being unbelievable trash.) And yet in all the realms of my adolescent imagineering (which spawned a few ideas which, in hindsight, were just as fanciful and impossible to achieve as Dreamworld) never once did I stick together the concept of a game made both of the Marvel characters and the XCOM game type. (Probably because I hadn't played XCOM back then and didn't know what it was.) So what is my raw reaction to the concept? Why did I never consider this? This is a brilliant idea. Good lord. When does this come out? I need it in my soul, I NEED IT!

But where does this concept come from and why am I salivating over it like it's a turkey-leg in the middle of the apocalypse? Because of the age old world of video game leaks, where Dev teams go in order to beta test the reaction to their projects. (Allegedly.) Apparently some rando on Reddit rocked up with news that Firaxis, the superstar team behind the brilliant XCOM revival, were currently working on a 'Codename CODA', which unfortunately isn't a project to adapt the entirety of Battle Tendency into a rhythm action game to the tune of 'Bloody Stream' and other classics from that artist. (Maybe next time, eh?) This is said to be a turn based action game based on the world of Avengers and voiced by "famous actors", implying that the actual cast of Avengers will be involved this time around! (Unless they're using that to refer to famous voice actors again. Fool me once...)

 Now this would be just a rumor that I would pay barely any credence to, but then Jason Schreier turned around and confirmed it and that's a man who does his homework. In an industry full of folk who've never done anything more than toothless clickbait articles for their entire 'video game journalism' career, Schreier actually has a stellar record of meaningful reporting on issues of import, leaks and the occasional click-bait sprinkled in there too. What I'm trying to say is; he's a man with a reputation and the resources to justify that reputation, which instantly shot this concept up from idle backyard speculation to practically triple-confirmed fact. I'm just upset why the man himself wasn't the one initially talking about this. (I get reserving some info for the benefit of the project's anonymity, but he turned around and confirmed it in a second anyway. Maybe he had to do some digging, I dunno.)

The leaker also mentioned some other gaming tidbits in his Reddit leaking career, like some NBA news (As though those weirdos are actually capable of reading) and something about a new Spin-off Borderlands game featuring everyone's favourite joke-character grown-old Tiny Tina. So lukewarm teases basically, all around this little golden nugget of coolness that is XCOM Avengers. Is this the line-up perhaps heading for this upcoming E3, an event which will not only be online once again but is apparently going to be condensed into one concentrated show with an Award event at the end? (Yes, E3 is going to start hosting awards. For their game trailers. If I was Geoff Keighley I'd be pissed right now.) Some seem to think it's unlikely, with these games maybe just being teases for the far future, but in my heart of hearts I need a stellar Avengers game at least teased so that the Marvel gaming audience doesn't lose hope as Square Enix's game slowly chokes to death on it's own mediocrity.

So that means right now all we've got is solid word that this is happening with potentially no details until next year. That sucks. But even in such a lamentable state, we can still come together to laud what might be in rampant speculation based on what we know about both franchises. Firstly, we're probably looking at an XCOM Chimera Squad style game where each character has these distinct abilties that can be improved over the course of the game. This would allow for special team builds, of course, and throwing in a little bit of randomly generated special items would allow for the replayability to seep into the game. I'd imagine the game will be scenario based, with some sort of overarching home base like Avengers HQ or the Shield Helicarrier, from which an overview of the Earth will be monitored and several operations will launch. I hope we'll be dealing with several overarching threats at once, similar to Chimera Squad, so that tough decisions can pop up about who to deal with first and how that might effect the overall campaign. (Maybe lean a little into Crackdown 1's main story for inspiration there.) In fact, if we look at this with a discerning eye, Chimera Squad might very well have been a test run for an Avengers style game in this genre, so that'll definitely be the place to look for the curious.

I think that where Chimera Squad sort of stumbled up on was the similarity of encounters, which always followed the 'breach and clear' method that become pretty methodical once you figured out the ways to exploit it. An Avengers XCOM game might want to lean more into how XCOM 2 handled encounters, with an initial position of advantage from which the player can choose how the mission plays out. Team synergistic abilities will certainly have to be played up upon, MUA style, mistakes should be punishing with easy team knockouts, (I expect Marvel won't let us straight just kill the Avengers) and I personally would love it if a game like this could lean into a lot of the more dynamic mission elements like we saw from XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. Bosses in that would just turn up mid mission and completely evolve the circumstance until they were dealt with, it made the campaign feel alive and actively competitive.

I'm simply overdosing on all the possibilities of a game like this, and could sit here spouting 'maybes' and 'what-ifs' until the world freezes over. At the end of the day Firaxis have oodles of talent behind them and a world of burgeoning potential in Marvel, that's a combo that could dream up easily the best Avengers game ever made upon release. Of course, part of this does make me mourn when I hoped that 'XCOM 3: Time for the fishies' (working title) would be their next project, but in my eyes, the more they perfect their craft inbetween major XCOM entries the better it'll be for the series in the long run. What a brilliant combination I never would have seen coming, what mad genius concocted this collaboration from their laboratory and why aren't they in charge of all Marvel digital content at this point? Dang, I haven't been this excited for an upcoming game since... oh- I'm sad now...

Enemy spam in game design

There coming out the wall!

Enemies are a staple of a good many video games out there today, and for very good reason; they represent an active trial for the players to overcome through strife that can feel exciting and dynamic in a way that's hard to replicate with static puzzles and gradual progression. That is, of course, just a general overview of their potential role in gaming; enemies can serve many different roles for their respective games and that's what makes them such a universal aspect. That does not mean, however, that there is no etiquette or widely excepted methodology to the creation and implementation of said enemies; but I'm only interested in one specific set of rules and that's those that go into deciding the sheer quantity of enemies. What counts as just enough and what crosses into the borders of 'Enemy Spam'.

'Enemy Spam' refers to a situation in video games wherein the player meets an enemy force that vastly eclipses their ability to handle it. As such, what actually constitutes 'enemy spam' can vary wildly from game to game; it comes under the banner of balancing for the title in question. In some games, enemy spam could be considered having a group of five enemies thrown at a player in a very one-on-one style game, or having a constant barrage of enemies thrown at them again and again in a very resource heavy style game. What's important to note and make distinction of is that 'Enemy Spam' isn't used to denote a moment at which a player's ability is heavily challenged, even when it's to a degree outside of their supposed limits; but rather a time when the amount of enemies, or the type in question, are so consciously geared to be disadvantageous to the player that it starts becoming frustrating, and loses that hard-but-rewarding edge. (It's a fine line to walk.)

Personally, the first time I really came up against 'Enemy Spam' was in the party-based RPG 'Dragon Age: Origins', which I'm sure you all know so well. That was an entire game built around the core concept of intelligent use of character skills and positing in order to overcome the threats of the game. (Although, all too often that did slip into micromanaging the every move of your teammates. The AI wasn't the best on the market.) This meant that throughout the majority of the game you'd come up against smartly constructed groups of enemies that would test your versatility and strength as you devise counters against the many different enemy types, with the finale of the areas typically testing all of the strategies you had made in your journey. By the climax of the game, however, the team had run out of new enemy types to throw your way and thus just resorted to placing armies of Darkspawn in your path. This was still completely fine and dandy right up until the final hallway of enemies before the final boss; because there we all saw the quintessential example of enemy spam.

There, in front of the player, were a layout of battlements manned by Darkspawn; surely a challenge for any player to get through and requiring of some tactical planning. Bioware, however, saw to it that people wouldn't have a chance to get to planning as the second you get there you'll be hit by a wave of invisible Shrieks to throw you off your game. Good play, Bioware, but now it's time to get back to- oh, there's another wave. And another. And another. Now this isn't any where near the worst example of enemy spam, but in a game that, up until this point, had relied on strong enemy composition rather than overwhelming numbers, it was supremely jarring. And all that was compounded by the final fight itself, which swarms unending waves of enemies at you requiring anyone on higher difficulties to literally bring an entire apothecaries worth of potions just to withstand the impending hoards. (Not really the sign of a well-crafted boss fight.)

Now this is by no means the only example of this sort of issue popping up in the game balancing, and in fact; Bioware themselves are responsible for an inordinate amount of it. There's the corridor of endless Sith at the end of KOTR, the Geth Juggernaut hallway up the Citadel tower in Mass Effect and probably something at the end of Jade Empire that I haven't got to yet. But there are other examples from different game franchises. Some might say that the later Dark Souls games resorted to increased amount of enemy spam to fill their areas (although the Frigid Outskirts from Dark Souls 2 is easily the worst offender in that regard.) The final level of 2016's DOOM is split in three nauseatingly prolonged combat arenas, all enough to make you never want to see another Demon for as long as you live. The newer XCOM games have spammy final levels, as does The Outer Worlds and certainly some of the Kingdom Hearts games.

But where is that line in the sand? At what point is more enemies too much and how does a developer know how to effectively walk that line? You may have noticed a trend out of the games that I mentioned, in that most of the egregious offenders pull their spam by the final levels, and that makes sense when you think about it. The finale of the game is supposed to represent the climax in spectacle, story and gameplay; so it makes sense for the developers to throw everything they can at you. But when they just inundate you with so many enemies that the game devolves into a substandard version of itself, suddenly that's too much and considered 'Enemy Spam'. It's a very tight line to walk and I envy no one who has to do so for a living.

Perhaps the hardest task of game balancing is figuring out the utmost extremes that your game and, most importantly, what your players are comfortable with; because realistically there is no right answer. There's no cure-all, one-fits-all, choice for how to attain perfect equilibrium and  therefore Devs just have to work off what little they can judge from their play testers and a little bit of instinct. Some games can totally get away with chucking the kitchen sink at you without ruining anyone's day; just look at the finale of 'Batman: Arkham Asylum' for instance. Just before the final encounter the player is asked to walk through a room brimming with clapping thugs on either side. Now this is entirely optional fight, and the key may lie in that, but I feel it's just the makeup of the game's legendarily tight combat controls that the action of knocking out everyone in that room still feels satisfying by the final punch. So as I say; different strokes for different folks.

Of course, personally I wouldn't say that Enemy Spam essentially ruins a game, but it does leave a sour taste in the mouth for the player which is rarely relived by the eventual completion of the task in question. For my two cents, I feel it's just a little unfair to be thrust into an overwhelmingly packed situation without being made aware of it prior. Perhaps it's the surprise of "Are we done ye- another wave?!" which really stings the worst, or perhaps I'm being reductionist with even that and there's an even wider net that could be cast here. Either way, I would be interested to hear a perspective for how enemy spam is handled from both a developer and player level, but as this was just an introduction to the topic, those are a couple blogs for another day.

I got to play X-Com Chimera Squad! Here's what I thought...

Which is the bigger number; five or one?

I've had a trying day; ideas come few and far between as we speed ever closer to that really personally important blog I want to write, (It's tomorrow, BTW) the blog I wrote for next Friday won't upload with it's images for some reason (But this blog was written today. My schedule is weird, don't ask) and I just cut my small toe almost in half, and obviously there are no hospitals open so I'm having to hobble around everywhere like I'm drunk. (Luckily, that's a cut down the middle and not the alternative, otherwise I would probably kick down their door and demand someone help. With the other foot, obviously.) but all this means that I've gone through a full rebound to Fallout 76 literally one day after writing that I- well you'll see the blog next Friday. Also I've got a new game to kill some time with, and so that's what I'm going to be talking about today.

To pull the curtains back on this ramshackle operation a bit, I spend the weekends writing blogs that come out the same day but the weekday blogs are usually a week delayed. (Unless I set a special priority) As such, even though that 'X-Com: Chimera Squad' blog dropped two days ago, I've actually spent the whole last week pining for this game which you can bet I bought the second it was announced. (I need to stop impulse buying, this is becoming a problem.) But as such I was able to finally access the game early yesterday alongside everyone else on release day. (Well, almost alongside everyone else. Damn streamers and their priority downloads...) So I'm going to take a laid back blog for today whilst I talk about my initial reaction to Chimera Squad and why I think it's the X-Com that everyone should be playing right now.

Due to no preloading (thanks, Firaxis) I had a good few hours of downloading to waste combing through information on how this Chimera Squad works in it's metagame; so I cannot speak for how effective the tutorial system for the game is, but personally I didn't get overwhelmed with all the new systems on display. Chimera Squad severely pans back the scale of the other X-Com revival games from global coverage to a more intimate city management system, and with that comes a different feel to the scale of the issues. However there is still that framework which places pressure on the player to preform with tactical cohesion in their selection of mission, although not with a 'Hard time limit' like X-Com 2 worked with. (Which is honestly one of my biggest problems with that fantastic sequel.)

As the invisible leader of elite spin-off from the X-Com initiative with an interest in promoting alien/human relations, it's up to the player to track down the assassins of city 31's mayor whilst keeping the city from unravelling at the seams. The 31PD find themselves under constant assault from the gangs of the street and everytime these gangs attack, that district stacks up on 'unrest' to a total of 5. (Or more, if you select that extra in the settings when you start your campaign) Once these districts fill up on unrest, every day from then on will count towards the city anarchy until that caps out and the whole place falls into disarray, ending the campaign in failure. Therefore it behoves you to pay attention to the mission you're picking and the extra tools at your disposal to keep things relatively normal across the board. Personally I really like this approach to the metagame as it puts the burden of control in the hands of the player rather than some unseen forces ticking in the background, so when things start to go to hell you always feel like you have the power to bring things back around, rather than feeling like you've run out of time and are merely beating around the bush until a full campaign failure.

Facing down the discordant forces of City 31 is a matter of getting a hand over the three factions that oppose you and their talents that you'll need to counter. You have the Progeny, who are mostly made up of human psionics who hate the fact that the invaders have now become friends and want to establish themselves as a master race; The Gray Phoenix, who are a selection of alien scavengers with superior tech capabilities and a monopoly over the black tech market; And Sacred Coil who have a blend of humans and aliens working as part of them, although their preview images showcases a Chryssalid, so I feel like they're probably going to have a particularly brutal slant to their approach. Chimera Squad will have to investigate these folk one-by-one which essentially means launching full-blown offences on the gangs who threaten to tear the city apart.

To this end the player has at their disposal a rather unique team, as instead of having a squad full of X-Com rookies, they have instead a group of heroic pre-made characters with their own unique abilities and stats to them. These agents hail from a variety of different backgrounds and species, symbolising the united image of City 31, and that diversity proves to be their greatest strength in battle. Cherub carries a shield alongside him and can impart a damage-negation effect upon anybody nearby, Terminal lugs around her healing drone which is capable of remote access and hacking when needed, Godmother lugs around a big-ass shotgun, so on and so forth. This diversity creates quite a unique 'everyone is special' kind of mechanic to X-Com, but does so at the cost of some of the intimacy that we shared with these folk in past games. But this new 'hero' mechanic does amplify the diversity between each character, so I'll not ride Firaxis too hard for this.

The actual gameplay sections also differ from traditional X-Com in that they are more homogenised and streamlined. Each mission starts with a preliminary 'Breach Round' in which Chimera Squad gets to pick their insertion points with a variety of advantages and disadvantages to each spot. You can choose to split up your team or keep them together as you burst into the room and attempt to pull off as much initial damage as possible. From there you'll find your turns cut-up into a timeline and split between the enemy and yourself, making the actual acts of flanking and eliminating hostiles (Something which is inherent to X-Com) much more dynamic as players can put themselves in the firing line of one hostile under the assumption that another unit will neutralise them before their turn comes to fruition. This also opens up a new dimension of tactile play as the player has tools to mess with the timeline and group up their squad or delay the enemy. There's an almost D&D level of tactile dynamism to this mechanic and it honestly completely switches up the gameplay in an particularly unexpected way.

Of course, at the end of the day I've only had the chance to play for a little bit (I cut my toe open, so that sort of put a dampener on my 'gaming' time.) but I'm already sold on the fact that I'll pull at least one full playthrough. The speed of each mission makes this one of the most accessible X-Com experiences of all time and the lack of consequence for being injured (even being knocked down isn't seriously bad) means that this is a very new-comer friendly X-Com game. I still don't think this will replace X-Com 2 as my favourite of the series, but one of the beautiful things about this franchise is that no new game is meant to replace the old ones, they're just supposed to accompany them. Once more, for £10 you'd be silly not to pick this game up before it goes out of sale in May, but even then it's a steal. Definitely give this game a shot.

X-Com: Chimera Squad

What a surprise!

Here I was thinking it wouldn't be my birthday for a couple of weeks yet there pops up Firaxis, out of the blue and with a brand new X-Com game to get me all excited. I can honestly say this is one that caught me completely by surprise and saved me from another potential downer blog (you know how much I hate to write those) because now I get to gush about another franchise I'm head-over-heels for. (And for once I won't be kowtowing for Capcom. Good thing too, my knees were starting to chafe.) On the eve of Gears of War's newest attempt to diversify with their 'Tactics' (A game which hopes to copy much of the 'turn based tactical' framework that X-Com built), they'll have to contend with the surprise drop of this X-Com universe title which seeks to undermine them in all the major ways.

Now of course this isn't a straight up sequel to X-Com 2 but a side story, but unlike the canonically dubious events of 'The Bureau', I think that 'Chimera Squad' is set to detail the next steps of the franchise and that does have me quite excited. For those who haven't had the pleasure I'm about to lightly spoil the ending of X-Com 2. (The games aren't really about the developer made-story anyway, but I feel it's best to share that upfront.) Basically, at the end of X-Com 2 the commander uses their avatar link to confront the ADVENT Elders, whom at this point have been revealed to be tyrannical alien overlords who have enslaved countless alien races over the cosmos to serve in their army. The Commander manages to sever their neural network, essentially breaking the psychic control those Elders had over their forces, allowing the human resistance to force a surrender out of them. The closing shot of the game features the aliens in retreat, the humans taking back earth and a final eerie shot on a glowing crevice at the bottom of the ocean, lightly hinting at a new threat closer than we think...

Obviously that's a cliff hanger that'll have to wait (It's probably just teasing a remake of 'Terror from the Deep' anyway) as this title actually takes place in a post ADVENT controlled world wherein the pieces of society are being picked up and put back together. This time, however, there are entire menagerie worth of stranded alien species with no more psychic link to their overmasters looking for a place to call home. Obviously, with humans being as dumb as we are, we've accepted them into our home although that does not come without caveats; which in this case means making a lot of concerted efforts to bridge cultural gaps, join the right hands together and help the populace get over the fact that we're now supposed to be 'buddy buddy' with the same aliens who nuked all of our cities and enslaved us for years. (So there's going to be a few growing pains, clearly.)

In this effort there has been the founding of City 31; a model city which is created in the hopes of showcasing how humans and aliens can live together side-by-side without being at each others throats. This means that this is a politically pivotal city, and that it's under everyone's best interests that this city works flawlessly and doesn't descend into chaos within the first week. In comes Chimera Squad, a sort of future police force comprised of officers both human and alien who are trying their best to keep the city safe for the good of it's citizens and broader human-alien relations. (How very wholesome.) As players, we'll be tasked with guiding this force and picking their fights for a comparatively lower stakes campaign that still promises to be just as fun to shift through.

One of the aspects about the X-Com franchise that I truly love is the way how each game has a different approach to the metagame, (as well as the moment-to-moment) that ensures that even as each game vastly improves, it never invalidates one's desire to play the older entries. 'Enemy Unknown' had a greater focus on reacting to the aliens, making for a balancing game wherein the players could hold off the collapse of the world government practically indefinitely with the right tactical forethought and RNG. 'X-Com 2' changed that up with a complete switch to the power dynamic so that players would have to be the ones on the offensive. Suddenly the game was about racing a clock and pushing for ground before you ran out of time, making for an entirely fresh gameplay experience. Chimera Squad looks like it's going to lean more toward the initial game's model but with some changes; players will have to manage the city districts from descending into chaos whilst, I assume, unravelling the guiding hands behind this developing crime wave.

All that being said, at it's heart it would seem that 'X-Com: Chimera Squad' is the exact same game that we know and love with it's tactical planning and RNG based shooting, only with some new additions. One such addition is this new 'SWAT-Style' breech mode which allows players to set up their squad around the different entry points into a location for a surprise hit. It adds that extra layer of planning into the equation and allows for games to kick off in that flanking formation which makes X-Com so fun. There also appears to be quite a slew of new weaponry to discover and research and I'd imagine such development projects are going to take a vastly different approach to how we last saw them realised in previous X-Coms. (Something tells me that performing autopsies on the City 31 citizens might not be on the table anymore.)

There are some decisions which are bound to be somewhat contentious, however, and for me I think that'll be the idea of making ever single character in the campaign (As far as we know) a fixed character. This allows for some more story and character-based development, as well as permitting for unique powers for each ally, but it takes away some of that classic X-Com individuality. No longer will you find yourself naming soldiers after friends before watching them perish before your very eyes, as they'll all have their names and personality pre-set, effectively cutting off one of the franchise's most endearing qualities. However, given the community that's sprung up around X-Com, I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising individuals aren't already cooking up a quick mod to patch that particular feature back in.

But what's that last cherry on top of the cake? The one thing that'll knock my socks off and let me know that I have to pick this game up? How about the fact that it's coming out on April 24th and is debuting for $10 at launch! On May it's going back up to 20, but even then that seems like an absolute steal for what is being promised to be a 20 hour game. (And that's not even taking into account the huge-replayablity value inherent with this genre of game.) So if you've never pulled the trigger on the excellent X-Com franchise before there is literally nothing stopping you from doing so this time around. 10 bucks for an X-Com game? That really can't be beat and I just cannot wait to get a glimpse into this brand new world that Firaxis are building. (And heck, I only have to wait a few days to do so!)