The Guild of Dungeoneering (PC and Mac)

The Ivory League has sat on its high horse for too long, raking in gold hand over fist and parading their heroes about. It’s enough to make an intrepid entrepreneur gag. Meanwhile the Guild of Dungeoneering has fallen on hard times but that could be an opportunity of sorts. You elect to buy the Guild on the cheap and build your own adventuring society to save the day… and make enough gold to fill an olympic sized pool with — gotta have priorities. Chumps, Mathemagicians, and Mimes show up daily to adventure — and almost certainly die — in service to the Guild of Dungeoneering.

History

Not a lot here today. Guild of Dungeoneering was made by the five man team what calls themselves Gambrinous and was released on July 14th, 2015.

It’s competition was Godzilla: The Game (PS4 and PS3), Five Nights at Freddies 4 (PC), and Way of the Samurai 4 (PC).

Experiences

I gotta throw another big shout out there for youtuber Kikoskia, without whom I probably would never had heard about this game. That out of the way I’m gonna use this section to complain about my lack of deep experiences. Darkest Dungeon is a similar game with much darker overtones that I’ve spoken about before. The reason I bring it up is because Darkest Dungeon made me feel really attached to adventurers going into unknown depths to get their shit rocked. Guild of Dungeoneering did not. All of the adventurers in the Guild have individual character based on their class but every chump is the same as the last. Ah well, means I don’t feel as bad when they get horrifically petrified by a beholder.

Gameplay

Guild of Dungeoneering is not the typical dungeon delving game. Unlike most games the player does not have control over the adventurer. Instead the player builds the dungeon, places monsters, and treasure in an attempt to guide or goad the adventurers around. Every quest has a goal such as defeating a certain number of enemies or a boss. Some have limits like a set number of turns before the adventurer dies. In others the boss is chasing the adventurer down in a bid to destroy them.

Should your adventurer get too close to a monster they’ll engage in combat. Combat is card based in which both characters execute maneuvers simultaneously. The player chooses from 1 of 3, or more, attacks or maneuvers which deal magic or physical damage or block physical or magic damage. Enemies choose whatever card they’ve got off the top of their deck. The trick is, the player can see it and try to act accordingly. The adventurer gets new attacks and abilities based on the equipment they loot from enemies.

Build the dungeon and try to use your knowledge to take advantage of it.

When you’re not in the dungeon you can tour around the guild. Which basically amounts to building new wings to unlock new adventurers or equipment and checking out the graveyard to behold the great horde of brave people you’ve sent to their untimely demise. And apparently in between adventures your heroes throw all their equipment or spend it on prostitutes or something because they go to every dungeon unarmed and unarmored with just their base abilities.

The Gush

The music in this game is really solid. From the main theme itself to the little ditties the the narrator sings when you win or fail it’s always a joy. The music in the dungeons itself can either strike a moody underground tone or a raucous adventurous one. No matter what, it’s good stuff.

It’s something small but I like how the game looks like a page of graph paper. It really harkens back to the days of making dnd dungeons on grid paper in the back of english class in high school.

Gambrinous is still making content for this game. Having released a pirate themed and ice themed DLC. So there’s a lot of game here… if only there were enough fresh upgrades and classes to keep the systems fresh.

The Kvetch

Because the dungeon tile cards, monster cards, and loot cards you get are all random it sometimes feels more like good luck or bad is more responsible for success or failure instead of player choice. There’s certainly strategy in choosing which equipment is supported by the current class or effective against the monsters in that area. But if those items don’t drop then it feels like failure was a foregone conclusion and that’s just no fun.

Did I lose because I played sloppy? Or because I got trash loot?

The priority system is a pretty compelling system but not involving one. I think it would have been more interesting if different classes had different priorities for treasure, monsters, and unexplored tiles. It would add a layer of complexity that I think it would be a welcome one, and one easily understood i.e. the Bruiser likes monsters more than loot but the Cat Burglar loves loot more than anything etc.

The Verdict

This game is worth a little whirl. It and it’s DLC are modestly priced at $15 for the game and $5 for each of the DLC — and it goes on sale all the time. I got through about three campaigns before it lost my interest and every once and awhile I go back to it. I think I got my money’s worth so if this interests ya’ll then I would say it’s worth the purchase.

Next Week: Warlocked

Total War: Shogun 2 (PC)

The year is 1545 and Japan is gripped in a terrible civil war. The Ashikaga Shogunate –the guys in charge of Japan who generally tell the Emperor what to do — has lost all control over the Daimyo — wealthy land owners who do a lot of killing and not a lot of dying — of the provinces of Japan and now everyone has equal claim to their throne. All they need is sufficient strength of arms. Whether the army consists of peasants armed with spears, devout warrior monks, or the most elite samurai that can me mustered from the realm they’ll fight with all the tact afforded by their honor. Or you could loot, plunder, pillage, and employ enough ninja to choke a horse — you know, you do you.

History

The Total War series has been developed by Creative Assembly and Shogun 2 is no exception. Shogun: Total War was the first in the Total War series and fans had been eagerly awaiting the series’ return to Feudal Japan after the release of Medieval 2. I wasn’t actually able to find much information about the development but I did find a tidbit or two about the advertising. Those who bought the limited edition of the game received access to the Hattori Clan, which would later be sold as DLC. Whereas those who pre-ordered the game from Best Buy got extra in-game currency for the beginning of a campaign.

Every time I hear something like this I’ve left asking, ‘what fuels this pre-order culture?’ It was available on Steam at release so there’s no lack for copies of the game. Spoilers — it’s a good game and I like it. It didn’t need to offer all this useless junk or cut out extra clans to give the game the illusion of value because it is valuable on its own merits. Now I’m cranky and I feel like the game chopped up content to sell later. Which is never a good sign so… why would they do that? Don’t they know they’re just hurting their bottom line?

Total War: Shogun 2 was released on March 15th 2011. It’s competition was Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy (PSP), Crysis 2 (PC, PS3, XBox 360), and Homefront (PC, PS3, and XBox 360).

Experiences

I mentioned in my Medieval II review that I love defending a castle and that passion has not died. If anything, Shogun II has brought it out stronger than ever. The castles in Shogun are much more compact instead of being large sprawling cities. Instead of needing siege weapons, towers, and ladders to scale or break down walls and gates any infantry can climb the walls of the castle or try to burn down gates. Shogun also makes it so any unit defending in the inner fortress has infinite morale and will always fight to the death, they know there’s no other way out. But… the AI does act strangely predictably. They always try to climb over the walls instead of burning down the gates. Someone defending a siege can routinely defend against armies 2 or 3 times their size. It creates these intense situations where an impossibly small force can grab victory from the maw of defeat.

Fire, blood, chaos, no time for that! There’s glory to be won!

Gameplay

The Gameplay in Shogun 2 is split between managing towns and armies in the overworld and fighting battles as armies clash. Managing your clan consists of choosing what buildings to construct in which provinces. Larger fortresses allow you to build more supporting buildings like dojo to train more powerful samurai or markets to make extra money and help train your secret police. Speaking of secret police –or metsuke, they, monks, and ninja compose the cast of agents to serve a rock, paper, scissors like espionage system. Metsuke catch ninja, ninja assassinate monks — and anyone else you sic them on, and monks send metsuke into contemplative retreats. Each of them can also have effects on towns and allied armies when stationed with them. They can also effect enemy armies and towns in a myriad of ways. Castles and certain buildings also constrict your food supply and starving people are angry people so don’t build too many huge castles without the farms to support them — gotta throw that out there because most of my early campaigns suffered because I didn’t understand that.

Your playstyle is sure to be influenced by whichever clan you’re playing as, each one comes with their own unique abilities. For instance, the Chosokabe Clan make more money off of farms and produce superior archers, or the Oda Clan who produce superior Ashigaru (Peasant troops, cheap, affordable, bodies on the field). Between these traits and each clan’s starting location, and the inherent randomness of events each campaign ends up being unique.

Or you can choose your clan by the quality and design of their hat. I ain’t gonna judge.

It’s finally time to get on the battlefield and it’s pretty simple. The player is given a tactical view to deploy troops and then they march around engaging in combat and occasionally disobeying orders — some inexperienced troops will charge without orders whereas others will prefer to stand and fight rather than flee. Certain troops are more effective against others so battles come down to having good troop compositions and getting your men where you need them when you need them there.

DLC

I’ve already mentioned the extortionate clan DLC packs but I’ll bring it up again. Three clans and over twenty different unit types meant for the main campaign are held to ransom behind a pay wall. I just checked it out, BLOOD IS HELD BEHIND A PAY WALL! Want your samurai to bleed their last miles from home at the behest of a man far from this bloodshed and mayhem? Welp, you’d best be willing to dish out two dollars for it.

This is what you’re $1.59 gets you, and shame, mostly shame.

Not all the DLC is bad actually. The game comes with two different campaigns, the Rise of the Samurai and the Fall of the Samurai. Each of these campaigns actually completely revamps the entire campaign with different units, goals, and tactics. The Fall of the Samurai even has a different map and has a modernization mechanics to determine how much of the old ways you’ve left behind. That being said, Fall of the Samurai is thirty goddam dollars but blissfully does not require the original game to play — it’s standaloneness has got to count for something… what it counts for I have no idea.

The Gush

NINJA ASSASSINATION CUT-SCENES ARE BACK! One of the best parts of the original Shogun returns with fanfare. Whenever you send one of your shadow warriors to dispatch an enemy commander or agent you’re treated to a mix and match series of scenes showing how your agent sneaks into the enemy midst, dispatches their enemy — or fails miserably, and how they make their daring escape — or fails miserably.

They can really strike from anywhere.

The incidental dialogue from each of the characters is in japanese. It’s small but it’s certainly better than the voices from medieval and their insensitive accents.

The mod library for this game is incredibly verbose. If it’s not in the game there’s a mod to put it in. If there’s a problem there’s probably a mod to fix it.

It’s something small but your generals can gain retainers and each one offers small bonuses to various stats like unit morale or general loyalty. Included in the pool of retainers is the Seven Samurai themselves, you know from that movie…

No, not that one.

Nope, still not right.

THERE WE GO! That’s the bunny.

The Kvetch

The land divide is one of the most frustrating mechanics implemented into the game. Once your clan becomes renown enough the other clans will realize you’re a problem and send everything they’ve got at you. Ignoring war with each other, you become the universal enemy of all Japan. And there’s no clear indication that this will happen and once it begins there’s no undoing it. It’s this bizarre point of no return and if you’re not ready for it, the results can be disastrous.

The research system is actually quite interesting but it suffers from one gigantic problem. It takes too damn long. Even if you go full bore for one of the highest level research topics you will never finish it before you’ve completed the campaign. Even in the long campaign. Even on total domination campaign. You can construct buildings like temples and castles to improve research speed but it barely puts a dent in these research times. And some whole units and buildings are locked off behind these research trees so it’s impossible to play with all the toys in a single campaign.

Each wing takes about 70 turns and that’s for each category. It’s madness.

Naval combat is fucking wizardry. It takes long enough for infantry to change their flank directions or take cover behind a castle wall but the ships move ponderously even by that comparison. I was also never able to figure out how boarding works. The whole thing baffled me so utterly so I ended up employing the auto-calculate function for all naval combats.

Cavalry really seems to get the short end of the stick. The basic unit is a spearman so most armies are composed with the innate ability to defeat cavalry. How far cavalry has fallen since the days of Medieval. Strangely enough cavalry is generally best at defeating more expensive more well put together armies made up of archers and swordsmen. But most armies either have spearmen or naginata wielding samurai so I’m not exactly sure what to do with them. They’re also more expensive to boot so I generally feel like I’m wasting my time hiring these guys.

The Verdict

I know the kvetch is super long but I actually love this game. It’s a super solid Sengoku Jidai based world tactics game. It does a lot to spice up its content between different clans and game styles. The DLC is pretty punitive at full price but it goes on sale often — not that it excuses the badness. The base game goes for $30 and $50 if you want all the DLC, not including the Fall of the Samurai campaign. I would catch it on sale if it sounds interesting.

Next Week: The Guild of Dungeoneering.

Wild Arms 2: Second Ignition (PS1)

Our tale takes place in the planet of Filgaia. A tumultuous world which faces planetary disaster on a disturbingly regular basis. One such disaster, dealt with mere generations ago, was the Blaze of Disaster. A rampaging demon who was thwarted by Anastasia Valeria and the magical blade Argetlahm. Her descendant, Irving Vold Valeria, senses another disaster on the horizon and has a deep desire to fulfill his lineage. To accomplish this –and save the world but that’s sort of secondary — he reinstates the ARMS program. A crack team of operatives able to respond to threats all over the globe. The team he means to create is composed of Ashley Winchester, a member of the Kingdom of Meridia’s elite military unit. Lilka Eleniak, a very promising sorceress. And Brad Evans, the Prisoner in Cell #666, a former lieutenant in the Slayheim Liberation Army.

History

Alright, here’s what I know about Wild Arms and the Wild Arms series. It was developed by Media Vision in a joint effort with Contrail, drew influence from a lot of westerns, and was released on April 30th, 2000. You might know Media Vision as the people who made Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth.

Other than that, I’ve got nothing so onto the competition, which was: The Misadventures of Tron Bonne (PS1), Perfect Dark (N64), and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (N64).

Experiences

Wild Arms 2 is an insanely long game and having tasted the snow on its peak it pains me to say that I’ll probably never finish it. I was at the point I was completing side-quests and exploring before I went into the final dungeon — this is the age before I had the internet, no guides if there’s something I had to find it myself. Then my PS2 died. I went in on a PS3 with the expectation that it would be backwards compatible as the jump from the PS1 to the PS2 had been. I was sorely disappointed insofar that some games suffered quality loss like The Bard’s Tale and others like Kingdom Hearts RE: Chain of Memories were completely unplayable. Bear in mind, our PS3 was the most backwards compatible. Point being, there was no way to transfer the save and I wasn’t about to put another 40+ hours into the game just to replay it. So it’s probably going to end up being the best game I never beat.

Gameplay

Wild Arms 2 is a turn based RPG with puzzle elements in its dungeons. As your characters roam Filgaia they’ll find tools which they can use on objects to solve puzzles to gain access to additional loot or forward passage. The game also wants the player to treat it kind of like an anime complete with a special introduction whenever they load a save and an ending sequence whenever they use the in-game quit.

The combat system is tricked out with a plethora of toys and techniques to play with.  To begin, the MP system is unique. Instead of MP character’s have FP ranging from 1-100 which increases as they deal and take damage — guarding increases FP gain despite decreasing damage so this is one of the first RPGs n which guarding served a purpose. Higher FP grants characters access to their special weapons, spells, and abilities. Spells and arms don’t consume FP but abilities do. BUT using special weapons, spell, and abilities does not give the character FP. So, you can dish out some damage now, or save up for a more powerful ability later. Ashley’s got his high accuracy, higher damage than his regular attack guns and –spoilers– has the ability to turn into a demon. Brad has incredibly high damage explosive ordinance which suffers from a lower accuracy. And Lilka can take advantage of enemy elemental weaknesses and heal herself with her spells.

In addition to these combat options every level confers an ability point which can be spent on special abilities. Such as regaining health when the character regains FP, turning guarding into a method to actually regenerate health. Or giving a character the ability to counter attack when attacked. Even rendering a character immune to certain status ailments. Speaking of status ailments…

The counterattack ability combos quite nicely with the FP into Health ability.

Status Ailments in this game are more unique than any other game I’ve seen. Such as Disease which prevents all healing or Nightmare which acts like both poison and sleep. Or Forgetfullness which prevents XP gain. Also, a character can have multiple status ailments at once so if someone’s paralyzed and suffering from a nightmare things are going to get dangerous fast. They’re annoying but they change gameplay in a way other game’s status ailments don’t. If you don’t have the item necessary to heal a status ailment then you can cure them by reaching 100 FP and achieving what the game calls Code Green — and gaining access to the characters most powerful ability.

The Gush

The music in this game is phenomenal. They pushed the PS1’s sound card to its limits. Each character gets their own theme and almost every scene is punctuated with music appropriate to its mood.

Every boss fight starts the sillouette of the creature posing and the camera movements making it appear as if it’s slinking around. Culminating in a splash screen of the monster’s name  and a descriptive phrase e.g. Poison Armored Dragonoid, Trask. It really gets me pumped to fight the terrible beast.

Disabling boss’ limbs stop special moves and reward the player with more XP.

Brad Evans is every 14 year old DBZ fan’s epitome of badassery. The only reason he joins the party is because Irving has the detonator to a bomb in his throat. His weapon is a giant glove that he uses to crush his enemies and beat them to death. He has a streak of white hair to perfectly accentuate that he’s getting too old for this shit. And to top it all off, he’s gay. When he reunites with his former partner his lover is in a PTSD induced madness coma. And all of his other friends are dead because the Slayheim Liberation Army’s operations ended in a terrible disaster… that got a little too real. Because Brad is too real.

The world of Filgaia exists in this bizarre state. It’s got ancient lost but advanced technology — with more being discovered all the time. Legitimately new technological advances are being made in the world as well. But its very much split between the haves and have nots. All this coexists with a a magical city deep underground where people are taught to be wizards. It’s bizarre, makes no sense, but is an interesting world to explore.

The story is actually quite compelling. It does a great job of presenting escalating threats that culminate into fantastic crescendos of pain and bloodshed. Each character also gets a stunning amount of development from learning about Brad’s troubled past to Ashley’s journey to discover what a hero is.

Secrets! There are secret dungeons, secret summons, secret characters, secret items in dungeons and on the overworld, TRADING CARDS, and more bizarre and hidden shenanigans so keep your eyes open and explore all the hidden nooks and cranies Filgaia has to offer.

The Kvetch

The translation in this game is laughably bad. The dialogue that falls out of characters’ mouths turns quickly into cryptic and absurd mumbo jumbo. Ability names include Hot Fencer and Gat lv 1-4 which is short for gatling which is mean to  imply that the character unleashes a series of blows — how is that hard to get? One of my favorite bad lines is, ‘A broken clock begins to move to some rhythm.’ And this sort of thing happens everywhere, moments are made and destroyed by the quality and lack thereof of this translation.

Although sometimes it’s on point, though out of context.

I have no idea how the character stats work or what they mean. I know that the higher the better but I’ll be damned if I know off the top of my head what raising my resistance does. Or what the response or sorcery stats are meant to govern. It makes it so I often ignore abilities that raise statistics because I don’t know how they effect my combat abilities.

The Verdict

Now that I think about it… this game is basically an anime that you play. It’s got intros, outros, magical mid fight transformation sequences, a terrible translation, trope laden characters, goofy enemies, and the gang routinely defeats these enemies with the power of friendship. So if you ever wanted to play an Anime this game presents that boldly and without shame. It’s available on the Playstation Network so if you’ve got the time to sink into a massive JRPG then this might fill the mighty void in your schedule. You can get it for the low low price of six dollars so if you don’t mind the blocky battle graphics and you can laugh at a bad translation I definitely suggest giving it a whirl.

Next Week: Total War: Shogun 2.

X-COM: Enemy Unknown (PC, Mac, Linux, PS3, XBox 360, Android, and PS Vita)

The world is in peril. Overpopulation, mis-distribution of resources, poor leadership, environmental degradation, international terrorism, and now to top it all off intergalactic terrorism. That’s right, the aliens have begun their invasion and they mean business. Why did they choose Earth? Reasons. What’s the purpose of the invasion if their technology vastly surpasses ours? Stop asking logical questions and get ready to fill some little grey men with lead. You are the commander of the vague yet menacing X-COM initiative, which was awkwardly well prepared for aliens to attack. As the commander it’s your responsibility to handle operations, research and engineering projects, and command soldiers in the field to stem the aliens’ campaign of havoc and chaos.

History

The X-COM series has quite a legacy. The first game, UFO: Enemy Unknown or X-COM: UFO Defense in the US, was released in 1994 and featured more tactical elements and way more death. The player could build multiple bases and each sortie generally fielded 14 soldiers who would generally die in one hit. The series was discontinued in 2001 with the release of X-COM: Enforcer.

This game’s got quite the legacy and it started looking like this.

It was revived as Enemy Unknown in 2012. X-COM: Enemy Unknown was developed by Firaxis Games — who’d have thunk that the Civilization guys would be so good at making X-COM. It was created as a counterpart game for 2K’s The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. Although the games took place in different universes I’ve heard word down the grapevine that Enemy Unknown’s primary purpose was to set the stage for the Bureau. Shocking absolutely no X-COM fans, the turn based tactics game in the vein of the original was more popular than the new game that took place in the 50s or something..

X-COM: Enemy Unknown was released on October 9th, 2012. It’s competition was Dishonored (PC, XBox 360, and PS3), Hotline Miami (PC), and Of Orcs and Men (PC, XBox 360, and PS3).

Experiences

X-COM hit me like a wildfire. I spent 2 days playing it non-stop. When I wasn’t playing it, I was thinking strategy about it. When I wasn’t thinking strategy, it was still in the back of my mind like a Sectoid’s mind control. But now that I’ve finished the campaign I don’t know if I’ll ever come back to it. Now that I know how to get to the final chapter I’m not sure what mystery or challenge there is left. I might pick up the DLC, Enemy Within, I’ve heard good things. But it’s $30 and that’s a little steep. Point being, the draw of the game is the challenge. I climbed the mountain, planted the flag, and I’m essentially contented.

Gameplay

X-COM: Enemy Unknown is a tactical combat game. It’s the standard fare with half cover, full cover, and exploding vehicles and barrels. Sending the commandos into cover reduces the damage they take while flanking enemies increases their chances to get hit. Even though the soldiers are much more durable than they are in UFO Defense they still can’t take a lot of damage — and once they’re dead they’re dead forever. The accuracy of all attacks is determined by a die roll, influenced by the aim of your troops and the strength of the enemy cover so there’s a lot of praying to RNJesus for victory. Different soldiers you have will unlock different abilities — so sending the sniper to the front lines might be a bad idea.

Every level offers perk choices so two characters of the same class might not be the same.

Things in the field got tricky until I figured out I was neglecting the X-COM base R&D divisions. X-COM base comes fully equipped with an engineering facility and a research lab for developing and building things that will give your team the edge they need to survive and dish out the pain. Like making new weapons, better intercepting aircraft — chasing down UFOs is hard business, shooting them down is even harder–, or constructing and deploying satellites to other parts of the world to monitor their activity. Without satellites X-COM won’t know what’s going on in that part of the world which means the aliens have free reign… which is in fact, no bueno.

There are also power plants and other such buildings that are boring but necessary.

You fund these new items, fresh soldiers, and expanded facilities with credits passed on by the mysterious Council. The more countries you have satellite coverage on the more credits you get monthly — and the more responsibility on your plate. You can also sell items like alien corpses at the grey market — a little joke that almost passed me by.

The Gush

It’s a double edged sword but I really like the destructible terrain. Even though the aliens can destroy your cover it’s really satisfying when you destroy theirs. Better yet, starting fires can also destroy terrain. So if you can ignite a blaze and lure an enemy into it the results can be pretty humorous. It makes it feel like the more powerful weapons you build still have impact, even if your attacks miss.

The game does a really good job of making you get attached to soldiers right before they’re horrifically murdered. They start off as rookies who suck and are basically fodder for the alien hordes. By the time rookie Hannibal becomes a shotgun toting Assault trooper it the claws were in. Then when the rest of the crew starts calling Hannibal Banzai I really got attached. I start to think about Banzai’s personality. He’s an assault so he’s always rushing in… but maybe he takes too many risks. Maybe he would rather die to spare his teammates the same fate. Then I start playing him a bit too rashly. He meets the wrong end of a Muton plasma rifle but he dies knowing he ate a shot meant for someone else. And that’s how the game gets ya.

The alien designs are really fascinating and visually compelling. Not too busy but with enough visual clues and colorful parts. From the Ethereals’ mysterious, eerie, and silent presence to the simple brutishness of the Muton.

The Thin Man, my favored alien, has bizarre gangly movements that I find enjoyable.

The Kvetch

I know that these things are aliens and they should be kind of unknowable but there are some enemies whose rules I still don’t understand. And that’s a kiss of death for a tactics game. I need to understand the rules we’re all playing by if I’m going to make tactical decisions. The first mission against certain enemies left me baffled but soon I was developing strategies to handle these new foes. That’s fine. The problem comes with the aliens whose mechanics I still don’t understand. I still don’t know how many Overwatch attacks Sectopods get and I still don’t know how the Muton Berserker or Cryssalids’ melee attacks work. I managed to beat the game anyway but that victory felt unsatisfying because I didn’t fully understand what I was doing. Speaking of Chrysalids…

You see this thing? Fuck this thing.

I don’t know who designed these things but if I met them I would mention this creature adn just stare at them incredulously for several minutes. This is a Chrysalid and it’s got a number of abilities that all sound totally reasonable until you put them all together. They melee attack for a lot of damage. That’s fine, X-COM operatives all have ranged weapons and can shoot on enemy turns with the proper preperation. When they kill something that unit rises from the dead as a zombie. Also fine, the zombies do more damage than expected but they’re slow and have low defense. The problem comes when three turns after a zombie rises it erupts into a new Chrysalid. These creatures are the main enemies in the Terror Missions which showcase combat arenas filled with civilians in need of rescue. Defenseless civilians make great hosts for Chrysalids which then beget more Chryslids. Defending against them is easy but I still haven’t found a good way to mount an offense.

Here’s something that happens with startling regularity. I’ll have a marine happily ducking behind cover when a Space Ogre will destroy the cover he’s hiding behind via grenade or random plasma fire. Then all of his Space Ogre Friends will abandon their defense and charge the bastard as they blast him with plasma fire. It’s frustrating enough to make a guy abduct and then probe himself. Each of the X-COM soldiers takes multiple missions to rank up but these aliens are expendable and the more they act like it the more frustrating it is. It doesn’t happen often enough but when it does it’s incredibly dissatisfying to see, what I considered to be AI logic, get thrown out the window.

The Verdict

This game was a killer. I installed it, beat it in a few days, and I probably won’t go back to it. But I was totally hooked for those few days. It’s not like the game doesn’t have replay value. Beating it unlocks a bunch of options that change the way the game is played like giving weapons a wider range of damage for instance. Not to mention the DLC, which I find pricey, but hear is a good deal. I don’t want to call it a flash in the pan because I know it’s better than that. It’s like a flash in the pan of a fantastic kitchen that’s making a fresh remake of an old dish you love while time is dilated really slow so the flash seems like it lasts way longer. Yeah, that’s a good metaphor.

Next Week: Wild Arms 2