Game Review: X-Com 2, sequels, rebellions, the rule of cool, & verisimilitude (guest starring: BACON)

Addendum (08/01/2019): War of the Chosen Obliterates my criticisms of the game, especially the rule of cool stuff, because it fully commits to the mad, super-heroic flavour of X-Com2.

This week I actually found time to finish X-COM 2! I will scribble some thoughts here, which will serve as my review.

But first. This week I came to a realization. Bacon is becoming ubiquitous. I see it as a donut garnish, marmalade, as burgers flavoured with three types of bacon with a bacon-maple sauce. As I stood in the supermarket staring at bacon flavoured breath-mints, I realized that this saturation level has made it less of a treat, less special, and somehow offensive. I still love bacon, but enough is enough.

X-COM 2 is the second installment of the modern reboot. It was released on Feb 4 and has already sold 750,000 copies on Steam alone. It departs from the familiar tropes of the older games and the first game of the reboot in that instead of encountering, then fighting an alien invasion, the aliens have already won and the player is leading the resistance. They do a decent job of connecting the story and update the game-play with some interesting elements. Overall I enjoyed the game, but I found that it did not correct all of the flaws of the previous version, nor do I think that all of the changes will appeal to fans of the first reboot. With that in mind I will start with the cons.

Cons: What I did not like, or thought needed improving.

• The Scamper System (major): The scamper system where when an enemy or group of enemies sees the player and gets a free action to seek cover is back from X-COM: Enemy Unknown. This is, by far, the weakest mechanic in the new series: it leads to a style of play where the best tactic is always to advance slowly so as to only activate one enemy pod at a time, kill it, rinse and repeat. Enemies in the first few versions of X-COM seemed to activate in a more organic fashion, open to a variety of tactics. In X-COM 2 they patch the holes in the scamper system by adding timers to many missions, forcing the player to move at a faster pace (this is mostly illusory, I rarely ever triggered more than one pod, save through my own stupidity) and reinforcements which drop enemies in the midst of the players with a turn of warning. They also allows players to scout with a concealment/stealth mechanic. While these patches do make the scamper system more interesting, it is still polishing a turd. I feel that the game would be better served by removing it entirely because the right thing to do is always to move forward as cautiously as you can, given mission parameters.
  • I contend that the scamper system could be used for rooms in a dungeon game, but for triggering larger encounters instead of single pods.
• The Resistance & Verisimilitude (minor): In X-COM 2 the players are guerrilla fighters waging a shadow war against a victorious enemy, at least on paper. In reality the game does not really play like that, save for a few conceits and mission types. There is very little defense, stealth, and scavenging and far too much insurgency and attack. In the end the way the game plays is very much at odds with the idea of a beleaguered resistance. Weapons and armour are a good example, with the player able to research and manufacture their own superior weapons over time. The idea guerrilla force with the ability to manufacture experimental high tech weapons… just breaks verisimilitude. I would have preferred a more low tech response like customizing old tech and salvaging higher tech weapons directly from fallen aliens. Examples like this are why it does not feel like a resistance and steps on verisimilitude.
  • Guerrilla factions spend a lot of time fighting for hearts and minds. This is obvious from modern warfare as well as successful guerrilla insurgencies in the past. This is not well represented in the game. People just kind of rise up at the appropriate moment. It was a waste of the advent speaker character, as well — why make the guy if I can’t counter his propaganda.
  • Guerrilla resistances spread slowly from specific locations, relying on local relationships. The resistance in X-COM 2 is nomadic and wants to spread as quickly as possible for income and bonuses.
  • Smallest insurgency ever.
• Small Squads (Minor): I may be in the minority here, but with 5 basic classes with 2 specialties each and many different enemy types I felt that squads of 4-6 were just too damn small. I would prefer to see bigger player squads and bigger enemy pods, just to make use of more of the options available.

Pros: What I loved

• Variety of enemies (Major): The variety of enemies in X-COM 2 is perfect. Enemies are divided into two types: Advent forces which are the augmented humans and robots who are the face of the alien invasion trying to pass as the future of humanity and the aliens themselves. The advent forces are the baseline grunts and elites specialists who stay similar throughout the game and lend the enemy a kind of uniform feel. Their look and their totalitarian feel lend the game a gravitas far beyond what I was expecting. The aliens themselves are all unique, special snowflakes with powers and abilities that make fighting each one different. Together these two forces give the game both a shifting variety of enemies without losing the sense that you are fighting a single, monumental force. Even the look and feel of each enemy type was above my expectations. Loved the enemies in this game.
• Turn Based Combat (Major): I love turn based combat. The Combat is X-COM 2 is fundamentally sound, with all of the basics from the first and a few nice improvements like concealment and better sets of character abilities. As long as you do not mind RNG and cover and flank firefights you should enjoy it. That said, the tactical depth is stunted a fair bit by the scamper system.
• Better Research Trees (Major): setting aside the idea that an insurgency has a better research and manufacturing arm than the people they are fighting, the research trees are the best I have ever seen. Scientists and engineers are greatly desire and the end-game tech opens up a large number of tactical possibilities (some of which are arguably overwhelming powerful like mimic beacons and mines, but that’s what higher difficulties are for). It was nice to see some serious variety in armour types and equipment load-outs in the end-game, even if some options are very much superior on paper and small squads limited experimenting.
• Hacking and Drones (Minor): The hacking system is interesting and I am pleased to see a nod to futuristic tactics with drones being used for healing, buffing, ranged hacking, and even some nasty attacks.
• Character Variety (Minor): Crazy amount of customization options for your characters. I also enjoyed the ability of each character to learn a single random ability from another class tree as they advanced. These two things combined to give my squad lots of personality, although I tended toward uniforms.
• Story (Trivial): Although verisimilitude does take some hits in that the campaign does not feel like a resistance insurgency, the story for X-COM 2 is better than any of the previous iterations. I enjoyed the characters despite the occasional repetitiveness of the dialogue.

Bonus Commentary: The Rule of Cool versus Verisimilitude & Unique Identity

Remember when I mentioned Bacon at the beginning of this wall of text? This is why.

Gunslingers and Ninjas with big swords are cool. I am not sure, however, that adding them to the X-COM universe is a great idea. The idea of the rule of cool is that people are more willing to accept offences against verisimilitude if they are really fun or just plain awesome. Think of it like bacon. If people put bits of chicken on your maple donut it would leave you wondering, but if they put bacon on it you will accept that because bacon is awesome (obviously not everyone loves bacon, but you get the idea). So when X-COM 2 gives their rangers kick ass fusion swords and their snipers awesome plasma revolvers that make them (deadly) space gunslingers it is definitely cool, even if the idea of bringing a sword to a gun fight is kind of stupid when you analyze it (a fusion bayonet/knife would be better).

But while I thought it was cool initially, I felt that something was lost in the way that X-COM 2 gave in to the rule of cool. Honestly if you put ninjas and gunslingers (and vikings, and zombies, and jedi etc) in every game they not only cease to be special, but they have a real chance of overpowering the already established aesthetic elements that made your world-building unique and interesting. X-COM was always had kind of a 80s military movie meets 90s x-files feel to it and this got lost when sword-wielding ninja rangers and I-can-fire-faster-than-an-automatic-weapon gunslingers get thrown into the mix. They may be cool, but for me they detract from the already established feel of X-COM.

Simply put: sometimes subtle, original flavours are better off without your favourite garnish. Would you ruin a perfectly good french vanilla ice cream by loading it with bacon? It might be tasty, but the bacon overpowers the vanilla. Really at that point, maybe you should just admit that you just want to eat more bacon and go cook yourself some goddamned bacon instead of inventing new ways of injecting it into everything.

In all seriousness, I do think that including all of the cool stuff in every game has started to make many games feel very samey and detracts from the unique charms of many properties. (And this from a guy who writes about magical superhero gladiators wielding rune weapons and fighting every monster under the sun.)

Nomads 10

Link to the first nomads, link to nomads 9.

(Sorry for the delay, I was busy putting my short story, Bloodlust: The Great Games up on Amazon)

Something bothered me about the drones.

Drones are the backbone of any Nomad team. On a purely tactical level drones act as an adaptable force modifier and allow nomads to engage targets from one extra step removed if desired. An old war philosopher called drones the second remove.  The best way I can explain it is that a remove is an offensive advantage that gives a tremendous advantage in safety over those who do not share it. In her estimation the first remove was ranged weaponry, giving a soldier the ability to kill from a distance. If you have a good rifle and your opponent has a greatsword, the distance between you is a tremendous, almost uncrossable gulf. It takes quite a bit to overcome that remove. A drone adds another remove. You can attack  at a range, remotely. Your opponent may strike back at the drone if they have a ranged weapon, but not necessarily at you. It is an interesting idea that I cannot really do justice to. Suffice it to say that drones changed everything when they first appeared, that much of the old histories survive.

Even when Nomads and the fleet do not have the luxury of sending the drones to do all the work, they often do a lot of the heavy lifting. Some, literally; ammo, cargo, and repair drones are indispensable in many operations, if a little boring. Most Nomads leave non-combat drones to their own devices, letting them run on auto and only interfacing with them through universals. Still, I think they are worth mentioning. Nobody likes running dry when the enemy is bearing down.

Combat drones are sexy. Most nomads have at least two. Some of the more advanced suits drop all but basic weapons in favour of more attack drones. The Black Widow Nomad suit is a good example. Interface with up to twelve drones. A Widow in a secure position is almost as feared as sniper or a kill-sat. Of course interfacing with twelve drones requires a special kind of talent. I find running five difficult enough, and I am considered quite good. I dated a Widow pilot once. In the end I wondered if they named the damned suit class after her.

On the surface Combat drones provide a Nomad team with extra fire-power. Specialist weapons that might be too constraining for regular use, guns that are too unwieldy for your suit class, and so on. A few multi-purpose Combat drones have multiple weapons and even shields, acting as full capability teammates. Their are advantages an disadvantages to both. Most ace Nomads disdain the multi-purpose combat drones, calling them training drones, but Nomad Triumph very rarely leaves his behind. A few combat drones are even more unusual, like Jessup’s ripper drone, Sharky. Ripper drones are essentially a flying bladestorm: monofilament wires, vibrosaws, nightmarish up close. Limited use, but very, very powerful.

Combat drones are also more expendable than Nomads. They know no fear, at least not that I have ever heard. They can be placed in positions and situations that would be too risky for an armoured suit. That’s the second remove thing I guess. Most Nomads hate losing a drone, but it beats kicking the bucket yourself. Almost all combat drones can be set to overload and detonate, it is expensive, but some situations really do call for a remote control suicide bomb.

Sensory drones come in many flavours and are nearly as common as combat drones. A good sensory drone is small, cloaked, and carries quite a bit of analytical equipment. My seekers, Hugi and Munin, are about the size of a human head and carry a full battery of sensory equipment. Raw recruits often look on seekers with disdain, but it only takes one run in with a stalker or a cloaked renegade to change your mind on that account — if you don’t buy it. A few specialist sensory drones see common use among Nomads. Spotter drones act as targeting assists for snipers or artillery. Sniffer drones can analyze scents, which happens to be the best way of detecting and tracking bugs. Sphinx can actually use a sniffer drone to read the scent based communications of the Scourgeforms, the only way we have found of listening in on them.

Defensive drones see frequent use,  especially by heavies. I love my shield drones. Nothing beats having a mobile shield in tight battles — I have saved more than a few squad-mates from death over the years with a well timed shield boost. I sorely missed in this day’s fighting– it is almost as if those bloody stalkers came at me just to get rid of it. Barrier drones are less mobile but can provide a nearly unassailable wall when needed. ECM and counter-missile drones are almost indispensable in some conflicts.

Some of us are even superstitious about the little machines. Drones do not learn an adapt with the speed of a human or full-function AI, but a long serving drone can pick up a few tricks and even some quirks that make them seem like part of the team. I have seen hardened Nomads give funeral services, even shed tears for a pet drone that had been with them for a long time.

Stepping onto a dropship that wasn’t carrying any drones made me feel naked and suddenly vulnerable. Nomads do not neglect their drones, even a lazy, rebellious bastard like Jessup. They are simply too important. We always carry spares, if only to switch out specialist drone types. I held my fist up, pulsing caution over secure coms. I motioned for scorch and maleficent to get off the boat. 

Shrike read my mind, her seekers began to slowly, lazily examine the dropships hull. It did not take them long to find the bomb.