Developed by Firaxis Games

Release: 2016 (PC, Xbox One, PS4)

Premise

XCOM 2 is the sequel to XCOM, a reboot of a franchise of games of the same name originally released in the nineties. This latest installment continues in its predecessor’s tradition, and is a strategy game that focuses on tactics-based combat, resource management, and outwitting an enemy alien AI. Though originally released for PC only, the game recently made the move to current generation consoles.

XCOM 2 begins in a world where humanity has succumbed to the alien invasion that took place during the previous game. The counter-alien organization XCOM has been all but annihilated, and only pockets of resistance cells scattered across the globe remain. The aliens, known as “Elders”, have put on a facade of peaceful coexistence, but XCOM knows better than to trust them or their police-like forces, the Advent. In a desperate effort, XCOM tracks down and frees its captured former head tactician, The Commander, who was captured during the invasion. As The Commander, it is your task to fight an extensive guerrilla war, develop the most powerful weaponry conceivable, and rout the alien scourge once and for all.

The Good

XCOM 2 does a good job of iterating on the first XCOM reboot’s ideas while also reworking their tactics and meta-game mechanics thematically. The first game’s meta-strategy element was the retention of world powers contributing to the XCOM organization, and the second game essentially reverses that entire idea. The establishing of resistance bases around the world and managing of XCOM’s flow of intel creates similar choices as before, but with a new flavor. Additionally, tactics combat elements have been altered to reflect the more dire times. Players now have a wider variety of objectives, such as sabotaging Advent efforts to progress their technological or military developments, and enemy reinforcements are an often terrifying new inevitability.

The most involved portion of the game is still the tactics combat component, which has been fundamentally altered by two big changes. The first change is that many missions begin in a concealed state now, reflecting the successful infiltration of enemy positions. The ability of a player to position their units and orchestrate an ambush effectively is extremely important to completing some of the more challenging missions. The second change seems to be largely based on feedback from the first game – time-sensitive missions are now much more common. This prevents players from always being able to be defensive and cautious with their squads. Both of these changes together, combined with new classes and a myriad of other minor tweaks, creates a frantic and fresh new feeling for XCOM 2‘s tactics gameplay.

Though XCOM 2 did experience an early period of technical difficulties that was rapidly addressed, new levels of polish have dramatically improved the player experience. It was expected that XCOM 2 would have an number of quality of life issues, as the first game is somewhat infamous for visual glitches, hanging, and other little problems that worsen a player’s day. Happily, this reviewer’s almost 200 hours of XCOM 2 have shown that many of those issues have been completely addressed. The modding community has been active right out of the gate as well, creating a variety of minor improvements that further streamline the experience. This reviewer assigns some credit to the developer for this due to their strong efforts to involve community feedback and bring back popular mods from XCOM.

The Bad

XCOM 2 still suffers pervasively from balance issues throughout a number of systems. Soldier classes on the whole are incentivized by game statistics and by good play habits to be more long ranged, which undermines the strength of XCOM 2‘s close range classes. Individual character skill trees, though designed to offer multiple options at level up, often have paths that help the character best fulfill the role. These balance issues become more prevalent at higher difficulty levels as well, where tiny details and probability differences can make or break entire campaigns. XCOM 2 was shifted to have more of a focus on aggressive gameplay to fight back against its ticking clock, but close range classes still feel like toys to mess around with rather than assets to your squad.

The meta-game still carries with it issues that the first game encountered. The most frustrating aspect of the meta-game is how players are railroaded into certain tech choices by story progression. Rather than be able to focus on taking different routes through the tech tree on different playthroughs, the story always demands the same objectives be completed, which demands the same types of squads capable of the same feats ad infinitum. This means that deviating from a secret subset of optimized tech paths, which becomes less and less possible on higher difficulties, is inadvisable. Though XCOM 2 is by no means a game about exploring the realm of possibilities offered via its systems, randomizing story beats, or making them less dependent on certain technologies, would go a long way towards improving replayability.

The Unique

Perhaps this reviewer may be misguided, but it seems that gamers don’t get that many great tactics or strategy games these days in the high budget realm. The XCOM series continues to slot perfectly into that unexploited niche. The biggest lesson to take from XCOM‘s success though is its approach to the modder community. Firaxis directly involved several prominent modders that developed The Long War, a highly popular variant of the first game’s campaign, in its new direction. They even went so far as to give them pre-release access to expedite their development efforts on a second Long War mod. This created an environment where, upon release, the Steam workshop for XCOM 2 was immediately flooded with free content in the form of new classes, visual customizations, game optimizations, and fun pointless additions. This model is extremely consumer friendly and should be lauded and copied.

XCOM 2 is a game that just about any fan of the genre will appreciate. The vast array of options for play, including DLC, mods, and difficulty levels, creates a toolkit for players to fine tune their experience to an impressive degree.

Just don’t enable the Alien Hunters DLC.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, the review of XCOM2 that was supposed to be finished a few days ago has been delayed. Rest assured that it will make its way out shortly, and that it will not affect the progress on this week’s upcoming review.

Developed by Kojima Productions

Release: 2015 (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One)

Premise

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (hereafter referred to as MGSV) is the latest, and supposedly last, main story entry in Hideo Kojima’s venerable Metal Gear franchise. MGSV is an action game with a heavy emphasis on stealth, along with some open world components. It was released soon after Ground Zeroes, a dramatically shorter game that functioned as a demo for the engine used in MGSV, and prior to the full online mode known as Metal Gear Solid V Online.

MGSV continues the story of Big Boss, the decorated war hero turned mercenary. After falling into a coma following the destruction of his paramilitary organization, Big Boss awakens nearly a decade later in the mid 1980s. Big Boss quickly establishes a new unit, which he dubs the “Diamond Dogs”, and sets out to the world’s least stable regions in search of the men who wronged him. However, the dangerous war zones of the time hide secrets that force Big Boss to adopt a different goal.

The Good

MGSV offers something that was partially promised in the last installment but wasn’t really delivered on: player freedom. Big Boss may only have a set number of slots for utility technologies, weapons, and armor, but the detail in his armory is extremely impressive. For example, when selecting from the massive array of potential weapons, players can tinker with nearly every aspect of their firearm, right down to the length of its barrel. This trend holds for most of the game’s related systems, most importantly its story missions. Though there are certain scripted scenarios, sub-objectives, and primary objectives that do not change, how the player chooses to go about completing them is entirely of their own design. The toolkit MGSV offers players and the sandbox it allows them to play in are both more than a step beyond the ordinary.

Tied in with this new level of customization are the resources required to earn it. The Diamond Dogs’ (or whatever you decide to name them) base of operations, Mother Base, can’t produce the tech you want effortlessly – you have to staff and develop it. Here MGSV borrows from several other Metal Gear Solid games with the staff acquisition mechanic, which allows the player to extract unconscious soldiers from the field and forcibly recruit them. Managing your roster and scouting for the best and brightest during missions and while free-roaming adds another constant but unintrusive sidequest that helps the research and upgrade system feel more natural. A lot of the appeal of completing alternative objectives and optional missions are special troopers with rare skills or the ability to access new technologies. This is a good way to reward players for exploration and completionist tendencies while also not necessitating exhaustive play.

MGSV also breaks with conventional series controls, and the change meshes really well with the previously discussed new mechanics. The new control paradigm feels more like an action game than a pure stealth game, emphasizing aggressive actions such as diving and reflex shots. This allows the player to transition from covert to overt and vice versa on a dime, and doing so is imperative for all but the most flawless of operatives. When things begin to go wrong, a player can react in a number of ways to either maintain or forgo stealth, both of which have their comparative advantages. Though MGSV’s predecessors punish the latter option, the robust nature of the systems now in place naturally make any solution one could come up with using the tools in the armory viable. The game will still punish lack of subtlety in the mission scoring system, but acquiring good mission ratings does not hinge on perfect stealth.

The Bad

Several systems are debilitated by concepts stolen from mobile game theory, that quagmire of snake oil. Many mobile games use psychological traps and delayed gratification to goad players into buying virtual currency and shortcuts, neither of which they need. MGSV does this by delaying technology development times, then offering players paid ways to expedite these times. Though this reviewer will steer clear of bashing game developers or producers, the drama surrounding MGSV, its creator Hideo Kojima, and the publisher Konami is well-known. Konami’s recent practices would suggest this feature was an attempt to profit more off MGSV‘s potential success, but the origin doesn’t excuse the impact on the game. Finding resources in a primarily single player game, only to have them be unusable, agonizingly held in reserve, and slowly disbursed at real-time intervals is shameful and frustrating. Though somewhat interesting, the base invasion asymmetric multiplayer also has a very strong ‘tacked on’ vibe. Mobile games often throw together some mode that gets players to compete against one another, then offer advantages for premiums. MGSV does this as well, allowing users to pay for stronger base defenses and insurance on their steal-able resources.

This Metal Gear Solid focuses a lot more heavily on gameplay than story, which is a fine thing to do. That isn’t to say that MGSV is devoid of a plot, but it is fair to say that this installment seems tame by comparison to other absurd and memorable quirks of the past. There are still classic moments and some memeworthy dialogue on occasion, but there is a sharp and indefensible drop in quality after the first chapter. This wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy on its own, but the lackluster story also ends up translating into lackluster mission design at this juncture. The majority of the missions near the end of the game’s content are simply rehashes of older missions with restrictions. Though performing under special circumstances is often a fun challenge, these should have been relegated to side missions and replaced with real story-progessing content. This would probably be greatly preferable to the current iteration of Ubisoft-style cut-and-paste side missions in the minds of most players.

The Unique

The strength of MGSV is in how it fuses its tried and true tactical espionage action to an open-world experience. The Metal Gear series has always brought stellar visuals and great original soundtracks with their corny drama and twisting storylines, but this installment drops the strength of story somewhat in favor of heightened strength in gameplay. Some people may have a problem with that, but with the way things are changing in the AAA development scene, this reviewer considers that to be a breath of fresh air. MGSV delivers a sublime fusion of modern concepts that can provide a staggering amount of entertainment value.

Now if we could just get David Hayter back to perfect the voice work we’d really be set.