XCOM 2 - parse the mechanics and look at "that's exactly the same, only less and the other"

The second XCOM from the announcement promised immediately a sea of ​​tasty - and the flying base on the ship, wrung from the newcomers, and underground resistance, and hybrids of newcomers and people, and generally fly away.

Of course, the guys solved two problems at once:

• To do “as it was” - with sectoids, defense of the base, tree of sciences.
• And do not repeat the last game, where all this already happened.

If you look at the first UFO - this is, in fact, the history of the Vietnam War from the point of view of the Vietnamese. Suddenly, the aggressor runs two heads higher. It is necessary to use all possible methods from the manufacture of ammunition from cans to throwing pieces of enemy soap into the hollow with bees. And if you are lucky, you will be able to capture a whole tank, from which a radio intercept station is obtained, a lot of different metal, a lot of explosives for mines from ammunition and even slippers made of rubber.
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So the essence of the second “new” game remains the same - only now we are playing as, as in the song, “yellow-faced”. And we have already shot down our "Phantom". After all, the main part of interest in the XCOM series is that you do not know what is next in the war with the invaders. If the entire tree of sciences is known, all the steps of the reptiles are recorded, then it’s just work, and not breaking into the unknown.

That is why the new game should have been exactly the same, but very different.

I will remind the plot

It's been 20 years since the first invasion. All countries have signed agreements with aliens. The latter feel themselves at home on Earth, wander around the cities, have brought their own militia under the pathetic name "Advent", stuck it all with monuments, where pathetic people are drawn to the sublime and beautiful ether. And they are building clinics of genetic engineering. They also carry out “preventive arrests” constantly, preparing for something big. In general, the flock is ripe, the time of harvest.

You play as a resistance cell, which has nothing but a former alien transporter, which has been remade as a flying headquarters. Raise it into the air from the dazzling dungeon can only be at the very beginning of the game. The new "Avenger" is the same underground base as always, only now it is necessary to "bite into it" deep into, through different man-made debris left over from the explosion inside something beautiful from the weapons of the first part.



In the course of the play, you will have to visit almost the entire planet, establish contacts with resistance cells everywhere and build several repeaters - replacing the good old auxiliary bases “without nifiga”, but with radars.

As usual, they are waiting for you: the branch of research (already almost linear), the branch of engineering (random) and the branch of the construction of base modules (linear, which reduces the teeth). By the way, it is important: you have almost no branches left that do not give anything practical. That is, the balance on science is very simple - I discovered something - I added military equipment. In the first part there were diagrams of alien ships, all kinds of races' origins, autopsies and interrogations - all without guarantee of results. Our scientists, however, take up the business only in order to crush something alien and assemble their native “Victory” brand from its details.

The main gameplay - the management base, the choice of research, manufacturing, picking in the equipment of the detachment and mission missions. The types of missions are well known from the first games: terror (now the Patives come to the resistance cells), VIP guard or taking the VIP with them, storming the enemy’s factories (analogue to seizing the bases), as well as all kinds of “run-ups to the box in 8 moves” and everything that was in the coolest Enemy Within.

At the same time - almost no word about resistance. You are again at the point of attack, although, judging by the world, this is not at all the case.

Let me remind you how it was before

Before launching the XCOM 2, I was well prepared - the first UFO (sub-lath) passed again at maximum difficulty. Let me remind you that there are two features - 8 bases from the second or third month, and practical defenselessness in the face of the landing of etherev with 6-8 sectopods to your base (until the appearance of psi and blaster installations). Plasma hovertunks without saving downloads are changed to sectopods while defending the base in the proportion of 3 tanks and a pair of infantrymen per enemy machine. This is hardcore.

When Skyranger comes down to the plate, the brave guys in the form of an XCOM project with an integrated connection jump out of there and level up all the sheds and buildings with rockets - this is also hardcore. When an accidentally fallen unconscious after 8 shots from a krissalid laser rifle must be protected by a number of eight - too. And even when the whole is taken only the first average reconnaissance of newcomers, and the rest are packed with grenades in the open door to avoid losses.

In general, very realistic. There are no major logical inconsistencies - I am ready to believe that the guests from Mars should be fought that way. In terms of technological superiority snaps, there are only two things that can help in the war - tactical intellectual superiority and a crowd of meat. And we use both of these levers.

Now Jagged Alliance 2 is a game about revolution in a small banana republic. Directly a tutorial on how to make a revolution with the mercenaries, even a detailed report of intelligence is. The most important thing - to enlist the support of local. You communicate with the population a lot, use connections, seize cities, train the police, use the enemy’s resources against him. This is not just Area Control, this is Che Guevara's style - tear off and gain a foothold. And around a lot of scenes with those who benefit and who is unprofitable such a situation.

Do you think XCOM 2 is a nice hybrid of these two?

But no. This is a console game. Therefore, in it the plot and any letters are generally dangerous for sales.

As a result, the world's population does not even know that they are fighting for their good. In theory, the first main task would be to raise the masses to the enemy — to seize the local TV channel Advent, fly to a broadcasting satellite, constantly compost the brains of the inhabitants from their repeaters ... But no. We are hiding the plot to the end, because the aliens, like, do not even notice us against the background of all that is happening. They do not notice us especially brightly when we start to blow up their key factories.

It would be more interesting for aliens

Well, of course, again in this thing can be traced fat traces of the board game. Moreover, I am sure that the aliens, even in the computer version, are trying with all their might to be almost on a par with us. Why? Yes, because they, as in the first "new" XCOM, do not know how to walk themselves on the map. If you finish the move without the aliens in sight - you have a 100% guarantee that before the start of the next move you will not have a single shot fired (well, except the response, if someone runs out).


<sup>Classic action cards. The third is sometimes hidden, you can see.


Breaking dice for hacking


This card is a ready made board game field.</sup>

The mechanics of the appearance of the enemy is the same: you open a piece of the map, and there the “blip” (movement mark) turns into a detachment of the enemy. True, now we have a few reptiles pre-arranged on the map (guarding the boxes and patrolling the plot buildings), plus the enemies do not always teleport from point to point - patrols, for example, walk honestly along their route. But if you sit in ambush for some secondary mission (6-7 moves, which is possible when there is no timer), you can see the miracle of teleporting the enemy packs.

So, I have a steady feeling that playing the desktop would be more interesting for aliens. Moreover, they are almost as difficult as the new X-team. And yet they are beautiful, really beautiful and cool - you want to see the statues of etheriles in large cities, and the campaign is directly steep constructivism of VKHUTEMAS. Here are some great PR people.

People at the base

Compared with the plot of the first part, too, much has changed. Previously, it was assumed that we have a bunch of attendants at the base, including cleaners. Scientists - 50 pieces at once, plus, if you look into the old Ufopedia, they are only those that are sitting with us, and the laboratory is still fumbling with the whole world, which allows you to quickly make discoveries. Engineers - 24 snouts at least. Soldier - dofiga, you can not even get acquainted - they are still new every time. And it was ok.

In the resistance now all units. Engineers in the best days at the base will be five or six people, scientists - well, eight. In addition, each engineer (cool!) Has a job - then he delves into the rubble in search of materials, then builds a module, then sits at the console and controls the connection. People can be appointed almost everywhere - in the power station, production can be increased, in the retraining center - to treat the fighters faster and so on. The problem is that scientists can only their tasks, engineers - only their own. Take an unnecessary recruit and send it to poking around in the rubble can not. Get the engineer "to shoot" too.

Well, the main question is that in missions they shoot plasma so merrily that they just want to ask: where are the disabled? In Enemy Within, the solution is simple - we take a fighter, otherachivaem arms and legs, we screw inward in a Varhammmer-like large robot. And here on the base could crawl a colonel in a wheelchair and stay in touch, but no. Even the plot of such comrades is not.

Well, yes. It is not very clear how our brave scientists investigate together or threefold physics that they do not know. For 6 days. If there was a connection with other cells, it would be possible to type them in dozens. So, no, pick yourself. Correspondingly, again, it is logical or it would be to make a lot of them, or to link specific discoveries to specific scientists. We need to deal with a plasma gun - they flew to the aliens, beat off a specialist, put us to work for us. Direct penetration into “Maas Biolabs” - there seems to be some rudiments, but everything is simplified to linear research.

On the other hand, the engineering branch is very organic - from all that we take on missions, you can make something useful. New armor for the detachment is obtained, for example, as follows: it is necessary to fill up 6 fighters heavier, and then drag their corpses to the base. Engineers will take armor, reassemble under us - and, voila - a new collection of fashionable outfits.

By the way, outfit has really become fashionable, which also does not integrate with the world, but it is very much in line with the audience. Looking at fighters while loading in the Ranger is a real pleasure, they look like freshly painted soldiers. By the way, now everyone can change hair color, mow mustache and paint a gun. If the latter is practical - with the color of the armor you can mark the classes, and with the color of the gun - upgrades, then about the facial expression and other things - well, just a real pet tamagotchi. Well at least, the situation in the barracks can not be changed. And that would have turned out SIMS.

Cool finds

In the balance and micromanagement found a lot of finds. It feels really thoughtful work. You know how it happens: you have a hundred more open features, but only half of the time for the release is complete with testing. Here something similar - obviously completed work on the first part. Plus a huge processing of reviews. Let's get a look.

The first is disguise. This is the mode of entry into the territory of the enemy, when he still does not know about you. Very cool thing, because the main problem of downtime is to “sag” the first moves in all parts of the game. And here it turns out that the first moves can be made without fear: immediately run over long distances. Well, a spectacular way out of an ambush, when a whole pack of the enemy falls - cool! Optimization of the gameplay is obvious.

The second is a lot of different small drawings to the interface. Please note that the download process has changed a lot - now, at any lengthy wait, you first read something. Previously, it was in its embryonic form, but here it is clearly seen clearly. One more thing with the expectation is the constant glitches of augmented reality and screens - despite the vigorous five-five-five in the report from the Ranger pilot, the connection is buggy in fact, and each such glitch falls on the period of the enemy's progress. Another minus a second or two on the waiting is subjective.


^{Volgograd is now in Siberia, by the way}

Here is a fundamental improvement: fly back - read the match statistics:



With some missions now can not pick up loot. This is really awesome for balance.

Finally, the damage appeared when falling from a height - the second floors of the buildings fall if the first one is demolished. This creates a lot of funny tactical situations. By the way, most of the turrets are killed with a simple grenade - for some reason they do not survive the fall of even a low floor.

The nicknames of the fighters are very useful - before in all games it was necessary to memorize the last name, first name, and now the experienced ones have nicknames. Cool, when you have six fighters, not two hundred, as in the first part. True, these nicknames are not shown everywhere - for example, not in the center of retraining.


<sup>And they also sometimes coincide - I have two "Wicks" in the squad.


Paphos is fun and heroic


One of the strongest scenes</sup>

It’s very cool that wounded soldiers can come out to defend the base and on the last mission - this was very often not enough.

The ignited fighter stews in the water. A lot of things are burning in this game - both aliens and our friends of the resistance carefully store fuel and lubricants wherever they gather. Therefore, the fountains on the missions - not just like that.



Everyone was given excellent facial expressions and improved movements. In addition to really tasty small things, from landing a complete squad to punching windows with a cannon (how beautiful they jump!) There is also an alien animation. The most fun - the animation of snakes. She is insane: just see how they slide down the pipe from the roof. Together with the opportunity to paint our fighters as models, we can say that the victory of graphics has been achieved - now everything that fantasy has done before is done by the engine.



It is always clear on the maps which way to go - this is another unobtrusive indication of what to do (after all, to hell with us, and not a reconnaissance report or there satellite scanning or at least something from a hand from a witness). Do not get lost, ahead infrastructure of Advent.




^{Even in the Warcraft mission it is}

A very good trailer with a tour of the ship - this is generally a super idea. A good story with the "boss", that is, us - and advice. Great ending, when - spoiler - we find ourselves ethereal. The very thoughtful motivation of the aliens to abductions and so on is what was missing before, when until the very end the new XCOM had a lack of understanding of what they were doing and why. And then everything fell into place.


<sup>Last brick


The black market is now a point on the map, and not part of the interface - this is also very atmospheric.</sup>

Steep continuity - there are missions with the taking of plates (albeit, extremely rarely entered), and the best news is the hyperbrain from Mars with us again! Now it is even a lot, and it is a separate unit. With tentacles. And yes, you can capture it.


^{Hello from the first part. The aliens came out to pee in the tundra, and here, after 4 hours, we.}

Psionika - new magic

In the first part of psionika, it was as simple as a stump - scanning with a brain probe, panic to stir up the psyche of a strong enemy, then a seizure of consciousness. Here, a whole branch of magic - and physical blows through the walls, and a remote undermining of grenades on the enemy's belt, and all sorts of defense-buffs, and, most importantly, the creation of another point of action to an ally.



Brain control is now disposable and for the entire mission - the alien does not leave it. This immediately fixed the whole feature of the tactics of the previous series - to make sure that the captured enemy would die in 3 moves, or drive him away. Shoot in the captured reptile is now also possible (finally). And yet - if everyone shakes consistently and in missions, then the Psionics swing at the base and do not save experience. But you can choose branches yourself. Also an interesting model.

What is wrong

It seems that the principle of the “golden age” was applied to the fighters (balancing with the development timeframe - among the newbies there is a cool sniper, among medium-level specialists are support specialists, among the steep ones - heavy infantry). Well, they got dofig strange abilities like a quick pistol fire from a sniper. As a result, the same sniper is one of the best front line fighters.

A lot of ability to random. The best example is a double shot of a heavy infantryman. He shoots with low accuracy (in general, the probability of hitting about 50%), and if he does, shoots with low accuracy again. A series of a sniper - if he hit and killed, then another shot is given. Spectacularly, breakage, but if you do not play on the save-load - you do not need nafig.

The optimal squad composition is generally ridiculous. Because of the constant timers and the need to run to the other side of the map, snipers and support fighters become very uncomfortable, so in the second part of the game they become completely unnecessary. As a result, two heavy infantrymen with massive fire, two rangers with double shots and two psionics with “zero hit”, “inspiration” and “rift” in the role of magicians go to the final mission.

It seems that the game was laid a certain story with combinations of fighters - for example, a heavy infantryman can pick armor, and a sniper is already shooting at a pick-up. As a result, it turned out not so at all - combining skills among fighters are vanishingly small.

There were timers in most of the missions. The main tactic on the high complexity in the last part was simple - a competent ambush and wait until the bastards get out. Intelligence was done by one fighter who ran far and hard — and grenade launchers and snipers waited from behind. Apparently, the developers didn’t like this style of play, and they decided to make sure that our squad would constantly run around the map and break into other people's constructions. In general - it was possible, but the discomfort from the timers remained. And in some places these timers are unrealistically contrived - then our Skyranger cannot fly an extra 50 meters to evacuate (I wonder why), then the aliens give SOS from their plate for 10 minutes after pressing the alarm button (dial-up, probably dialing). In general, weird.

In planning ambushes from camouflage, the capabilities of the fighters are also quite crookedly used. The simplest thing is that you cannot cover an ambush with two grenades at once: there is no action planning. Yes, and do not need it - a game about something else. But this "plasticine" restriction of the interface sometimes just infuriates.

Our "Ranger" is the safest place in the world. On a number of missions, he just hangs out somewhere nearby, there is already an escape cable sticking out. But no one ever sees it. And no one ever before the penultimate screen saver at him shoots. Well, there are still enemy transports that regularly land troops to us - quick and maneuverable. So, if I were in the place of the aliens, I would have boldly sacrificed one such person, simply by ramming the Ranger to them - but it’s not the same.

Enemies again get new technologies with us. And it really infuriates - in the world of victorious capitalism, enemies must be with heavy weapons at once. For half a year all over the world, aliens did as much as they could not in the previous 20 years - and improved the turrets all over the planet, and new races were brought, and even sectopods were brought where they used to be treated with frail sectoids.

By the way, I thought the whole game that they were hiding something from me, and these 20 years were not. Think for yourself: what did the aliens do during this period? That's real - what did they do, that everything dangerous happened only at the moment when the game started? Over all, it turns out that they were pushing speeches and developing cities. And nothing more dangerous. Everything looks like a year or two after the first contact, but not 20.

Or just such a trifle - our fighters constantly use either military or police jargon of the twentieth century. These are the negotiations of the Americans - 10-4 instead of "accepted", "Menace 1-5" instead of "thirty-third" and others. The atmosphere is cool, the realism of the world is not very. I do not believe that in 20 years by non-professionals (judging by the biographies, by the way, my detachment by 75% consisted of escaped prisoners) the jargon will be used in the same way.

In general, enemies are champions of stupidity. How can you not find a huge transport ship of your own, which constantly flies back and forth and spoils life for everyone? I cannot imagine. Vaughn, the Americans long ago found all the military bases in Australia, promising citizens a game - a cell for the coordinates of a black helicopter. And thousands of people crawled over Google Maps to get the phone. And here one hefty object without shielding horseradish catch. Yes, these figoviny even the first Ikskomovtsy shot down shit and sticks with airplanes, damn it!

Or, the scientist knows about the original sectoid (up to its DNA characteristics), but does not know about elirium. Surprise, damn, what we found in the engine!

Here is a look who meets the Ranger when establishing contacts with resistance in the Far East:



Again, you can not specifically punch walls with shots. You can not miss the mark in someone - just completely past all the fighters. There are no helmets again - that is, they seem to have a plot, but in fact they are not - convenient for the interface, but terribly unrealistic.

Summary

In general, we have before us a beautiful game in the spirit of clip thinking for the generation of Z. Minimum text, maximum instagram-battles. Beauty effects are more important than realism. Hardcore scares buyers. Plot? Well, somehow come together. The atmosphere of the world? Some have, but it seems to be badly cut in favor of the gameplay.


^{Here is how this screensaver. And the place seems to be good, and the twists of women's armor (instead of the universal one), it seems, do not interfere with the operation, but these fucking glamorous flashlights on everything and secret penetration do not make my slippers laugh.}

I played with pleasure, but constantly recalled the first old UFO with nostalgia. This is what was missing:



Here are just such Broadcast from the resistance in the official air:



Discussions of our actions by the government (and hitting the face of Elliot):



Good briefings with normal graphics, diagrams, intelligence reports, interrogation data:



Well, judging by the cards, at least, the desktop will be exactly more atmospheric:



You can imagine what the game could be. And, in general, there is one simple point that could remove the unreality of what is happening - these are contacts with resistance. Igromechanically - they would have planted a new technology (themselves), they would have asked to make guns, then we would see their research center, where we could give a piece of science, something else would have happened like outsourcing the production of a tank. Other cells could also lead part of the plot, and not rely entirely on us. But all this would have required far from attachment management with the tables in the end, which is why, apparently, it turned out to be overboard.

In general, of course, it is definitely worth playing, XCOM 2 is a damn good and successful remake of the first part. But with this legend, alas, not to be.