Hey, XCOM 2 is totally out this week. Alex is gonna lose it!
Also out this week: a ton of super interesting games on Steam.
American Truck Simulator (PC)
What is it? It’s exactly what it says on the tin.
Should you care? People are just full on into this genre of games now. I’m totally not gonna judge.
CALENDULA (PC)
What is it? A creepy as hell video game that doesn’t want to be played. Meta.
Should you care? This looks really, really good and super interesting.
Cobalt (PC)
What is it? A 2D shooter with a slo-mo mechanic.
Should you care? Looks like a tremendous amount of fun.
Dreii (PC)
What is it? A bizarre looking co-op tower building sim with good physics
Should you care? This is really innovative and interesting. Looks like a helluva lot of fun.
Fortified (PC)
What is it? Sort of like tower defence crossed with an FPS. Has a cool 50s alien invasion theme.
Should you care? Looks fun. Nice aesthetic, nice execution. This looks like a lot of fun
Gravity Rush Remastered (PS4)
What is it? It’s Gravity Rush… remastered!
Should you care? This game was already pretty good on the Vita, but apparently the leap to PS4 makes it a lot better.
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 (Xbox One/PS4)
What is it? It’s the most recent in the Ultimate Ninja Storm series — a series I’ve actually really enjoyed.
Should you care? For Naruto fans, this is a big one. Been a while since they’ve released on of these.
Sorcery! Parts 1 and 2
What is it? It’s a fantasy novel crossed with video game mechanics.
Should you care? I know very little about it, but this has received a lot of positive press, some good reviews too.
The Legend Of Legacy (3DS)
What is it? With a title like that you know it’s a JRPG. And it is.
Should you care? Apparently it’s a bit mediocre.
XCOM 2 (PC)
What is it? Yay! It’s XCOM 2.
Should you care? The last game was actually a Kotaku US game of the year. This is a big release, probably the biggest of the week.
Did we miss anything? We always miss something. What are you picking up this week?
Comments
31 responses to “This Week In Games: XCOM 2 Is Out This Week!”
American Truck Simulator for me this week!
Woo!
I’m one of the weird ones who actually enjoys just cruising the roads and lugging a big arse trailer behind me. Not gonna pick it up right now, but definitely in the future, still going strong in Euro TS 2!
Also out this week:
Crypt of the Necrodancer (PS4/Vita)
Not a Hero (PS4)
Tales of Symphonia (PC)
Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth (PS4, Vita)
Oooh, Digimon Story – been looking forward to that. Also Crypt of the Necrodancer looks cool!
Not A Hero I’m kind of keen on just because the trailer was so bonkers. Will wait and see what the pricing is like.
Is crypt on the vita the same day? Or does that come later? Man, I so want to play that on vita.
Sorry, I forgot to add Vita. Yes it’s on both, and it’s cross buy.
Ah sweet! Looking forward to that one ^_^
Xcom 2 for me…eventually…when the price drops…
Cheapest key i’ve found so far is ozgameshop at 59aud for digital deluxe. I have a 27% off voucher for xcom2 on greenman but even at 27% off it doesn’t counter our shit dollar.
Anything over $40 Aus is too much for me atm. I’m happy to wait though, have plenty of other games I own but haven’t even installed yet.
http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/xcom-2-pc-cd-key-steam
Only $10 above your budget.
You don’t need food, right? Food is for pussies.
I could go without food but my children not so much. $40 is a hard limit that I apply to all games no matter what. I managed to pre-order Dark Souls 2 for that much and it didn’t get that low again until over a year after release. Deals come and go but you’ll get the price you want if you wait long enough.
Also I’m a little over the squad tactical genre atm anyway so don’t mind waiting.
I just want them to stop fucking around and tell us whether it’s coming to console or not. They know the answer, they are just being obtuse. I don’t want to bite the bullet and get it on mac and have a far less engaging experience (for me personally) only to find out that it’s out for PS4 in a year. That’ll piss me off.
They’ve been upfront with a firm ‘no’ that it’s not coming to consoles. They clearly stated the the way it undersold on console, part 1, played a defining factor as well as the ability to not be hamstrung in the design phase, by staying solely on pc, was a bonus for them.
Firm “No”s about what developers / publishers might do in the future don’t really count for much in this industry these days.
Such a shame because i’d probably but so many more hours into it if it was a console release, and I don’t fully understand what about the game isn’t possible on consoles currently. It’s never been a graphical powerhouse or a tech showcase in the past.
From an interview at IGN:
“high-fidelity characters and environments, better-looking destruction, physically based rendering, and the crown jewel he’d wanted to get into Enemy Unknown but couldn’t: procedurally generated maps. “To do that, we had to use all of our studio expertise … and our expertise here is PC. That’s our home, and that’s where we’re really comfortable.”
I own a PS4 myself, a WII U and a PC and lets be honest, to get the most out of a game in terms of almost limitless design potential, you go pc. That’s not even debatable. I’m not being PCMR, I’m just saying it how it is.
If they do manage to do a console version, which they may at some point, I guess they could but it most definitely would end up a scaled back, cut down version, which would return things to a fair, balanced way which it should be honestly. Best versions appearing on PC, scaled back versions appearing on less powerful platforms.
Sauce: http://au.ign.com/articles/2015/06/05/why-xcom-2-had-to-be-pc-exclusive
That’s XCOM baby! Can’t wait.
Oh yeah come at me digimon
Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth!!
I also can’t find any Australian retailer selling it? It probably won’t sell well (it literally can’t if they don’t sell it) then they won’t localise another Digimon game, ever.
Ozgameshop also have it unavailable atm.
It’s digital only in Australia. The only vita physical copy is Asia release which includes english and you can grab from Play Asia, UK and US have physical PS4 copies.
Ah, XCOM. I tried that game on two different platforms, restarted over and over, I just couldn’t bring myself to like it.
The opening bits are incredibly tedious (that tutorial mission)
I was stressing too much about the world allies leaving/dying.
I wanted to just potter around in missions and build up funds, but I think my issue at the time was the game wouldn’t let me do that.
I felt like Downfall Hitler at times swearing at the game in that mission control room
Its well worth giving XCOM another go. I’ll agree that the opening is a bit slow and the tutorial is rather dull but it’s one of those games that you suddenly realise has grabbed you without you noticing. The hardest thing to come to terms with (if you’re not into the harder strategy games) is that you can’t save everyone and just have to do the best you can with what you have.
The best advice I can give on the strategic front is to focus defence on one continent at a time, if you pick Asia be sure you get satellites over every country (for both the money and panic reduction) and if South America is getting insanely panicked and you start to lose countries, write them off as a bunch of collaborators and just save who you can.
On the tactical level, the biggest threat is activating extra pods of aliens when you’re already fighting one, they don’t patrol around (at least in the regular game, I think they might in the enemy within expansion) so you can hunker down, blow up their cover and trade fire until the enemy drop, that or fight a retreat to better ground and make the enemy come to you and set everyone to ambush them on overwatch.
When it comes to the troops themselves, spreading the experience around is important to keep your forces flexible so when you inevitably lose someone you’re not stuck with a group of useless rookies.
This is all good advice…
… but we all know you just need a couple of squadsight snipers and archangel armour and the game is pretty much won. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of the game, but it would be nice if one tactic wasn’t so utterly OP. That being said I haven’t gotten around to playing Enemy Within yet, I have a feeling they might have nerfed that somewhat?Archangel has fairly limited fuel in EW if I remember correctly and the AI are a bit less likely to just sit there & take fire forever. Also when fighting Exalt, they have snipers of their own…
If you haven’t played EW I’d definitely recommend getting it, it’s a great upgrade that adds a significant amount of depth. The current humble bundle has EW in the higher bracket for a bit over 10 bucks and there’s heaps of other good games in there. Also EW is essential for the Long War mod which is easily one the best mods made for any game, it takes a game that was long, complex & difficult then triples all of it, fantastic if you like a good challenge or have a masochistic streak
Yeah I picked up that bundle just for EW, even ended up giving away all the lower-tier stuff to TAYbies since I had most of it already. I’m saving it for a rainy day, as I know it will be excellent.
Long War is… I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but that 150hr playtime is a hell of a commitment (says the guy with 1000+ hrs in Dota 2).
In EW do the archangel suits still not use any fuel if you are hovering? I always found that a bit silly in EU – they have limited fuel, but you can stay airborne indefinitely if you hover in place.
I can’t really remember the archangel suits that well (I was never much of a fan of them, heavy armour is always better to me) but I seem to recall they use fuel to boost up, to move and I THINK it might consume 1 per turn of hovering but I may well be thinking of the Long War version
Xcom2 hypetrain !! Is it Friday yet?
Choo Choo!
All aboard the hype helicarrier!!!!
– Tales Of Symphonia – Available in 22 Hours
– American Truck Simulator – Available in 2 days
– XCOM 2 – Available in 4 days
I sure wish my job was reviewing games, otherwise how the hell am I supposed to get anything done this week?