Just what makes XCOM 2 so good? How does the branching work in Fire Emblem Fates? And is Valve even working on Half-Life 3? Those questions and much more, today on Kotaku Splitscreen.
On this week’s episode of Kotaku‘s premiere podcast, Nathan Grayson joins me and Kirk to talk Dying Light, XCOM 2 and Fire Emblem Fates. Nathan also reveals his favourite JRPG — Legend of Legaia! — and we introduce a new feature, the Hot Take Corner. Our first take: Half-Life 3 doesn’t exist.
You can listen directly to this week’s episode on Simplecast right here. If you like the show, come subscribe to us (and leave a review!) on iTunes. If you don’t like Apple, you can subscribe to the RSS feed right here.
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10 responses to “Podcast: Why XCOM 2 Is Better Than Its Predecessor”
I’m not sure how I feel about it.
One part of me goes, “Oh, well it’s an improvement over the predecessor in terms of blah, blah, blah”
And the other part of me goes, “It doesn’t have MEC Troopers! The game’s a poopy head”
There’s a piece of DLC scheduled to come out later this year called Shen’s Last Gift with a new soldier class.
We can still hope, right?
*Fingers crossed*
The entire game felt like there was something missing… Something important…
Blowing shit up with a really big gun, and punching enemies through walls/objects
Xcom 2 seems to be rushing me with a turn timer all the time which seems different from the last game. Im super early days yet , but does it ever let up and slow down a little ?
Not really. There are some missions (supply train raids, the avatar project bases, a coupla near the end int the story) that don’t have timers, but if you’re not going to mod the game, you have to accept the timers as part of the core design (since the easy way to win at Enemy Unknown was to inch forward in overwatch).
In terms of the, uhh, strategy/base side of things though, I found I had a lot of breathing time by the end though. Spent a lot of time farting around so that I could upgrade units and stuff.
I had originally let it get ahead of me to where I thought it was going to be unrecoverable but after a mission a bit later coupled with some other green and red missions, I have got on top of it and I only need to worry about it from time to time. when you get the resistance missions pop up, make sure to prioritize the minor/major breakthrough types, you will find yourself going weeks without seeing an increase in the project.
The turn timer is great, adds urgency to each timed mission. Thematically, the timer makes sense, considering some of your missions are deep within enemy territory, it’s not like you have all day to complete the objective. When it comes to timed missions (and if you start concealed), just exploit the fact you can get very close to the objective without being seen at times. If it’s a VIP extraction, well… the pressure’s on, fire and maneuver is the name of the game at that point.
I remember when Terror From the Deep came out and it was basically a super difficult and kinda artificially unfair game (keeping in mind what the series is about). Seems like they just did the same thing again. I like it.
I’m a little disapointed actually we didn’t get a TFTD themed sequel or at least some form of sea/underwater based missions with cuthulu based aliens.
Instead we got a refined version of Ufo:Aftershock….
Still as good as Xcom2 is, I still think the original 2 games were better tbh.
Time limits are always artificial and I might wait a bit longer to buy.