XCOM

I thought 2 was great but there's just something about Enemy Unknown/Within, I think a big part of is that in 2 your guys are supposed to be this guerilla force but not really, and the aliens are the gubmint, whereas in EW it's just played straight. So Now what fuck went wrong with Chimera and why isn't Xcom 3 happening?

I have exactly the opposite issue. I can't for shit get into XCOM 2 because of the aesthetics, atmosphere and narrative, no matter how superior the mechanics, balance and just general gameplay is. Different strokes for different folks I guess, especially when you experience something first and make an impression that sticks
Long War FTW

Without dlc

Enemy Unknown

With dlc

War of the Chosen

Which one has the better gooner mods. I don't care for X Pirates

Now what fuck went wrong with Chimera

The team was too mcu-brained and tried to go for broader appeal. They also wanted to set the groundwork so that when XCOM3 had forced hero units (including many whacky xrays) the audience would find it less jarring.

Thankfully, they actually got their wish to make a Marvel game, it bombed, and killed the team.

Now what fuck went wrong with Chimera

a test for mechanics for xcom3 before jake left and xcom 3 got cancelled
xcom: t3rror from the deep some day...

There's more to do in the secondThe aesthetics of the second game are horrible: they Marvelised the shit out of it.
Just the worst downgrade imaginable.

There's nothing wrong with Chimera gameplay wise (except maybe managing city panic is too easy but it's the same issue with hologlobe in previous entries)but people hate the characters and no random map generation is a step back

There's nothing wrong with Chimera gameplay wise

It's garbage as an XCOM game and it's garbage as an isometric breach game. Tactical Breach Wizards and Into the Breach both shit all over it.

Loyal citizens, I stand before you truly humbled. So many lifes lost, so many needless sacrifices endured, as we have struggled to cope with those who would see our great coalition fall. Today our struggle ends. XCOM is no more. Advent peacekeepers have reduced the last of their strongholds... to ashes. And with it, the fragmented remains of the old world are finally washed away! Thank you for your continued support. And thank you to the Elders for their guidance through this crisis. Long live Advent! Long live... the Elders!
- Garrus Vakarian

I like them both for different reasons.
Very addictive games I spent over a month playing each.
Advent and the whole gene therapy thing reminded me of Covid.
Phoenix Point is basically Xcom 3 at this stage.
Second game has better gameplay and my waifu Jane Kelly.

UFO defense

Good

TFTD

Still okay

Chaos Gate

Good, except the fucking crashes because one sound file is broken or whatever. That part is really annoying.

Apocalypse and that other one

Adequate but it looks all wrong because 3d models at the time just looked like shit

Xenonauts

The best that I know of in this genre.

Xenonauts 2

Ask again when it's done in 50 years.

nu Xcom 1

Bad

Nu Xcom 2

Very bad

Nu Chaos Gate

Never tried it, can't comment

Phoenix Point

The only good variant of the nuxcoms (although I haven't tried Chaos Gate). It takes like 100 hours to even learn the game, but it is actually good.
Oh also honorable mention

Mechanicum

Simplistic, but good. Mostly for the mood rather than the gameplay, but there you go.

WotC is the better game but the downgrade of the atmosphere from "spooky mid century sci-fi horror" to "modern sleek sci-fi action" was the thin end of a wedge that we should have been more aware of. It's why I'm glad 3 is likely dead, I really don't want to see the culmination of the route they were going down tone wise with Chimera Squad's marvel quipping heckin silly aliens that we would have been forced to ally with.

I liked the setting of xcom1 more but for everything else xcom2 is better

Didn't Jake say in some interview that they didn't have enough ideas for an XCOM3 so they turned what they have into the WotC dlc?

This and one obvious example I can give of this is MECS. Not to be too spoilery but XCOM EW has a "How much are you willing to sacrifice to beat a seeminly impossible to beat enemy"
2 doesn't have this, they're just robots
This is just one example, the general pattern applies to most things
Though gameplay wise 2 is better, more mods too

WotC(Integrated DLC) With Mods>EW>>WotC (No DLC) without Mods>XCOM2>XCOM>Chimera Squad.

2WotC is fun sandbox to mod and fuck around in with its base mechanics and ease of modding, 1EW is the stronger Game on its own merits. Chimera squads suffers from a death of a million cuts, from the structure feeling much more railroady then previous games and missions being short and small to becoming character focused with the Not-Super-Hero-Team and Modders quickly interest menaing it didn't get as much weird modifications as 2 did to keep the grass green for it, even adding additional squad members was a hassle due how the lockers were implemented IIRC.

As I recall he said that 3 hasn't even been among the cards when he left, like not even concept level or really planned at all which is weird. 2 was good but if 3 ever happens they should just reboot it and keep it vanilla instead of trying to put a new spin on it again.

1EW is the stronger Game on its own merits

Turtle fins typed this post

Nobody has discussed The Bureau Xcom Declassified.

x-com 2 is better in every way

no MECs (sparks are a joke)
armor doesnt absorb damage which pigeon holes every encounter even more into ALPHA strike bullshit
no faggy looking soldiers with mohawks etc completely ruining the vibe of the game
better avenger music
gene upgrades
meld is a better system than time missions
no broken hero abilities completely warping the game like reaper scouting
no shitty Lost taking 2h to finish turn
better Long War mod

in general i like xcom2 more but xcom1 did some things better

It is a mediocre cover based shooter with atrocious team AI.

no faggy looking soldiers with mohawks etc completely ruining the vibe of the game

Why are you not customizing your soldiers the moment you get them

You don't change their race do you.

All I remember is that it plays like Mass Effect, looks like a bad film and has nothing to do with xcom.

It's cool that it went all the way back to like the 50s, straight up Roswell incident type of shit, but it's just a subpar shooter where both the enemy and your allies are retarded. I don't know how much it was fixed up if at all but it was also insanely buggy on release which didn't help it's reputation.

I cannot bring myself to play WOTC again because of the fucking gay lost missions never ending

This, the only thing I remember from playing that is it had extremely bad team member AI

Sequel. Easily. Some people didn't like the timers because they wanted to overwatch ten turns in a row. Their opinion is invalid.

theres a mod which replaces lost missions with other missions
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1157127420

You ready for X-Com 3?
youtu.be/zrOlYWjolmw?t=95

Basically. He doesn't feel like there's enough juice for 3 though they teased something related to the ocean hmmm I wonder what it is

Thematically and stylistically XCOMEW hands down but mechanically XCOM2.

It's wild to me there's no mod in WOTC that keeps everything but removes the Chosen.

They're pretty cool until you learn how to fight them but then they're really annoying and their weapons upset the game balance. But I love the 3 extra classes and bonuses from helping factions.

I'd even take a mod that just removes their dialogue and replaces their appearances with the Alien King's from the DLC,

I think I prefer EW but that might be specifically Long Dong appealing to me more than 2.
Central had a hard life.

Yiff in hell!

XCOM 2 simply because you couldn't costantly overwatch spam like in XCOM 1

2 (WotC) but both are great

I liked the slow ramp up of the first game where just as you think you are getting an even footing, the aliens unleash a new monstrosity you have to learn how to defeat.

Like once you get to grips with how the sectoids and thin men fight, they introduce mutons

Once you get weapons powerful enough to wipe mutons, Chrysalids show up

Once you get the late game plasma and armor, sectopods show up to show you that this is still a one sided war.

I really liked that approach and even though Xcom 2 tried to do this it doesn't really work as well.

XCOM Enemy Unknown simply because there were way less retarded turn limited missions.

Turn limits, like time limits, make the gameplay and all the decisions way more meaningful

XCOM: Interceptor

impossible decision
both have ideas I miss dearly

Enemy Within

the fact that there is another enemy that's not just enemy was cool as fuck(shame they become irrelevant so quickly)
Meld and how much one is willing to sacrifice itself to save humanity
the fact that gollop chamber guy is just a soldier and not you the giga commander
what I don't miss is base min maxxing and rush for satellite coverage (less gormoney throws hissy fit again and quits, fuck you germany)

Wrath of the chosen

3 new fun classes that work really with existing other classes
Chosen being constantly pain in the ass, keeping you on your toes
you can finally sneak around and ambush the damn enemy pods instead chain trigger 3 other pods nearby
that being said despite having more tools to mitigate disaster if your shots fail to connect game forces you to commit to kill everything in one turn strategy more than previous game

Mechanically there's more going on in two however one was better thematically and the hero classes in two were the prelude to the cape shit game instead of an actual XCom 3.

Yeah that makes mistakes very costly and forces people to constantly save scum. Not that it didn't happen in EU but XCOM 2 brought that to another level.

EU (and EW) is very good but Xcom 2 is literally one of the best tactics games ever made
Xcom 2 with War of the Chosen is something you can play literally forever given the excellent replayability and mods

It makes the rng way more meaningful too. And it forces players to advance faster than normal causing enemy clusters to show up before they're ready.

is literally one of the best tactics games ever made

Were you born yesterday? I understand we have to have some allowance for shit taste, but holy fuck this is over the line.

defend this

The only better tactics game I can think of is JA2

Muh old xcom

Original Xcom is a good game but a bit overrated, all other old Xcoms range from meh to dogshit

How about playing in ironman mode?

Ya know what's sad? The gameplay for Midnight Suns wasn't even that bad. It was the dogshit story and Fire Emblem like shit ruining the game. What's worse is the game was originally gonna have romance but it got shutdown by Disney. Which is why there's tons of crap that feels like you're flirting with the girls like Nico, Magik, or Scarlet.

In everything except story/setting, 2 mogs EU easily. Too bad about the absolutely abysmal performance the game has still even on modern hardware.

If I liked Mario + rabbids 1, but didn't like Sparks of hope, will I like xcom?

Comic book versions of superheroes

Turn-based tactics

Fire Emblem bonding bullshit

I honestly don't know what the fuck they were thinking, fans of those three things don't overlap at all
They had a fucking Morbius lmao

Phoenix point is better. Xenonauts is better. Original Xcom is not overrated and is indeed better. If you want to reach into related scenes, Door kickers is better.
It's actually hard to find one that's worse without going into the unfinished fan made xcom clones.
The combination of small squad sizes, low number of dudes overall, fucked up ability to even aim and the worst hit system I've ever seen ensures it a place at the very bottom of the barrel.
And that's before I even get to the class/inventory system which deserves a world's worst shitter award all on its own.

Phoenix point is better

Enemy Within is superior despite some of 2s improvements.

tfw XCOM 3: Terror From The Deep never ever

How can xcom2 be better in every way if xcom1 has a better narrative?

The weapons felt so good in Enemy Unknown, I haven't played it in like 7 years or so and I can still recall what they look like when firing and what they sound like. The plasma weapons in particular, I remember them just feeling like you're spewing heavy molten lava.

1 with long war rebalance mod .
2 is bloated and requires a million mods to be decent.
Vanilla wise, 1 is still better because of 2 bloat and superhero bullshit.

Called Midnight Suns

Only 2 are actually Midnight Sons which are Strange and Blade

Everyone else is a fucking Avenger or X-Men

Ghost Rider is Robbie Reyes instead of Johnny

But Johnny is in the fucking game but not playable

Morbius is DLC

Other things was that they had more characters to add but got canceled when the game bombed, Doctor Doom teasing at an expansion or sequel

Bosses only appear on hard missions and not randomly

Bosses were Venom, Sabretooth, Crossbones, and Scarlet Witch

Hulk wasn't made into a boss

Dracula was only in the DLCs but I don't remember if they made him a recurring boss

There's so much fucking wrong with this game that it's unreal.

This, game still crashes randomly (even with community made patches) and the setting/story is abysmal, so bad, that for me it's unplayable without that mod that silences the chosen and skips cutscenes

>tfw XCOM 3: Terror From The Deep never ever

Shame that there's always a bitter wannabe oldfag in these threads, Xenonauts was good but imagine putting fucking Phoenix Point on a pedestal lmao

EW, with long war.

Now what fuck went wrong with Chimera and why isn't Xcom 3 happening?

chimera was just kinda shit, but it wasn't the reason we'll never get xcom 3
we'll never get xcom 3 because 90% of the firaxis staff who made xcom eu and xcom 2 got fired after midnight suns flopped

There's a 35% chance he forgot to load the weapon in the morning.

chimera was just kinda shit

I don't understand this opinion
Chimera squad was fine

Hey guys look at me! I am *very* contrarian! Please like me...

XCOM EW is so much worse gameplay wise compared to XCOM2 but significantly cooler atmosphere-wise

playing XCOM 2

was able to do a full playthrough just 1 tier below max difficulty

little to no save loading

playing XCOM EW

constant save reloading due to missions pulling gotcha's for cheap kills on your soldiers

dropping thinmen straight on top of you into overwatch

escort missions where they can spawn offscreen and then instakill the escort next turn through hunker + full cover

bugs out the ass, lost several soldiers because of this

EW was cooler than 2 but I had waaaay less fun with it. Shit just felt cheap

I liked Phoenix Point. A solid 7/10 game. I guess a lot of people were mad they didn't get delivered what was promised in early announcements, but I never saw those so I was never disappointed.

No.
It was worse than xcom2. Disregarding its great predecessor, it was somewhere below average, and the quippy ambience soiled whatever story it attempted to tell.

I could never like it as much as I wanted. The pacing felt off a lot of the time, and all the cool features felt like they didn't fly the overall game. Almost as if the guys designing the features never actually played the game and only sending telegrams to the developer floor with handwritten instructions about what to do.

I didn't like how XCOM2 had story missions where characters would yap on about stupid shit every time you ended your turn or moved a unit, story isn't good enough to bogged down the game play like that. I also hated the turn limits, I guess I can understand why they were added but it changes the game from open ended tactics to almost a puzzle game.

maybe xcom 2 was just easier but I felt like I had significantly more control/tools for a mission so I was less subject to RNG bullshit compared to EW

Every time someone complains about Chimera squad you can easily say they haven't played it
Or they were expecting it to be Xcom 3 and not just a spinoff

Nothing in eggscom 2 is a frustrating as the thin fuckers critting your through cover and smoke, or just shitting on you with poison if they can't get a clear shot
That alone makes 2 better

its crazy how the thinmen reduce EW's score by a solid two points in my mind just because of their bullshit. No clue what the devs were thinking with them

did they buff thin men in EW or something?
I only really played EU and I never remembered them being a problem

I only ever played EW so I cant compare them but thinmen are a crazy difficulty spike super early in the game

good hit chance and crit chance

ignore height advantage/disadvantage with leap

4 hp, cant be instakilled with nades and rarely can be 1 shot

poison is an AoE death cloud for multiple soldiers unless you pack several medkits

they spawn instantly and go straight into overwatch with 0 indication

can spawn off screen to not be killed, then insta kill the escort easily