XCOM 2 - PlayStation 4

Bought for my husbands birthday, as he requested it. We have now lost him forever. The kids haven’t seen him for days, plates are slid to and fro under the door but that’s about it. Every once in a while a scream of rage or disbelief will sound from the den, then all becomes calm again.+10 for making husbands disappear+7 For giving my living room tv back-3 For absentee father effect

This is a great game. I would highly recommend for anyone who liked the first XCOM, strategy games, or even just to try something new. It builds on the first game and improves on it in almost every possible way. Very addicting. Can be tough at points with randomly generated missions and at first you feel as if the odds are completely against you. This gradually changes, by the end you will have a squad of soldiers that have insane abilities and weapons. Very good rate of introducing new alien species throughout.The one negative is the loading screens between missions that seem to take their good old time. Definitely worth a try, especially after the price decreases!

I was a big fan of Xcom: Enemy Unknown, and an even bigger fan of Xcom: Enemy Within (which fixed the horrible game-breaking bugs, and finally made the game balanced, while greatly increasing the fun factor with genetically-modified and big robot squad members to command). The games were endlessly playable, but also extremely hard even on the lower difficulties (famous for save scumming and only obsessive fans playing through without a manual save to fall back on in case of disaster). So how does the full sequel hold up?I gave upI bought this game right after release, but didn't have time to play it until winter time when I got a break from work. I thought the concept and story was fantastic, but I made a crucial mistake...I played it on normal. I read a review from a stupid review site that said it was a cakewalk on Easy or Normal if you had played Xcom before, and I tried Normal thinking I didn't want the game to be TOO easy. I also didn't want to save scum and wanted to actually experience the game as it was meant to be played. I knew I would lose, but thought I could get pretty far in the game before losing. In actuality, I never got to experience most of the good points of the game, because my entire squad got wiped out multiple times and I was hopelessly behind the aliens. I never got to see high level soldiers, good upgrades, or much of the story besides bad effects. I wouldn't call it a "rage quit", but I simply got to depressed to play the game anymore after getting the game over screen (and it is a slow, agonizing death to get to the game over screen).NowWith the release of the newest expansion, I decided to try the game again, this time on Easy, knowing some of the things that made me lose so fast the first time around (you have to pick up money..er supplies periodically, they don't just drop into your bank as with the first game, don't trade away all of your intel, buy weapon and armor upgrades as soon as possible, ALWAYS put your whole squad on overwatch prior to scouting or you can get your whole squad wiped out in a single turn). The game is still HARD.Like the first game, it gives the impression that it's just tactical skill and decision-making, but in reality base management and squad management in battle comes down to memorization, nothing more. You need to MEMORIZE the correct order of upgrades, the correct order of turn actions, the optimized soldier loadout and upgrade tree. If you die, and die often while others breeze their way through the game, it is likely because they simply have memorized the META (most effective tactics available).Practice makes progressThis game may seem like a soul-crushing insult to your intelligence as a gamer, or perhaps a lesson in how life with crush you into the ground and them laugh over your dead corpse, but if you keep at it, you may discover quite a different lesson. Xcom 2 was made with the story and setup it has because the developer discovered that most players LOST playing Xcom, and that was largely their experience (it can be hard for developers to gauge a user experience because every difficulty except max is laughably easy for them due to the extremely high amount of time they spend playing the game). So what is the game's difficulty curve?You are SUPPOSED to star the game feeling out-numbered, out-powered, and out-maneuvered. You are SUPPOSED to feel like an underdog who doesn't have a prayer. But if you persevere, learn from your mistakes, and PUSH yourself to beat the enemy (letting each defeat make you strong and more determined) you may indeed discover the legendary end-game where you feel like an unstoppable force, your neigh-invincible super-soldier walking the map like gods and godesses of battle. THIS is what this game is about. It's about struggling forward, getting knocked down and getting back up again, preserving and not given up, so that you can embrace your destiny and save the world.Awesome and TerribleThis game is HORRIBLY optimized. The load times take forever (bring a book), and they are EVERYWHERE. There's a load time on loading a save file, then a load time on loading a battle, then a load time on returning from battle. This is REALLY annoying. But I can put up with it because 1. I like reading books, and 2. there is so much to love in this game...if you can survive that long.A lot of the most annoying limitations of the first Xcom game are gone. You can now launch grenades (like rockets) after moving. Snipers do far more damage with their pistols than previously (early in the game they used to be useless). Upgrading weapons now upgrades the ENTIRE squad so you no longer need to constantly remove weapons from soldiers and buy tons of weapons for when your base gets invaded. The cost of many items has been simplified so you're no longer constantly checking trying to figure out what you can and can't afford to sell on the black market (most items just cost supplies). But beyond that..When this game first came out people said what they usually do, that only ONE class of units was particularly useful, but this is SO wrong. Your specialists can use their Gremlins to heal or hack remotely, and have a low damage attack THAT CANNOT BE DODGED. Your rangers' sword attack also repositions them, and can be used to deal massive damage with extremely high hit percentage AND take cover AT THE SAME TIME. Gernadiers are more resilient than they used to be. And the snipers...well everyone loves snipers. The weapon upgrades start out lame and then get awesome. Having a sniper that auto-reloads the first time they run out of ammo or has extra shots makes the entire class feel less limited.All in all, I wouldn't say that this game is BETTER than Xcom: Enemy Within, but it's definitely a worthy sequel. I just wish it had been better optimized. The graphics don't look any better than the first Xcom, but the performance is terrible. I also wish the PC version had controller support like the first game did, and the omission feels downright lazy. It FORCES you to buy the console version if you want to play with a controller that isn't the steam controller.If you liked the first Xcom game this is a must-buy.

Gave this game a few days so I could give a more informed review than I normally go for. Let me start by saying I love the series immensely and I think it stands as the example to the very underrepresented genre of turn-based strategy games - especially for consoles. Please note that this review is reflective of the game as it currently is - V1.01 (day one patch) I will update this review later with more information and my current rating may change to reflect that.~~~UPDATE: Oct. 26, 2016Users and the developers have confirmed that the long loading screens are due to the size of the savegame. This means the game's architecture punishes you if you take too long in the game and the savegame size becomes larger. It's unintentional and unfixable on behalf of the devs. (The issue is in how the game reads data, you can't change that with a patch) Any game that goes beyond December is likely going to have ridiculously long loading screens - some perhaps longer than the mission itself. Also, multiplayer is generally empty as it was even Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within. I was hoping for a more engaging MP experience but I am sorely disappointed. Don't get me wrong MP is fun as hell, but (1) there is no incentive for the enemy player to stay when it's obvious they've lost and (2) the total number of available games are dwindling and overall time in queues is growing rapidly.For these reasons, I am deducting 1-star from this previously 4-star review. My main gripes with the game have been unsatisfactorily addressed and I am disappointed.~~~Pros:- The series starts off strong, throwing you right in combat. The tutorial shouldn't be skipped, however - it is relevant to the story.- The classes feel very balanced (with the exception of Psionics) Rangers, sharpshooters, specialists, and grenadiers all have their specific role to play and the game seems well designed to facilitate it.- Retreat is (almost) always an option, and your actions have (dire) consequences! So many games nowadays are just cookie cutter designs. This game makes you accountable for your decisions - moreso, it shoves your face into whatever steaming pile of misfortune you have allowed to collect around you due to your own bad decisions. Sounds harsh? It is, but that's a good thing. The experience of the game is very immersive. One of my most veteran Rangers died earlier today... I almost got a bit emotional playing my own personal highlight reel in my mind of his badassery over the last few days...- Psionics! I have a love-hate relationship with Psionics. Psionics were VERY important in XCOM:EU and XCOM:EW, but in this game they are kinda overshadowed. That might be a good thing, if they weren't so bloody powerful! The advisors don't actively push you train Psionic soldiers, so unfortunately I prioritized some other buildings and techs before that the advisors WERE advising on. To put it bluntly, Psionics are overpowered as all hell. My entire team is shooting up a heavily armed mech, not making much progress - I was even forced to prematurely evac half my squad. Finally, I decided to use psionics in lieu of reloading. 1 hit, that's it... I also love how you can choose your advancement path with which specific skills you want. This means that a Psionic soldier can be a wrecking ball, a guardian angel, or everything in between.- Customization. Sure, you can customize how your individual soldiers look, talk, and act - even give them nickname and back story, but these are just cosmetics. You can also change your individual with specialized ammo, attachments, grenades, utilitarian items, implants, abilities, and specialized suits of armor. Everything can be changed so that your individual troops are optimized for whatever role you wish.Cons:- First and foremost. Largest issue in the game is the loading screens. They are horribly long and some are redundant. When your soldiers are in the Skyranger with a mission briefing on the screen, you are actually in a loading screen - which is preempted by a loading screen of its own. I'm hoping the loading gets optimized through patches, but this is likely to be the most persistent issue. This is especially frustrating if you are reloading games to try a different approach - it's likely to take the lion's share of your gametime.This may be tied with the size of the game file because it seems to be getting much worse after missions as I progress through the game.- Sometimes the UI freezes or fails to register new info. This is an occasional glitch where the game doesn't register new enemies (you can target them, but their avatars aren't displaying), another is where changing targets doesn't show new information from the previous target (even if the target is entirely different), another issue I noticed in that the UI completely freezes for a while - longest freeze was around 60 seconds (almost restarted my system) [NOTE: The game saves every turn, so you don't need to worry about massive setbacks. It's just an inconvenience.]- Crashes. Game has crashed 5 times in 3 days. That's not too bad for a newly released game, but it's not necessarily good either. As I said though, the save doesn't get lost.- The illusion of chance. This is probably based on some seed code that determines probability before a mission, but if you reload a mission and do everything the same, the outcome of the battle will be IDENTICAL! This means that if you fail something that you have 99% chance of successfully completing, you can reload the game and you will fail every time. If an enemy crit hits you, it will happen every time. This means that the probabilities are determined before the mission, and I don't necessarily agree with that...Here's some tips for new players (or returning ones)- Invest in armor shred. When the option first presents itself, you think "Nah, I don't need that." Early enemies don't have armor, but you need to grab those armor shred upgrades early so you can shred off their armor and work on their health.- If you check your saves in mission and have autosave enabled, you can reroll the mission by loading the most recent geoscape autosave. This is especially useful since I find extraction missions to be very, very difficult (where you have to rescue a Resistance VIP and extract your team)- Keep up with taking down enemy facilities. It may seem like you can handle the pace of enemy building, but it picks up exponentially around August in game.

If you have the ability to have this on PC do yourself a favor and get it on that. The console experience spoils a fantastic game. On the PS4 the frames dropped below 20, the game would pause and take more than a second to register what you wanted your characters to do. The loading times were down right annoying. Wait for your mission to start, wait for another loading screen to finish creating the map, then wait for you to just start playing and if you have to load another save it repeats all over again. If you have the option do yourself a favor and play this game on a computer.

XCOM es todo lo que prometía desde su ultima entrega y mas al ser un juego mas amigable para el nuevo jugador de estrategia pero siendo igual de retador que su predecesor con un ambiente aun mas inmersivo.Totalmente recomiendo los extras del season pass así que si te conviene la deluxe en precio, aprovéchala.

Si tienes problemas de la mete y tu neurologo de te manda a rellenar libros de Pasatiempos. Este juego es excelente para ello, ya que te obliga a pensar de manera táctica para poder avanzar; mi neurolo está sorprendido de como salieron mis estudios.

XCOM 2 es un paso hacia delante en prácticamente todo desde su predecesor: historia,gameplay,progresión,clases,administración de bases, personalización etc. Todo ha sido mejorado para que XCOM 2 se sienta más como una secuela que a una expansión mediocre a 60 dólares como es el caso de muchos juegos en estos días.

Excelente juego de estrategia, con alto nivel de dificultad, totalmente dirigido a quienes les gustan los retos. Muy entretenido y facil de manejar en la consola. Altamente recomendado. 5/5.

Excelente juego.De esas joyas escondidas que no tienen mucha promoción pero que es súper entretenido.Si eres fan del juego anterior no te tienes que perder esta secuela.La carga de las misiones es un poco lenta y todavía tiene alguno que otro "bug", pero aún así es un gran juego.