XCOM 2 PS4 Review: "A fun and tactical experience."

XCOM 2 PS4 Review

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Patch Version:  1.06 

Having never played the first rendition of XCOM, all I knew going into XCOM 2 was that it was a strategic turn-based game. 

The first mission guides you through the basics of movement and combat utilising a squad of two to get the drop on some enemy combatants.  The tide quickly turns though, and before long you'll find yourself on the back foot, especially if you do anything other than what is suggested.

I was impressed, however, by how XCOM 2 seamlessly switched from its top-down perspective to mini cutscenes showing me close-ups of the action.  A nice touch for sure.

Gameplay, so far, has consisted of me 'commanding' my team into positions and choosing from combat actions, which consists of: attack, shoot first if the enemy get close enough and hunker down for defence bonuses.

However, having completed this tutorial mission I'm surprised by what I encounter next.  A base type building game akin to the mobile phone game Fallout Shelter.  

I wasn't expecting this at all, and it's not a negative, the problem is, from here on out the learning curve spikes.

On the surface, it seems simple, but there is a hell of a lot to this part of the game to get your head around.  It has everything you can think of.  Resource management.  Room management.  People management.  And the missions all tie in.  Some, which are completely played out on the bridge, which is where the main world map is displayed giving you a real-time world overview of your current goals and objectives, but also the enemies progress to something they call the Avatar Project.  I'm not sure as to what happens if that completes as yet, but it can't be good.

However, after three hours, I've spent more time either in cutscenes, on this map speeding up time to scan things or loading than actually being in game with my team.

This is not what I was expecting, and I’m wondering... is this what XCOM 2 is all about?

Initial Score after 3 hrs of play

Full Playthrough Score after 32 hrs of play

Overall Impression

Having played XCOM 2 now for 32 hours and completed the game on my first attempt, I have to admit, I was impressed and enjoyed it.

It's not a flawless game and clearly struggles to handle itself at times on the PS4, the console struggling with the A.I. calculations during their turns and slowing down or stalling for a few seconds, but this seemed to occur more so in the latter portions of the campaign opposed to at the start.  I also encountered a crash, which completely rebooted my PS4, but considering my total playtime, this hardly disrupted me since it only occurred once.

One thing that did disrupt me though was the horrible loading times. The worst of which being 3 minutes, but on average were around 2.  They only occur when loading in or out of a mission, which is more of a problem at the start than towards the end of the campaign as the missions get longer opposed to being quick and easy in the beginning.  On the flip side, this really made me question my decisions whilst in game and truly think before making a move.  Why?  Because if I needed to reload a checkpoint it was just as painful and long to load.

Another thing that was particularly bad was the camera when XCOM 2 switches to the cutscene modes or when automatically attempting to show enemies during their turn. Though it will work for about 80% of the time, for the remaining 20% it will fail to focus on the action, instead, will either show the wrong area entirely, a close up of some random in-game object that obscures line of sight, or worse, tease you by showing just enough yet misses the damage inflicted.

However, when you weigh this against all the positives XCOM 2 has going for, it's an annoyance, nothing more.

In regards to gameplay, the ground missions, which revolve around you taking a squad of four into battle (that can be increased to six later on), consist of you taking it in turns to perform two actions for each character. Normally, this consists of moving your team members into optimum positions, to either defend or attack, or simply moving them towards the objective.

If you do choose to attack it will end that character's turn regardless, whereas, if you choose to move first, you can then attack or perform a second action.  Blue highlighted squares indicating it will cost one turn.  Yellow, indicating it will cost two and ending that character's turn once they have reached it.

There are some skills certain class types have that can enable you to attack without using one of your two actions, and also skills that allow you to move once without losing a turn, but these only unlock later as your upgrade your team members.

Speaking of which, there are four class types to choose from, each class having different skills and strengths, as well as making use of different weapons.   Furthermore, not only can you alter their load outs, XCOM 2 enables you to tailor the squad for the battle beforehand, the mission screen detailing the enemy types you are going to encounter before being tasked with choosing your team.

Adding further complexity to this is the skill tree for the character classes.  Every time a squad member levels up you are presented with a choice between two different skills for that particular rank.  The skills being different depending on the class of the squad member too, which further allows you to tailor the experience.

If that wasn't enough, you can even alter the look and appearance of each squad member via their character screen, which allows quite a diverse array of options to personalise their appearance.  Even your weapons can be upgraded and decked with mods.  The depth of this system is impressive indeed.

It is because of all these modifications, upgrades and personalisation that the ground missions are so intense.  Why?  Well, if someone dies in the field they are KIA and permanently dead. Lost forever!  You will even lose their gear and equipment if you don't consume someone's turn to go loot their corpse.

It certainly keeps you on your toes as you become more and more invested.

This threat of permanent death though is not the only reason to be strategic and careful on the battlefield.  Every time a team member takes damage they become wounded.  The more wounded they are, the longer they will have to recuperate before going into battle again.  You can decrease this time though by visiting your H.Q. and selecting the relevant option, which will add a bonus to healing every day that passes.  You can also construct a room that functions as a high tech medical bay, which further reduces the downtime.

Sometimes though, escaping unscathed is just not possible.  As such, recruiting new people to your team is also another facet of the game you’ll have to manage.  As well as soldiers, there are scientists and engineers to keep your eye open for.  These can either be purchased once a month from your H.Q. or a black market, or gifted as rewards for certain missions.

Either way, taking your best members into the battle every time might not be the best option. You don't want to risk injuring them all and missing that important mission because your B-Team, as it were, is not strong enough, or worse, you don't even have anyone ready to enter the mission with.

As well as the ground missions, you will also spend a good chunk of the game on the command vessel, either in research, where you can have your chief scientist perform autopsies on the enemies you've encountered to unearth new technology for your squads to use, or on the bridge, which houses the world map, which is how you command your vessel, sending it all over the world to perform scanning missions to gain rewards and make contact with new resistance camps, all of which opening up new opportunities.

Whilst you are on this map, everything you do will advance the time at an accelerated rate. Even doing nothing will see the hours pass.  It is only when you are either on a ground mission or in the other command vessel's menus that the time doesn't increase.  A good thing too, because you'll also be spending a bit of time in the ships construction rooms, from which you can build various different rooms with varying purposes to aid you in a varieties of ways.

For instance, if you need to increases the amount of resistance H.Q. you can contact, there's a room for that. Want to increases your squad's deployment size, there's a room for that.  Improve how your scientific team functions, there's a room for that.

One thing I will make note of though, is that paying attention to your mission objectives early on is important, because building the rooms that you think might be of use might not help you complete certain objectives.  And if you make a mistake, it will be costly to fix in the form of time.

So why is time so important?  Well, every second that passes is a second where the enemy attain a step towards their Avatar project. If this dark project is allowed to complete, you will have 24 hrs (game time) to turn things around.  If you fail, it's game over.  You lose!

Reducing their efforts towards this project can be achieved by completing certain missions as and when they arise, which touches on the point I made early about ensuring you have a squad when needed most.

As for the types of enemies you will encounter, XCOM 2 does not disappoint in that department either. There's a decent array to contend with.  Each of them bound to the same rules of combat that I explained early, and all of them with unique abilities for you to counter.

However, there's a problem here, and that's the trial and error process of learning what the enemy can do if they get the jump on you, and given the harsh KIA rules, you are either forced to reload a checkpoint or allow the mission to fail and try again, unless you don't mind permanently losing a member or members of your squad whilst you push through to mission completion.  But if you do decide to reload or restart, as I've already mentioned, the loading times are horrible.

For the most part, the game and all its features tie in and weave together rather smoothly, the only serious bugs of note were a loud repeating sound glitch I encountered, which didn't even fix itself after a reload, forcing me to finish that one particular ground battle with the sound on mute.

The second was an issue with a main mission objective in another ground battle, it had been accidental destroyed by an enormous enemy combatant.  Problem was, that this didn't fail the mission, and with the object in question now not interact-able, my only option was to reload a save and use it before it happened again.

All of the issues and annoyances aside though, the level of polish and thought in XCOM 2 is impressive.  It's a very well-crafted game that is not just enjoyable, it makes you think and plan you actions with care.  My only gripe is the learning curve at the start, there's a few systems not really explained and you are just expected to figure it out.  However, I imagine that if you've played the previous version of XCOM 2 then you'll be able to hit the ground running.

If you haven't played XCOM 2 but are a fan of strategic games, or was a fan of the first one, then XCOM 2 won't disappoint.

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