Aliens: Dark Descent - real-time squad-based tactical action

[KIss My Ass]

This game is far too complicated and difficult for you. Go back to Diablo.

I played through XCOM 2 twice. I'm sure I can handle it.

 

[ArchAngel]

This game is far too complicated and difficult for you. Go back to Diablo.

I played through XCOM 2 twice. I'm sure I can handle it.

Did you manage to finish 1st mission in those two attempts?

 

[KIss My Ass]

This game is far too complicated and difficult for you. Go back to Diablo.

I played through XCOM 2 twice. I'm sure I can handle it.

Did you manage to finish 1st mission in those two attempts?

I said played through, as in from start to finish. I also played through a decent chunk of the expansion which is probably far more difficult than this game.

 

[Fedora Master]

On what, Recruit?

 

[KIss My Ass]

I never pick easy difficulty. It was either normal or hard. I can't remember.

 

[KIss My Ass]

I can show my trophies to prove it you stupid fuck.

 

[ArchAngel]

This game is far too complicated and difficult for you. Go back to Diablo.

I played through XCOM 2 twice. I'm sure I can handle it.

Did you manage to finish 1st mission in those two attempts?

I said played through, as in from start to finish. I also played through a decent chunk of the expansion which is probably far more difficult than this game.

Both expansions are easier than base game. Also both Xcoms are easier than this game. Here it is easy to trigger too many enemies and lose soldiers

 

[KIss My Ass]

This happens everytime here. Somebody hypes up the difficulty of some random game and it ends up being a big fat nothingburger.

Both expansions are easier than base game. Also both Xcoms are easier than this game. Here it is easy to trigger too many enemies and lose soldiers

I'm talking about XCOM 2, not 1. WotC was absolutely not easier than the base game. WotC made base game XCOM 2 look like a joke.

 

[Zewp]

Whoever decided that the map that you pull up with M shouldn't turn with the camera deserves to be shot. It's so disorienting at times because you have to spend seconds trying to figure out how the map is oriented against where you're looking in the game, and the game doesn't pause in that time.

That's probably my biggest complaint with the game, which all things considered, isn't the end of the world.

Edit: Well, fuck. Just ran into a gamebreaking bug. There's a mission where you have to pick up a welder to unweld a door and it was broken before the hotfix, but there was a workaround to get it working. Dev on Steam claimed they fixed it already before the hotfix rolled out, but the hotfix only disabled the workaround. Now there's no way to get through that door, because the game doesn't recognise that you picked up the welder.

 

[KIss My Ass]

Edit: Well, fuck. Just ran into a gamebreaking bug. There's a mission where you have to pick up a welder to unweld a door and it was broken before the hotfix, but there was a workaround to get it working. Dev on Steam claimed they fixed it already before the hotfix rolled out, but the hotfix only disabled the workaround. Now there's no way to get through that door, because the game doesn't recognise that you picked up the welder.

Well that just sounds fantastic. Thanks for talking me into buying this game codex.

 

[Fedora Master]

All that money could've gone towards food for the kittens.

 

[sser]

I'm genuinely impressed at how many systems, some of which are of decent complexity, are wound into this game.

Really, my #1 fault so far is how the game yanks control right out of your hands a little too much. And on occasion it does this and then dumps you into a fight which is very bogus game design. This also worked in the reverse for me in one mission where I was like oh, the game's finally allowing me to preempt something, only for that mission to end rather suddenly before I could collect all the turrets I had put down for defense, so they were just lost outright which was quite an investment sink.

 

[KIss My Ass]

All that money could've gone towards food for the kittens.

So you're intentionally trying to trick me into starving kittens. Scum.

 

[Modron]

All that money could've gone towards food for the kittens.

Don't ask him about how much he has spent on Diablo 4 cosmetics.

 

[KIss My Ass]

Only $75. It will probably be $95 whenever they offer a decent cosmetic for the rogue.

Ngl I'd probably pay over $100 if they offered sexy female character skins. Blizzard if you're reading this and you want money, do it now.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

This happens everytime here. Somebody hypes up the difficulty of some random game and it ends up being a big fat nothingburger.

Both expansions are easier than base game. Also both Xcoms are easier than this game. Here it is easy to trigger too many enemies and lose soldiers

I'm talking about XCOM 2, not 1. WotC was absolutely not easier than the base game. WotC made base game XCOM 2 look like a joke.

Long War 2?

 

[Tyranicon]

Two things that really bring down the game for me even though I don't run into them a lot.

1. Unlocked containers that open only after a certain trigger. Game, I know I can open this container. I can fucking see the interactable light on it. But nooo, you're going to make me go halfway across the map, and then come all the way back just to open it. What kind of fucktard game design is that?

2. Losing 40 min of progress because one of your dudes get stuck on a chair. On a tightly planned out run-and-gun is ruined by a potted plant. Or a hasty retreat gets fucked because your medic is stuck in a doorway. Poor pathing is expected but still sucks.

I'm starting to get Mechanicus vibes from this game. Not quite great, but solid with really good atmosphere and some interesting mechanics.

Better than Mechanicus imo, except for writing and possibly bugginess. I don't remember a single gamebreaking bug from Mechanicus yet I already ran into several here.

 

[Zewp]

2. Losing 40 min of progress because one of your dudes get stuck on a chair. On a tightly planned out run-and-gun is ruined by a potted plant. Or a hasty retreat gets fucked because your medic is stuck in a doorway. Poor pathing is expected but still sucks.

Yeah, the game is awesome, but it's hampered a bit by bugs right now. I'm noticing that on outdoor maps, my drone also has a tendency to get stuck in the air or out of bounds, rendering it useless for the missions. It's not a bad idea to wait a week or two for bugfixes to drop. Devs said the first major update is coming early next week.

I did manage to get past that gamebreaking bug last night by continuously loading the save before it until it finally worked, so it looks like it's just a broken trigger or something. Still annoying as shit, though.

Anyway, what I thought was the last missions turned out to be (maybe) the second-last mission. The game is really long.

Really, my #1 fault so far is how the game yanks control right out of your hands a little too much. And on occasion it does this and then dumps you into a fight which is very bogus game design. This also worked in the reverse for me in one mission where I was like oh, the game's finally allowing me to preempt something, only for that mission to end rather suddenly before I could collect all the turrets I had put down for defense, so they were just lost outright which was quite an investment sink.

Yeah, it's not quite as bad as XCom 2 with yanking control away from you to show you nonsense, but it's close. It doesn't always pause the game when it yanks your controls either, so sometimes you'll be getting attacked by enemies and there's nothing you can do until it gives you control back. I know exactly which mission you're talking about, as I was pretty annoyed by that one too. Lost a bunch of turrets to that nonsense. There's another one where I had just started a deployment, came across the upgraded APC and it immediately automatically extracted me, so it wasted that run.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Shiiiiiit negroes, this is really good. I try to do as much on deployments as possible, so the missions sometimes last over an hour and I usually pull back only after my marines are wrecked and down to their sidearms. Atmosphere and tactical gameplay is excellent, the management layer is OK.

Writting is a bit inconsistent at times but serviceable. This is a surprise hit in any case.

What I really appreaciate is that you can dominate the aliens fairly easily in the open areas thanks to your APC, but difficulty ramps up considerably in the interior areas, where you can get swarmed at short distances and the small arms carried by your marines are nowehere near as effective as the autocannons on the APC.

 

[KIss My Ass]

I honestly haven't been this hyped for a Alien/Aliens game since Alien Isolation. I hope you guys are right.

 

[Zewp]

Just finished it and I loved it. The last mission was a massive letdown, but is only about 10-15 minutes to be fair. It gives you control of 3 story characters who are invincible for most of the mission, even when being swarmed by dozens of xenos. It was just a really anticlimatic way to end off an otherwise excellent game. That mission could have easily been tweaked a bit to be like the rest of the game.

I found the last few missions really tense and somewhat exhausting. It's great to see a game that again proves that isometric games can also be really suspenseful. I was thinking of doing a run on the hardest difficulty after this one, but I'm going to take a break and play something a bit lighter instead.

Sleeper hit of the year, imo. It's not perfect by a long shot, but I haven't been this engrossed in a new game in a while. Few games do their respective IPs as much justice as this one does. It's right up there with Alien: Isolation. Any story/new mission DLC will be bought day 1 by me. I'd love to see them bring out a DLC that goes a more open-ended route, like X-Com, but with this being a pretty niche AA game I'd be surprised if we get any DLC at all.

Shiiiiiit negroes, this is really good. I try to do as much on deployments as possible, so the missions sometimes last over an hour and I usually pull back only after my marines are wrecked and down to their sidearms. Atmosphere and tactical gameplay is excellent, the management layer is OK.

This isn't necessarily the best idea. Getting too stressed gives your marines trauma, which needs to be overcome in therapy (lol) and taking too much damage also puts them in the medbay for much longer. Marines only level up from finishing objectives and killing special xenos (not sure if the type 2s that spawn from heightened hive aggression count). What you want to do is extract every so often and bring lower level marines in so that they can finish objectives and gain experience too. If you only have one core squad and the rest are low level, you could run into massive difficulty spikes later on if your core squad ends up in the medbay or therapy for long periods of time. What I did for the first few missions is I had a core squad and I'd bring 2 of them into every mission and then two rookies or lower levels. You definitely don't want to be in a position where you're in the lategame and one of your level 8+ marines gets killed or dragged off and you have to fall back on a level <4 marine that will get slaughtered by the hordes.

 

[Tyranicon]

Even with bugs and minor annoyances, this is probably the best game I bought this year (except for maybe Caves of Lore which I'm slowly going through).

It has a really addictive quality that draws you in. The ability to leave missions at any time is also an excellent addition. You're always faced with decisions in the game: do I want to search these rooms for resources? Should I extract now or is the squad good to take another beating? Should I pop a turret here and risk losing it because I'm out of tools?

Now I kind of want a RPG made in the style.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Might give this a try a few months/years done the line when game-breaking bugs are finally squashed and it's on sale for a buck or two. Have fond memories of AvP the game, and, before that, the SNES version of Aliens.

 

[ArchAngel]

This happens everytime here. Somebody hypes up the difficulty of some random game and it ends up being a big fat nothingburger.

Both expansions are easier than base game. Also both Xcoms are easier than this game. Here it is easy to trigger too many enemies and lose soldiers

I'm talking about XCOM 2, not 1. WotC was absolutely not easier than the base game. WotC made base game XCOM 2 look like a joke.

You are a joke. It was way easier with new OP classes and it made end game even easier after you had access to unique weapons from enemy heroes

 

[KIss My Ass]

You are a joke. It was way easier with new OP classes and it made end game even easier after you had access to unique weapons from enemy heroes

Well I suppose I can't refute the later game stuff because I never finished it. I was pretty burnt out on XCOM 2 at that point. But the earlier game stuff like the batlles with the Chosen were far more difficult than anything I faced in the base game. I'm also not going to give you the benefit of the doubt because you're ArchAngel and you say stupid shit all the time.