XCOM: Chimera Squad - humans and aliens team up

[Theodora]

In this I'm all or nothing. Something like this game, telling a small scale story about a particular team, is cool. A big army game where I make all my own characters who live or die is great. Something where I make my cool characters and then they also add the devs' Mary Sues with special powers I have to take special care of .... ehhhhh. I never like those characters.

I mean, what's the point of premades for telling a story if you can just rotate them out?

 

[EruDaan]

These were time when you landed with a team of 12+ XCom Agents, 25% of them crack-hard badasses who survived the horrors of 5+ missions, 25% of them veterans who survived at least 2+ missions and the rest of the sad bunch are newly hired cannon fodder. THEN you have to exit the transport into no-mans land. You could be greeted by a kill team losing the mission and all your guys, you could lose half of your new recruits while trying to reach the alien craft and so on.

But that'd be lame by todays standarts. Gamers would cry for their mommy because they lost the guy they named after themselfes. And then it's only boring pixelated grafix. Today it "Breach Phase" this and that and it's SO cool, it lets you do shit that and the grafix are so flashy!

We need a the "Virgin New Xcoomers" vs. "The UFO Defense & Terror-from-the-Deep Chad" meme.

 

[eXalted]

And playing hot potato to the Skyranger with the body of the wounded vetean.

Or playing a grenade hot potato to the grenadier from the Skyranger. And then the grenadier doesn't have enough TU to throw the grenade.

The menu color palette in the HQ of Chimera Squad really reminds me of the one used here - http://androidarts.com/xcom/rebelsquad.htm

 

[Darth Canoli]

Seriously man, either refund and go play something else or admit it's not that bad.

Refund, yes, that's an option, would probably have if it wasn't dirt cheap.
I don't know what came over me, i meant i could have been one in the past years, because with what's coming, there's not a chance this thing deserves a GOTY even with all these changes.

There's Urtuk coming, i have no idea why it's on the Codex cRPG section as it's a tactical with RPG elements and nothing else.
There's also Colony Ship coming next, cRPG this time but with great tactical combat.
And more ...

Played the second mission.
The snake is just great, that Men in Black kind of Alien abilities is something UFO-likes should do more often and also playing aliens.
The breach mechanism makes the game piss easy though, i should probably have played on max difficulty but there was no superhuman option, impossible just seemed cheap, hard is the new story mode ...

 

[jf8350143]

Assuming gender is wrong.

I honestly think that's just because they wrote generic skill descriptions.

I'm one of the biggest progressive cucks on the Codex and not even I am naive enough to believe this.

Note, I support the respectful use of whatever pronouns a person wants to apply to themselves, but obliterating all pronouns except they/them is not respectful for those of us who identify otherwise.
Maybe a team of a dozen cops all happen to identify as they/them? I guess it could happen. But without explanation, this is jarring.

It's not naivety. I just think laziness/lack of resources/incompetence is more likely, than them going "the whole squad is non-binary!".

This whole game gives me the impression that the XCOM3 development is such a huge clusterfuck that they needed to rush a side project to make at least some money and give the intern/junior team something to do.

What I mean is:

- Are skills unique to characters, or can multiple characters have the same skills?
- Are all characters going to have a gender? Can genderless characters have skills? Are they referred to as 'it' or 'they'? Can there be both? (robots, genderless aliens, actual non-binary characters)
- Is the localization pipeline prepared to handle skill descriptions with dynamic genders? (Might not seem like a big deal, but with the shoestring budget this game seems to have had, it probably matters.)
- If the skills are unique to characters, and they just write the genders into the text, that means if the writing/whatever team decides to change a character (I doubt they had it all nailed down before development started), or the the balance or whatever team switches the skill around, the people responsible for skills would have to go and change the text.

VS

- "Just write them/they."

My bet is that this is a skill for xcom 3(or whatever game they are planning next), they just copy the text here and replace all the solider in the text to godmother.

 

[eXalted]

impossible just seemed cheap, hard is the new story mode ...

Impossible is alright. The first few missions were hard but once the new mechanics click, it's pretty normal from there.

 

[orcinator]

Comic characters sure have changed, must have missed the event where Wonderwoman grew a beard ...

Meanwhile in REAL games like Jagged Alliance you have quotes like "Woman should carry baby, not assault rifle".

 

[Jaedar]

Can i have some "story" members killed (let's say i "randomly" start with the lesbian) ?

No, but if you start new game without tutorial you can pick whichever team members you want. The snake and shield guy seem mostly inoffensive from what I played. The healer woman was insufferable.

 

[Darth Canoli]

No, but if you start new game without tutorial you can pick whichever team members you want. The snake and shield guy seem mostly inoffensive from what I played. The healer woman was insufferable.

Good to know, thanks.
Also, the tutorial mission has the most insufferable dialogs so far, seems to be only mediocre writing afterward (i fast skipped though) so it's a win-win, might restart on impossible.

 

[Mazisky]

The ending of the game seems to hint at

Spoiler

Chimera Squad 2 and not Xcom 3

which is really depressing.

 

[Jaedar]

The ending of the game seems to hint at

Spoiler

Chimera Squad 2 and not Xcom 3

which is really depressing.

Iirc people interpreted both xcom1 and 2 to point at terror from the deep, so I wouldn't put too much faith in hints.

Frankly I just want to see Apoc done right. I doubt firaxis can make it happen, but a man can dream.

 

[Mazisky]

The ending of the game seems to hint at

Spoiler

Chimera Squad 2 and not Xcom 3

which is really depressing.

Iirc people interpreted both xcom1 and 2 to point at terror from the deep, so I wouldn't put too much faith in hints.

Frankly I just want to see Apoc done right. I doubt firaxis can make it happen, but a man can dream.

Apoc done right is my wet dream. Honestly I think actually we have some chance that Xcom 3 will be a sort of remake.

 

[Alienman]

These were time when you landed with a team of 12+ XCom Agents, 25% of them crack-hard badasses who survived the horrors of 5+ missions, 25% of them veterans who survived at least 2+ missions and the rest of the sad bunch are newly hired cannon fodder. THEN you have to exit the transport into no-mans land. You could be greeted by a kill team losing the mission and all your guys, you could lose half of your new recruits while trying to reach the alien craft and so on.

But that'd be lame by todays standarts. Gamers would cry for their mommy because they lost the guy they named after themselfes. And then it's only boring pixelated grafix. Today it "Breach Phase" this and that and it's SO cool, it lets you do shit that and the grafix are so flashy!

We need a the "Virgin New Xcoomers" vs. "The UFO Defense & Terror-from-the-Deep Chad" meme.

I get you, but Xcom 2 WOTC now with the Long War 2 mod retains some of that. It is still on a smaller scale though. One thing nuXcom has going for it is that it's easier to put a face on your soldiers and remember that rookie going down. In the old X-com games it gets a bit blurry at times, even if you make an effort to make note of who died. If you suck like me it quickly turns into WW1 statistics where you are only remembering a handful of officers.

 

[Mazisky]

You can tell something changed...

Spoiler

 

[Luka-boy]

Just finished the game. It took me 20 hours and slightly over 50 missions.

The game's okay for a lite experience, especially for the 8€ I paid for it. It has some decent ideas that have potential if they are fleshed out.

I will probably replay it in a few months once modders have had their way with it.

Spoiler

And I still think the whole setting would have worked better if they set it at least a few decades after XCOM 2, but I guess they want to use a non-senile or dead Bradford and company in the next game.

 

[Zombra]

Irritating that the Ironman autosave only saves during missions and at the end of missions. I want to come back from a mission, level up, spend my $, and be fresh and ready for the next mission, but I can't save and exit after doing all the "housekeeping" at the base.

 

[eXalted]

I like how casting Berserk on an enemy with empty magazine actually helps them and makes them reload.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Well, at least, they added the ironman option, even if they did it poorly because they have no idea what it is.

Restarted on impossible, did 3 missions and even without the healer (0 reload), it's still easy, meaning, no agent down (but i have to admit i'm always going after the next dangerous enemy in the timeline).
Even in an optional mission with infinite reinforcements, i could have stayed there all day and slaughter them all but i don't know how xp gain works; it's probably the mission count; so it's likely useless.

Picked the snake, the shielded alien, grenadier and pistolero (which i switched for the offensive drone gal).

 

[lightbane]

Brown explosives expert refugee... In current year...

"it's totally fine as long as they're not white!"

Playable aliens is not a cons. It's the natural evolution of the series both gameplay and lorewise, expecially if they go apocalypse route with many factions you can ally with or fight vs.

The After-"x" games also had playable aliens, and were done in a way more tasteful way.

LMAO Steam is blocking me from posting a negative review about the game. Fucking hilarious.

I suppose the "woke" word avoided the review from being posted, and/or all negative reviews are being culled at random to artificially make the game look better than it is.

You have mainly all female crews and it still manages to be less SJW than Chimera Squad.

Or you could go with guys for a mixed squad.

Yup, when I read the same for medic girl I thought it was mistake

"They" with an alleged female that also is black. Triple-Diversity factor?

Still in the early game, do they ever talk about how the more abominable aliens like the Chryssalids, Faceless or Gatekeepers managed to integrate, if at all? They seem alot harder to accept given their monstrous nature.

Supposedly Chryssalids are now eaten by the populace, despite the fact they can infect people quite quickly. What could go wrong?
No idea with the others.
IF there's XCOM3, hopefully at the very least you'll still be able to use custom units.

 

[eXalted]

Filling breach slots and using items is buggy as hell.

Replacing disables items but inserting it in an empty slot works as intended - https://imgur.com/a/FP8HtCp

 

[jf8350143]

I have no idea why people think the ending was hinting Chimera squad 2 instead of Xcom 3. It specifically says "X-Com is already at war they just don't know it. When they know it will be too late for them." Which pretty much says this whole game is just a battle during the next big war X-Com needs to fight.

And you will use custom units in X-COM 3, there will be several pre-made characters among the ones you create yourself at most.

 

[Mazisky]

I have no idea why people think the ending was hinting Chimera squad 2 instead of Xcom 3. It specifically says "X-Com is already at war they just don't know it. When they know it will be too late for them." Which pretty much says this whole game is just a battle during the next big war X-Com needs to fight.

And you will use custom units in X-COM 3, there will be several pre-made characters among the ones you create yourself at most.

The supposed villains saying those lines at the end look like another simple city faction and not the big mysterious overworld threat that was hinted at the end of X2\Wotc.

 

[Fedora Master]

How about neither NuCom3 or Chimera Squad 2,because nobody needs these attempts at raping the UFO IP even more?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

The ending of the game seems to hint at

Spoiler

Chimera Squad 2 and not Xcom 3

which is really depressing.

Iirc people interpreted both xcom1 and 2 to point at terror from the deep, so I wouldn't put too much faith in hints.

Frankly I just want to see Apoc done right. I doubt firaxis can make it happen, but a man can dream.

Pity that openApoc-mod project stalled.

 

[ArchAngel]

This game is so buggy, so Firaxis.
In addition to freeze bugs and some stupid shit in design now I ran into a terrible bug where game decided to erase all my gear on Claymore. And while I was able to return some of it by using console commands, it also decided to erase my Mastercrafted Shotguns research and now I only have Enhanced ones and no new research for Mastercraft... if anyone is thinking about playing this shit on Ironman.. don't. I am glad I didn't.