XCOM: Chimera Squad - humans and aliens team up

[Galdred]

Chimera Squad being ADVENT propaganda would have been hilarious and extremely well thought out so it's obvious that it's not.

Actually, playing an Advent team against XCOM terrorists could have been cool.

 

[Mazisky]

https://boards.greenhouse.io/firaxis/jobs/4397489003

• Experience with character customization systems is a plus.
• Strong creature creation experience or focus is a plus.
• Experience with next generation hair creation (such as Fibermesh or Xgen) a plus.
• Unreal Engine experience is a plus.

You might say XCOM 3 was always a given. Personally, I was not so sure after 2's lower than expected sales performance (IIRC, that is) and Chimera Squad's somewhat warm reception.

Sales weren't low at all.

It sold 500k on the release week only and since then 4 years have passed so it should be quite some millions now.

Also there are some 2k financial reports in different periods ( I read a lot of this corporate stuff) that say the biggest revenue from digital sales were from Gta V, NBa2k and Xcom 2.

Some other data I've read in the past (but I can't remember the source) said it was head to head with the lastest Total war games which were big sellers.

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

https://boards.greenhouse.io/firaxis/jobs/4397489003

• Experience with character customization systems is a plus.
• Strong creature creation experience or focus is a plus.
• Experience with next generation hair creation (such as Fibermesh or Xgen) a plus.
• Unreal Engine experience is a plus.

You might say XCOM 3 was always a given. Personally, I was not so sure after 2's lower than expected sales performance (IIRC, that is) and Chimera Squad's somewhat warm reception.

Sales weren't low at all.

It sold 500k on the release week only and since then 4 years have passed so it should be quite some millions now.

Also there are some 2k financial reports in different periods ( I read a lot of this corporate stuff) that say the biggest revenue from digital sales were from Gta V, NBa2k and Xcom 2.

Some other data I've read in the past (but I can't remember the source) said it was head to head with the lastest Total war games which were big sellers.

Good to hear. Always had the impression 2 underperformed in comparison to Enemy Unknown.

 

[Zombra]

Having never finished the game due to the "can't equip weapons" bug, enough time passed that I was ready for a fresh playthrough from beginning to end. Although the weapon bug patch didn't work on my old save game back in the day, I thought maybe a new game wouldn't have the problem. So I started a new ironman game and after about 10 missions I get a catastrophic game freeze on the enemy turn. Reloading the autosave loads the game just before the enemy does the thing that causes the freeze, exactly the same every time. Fucked again.

 

[ArchAngel]

Having never finished the game due to the "can't equip weapons" bug, enough time passed that I was ready for a fresh playthrough from beginning to end. Although the weapon bug patch didn't work on my old save game back in the day, I thought maybe a new game wouldn't have the problem. So I started a new ironman game and after about 10 missions I get a catastrophic game freeze on the enemy turn. Reloading the autosave loads the game just before the enemy does the thing that causes the freeze, exactly the same every time. Fucked again.

Firaxis are as good at producing super buggy games as best of them.

 

[Zombra]

Note to sorinmask who just received a giftstravaganza copy - the game is good despite complaints from angry white men about underrepresentation, but don't play Ironman mode as gamebreaking bugs can occur mid-mission and wreck a playthrough.

 

[The_Mask]

Note to sorinmask who just received a giftstravaganza copy - the game is good despite complaints from angry white men about underrepresentation, but don't play Ironman mode as gamebreaking bugs can occur mid-mission and wreck a playthrough.

Thanks, bro. You're always nice and helpful.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the game is good despite complaints from angry white men about underrepresentation,

who the hell is complaining about that?
we're complaining about playing with xenos in a fucking xcom game

this is like a doom game being made where you play as the monsters

And the game doesn't even bother to delve into any of the societal issues attempting to live with aliens would cause after the earth was invaded/conquered. It would require an extremely authoritarian government cracking down on all forms of dissent.
The timeline is just ridiculous, most adults alive would have been alive during the attempted genocide of humans.

There was material here to make an insightful commentary, or even go the route of ADVENT propaganda if they were bold enough. But they did neither, they just went with reddit-tier jokes painted over with a rick & morty paintbrush. The game feels like an insult to fans of xcom. Good news for them though, because they can deflect any blame of them being shit at their job with "angry white males are mad!"

 

[Zumbabul]

When I played this game, there was a mod that turns off voice-over and all story text. With this mod the game is so much better.

 

[Lemming42]

And the game doesn't even bother to delve into any of the societal issues attempting to live with aliens would cause after the earth was invaded/conquered. It would require an extremely authoritarian government cracking down on all forms of dissent.

That's essentially what the game's about, as far as I remember. Every single district of the city has a "heat" meter that goes apeshit five seconds in, and then your squad is being deployed left right and centre to beat the shit out of anyone and anything trying to start trouble. Half the game is about you kicking in people's doors and shooting them at point-blank before they've even had a chance to react.

One thing that I like is that you spend as much time fighting alien separatists as you do human separatists. Virtually nobody is happy with the integration of aliens into society. Even your squadmates occasionally start shit with each other.

You're right about the annoying reddit-y tone the game has, but it didn't bother me that much. nu-XCOM never felt like it had a particularly strong style and tone to it IMO, so the switch to this more lighthearted, Futurama/Rick and Morty shit doesn't feel like blasphemy or anything to me. It's just listening to a few bad unfunny jokes between missions. I also didn't find the player characters as annoying as everyone else seems to, they're just archetypal stock characters who don't leave much of an impression.

I've only played the game through once, back when it was released, so if I'm missing anything obvious then forgive me.

 

[Mazisky]

The game is not bad on its own and it is quite fun, it's just not comparable to a full Xcom game.

It is more like Gwent compared to The Witcher, a cool side thing but not a replacement or sequel by any means.

I also gave up after 10 hours because it's too repetitive and it's clearly longer than it should be considered its small scale.

The ost is really great tho.

 

[jackofshadows]

But that's an awful comparison. Chimera lacks strategic component but the core gameplay is the same. Unless you mean plot/narrative which would be even more strange.

To me, it's simple: gameplay wise it's very good and fun. Otherwise it's cringe and shit. Thankfully, the former is what matters the most here.

 

[Mazisky]

But that's an awful comparison. Chimera lacks strategic component but the core gameplay is the same. Unless you mean plot/narrative which would be even more strange.

To me, it's simple: gameplay wise it's very good and fun. Otherwise it's cringe and shit. Thankfully, the former is what matters the most here.

The core gameplay is not the same at all.

Xcom has a strategic layer which is half of the gameplay. Chimera however has no base buidling, no character customization and all you have outside battles is "click on the next mission" and cringy dialogues.

Xcom tactical battles have exploration and combat, large maps with different environments (cities, forests, deserts, etc.), procedural generation.

Chimera has single small rooms and no exploration, no procedural generation.

Xcom requires you to build different teams and the combinations are pretty wide, Chimera has the same fixed indian\african characters.



If you don't like the Gwent comparison that's fine, I have another one for you that fits better:

Xcom is Heroes Might and Magic, Chimera is Windows Chess. Core gameplay is the same>move 1 dude then the enemy does the same.

 

[Darth Canoli]

who the hell is complaining about that?
we're complaining about playing with xenos in a fucking xcom game

this is like a doom game being made where you play as the monsters

And the game doesn't even bother to delve into any of the societal issues attempting to live with aliens would cause after the earth was invaded/conquered. It would require an extremely authoritarian government cracking down on all forms of dissent.
The timeline is just ridiculous, most adults alive would have been alive during the attempted genocide of humans.

There was material here to make an insightful commentary, or even go the route of ADVENT propaganda if they were bold enough. But they did neither, they just went with reddit-tier jokes painted over with a rick & morty paintbrush. The game feels like an insult to fans of xcom. Good news for them though, because they can deflect any blame of them being shit at their job with "angry white males are mad!"

I don't mind having alien teammates.

That's all the rest that's problematic.
A mod skipping all the cut-scenes altogether would make it better already but the core gameplay is boring really fast anyway.

The core gameplay is not the same at all.

Xcom has a strategic layer which is half of the gameplay. Chimera however has no base buidling, no character customization and all you have outside battles is "click on the next mission" and cringy dialogues.

Xcom tactical battles have exploration and combat, large maps with different environments (cities, forests, deserts, etc.), procedural generation.

Chimera has single small rooms and no exploration, no procedural generation.

Xcom requires you to build different teams and the combinations are pretty wide, Chimera has the same fixed indian\african characters.

Even if XCOM is the one (and only?) game that made procedural generation right, that's not the feature i'm missing, most encounter design is quite good from what i remember, not having completed the game.
And of course, good encounter design > procedural generation anything.
But the game doesn't benefit from it because of the small battlefields and the repetitive action.
So, UFO combat >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Chimera.

If you gave a monkey a brush and some paint to reproduce The Mona Lisa, it would be the equivalent of what these morrons made of the original UFO.

Still, all of the other points are very valid, combat in Chimera is claustrophobic, i suspect its engine wouldn't be able to sustain the original UFO battlescape sizes.
Something in between would have been great though, i don't mind some small battle-scapes but too many turn a great concept into a JRPG hybrid.

It's a big failure if you ask me but with some good ideas drowned into retarded features and story with dumbed down mechanism all over the place.

 

[Talby]

Chimera Squad? More like Tranny Squad.

 

[Mazisky]

Chimera Squad? More like Tranny Squad.

Developers are young side team inside Firaxis, american millenials, expected

 

[Infinitron]

Released on GOG: https://af.gog.com/game/xcom_chimera_squad?as=1649904300

 

[ArchAngel]

Chimera Squad? More like Tranny Squad.

Developers are young side team inside Firaxis, american millenials, expected

This didn't age well. This game still seems better than the Marvel shit they unveiled in the meantime :D

 

[Lemming42]

Might give this another run-through, I remember really liking it overall (though I'm too lazy to scroll up and see if my posts in the thread confirm that). I think there's a place for this kind of thing - a very distilled variant of XCOM, good to play while you listen to podcasts or music or whatever the fuck it is people do these days.

 

[Yosharian]

Might give this another run-through, I remember really liking it overall

 

[Lemming42]

It's okay, people do that a lot to me on here.

 

[Mazisky]

I really loved Xcom 2 but for me Firaxis declined into a barrel of diarrhea after Chimera and Marvel

 

[Zombra]

Might give this another run-through

After a gamebreaking bug made me abandon this on initial release, they then patched it, which didn't fix my game but might have fixed my issue for a new playthrough. So last year I started a new playthrough and a completely different gamebreaking bug killed my game.

Details: the game autosaved at the beginning of an enemy turn ... and the enemy always moved to a spot where the AI would lock up. Since you are not allowed to open the Esc menu during an enemy turn, there was absolutely nothing I could do, couldn't restart the mission, couldn't abort, nothing like this. Loading the game just went straight to this one guy who proceeded straight to AI lock, every time. Only way out was Alt-F4. Playthrough ruined, game uninstalled and completely given up on.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Damn, after Marvel? Thing hasn't even come out yet. Hopefully them going silent on that game for four months now involves a removal of that game's card system; since beyond the pointless card system, and some bad aesthetic choices, that game kind of looked interesting.

 

[Alienman]

There were news recently that many prominent X-com devs have left the studio to form their own thing. Like a 20 year veteran graphic designer or something like that. With that I mean it's not looking too great for X-com 3.