XCOM 2 | Game Review
XCOM 2 is the successor to Firaxis Games’ reboot title of the famous XCOM series: XCOM: Enemy Unknown. XCOM 2 was produced by 2K Games and released in February of 2016. An expansion pack, XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, was released in August of 2017. XCOM 2 follows right on the heels of Enemy Unkown’s premise and greatly expands on the story, gameplay, and experience of its predecessors.
XCOM 2 begins its campaign twenty years after Earth’s original attempt to fend off the invading aliens, the XCOM Initiative, suffered total defeat. The aliens now occupy the Earth through their puppet government, the ADVENT administration, and maintain a benevolent facade while developing their secret Avatar Project. XCOM has morphed into a resistance movement led by the Commander, the player’s avatar in the campaign. XCOM’s forces are now based out of the Avenger, a retrofitted alien supply ship that keeps XCOM’s assets on the move and away from ADVENT retaliation.
Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
Two hefty expansion packs, numerous DLC, and a vibrant modding community combined to give Civilization V a long full life in the gaming community and formed what will probably be an enduring legacy. When Firaxis announced the development of Sid Meier’s Civilization VI in May of 2016 the fanbase was energized, not so much with dissatisfaction over the current title in the Civilization Series but with gleeful anticipation of the new material Civilization VI would introduce.
Civ VI maintains the core elements of the Civilization series. Players use Settler units to found cities which generate gold, production, food, science, culture, and faith fueling all the options and projects the player must undertake to achieve victory over competing civilizations. Regional terrain types also remain alongside bonus, strategic, and luxury resources. Combat most closely resembles Civ V with single units each occupying a hex; although a new feature allows two or three units of the same type to merge into a corps or army.
City planning is the most noticeable overhaul that the series received in Civ VI. In addition to a roster of buildings and the tile improvements constructed by workers cities can now produce districts in any workable tile. Districts resemble great person tile improvements from Civ V in that they focus on one type of resource. Only one of each type can be built in a single city and the city can produce buildings to improve those districts. Some districts like the encampment and aerodrome focus on unit production while others like the entertainment district and neighborhood improve the city’s happiness and growth.
Districts emphasize the importance of city tile management in Civ VI. Districts must compete with world wonders and worker-built tile improvements for space around the city. Districts also yield more resources if they are adjacent to other districts and some can only be built on certain terrain types. City specializing is heavily encouraged along with the importance of founding cities early in the game. Great people, which are now generated in competition with other civilizations, can only be utilized on a district appropriate to their type (holy sites of great prophets, harbors for great admirals, etc.).
Luxuries and population growth have also received an overhaul. Now luxuries are referred to as amenities and each city has its own count of amenities that affect its populations mood. Luxury resources provide an amenity to every city in a civilization. Entertainment buildings and other factors now only affect the city they are constructed in, however cities no longer suffer penalties due to the number of cities the civilization owns. Also occupied cities do not cause the rest of a civilization to suffer unrest.
Housing is determined by the base capacity of a city and any buildings in that city that increase housing as well as other faction specific research and benefits. When a city exceeds it’s current housing limit population growth slows significantly regardless of the food the city produces. District production is also limited by housing as a city can only produce a certain number of districts for each level of population.
The social policies of Civ V have been heavily redesigned to resemble scientific development. Culture generated by cities contributes to research through a tree of available civic techs. When a civic tech is researched, new civic policies are made available. Civics are divided into military, economic, diplomatic, and great person categories and a civilization is limited to the type and number of each civic based on the government they currently have. Civic techs unlock new governments over the course of play with some governments emphasizing military or economics by by allowing more military or economic civics to be active. Civics can be swapped out anytime, and can be changed without penalty whenever a new civic tech is researched.
Culture and scientific research now benefit from a bonus system. Most civic and scientific techs have an optional bonus objective, like clearing a barbarian encampment or constructing a mine, that will decrease the research cost of the tech by half. These boosts can’t always be easily completed each game but savvy players can use them to jump ahead in certain areas as the game progresses.
Civ VI features the series’ first official religious victory option. Cities follow a religion if a majority of their citizens convert to it. The faith resource can be used to purchase missionaries, apostles, and inquisitors that spread the player’s religion or combat opposing religious pressure in friendly cities. The victory condition is fairly straightforward: simply convert a majority of cities on the map. Certain religious units can even engage in theological combat, which is functionally the same as combat between conventional units, but cannot be healed.
Diplomacy is all about exploiting in Civ VI. AI opponents now have one pre-programmed agenda and one randomly selected hidden agenda that dictates their attitude towards the player. They also receive a randomly generated hidden agenda that is only revealed to players with sufficiently advanced diplomatic relations. The agendas allow the players to engage more tactfully with the AI, however they also have the side-effect of making the AI very one-dimensional. AI civilizations will denounce the player if the player’s actions fail to satisfy their agenda within a few turns. Additionally, even when the AI has moved to this passive aggressive state they still initiate trades with the player giving their convictions a mechanical feel that destroys immersion.
Graphically Civ VI is very beautifully designed. A more cartoonish approach to details was taken but the colors are vivid and the units and buildings are animated and precisely detailed. The game also features optional daytime-nighttime transitions giving the effect of passing days although it does not have an effect on the actual speed of play. Even on lower graphics settings Civ VI is pleasant to look at and meeting the minimum requirements for play is sufficient to enjoy the game completely.
Civilization VI brings no shame to the Civilization series and re-introduces some of the concepts that Firaxis attempted in Civilization: Beyond Earth. Bugs are virtually non-existent and it’s release is overall very polished. Some elements could use refining, like the similarities of several civilization’s unique buildings and bonuses, but a good expansion can fix those easily. One notably pervasive change is the slower environment of play on standard speed. The early and mid-game are very well fleshed out so it doesn’t detract from the game, but players used to the active and hectic end-game of Civ V may be surprised at the crawling science victory requirements or slow build times for modern units.
Any 4x fan will enjoy Civ VI and even at its release price its a valid purchase for any casual strategy gamer. Online performance is very stable and playing with friends is one of the hallmarks of an enjoyable Civilization experience. Not everything veteran Civilization players enjoy may have made it into this latest release but there is still plenty of new and improved elements to warrant numerous playthroughs.
Shattered Union
I unfortunately deprived myself of the opportunity to get into the turn-based tactics genre of strategy games during their heyday in the ’80s and ’90s. Shattered Union, developed by PopTop Software and released by 2K games, was a relatively late arrival to the market upon its release in 2005 but was nevertheless my first foray into a game whose principle mechanics revolved around turn-based tactics.
Shattered Union takes place in a United States that has been divided into several region-based factions after political disunity and domestic terrorism disrupt the national government. Seven playable factions are presented (six U.S. factions plus European Union peacekeepers) and each has its own starting difficulties and opportunities. Players assemble a fighting force on the strategic map and choose territories to attack. Only one territory may be attacked per turn and all units committed to an attack cannot be used again until the following turn so it is generally advisable to keep units back for defense. Income is also received at the beginning of each turn and is based on the value of the territories controlled by the player. Units can be purchased, repaired, and sold any time during the player’s turn on the strategic map.
When a territory is attacked the game enters the turn-based tactical battle phase and this is easily the best and most developed part. Most of the U.S. ground arsenal is represented with the air force making a good showing but not fully filled out, likely due to redundancy issues, and there is no naval combat. Units are divided into categories to help the player easily identify their battlefield purposes; i.e. the player may not know what an LAV or Sheridan tank is for but their assignment into the Scout and Light Armor categories respectively puts their abilities into perspective. Each faction also gets a fictitious unique unit (a heavy armor unit for each faction except the Great Plains Federation which gets an artillery unit) with similar statistics but varying degrees of effectiveness versus specific unit types.
Tactical combat is divided into turns with the attackers always taking the first turn. Deployment zones are chosen at the start of the map with the attacker usually sequestered against one edge while the defender can deploy into the major cities around the map. Once units are deployed the battle begins and fog of war covers the map, even for the defender. Each unit has a specific movement range for negotiating the hex grid map with roads and pathways allowing more movement than forests and hills. Helicopters move and act in the same manner as ground forces but fighters and bombers are stored an in airfield structure and only move when issued a specific order (such as an air patrol or bombing run). Units can move until their movement points are used up but can only attack once per turn.
The story behind Shattered Union’s plot is simple and mostly implemented for continuity. Increased popular dissent across the United States coupled with the elimination of the presidential succession by a terrorist nuclear attack on Washington D.C. prompts the 48 contiguous states to either secede from the Union or simply conglomerate into regional alliances, forming the game’s principle U.S.-based factions. Very little dynamic is added for the E.U. faction and the Europeans are mechanically treated the same for gameplay.
The Political Reputation element adds some personality to faction AIs and player choices. The more landmarks and strategic buildings a faction destroys during a battle the more its reputation slides towards ‘evil’ (the red side of a green to red progress bar that can be viewed on the strategic map). Conversely making attempts to avoid collateral damage and preserve landmarks will slide a faction’s bar towards ‘good’. To facilitate this every unit in the player’s arsenal has a factor for collateral damage allowing the player to determine which units to use in urban combat versus open range combat.
The alignment of a faction’s political reputation affects some of its abilities, most importantly support powers and the number of partisan units that appear in tactical battles. Factions with good reputation will attract partisans in defensive battles and make use of support powers that repair units and buff defense. Evil reputation drives partisans toward a faction’s opponents but unlocks powerful offensive abilities that damage units en mass and lower unit defense. Story-wise, political reputation does not affect the progression of scripted events but does influence the narrative of the player’s ending; different cutscenes are shown at the end of the campaign based on if the player’s faction was primarily good, evil, or neutral.
With little storyline, most of the game’s single-player content revolves around the tactical battles. This element is by far the best developed and most important part of Shattered Union. Players assemble a pool of up to 42 units and deploy any number of them into offensive and defensive battles. Depictions (not to scale) of real landmarks, cities, even interstate highways make the map come alive as the factions battle over familiar locations. Rivers, bridges, and mountains all contribute to make the tactical experience engaging and challenging while bringing the in-game world to life.
Shattered Union’s multiplayer aspect is limited to the tactical battles in the form of a skirmish mode. Players determine beforehand the amount of funds used to purchase armies, then purchase units and engage in a tactical battle across one of the maps used in the Campaign. Power types and levels are chosen through the assignment of a political reputation level for each player during the setup. As turn-based game Shattered Union’s multiplayer quality demand is low and should perform adequately on lower internet speeds.
The game’s limited story, two-faction unit roster, and large but static campaign map can devolve into repeating situations and strategies. Since the bulk of the game’s enjoyable content is found in the tactical battles this is only a partial handicap to long term replay options. However aside from each faction’s unique unit most of the enjoyment comes from a player’s improvisation and willingness to explore new and even potentially handicapped strategies. Certain elements of the campaign, such as how many times a player can be attacked each turn, are constrained by difficulty level. Thus a greater challenge can be acquired by raising the campaign difficulty however the AI’s competency does not improve vs its ‘cheating’ tactics, such as ganging up on the player or knowing where the player’s units are even without scouting. This can lead from entertainment to frustration.
The Skirmish mode offers far more variety for tactical battles. Players can explore different unit combinations, play the Russian faction, and explore the full range of support powers in the good, evil, and neutral levels of political reputation. This is also a much faster and easier method of exploring the factions’ unique units.
Shattered Union is almost on the level of a tactical simulation game; most of its strategic and story elements are background for the tactical battles of the campaign. The campaign itself is enjoyable and worth playing at least once for the excitement of conquering the United States and fighting off the Russian invasion. However this game is appropriately termed a tactical strategy game; only in the tactical battles do the game’s design elements and enjoyment value come into their own. Shattered Union is dated by modern standards and even casual gamers will likely find it to be little more than a distraction good for a dozen or so hours of gameplay. However the game is cheap, easy to learn, and on modern machines has virtually no load time. Its genre is also a fairly rare perspective and focus for PC games and is worth the experience for that element alone.
Note: Shattered Union is available on Steam but has known loading errors for most recent operating systems. The Steam Community has very helpful guides and quick fixes which should allow Shattered Union to operate with little or no difficulty.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
When I first experienced Firaxis Games’ and 2K Games’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the original UFO: Enemy Unknown, developed by Mythos Games and MicroProse and marketed as X-COM: Enemy Unknown, had already existed for nearly a decade and established itself and the resulting series of X-COM games as favorites of the turn-based and tactical strategy genres. Within a few years the game had become a cult classic and would continue to be a major influence to tactical strategy, adventure, and turn based games for the next decade. Thus its fair to say that XCOM: Enemy Unknown, as a reboot to the original UFO: Enemy Unknown, has an impressive legacy to uphold.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown puts its players in the role of the Commander of the XCOM initiative, a secret organization formed by a council of select nations to combat a new and mysterious alien menace that has begun abducting people around the globe. Gameplay is divided into two parts; the player commands individual soldiers in turn based tactical combat as they go on missions to stop alien abductions, investigate crashed UFOs, and save civilians from terror attacks. The second part of the game involves managing and upgrading the XCOM Headquarters, an underground base that the player views via a cross section type display and features the barracks, research lab, engineering department, and other areas where the player’s soldiers and resources can be managed and upgraded.
Single player is the heart of the XCOM experience. The principle plot of XCOM: Enemy Unknown follows its predecessor: a previously unknown extraterrestrial enemy has started abducting citizens from cities around the globe. The XCOM Initiative is an attempt by most of the worlds advanced nations to combat this threat. It could be said that the base plot of the game is not highly original; however it’s in the execution of this plot throughout the game that the story becomes intriguing. The aliens are expertly portrayed as an advanced and unpredictable threat, with the player having no sure way to predict where they will strike next or in what form. As the months of in-game time pass new types of missions appear and new alien species are added to the enemy’s growing arsenal.
Following a famous trend set by earlier X-COM titles the player is ‘invited’ to become attached to soldiers in their squad. Each soldier the player recruits starts with a random appearance (which the player can customize), nationality, and gender. As these soldiers advance in rank they gain a specialized class which defines the abilities the player can use to upgrade their combat performance. The soldiers can even be renamed, allowing the player to follow in the X-COM tradition of naming and designing soldiers to resemble friends and acquaintances.
There are few characters with actual identities and they play a supporting role for the player (none of them appear in combat missions). They advise the player on new developments, serve as voice assistants, and provide a conduit for the advancement of the single player story line before and after each scripted mission. The missions, aside from a few scripted missions that serve as boss encounters to advance the main objective, are also randomly generated based on what type of mission is currently in progress. The terrain is chosen from a series of pre-built levels and enemies are seeded on the map (although as the game progresses higher level enemies become more frequent).
XCOM is at its heart a single player game. It’s multiplayer aspect consists of matches similar in design to single player missions in which players are pitted against each other after selecting a team of XCOM soldiers, alien troops, or a mixture of both based on a purchasing system that is set by the match host. Combat in XCOM is turn-based, an element that is far more forgiving on lower bandwidth connections. Sadly no multiplayer aspect exists for the campaign mode with no possibilities for such an improvement in the foreseeable future.
XCOM’s lack of a heavily plot-driven campaign makes replayability a far more entertaining aspect of the single player mode. The many randomly generated aspects of the game ensure a wide degree of fresh experiences; the player can select additional features for single player to add random effects for their soldiers and special missions or increase the difficulty. The end game remains the same but the bulk of the game remains unpredictable and, depending on the player’s preferences, quite challenging.
The release of a dedicated expansion, XCOM: Enemy Within, increases replay options substantially. New sub-plot missions and enemies are added as well as additional upgrades and features for XCOM soldiers, including a new class of soldier, the powerful Mec Trooper, through the appearance of a new type of collectible resource called Meld, which the player must gather from the enemy during missions. Once again the endgame remains the same, which depending on the difficulty selected can feel a bit anti-climatic but overall has little negative effect on the experience.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown has many aspects which old fans of the series will recognize and enjoy. New players may find the wealth of different aspects overwhelming at first, but the game features a tutorial integrated into the campaign and very forgiving game play on lower difficulty levels. Also a single failed mission does not spell defeat for the player and a degree of sacrifice is to be expected throughout the campaign. Once familiar with the game’s aspects turn-based tactics fans of all skill levels should enjoy this remake of a venerable, time-tested series.