X-Com 2, Midnight Suns & Jagged Alliance 3
 

X-Com 2 has been delayed to Feb 2016 but that's okay with me (e.g. have to finish Pillars and Fallout 4 is coming).

Looking forward to a great game that is can be modded and has more variability.

See below for latest video. It looks great.

Official XCOM 2 “Welcome to the Avenger” Gameplay - YouTube


Meet the team from the recently-delayed XCOM 2 - The Wargamer | PC, PS3, Xbox 360 & Blu-ray walkthroughs & reviews

I think green man gaming has a 25% off on preorders still. Good for a steam voucher.

Thanks for the heads up.

Reviews are generally very high. Current Metacritic score is a 91 on nearly 30 reviews. Thought this review was pretty good.

XCOM 2 Review | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Total Biscuit loves it:

► WTF Is... - XCOM 2 ? - YouTube

Looks freaking amazing. I'm excited and I can't wait to see what they do with the expansions. I hope they have another enemy within up their sleeves.

I can't wait.

I just burned out on XCom: Long War a couple of months ago (after a good 270 hours worth) and nothing has quite filled that void since.

So that means, what, it runs at a frame rate so high that only dogs can see it?
:D

(I kid, I kid, love TB ... I just don't share his obsession about frame rate ;) )

He does seem anal about some things doesn't he?

Video on character pools.

Preloads have started too. Its supposed to unlock at 12:01 tomorrow morning so I'll be able to fire it up when I get home from work tonight.

I sure hope the delay will mean there isn't any teleport bug or strangeness with line of site/ flanking. Those were a real pain in the original.

LOCKED AND PRELOADED.

Here we go!

Bought from Green Man Gaming. They sent 2 codes, 1 seems to activate on Steam just fine and I am preloading. The other code causes Steam to go unresponsive and crash, no clue what it's for. Weird.

Weird, I bought from them as well but didn't have any issues redeeming both codes. Hopefully it fixes itself.

1 code is for the base game, what is the other one for? I'll try on another PC.

The other code is for future DLC and expansions.

I didn't buy a season pass. Looks like it's this:

Pre Purchase Now and Receive:

RESISTANCE WARRIOR PACK
Customize your squad of resistance fighters with bonus outfits, headgear, and custom facial war paint. Instantly unlock a survivor of the old war as a recruit in your barracks.

My big question are simply - "Does the line of sight work correctly?" and "Do enemy aliens still spawn ala Doom 1 or is strategy actually possible this time?"

I'll be playing this tonight shortly after midnight on twitch, if folks want to hang out.

Just got home my key finally arrived from Funstock. Preloading and then going to try to unlock with my VPN.

Woooo, it's unlocked and ready to go! Time to have my entire crew slaughtered in record time.

Managed to only lose 2 squadies on my first mission.

:(

What's your Twitch channel?

I traded in a game and had a reward certificate.. so for $18 I'll have xcom 2 here next Monday.. which is good because I need to finish up EW.

I want to read some impressions!!!

All this XCom 2 talk got me wanting to get back into XCom. Fired up a save I hadn't played in a while and damn, lost my most veteran leader in a very difficult crash landing mission. :( His service will not be forgotten. :)

I really like the ranger class so far. Through two missions most of my kills have come from my ranger running around stabbing everyone.

Cripes. Huge download. Thank God for Google Fiber.

Downloading now. About 8 hrs!

Can't wait for it to unlock, but I have to work tomorrow, so I won't play too much tonight.

We are live.. hopefully the game will be unpacked shortly and you'll get to see the gameplay!

Twitch

Is the game taking a very long time to do the final updates and start for anyone else? I started late (due to playing Grim Dawn) but I've been waiting for 15 minutes for it to start. Going to have to go to bed before it even finishes if it doesn't start moving quicker...

The decrypting of the preload always takes a while. It's best to put it on an SSD if you can even if you move the install to a HDD later.

Thanks for the info. Maybe, I will get a bit of time in before work tomorrow. Going to leave this running and go to sleep for now.

First thoughts on #XCOM2 .. There's so little to do and so much time.. wait, completely the opposite. COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY THE OPPOSITE.

https://www.an8bitmind.com/index.php...s-into-xcom-2/

Oh.. and Fuck Codex.

Fuck it up the ass with a diamond tipped chainsaw across seven dimensions.

I'd go into details about why I want such a thing, but you know, spoilers :)

Just finished my first mission after the intro. It went well for the first half and then reinforcements came and got wiped out (good thing I saved midway).

I'm pretty sure it'll get better as the story line progresses and I see more variety of aliens, skills, weapons etc. ... but right now its the same old game which is not necessarily bad.

It feels like the first one was just a beta for this one. Core concepts are very similar, but it's tremendously more polished with a lot more "stuff" and variety. I don't think I'd want wholesale changes.

People are complaining there are too many turn limited missions?

Only played a few missions so far, not sure if it continues until end of game, but they definitely want you to feel like the invading team making surgical strikes. Get in, complete mission, get out. Turn limit creates that feeling, you are not an occupying force defending.

I like the turn limited missions. They work well in forcing you to vary the tactics you use and like jeff said they work great for giving the thematic feel of playing a small resistance strike force that needs to get in, get the job done, and get out quickly.

Yeah.. I don't mind that premise. Still finishing up EW and will go onto XC2 next week.

Man, this game is brutal. I'm losing 1 or 2 guys most missions, and my latest mission I had my last surviving soldier with the mission objective sprinting halfway across the map to the evac point with 1 bar of health and 4 remaining aliens firing away at her.

I get a weird amount of lag in the cut scenes that blend into the actual gameplay, as well as the transition scenes back at HQ. Anyone else seeing this? First time I've had any lag at all with a game on this PC.

the weapons and armor upgrades are well worth the long research times. With mag weaps and plated armor, even rookies now stand a chance against the overwhelming odds thrown at you.

I like the timed missions. No longer do I get the feeling that I am just tanking and turtling my way through missions. You are actually now encouraged to engage the aliens into exciting firefights.

And yes, losing 1 or 2 soldiers per mission now. The Memorial wall is filling up fast, and each death reminds you that you are fighting a superior force.

Loving it.

edit:

Also, during a VIP rescue mission, I was able to get the VIP to the EVAC zone in time, but lost all four of my troops due to the timer running out. I got the mission win, but lost all my troops. Interestingly, it said "Captured" on all four troops during the mission end screen. Several missions later, one of the missions I took ended up being a rescue mission for one of those soliders! I was able to EVAC everyone out, and tadaaaa my Ranger Seargeant is back in business!

There's mods available in the workshop on Steam to up the time limit or even remove them

I'm getting worked over. I knew I was in for a bit of a change when I failed the 2nd mission twice (the one where you get the core to power the avenger). I've done pretty well since then, although I've had to leave a couple of people behind and am probably going to get avatared here soon before getting that far into the game. It's a workout just on veteran, I can't imagine those of you who are succeeding on legend.

Just completed my first mission where I didn't bother slaughtering the aliens but made a mad dash to complete the mission (a VIP extraction). Their reinforcements landed, but I sprinted for the extraction zone and got everyone out without a single injury and only a couple of shots fired to cover my flank.

Wow, is that a fantastic new addition. Thrilling to have to choose between a dogfight or a sprint and seeing if you chose right.

Also very happy to see there are multiple paths to victory. I actually dodged most of the firefights in this one by going up and over the rooftops of the building and breaking in the back door, instead of weaving my way through the alien-infested streets. That doesn't work every time (I tried it in another mission and got ambushed by aliens on my flank that I didn't bother wiping out), but having the choices and the complexities of alien pods that patrol instead of staying put is awesome.

And the character pool? Oh, yeah. Oh, heck yeah.