Here's a confession. I have only played X-Com (UFO: Enemy Unknown), and Terror From the Deep. I've had the reboot of XCOM and XCOM2 in my Steam backlog for years but I have never gotten around to them.

UFO was very difficult. TFTD was too bloody hard. And this may have to do why I just had the reboots sitting inactive in my steam list. So, what better way to look at snake tits the new game that appeared almost out of nowhere on my radar than to pick it up as a birthday gift to myself. Happy 38th to Ois.

Set post XCOM2, City 31 (not to be confused with City 17) is home to Humans, Hybrids, and Aliens. An uneasy peace as they try to coexist together now that the Elders are gone.

And this is the point where angry internet youtuber dude bro sees the promo where a woman is in charge, there are people with non white skin, someone has an Australian accent, and the Latin phrase "Diversis Viribus" (ENG: Different Forces) is used in the branding of the faction you play as, and they totally freak out. I mean, HOW DARE THEY! HOW BLOODY DARE THEY! You're meant to show off how big and swinging your cock is as you sit in your gamer chair and shoot aliens like a MAN! None of this feeeeemaleees and Bogans working with Sectoid bullshit!

And having played the game. Tell them to fuck off and go out and see how reality works day to day. Sure, there's no Mutons running about in shorts, unless you visit certain areas of Elizabeth in Adelaide. But it is totally misunderstanding how the team operates, and the ideology of the factions you fight against.

What we have here is a small experimental spin off title set in the same universe, focusing a little more on character development. Not the sprawling 1000 hour replay of previous titles where your troops shoot the Mooks.

But I will admit some of these Mutons have too derpy a face for how terrifying they should really be.

Chimera Squad! A special division created by Jane Kelly, yes that Jane Kelly, for when the local police can't deal with a situation. Three different factions lead to clues about an organisation dubbed ATLAS, and you investigate each three to find out what ATLAS is up to.

BREACH! BREACH! BREACH!

The new mechanic of the game is Breach Mode. Each mission* is between 1 and 3 different encounters. Instead of sending troops right into the field, you start each encounter at a set of doors, windows, vents, skylights, and conveniently placed walls.

You select an order, splitting the party if desired or required, and breach your way in. While thankfully not wubwubwub slowmode, the camera and game do slow down and show close up shots as everyone has a free targeting move before the main encounter begins.

Do you take out all aggressive enemies that also get a free action? Do you take out the more numerous ones, suffering the hit but making the battle easier? Do you do a combination, taking out a few minor troops with the majority of your team of four, but leaving one character to perform a special move?

You're given a little bit of a hint at the start of the mission by the NPC Whisper on what you will face and how many encounters there are, but for the most part it is a mystery in what is on the other side. Forcing you to quickly reconsider how you are going to deal with the mess you have gotten yourself into. Apparently this is a terrible thing and I've seen many complaints from people unable to deal with the unexpected in the year 2020.

Did you notice that * at the start of the paragraph? Yes, I'm aware I'm using "Mission" loosely. In fact, there are three different types available off of the game map.

• Gold Missions: Story related levels, you tend to have a choice when they appear
• Purple Missions: The main campaign levels, has cut scenes.
• ANARCHY!: You done goofed mate, here's a hard encounter you need to deal with that has no rewards other than building your player skill.
• Situations: A non game turn, gets you free stuff.

I'll comment on 'Situations' before the next image break.

They're kinda naff.

There's no risk to their rewards, aside from city or district anarchy possibly rising a little. And through my Normal and Expert game runs, this was never an issue of getting too bad. What are they even in here for? It may as well be randomised with how little they give you, and sometimes they are the only option for the day.

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If you've played XCOM or any game like it before, you'll also be aware of the R&D part of the game. Setting a character aside to manage the development of new weapons, mods, tools, armour. Which you then have to purchase because something something budgets something. Thankfully for weapons you buy the unlock and everyone is upgraded, though if you are careful and lucky you can get special drops early on and not have too big a need.

Party members can also be upgraded. Everyone can get additional HP and mobility, so be sure to train them when not in fighting rotation, every little point helps.

The community station allows you to earn bonus resources by interacting with the community. Yes, your big scary alien face can raise some cash, or help to calm tensions. Unless you like Anarchy Missions, you can keep one action continually running a 5-day cooldown to calm the city districts.

Is there more? Yes. But they're quickly self evident on what they do.

One of the misguided criticisms I see is that the maps are tiny. And that the turns are... turn based or interleaved. And that the base does not have as many things in it. And that it is set in a single city. And that you deal with preset characters. And that this is not DLC for XCOM2 and I can't understand at all why this title is different. halp! halp! something different! the forces are all different! and ahhh! Now you've corrupted me!

But I like it. It is great to play small little chunks of the game between getting home and cooking dinner.

The strategy, aside from dealing with the results of a breach, all comes down to the 11 possible characters you play with. Each character having special skills you can slowly upgrade over time and finding new combos to play them off each other. I do think it is sad that so many people jump right to the walkthrough or optimised build posts instead of doing what the game wants you to do. Play around with the team, discuss how you dealt with missions, but don't just go with 'the ultimate party' as you'll likely get bored pretty fast.

Angry that it is going to take a few in-game days to heal a part member? Bring in a new combination and try them out, you may be surprised at the possibilities that you can work with.

I was tempted to list a few ways of playing, but it will come down to the encounter objective and who you have. Sometimes you make a stand, sometimes you run, sometimes you see how much you can exploit the stupid AI. But don't stand in the open and allow the enemy to hit you. The small map means you can quickly determine possibilities and adapt as it changes on you.

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Graphically, I saw lots of complaints this looks like a mobile game. And I wonder what mobile games people have been playing. The same insult "it looks like a playstation game, a playstation 1 game", is being lobbied about. I can only assume by those damn kids who were not born in the 90s and need to get off my lawn.

Graphically it is fine, looks great and runs quiet and smooth...

Mostly. It is not free of the occasional glitch. Ragdoll physics deciding to have a dance party on a fence, windows sometimes not smashing, (now fixed) floating objects. Everything else is totally competent. Great even! Remember this is a $10 release budget title (though in typical 2K anti-Australian fashion, it is now on sale for $30 AUD). Not a big 10s/100s million blockbuster title. What exactly did you want or expect?

Audio wise... Nothing standout ish. Weapons have a good hiss, click, and pump to them. The soundtrack keeps the mood while being out of the way. I actually liked the voice acting, even the "Hi! I'm a Human!" voices of the aliens. Sometimes the windows make a smashed sound after they have been smashed like some terrible ADR. Perfectly servicable, though nothing to rush out and buy the OST for.

Controls never game me much in the way of issues. Keyboard and mouse controls did what keyboard and mouse controls need to do. I would of liked a more free-roaming camera, instead we have 3ish zoom levels and preset above and behind 45'ish angles at 90' rotation steps. There are parts when you are locked from the camera as it is running some action somewhere on the map that you would like to see.

I do think some font-scaling for NPC dialogue would be nice. At time of writing there's no option for it. At 1920x1200 it can look a little bit squashed and small.

This is a fine game. And I had a lot of fun with it. The linked twitter as-I-play feedback below will show on thoughts as I played.

For an XCOM game, the difficulty curve is unusual. It started reasonable, then proceeded to get really hard really quickly, before I gaining enough in game loot to stop over everything in my path. I later found out I did the 'hard' faction first. Sacred Coil can totally mess you up if you get bad enemy placement RNG and have yet to unlock some of cooler gear.

If you are after a lighter management tactics game set in the XCOM setting, it is worth a look at $20 or your 2K equivalent. And acts as the preview for what XCOM3 may end up being.

Unless they reboot the timeline again or say we lost the XCOM2 war too.

Game Acquisition: At Release
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 25 April 2020
PC Used: Scorptec Master-RTX2070 2019 MK1

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 7, 64-bit
Processor: 2.4 GHz Quad Core
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: 1GB AMD Radeon HD 7770, NVIDIA GeForce 650 or better
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 18 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
Additional Notes: Microsoft Visual C++ 2012 and 2015 Runtime Libraries, and Microsoft DirectX.