Jestine Winburn

Lots of turn-based games feature loads of weapons. A new one, RAM Pressure, features over 100 different weapons to fight aliens with. After a few add-ons or other mods, managing new weapons in the XCOM loadout screens got to be maddening at a certain point, particularly if using Musashi’s RPG Overhaul. So, the man himself took to the keyboard once again to bring players the Tactical Armory UI m Story-wise, we found the strings that weaved the plot together were a little far-fetched, but then again the series was never based on a completely believable storyline. As is always the case in an XCOM title, humanity is forced to adopt alien technology and use it against the occupying force, eventually leading to a one-chance strike that can bring the aliens to their kn Thankfully, Musashi fixed this for replayers with the Still Stop Wasting My Time Mod — updated for the War of the Chosen mod, hence the "Still" — which speeds up all the various animations that slow down the flow of gameplay. Never again will players suffer through the tedious 80-minute holo targeting animation. A nice bonus is that this mod seems to be almost universal, with no major confli XCOM 2 is based twenty years after the reboot, long after the world has seceded control to the alien menace. Despite what players may have done in the original game, the in-canon story is that XCOM lost the fight after losing council support in 2015, and has been relegated to a resistance force operating with guerrilla tactics ever since. This means players will face many timed operations and will find themselves orchestrating ambushes, rather than coming in to combat zones guns blazing. Unlike the last game, players won't have to worry about repetitive maps either, thanks to the title's new procedural generation syst While XCOM 2: War of the Chosen does a great job shaking up the game from top to bottom, it isn't without cost: the Shen's Gift DLC mission is sacrificed by default to rebalance the game, being replaced with a simple research task. While player's can re-enable this in the options menu, we wish there was a way Firaxis could have kept the original content in balanced fashion. We also ran into a few minor glitches as late-game content progressed, so we recommend those trying ironman playthroughs perhaps consider a regular playthrough for now to avoid any potential post-launch err From one remake to another, fans of the Crash Bandicoot franchise were overjoyed when it was announced that their favorite marsupial would be returning with a modernized version of the original PlayStation 1 trilogy. The game didn't disappoint and it sparked a resurgence for the series that has seen the release of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Ti In short, it's a system that finally forces players to shuffle their rosters as the game progresses, and a clever solution to those who send the same soldiers into battle again and again. The challenges of maintaining a healthy roster of skilled soldiers adds plenty of surprising depth to the XCOM experie In the end, the version of XCOM 2 available on either the Xbox One or PS4 is still, unavoidably, the second best crafted by the development team. The good news is that players who prefer their couch to their desktop won't be missing out on the quality of the experience, even if the level of polish takes a hit. And with every aspect of XCOM 2 contributing to the kinds of investment, tension, and stakes usually relying on players hunched over keyboards, glued to their monitors... well, being a couch potato may have never been a more stressful experie A sign of a good cover is if someone who has no idea about the product can guess what genre it's in and what it's going to be about. It doesn't take a gaming expert to look at Halo 4 's cover and know instantly that not only is Master Chief the hero but that the game is going to consist of him at war with the odds stacked solidly against him, exemplified by him kneeling beneath the crumbling world ab Musashi is probably the most prolific XCOM modder around. The most significant mod he has ever made would have to be the RPG Overhaul mod suite . It is a hefty, huge change in the game, altering almost every aspect at least a little bit. It could be an amazing squad-based strategy game all on its Regardless of how victorious players were in XCOM: Enemy Unknown , Firaxis Games continued down a canon storyline with XCOM 2 that assumed players had ultimately lost the fight against the technologically superior alien invaders. This more or less sets the tone for the new War of the Chosen expansion: there are some fights you just can't win, and the impressively deep expansion pack for XCOM 2 piles on the signature pain that SLG Strategy Guide fans have come to embrace in almost masochistic fash Players once again resume the roll of The Commander, who has been kept on ice by aliens for the last twenty years. Recovered after a desperate gamble by the sweater-loving Bradford, the linear plot then guides players to a climactic and intense final mission, with random events occurring all across the board as players race to beat the clock against a mysterious alien proj