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on December 15, 2025
Unfortunately, the biggest and most heartbreaking problem with XCOM 2 is from the technical side of things. For one, after almost every turn concludes and there are aliens on screen, the game will stall for upwards of a minute until finally giving you back control of the squad of characters. It could very well be unidentified aliens moving around in the background, but considering you don’t know how many there are, it will test your patience to an unfortunate degree. This combined with load times that hang for far longer than they should create an experience that will artificially extend your playtime clock. This isn’t even the worst part, though as we also ran into various crashes, enemies being able to shoot through geometry they shouldn’t be able to, out of the ordinary performance issues and some of the visuals going haywire. The controls can also be a little clunky at times when trying to select an enemy to fire at, although it’s far from the worst problem here.
What We Said: "Like previous games offered by From Software, Dark Souls 3 offers a unique experience that blends subtle storytelling, dark settings, and painfully difficult encounters to stand out from the crowd of other action games. The challenge is well worth the countless deaths and hours of practice for players who have the patience, but is likely one that should be skipped by gamers who prefer to get things right on the first tr
Why You Should Play It: Heading into its launch, DOOM didn’t have much buzz around it. Then, the game hit and took almost everyone by surprise. For all intents and purposes DOOM is the modern update that many games seek to deliver, with fast pacing, tight gunplay, and intense enemy encounters. This is DOOM for the 21st century and a whole new breed of FPS experience. Strap in and play DOOM , you won’t regret
We really wanted XCOM 2 to be something amazing, but unfortunately it falls short. From highly customizable characters to deep and meaningful combat that has been improved over its predecessor, there’s a lot here to like, at least on paper. Unfortunately, this is only when it all comes together properly. We ran into far too many technical issues to count that taints the experience and puts even Read More Here frustration on an already stressful campaign. If the game wasn’t so demanding in its design, then a lot of these issues wouldn’t be a huge concern, but that would require cutting out what makes XCOM so appealing in the first place. Unless you plan on save scumming your way through the campaign, the outcome will ultimately end poorly. XCOM 2 truly has the makings of a great game, but it’s hidden in the bloated technical issues that drag it down.
The core XCOM 2 gameplay, at least for those who have played Enemy Unknown, remains mostly intact. This is still a third person, isometric strategy shooter that focuses on dice rolls each turn to determine the outcome of battle. There are times when things will go in the player’s favor, and then there are times when it goes the complete opposite direction. This can be a random experience, and most of the time it becomes very stressful. Unless you save scum all the way through the campaign, the chances of surviving every battle with no casualties is highly unlikely. That problem derives mainly from some occasional confusing hit percentages and reactions. There’s nothing like seeing a soldier stand two feet in front of an enemy with a gatling gun and shoot through the unfazed alien with a big failure text pop up taunting you. At the very least there should be more animations showing the opponents dodging your bullets, not just standing there clueless.
One feature that could have been great for Firaxis to implement is stealth. At the beginning of most missions, your team is concealed and unknown, so getting the drop on at least one enemy is fairly easy to accomplish. Unfortunately, there’s no way to actually keep concealment once an attack lands, so going back into the darkness to get the jump on another group of aliens is absent. As mentioned before, there are some characters such as the Ranger who has a skill that allows her to not be revealed when things go off, but after everyone in the vicinity is cleared and you progress further, enemies will instantly become aware of your position as they patrol their routine programming like nothing is going on. This is more of a half of a step rather than a full step in the right direction, something that could have benefited the core gameplay enormously. All-out war with your new alien overlords is fun, but a stealth component could have allowed for even more combat variance other than exchanging gunfire and hoping your shot hits every round.
However, Firaxis planned for the game to be much easier during most of XCOM 2's development. The game's implementation of stealth and a wide range of group-clearing skills had made the game too easy. This resulted in Firaxis rebalancing the game rather late in development to give it the same sense of challenge as the original. Even with the mixed reception of mission timers, most agree that this change was for the bet
What We Said: "Like previous games offered by From Software, Dark Souls 3 offers a unique experience that blends subtle storytelling, dark settings, and painfully difficult encounters to stand out from the crowd of other action games. The challenge is well worth the countless deaths and hours of practice for players who have the patience, but is likely one that should be skipped by gamers who prefer to get things right on the first tr
Why You Should Play It: Heading into its launch, DOOM didn’t have much buzz around it. Then, the game hit and took almost everyone by surprise. For all intents and purposes DOOM is the modern update that many games seek to deliver, with fast pacing, tight gunplay, and intense enemy encounters. This is DOOM for the 21st century and a whole new breed of FPS experience. Strap in and play DOOM , you won’t regret
We really wanted XCOM 2 to be something amazing, but unfortunately it falls short. From highly customizable characters to deep and meaningful combat that has been improved over its predecessor, there’s a lot here to like, at least on paper. Unfortunately, this is only when it all comes together properly. We ran into far too many technical issues to count that taints the experience and puts even Read More Here frustration on an already stressful campaign. If the game wasn’t so demanding in its design, then a lot of these issues wouldn’t be a huge concern, but that would require cutting out what makes XCOM so appealing in the first place. Unless you plan on save scumming your way through the campaign, the outcome will ultimately end poorly. XCOM 2 truly has the makings of a great game, but it’s hidden in the bloated technical issues that drag it down.
The core XCOM 2 gameplay, at least for those who have played Enemy Unknown, remains mostly intact. This is still a third person, isometric strategy shooter that focuses on dice rolls each turn to determine the outcome of battle. There are times when things will go in the player’s favor, and then there are times when it goes the complete opposite direction. This can be a random experience, and most of the time it becomes very stressful. Unless you save scum all the way through the campaign, the chances of surviving every battle with no casualties is highly unlikely. That problem derives mainly from some occasional confusing hit percentages and reactions. There’s nothing like seeing a soldier stand two feet in front of an enemy with a gatling gun and shoot through the unfazed alien with a big failure text pop up taunting you. At the very least there should be more animations showing the opponents dodging your bullets, not just standing there clueless.
One feature that could have been great for Firaxis to implement is stealth. At the beginning of most missions, your team is concealed and unknown, so getting the drop on at least one enemy is fairly easy to accomplish. Unfortunately, there’s no way to actually keep concealment once an attack lands, so going back into the darkness to get the jump on another group of aliens is absent. As mentioned before, there are some characters such as the Ranger who has a skill that allows her to not be revealed when things go off, but after everyone in the vicinity is cleared and you progress further, enemies will instantly become aware of your position as they patrol their routine programming like nothing is going on. This is more of a half of a step rather than a full step in the right direction, something that could have benefited the core gameplay enormously. All-out war with your new alien overlords is fun, but a stealth component could have allowed for even more combat variance other than exchanging gunfire and hoping your shot hits every round.
However, Firaxis planned for the game to be much easier during most of XCOM 2's development. The game's implementation of stealth and a wide range of group-clearing skills had made the game too easy. This resulted in Firaxis rebalancing the game rather late in development to give it the same sense of challenge as the original. Even with the mixed reception of mission timers, most agree that this change was for the bet
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