Blogs
on December 15, 2025
As the final battle cutscene came to a close, the Commander is pulled from his Avatar by those aboard the Avenger, and it's quite possible that the remaining ethereals utilized their psionic power on the Avatar's body to not only cling to life, but find a way to rebuild and bring the fight to XCOM in the coming years. Truthfully, in the closing seconds of the game XCOM gave the ethereals exactly what they were seeking: a powerful avatar to host their bodies. It's entirely possible this gaff by Bradford and his crew may cost countless human lives in the near fut
Fans have been clamoring for Persona 5 to come on the Switch for the longest time. While Persona 5 Strikers might not be the exact game they were hoping for, it's still a brilliant title that combines the mechanics of Dynasty Warriors with Persona 5 's combat for some truly brilliant
The Heavy Class can dish out a ton of damage to several enemies in a cluster because of the number of explosives the Heavy class can take. When they hit colonel, they could have access to five explosives in one mission, which is two more than the Grenad
The Spark class suffers because they cost way too much compared to human soldiers. Resources used for Sparks can be better put into other, more important projects. The game is also designed in a way that makes tanks unnecessary. Most classes can take some punishment, and even get abilities that negate damage in late g
XCOM 2 is not a game for those who think about what’s going on in a single instance. Everyone will need to think three turns ahead in every aspect of the campaign, and even then, it’s mostly about luck, creating an incredibly random experience in the process. Even from the beginning, players believing they’ll be able to keep everyone alive will run into a harsh reality check, whether they’re on the easiest or hardest difficulty settings. It’s not primarily the combat that can be difficult though, it’s the world management that can be a bit stressful. Similar to Enemy Unknown, there’s a time component to XCOM 2, ensuring you don’t take your sweet time to level up characters and accept every side mission that becomes available. There will be crucial choices to be made, but instead of ruining reputations based on countries and risking resources, these are classified as larger reaching outcomes to alien progression in the world. There’s so many systems at play that anyone could easily see themselves overwhelmed, and it doesn’t help that there’s an unfortunate lack of explanation on the various mechanics.
While the Dragon Quest series had long since established itself as a great JRPG series in its own right, one has to admit that the series hadn't really taken off in the west. Dragon Quest VIII was perhaps the last game in the series that had witnessed some level of success in the West, with the fanfare of later entries being rather muted in compari
The Templar is amazing at cutting down units and even gets AOE attacks later on down the line. If a Templar gets access to some of the Ranger abilities like Reaper and Bladestorm, it increases the Templar's combat ability exponentia
A great, well, support class. Smoke grenades and extra medkit uses help the Support Class keep the other soldiers in their squad alive for longer. They get a lot of great utility to buff allies and debuff enem
Fans in 2012 were anxious to get their hands on another XCOM game after so many years absent. Coming from the creators of the Sid Meier's series, players were cautious in their anticipation, as while the developer is known for creating strong strategy elements, XCOM was a whole other ball game when it came to combat. Involving complex world building elements and critical decisions through the campaign, Enemy Unknown and its follow-up expansion, Enemy Within, became arguably the best installments in the long running franchise. It featured incredibly hardcore elements with the concern that even the simplest mission could end with a couple of your most invested and powerful comrades coming back in body bags. There was nothing like it on the market, SLG Advanced Strategies and because of this, Firaxis was far from ready to hang the series up and has been working on a new and greatly improved sequel that will undoubtedly make fans joyous. While it seems XCOM 2 improves upon its predecessor, there are some shortcomings to its execution.
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 more 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.