XCOM 2 is the fantastic follow-up to the reboot of the franchise of the same name where you play a covert militaristic group trying to save the world from aliens by sending soldiers on missions, managing your resources and attempting to accomplish certain objectives under a time pressure in order to avoid a wide range of dire consequences. I had a great time playing it on the easiest difficulty with a large dose of save scumming, but regardless of if that’s the way XCOM should be played, it’s just a good time.
It’s a good time because the central concept of the story is intriguing, racing against time to prevent aliens that have infiltrated society from completing the mysterious Avatar project, flying across the world to participate in missions, gather resources and information, upgrade your ship by excavating, building and upgrading new facilities that give tangible gameplay bonuses and the game throws you multiple curveballs, from special events that you have to counter or suffer penalties to bonuses being peppered across the globe. I had a small issue with the various currencies of the game (intel, supplies, specific resources) being kind of hard to differentiate and track, but it wasn’t too bad.
The combat itself is really fun, you have a lot of choices in what to do thanks to the class variety and the upgrades you can put on your characters. A sniper with a grappling hook, a heavy gunner full of armor, a swordsman that can act multiple times per turn, the list of archetypes you can tinker around is pretty extensive. You can upgrade your weapons with various attachments and customize your characters to create your dream team. Of course, when people end up being injured, they can’t participate in a few battles, so you still need a large roster, but on easy I didn’t have many issues. I had to reload many turns because my characters would just walk somewhere because mis-clicking is extremely easy but otherwise combat is challenging, fun and rewarding.
All and all, XCOM 2 is good! I’m a bit late to the party with this one, so you might not be surprised to hear about that, but if you enjoy strategy games, I’d recommend it wholeheartedly!
