XCOM: Enemy Within (DLC)

[Binnatics]

Nice avatar :) :-X

[Art Blade]

thanks :-D

It's the icon for killed aliens you get to see on the scoreboard at the end of a mission. You can check the 2nd screenie in the 3rd post of this topic.

[Binnatics]

 8) I first thought it was an achievement, for something like "sniper accuracy during alien invasion" and I checked you achievements to see if it was listed to be able to make a smart commentary there :-D

[Art Blade]

:)

Now from level 1 (MEC-1 WARDEN) over level 2 (MEC-2 SENTINEL) the armour or metal body is fully upgraded to level 3, a so-called MEC-3 PALADIN. Getting there cost nearly all the Meld I had collected, 200 Meld. Also, a new railgun which doesn't quite fit into the pic any more, a proximity mine launcher as well as a grenade launcher is part of her outfit. Oh, and the close quarters combat steam hammer fist, the Kinetic Strike Module, is now upgraded, too. I just had to change her nickname to "Tank Girl" :-D

[smg id=6675 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW MEC trooper 02"]

Here a comparison. My unit when I started (well, after the first mission) in March 2015 in-game time
[smg id=6676 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW crew pic 01"]
And here what it looks like now, mid June 2015 (in-game time)
Hats are only for those who never missed out on any of so far 21 missions :-()
[smg id=6677 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW crew pic 02"]

[Binnatics]

I wouldn't let that girl get 'on top' :-()

Nice crew you got there, and they all, except one, wear hats ??? :-X ^-^

[Art Blade]

??? :-D @ on top -- you'd first peel her out of that MEC, I suggest. You don't eat canned tuna including the can, either, do you  :-D Then again, maybe Dr. Shen had something entirely different on his mind when uttering that statement..  :-()
[smg id=6659 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW MEC conversion 04"]

Oh and by "hats" I should clarify, "fedoras" because those three members of my unit have been on every mission. The beanie of the sniper and the futuristic helmet of the MEC trooper is just not a hat :-() You can compare the last names in the two pics, by the way, to see who was there at the start, already. The sniper makes an exception: she couldn't be on all regular missions. I had sent her on a covert operation for six days against EXALT when the rest of the unit had to engage aliens without her and she was off active duty for three days while getting her gene mod, and, of course, another mission hit the rest of the unit just then. And one more mission she couldn't participate in for whatever reasons. Might as well have been while she was still on that covert mission.

In the meantime, I trained another sniper and had her gene modded with a mimetic skin that turns her invisible if at the beginning of her move no enemy sees her starting and if she ends her move in full cover. She'll stay invisible if she keeps moving like that and as long as she doesn't fire her weapon. I finished an entire mission (extracting her) without her ever becoming visible  :)

[smg id=6678 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW covert op extraction 09"]

[Art Blade]

I just had an interesting mission -- check the pic in the previous post, Squaddie Maria De Graf with 3 Missions and 2 Kills.

Now, I had her on another covert operation and finished it by having her rush into the extraction zone without any kills. She got a promotion to Corporal. It occurred to me that I might have squandered an opportunity for her to get a cheap kill because all my guys were in the end zone (see pic below, in the background, hehe) and rather than moving her to the extraction marker I might as well sit one turn out and see what happens. She could just run again or.. get a kill. I reloaded a savegame and indeed, two more EXALT guys popped up and.. she got her kill  :-() And by that, a "regular" promotion.  :) And on top of that, another promotion for the covert mission. It's the first time that I've seen a double promotion  ??? :)

Warning: I also encountered a bug. If you get a double promotion after a covert operation, you need to click on the orange field where it reads "has been promoted" so you get to promote the soldier and THEN it will go back to the same promotion message with the same orange field, promotion is a different rank this time, and click on it again. There is also a "continue" button but if you click on that before you click on the first promotion, you'll never see the second promotion option again. I tried several times using savegame reloads -- make sure you do it properly and DON'T hit continue before you promoted your soldier.

Good name, Operation Red Flame, because getting a kill with a red laser and successfully finishing the mission at the time isn't too shabby at all -- plus the double promotion as the icing on the cake :-D

[smg id=6679 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW covert op extraction 10"]
And now look: 4 Missions, 3 kills, and now Sergeant "Ghost" which is a cool nickname for a mimetic skin sniper that actually uses a ghost armour technique modded into her skin.  :-()
[smg id=6680 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW covert op extraction 11"]
Here, she's running to cover behind that lorry and all you see is some dark orange blurr the shape of a body.. action cam in action :) Looks cool when you're playing and it feels good because you know the enemy can't see her the next turn :-()
[smg id=6681 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW mimetic skin action cam"]

[Art Blade]

Well. After every successful covert operation you'll get clues as to where the EXALT base is not located and after three successful covert operations you'll get the first and earliest possible chance to accuse a country of harbouring the EXALT base.
[smg id=6682 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW EXALT base raid 01"]
In case you wrongly accuse a country, it will immediately leave the council and you'll lose money and all kinds of good stuff and.. it looks bad on your curriculum vitae.  :-D
[smg id=6683 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW EXALT base raid 02"]
Of course I never guess wrong, so I guessed: because, following the clues, it's not China, it's not North America and it's not an English speaking country and because EXALT presence usually increases panic a bit.. so I guessed that it just had to be India.

Bingo! :)
[smg id=6684 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW EXALT base raid 03"]
Now I may get rid of those annoying futuristic mobsters for good, any time I want. I already know that raiding their base will be quite something so I want to wait a bit longer and get better gear in the meantime. Also, performing regular scans reveal their cells and revealed cells cannot harm my own operations. Instead, I may get a few more funny covert operations so I think that I'll wait with the raid and grind some XP and so on when going on covert operations. We'll see. :)
[smg id=6685 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW EXALT base raid 04"]

[Art Blade]

I had a funny moment with my Tank Girl during a covert extraction mission. Particularly remarkable about it is the fact that in Zemalf's video of his XCOM:EW playthrough, when he played the same mission, he was in the exact same position and did exactly the same -- or the other way round -- however, we were both in the same situation on the same map. We had a MEC trooper and used that brutal punch on a slightly disturbed EXALT operative. And both of us said the same, too :-()

GET OFF MY ROOF!
[smg id=6686 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW get off my roof 01"]

From the same video I remembered that during one of three enemy waves there would be an EXALT operative landing on a platform hanging from a crane, so I chucked a proximity mine up there and indeed, it worked, he blew up the moment he landed on it 
[smg id=6687 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW get off my roof 02"]

That was also the kill that earned Tank Girl another promotion.  :)
[smg id=6688 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW MEC trooper 03"]

And because the enemy now sends "elite" operatives who use better weapons, I nicked one of their sniper rifles for each of my own snipers. And Ghost got her cheap kill (taking out a sniper, how fitting)
[smg id=6689 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW covert op extraction 12"]

That also finished the mission..
[smg id=6690 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW covert op extraction 13"]

..and earned her another promotion.  :)
[smg id=6691 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW covert op extraction 14"]

[Binnatics]

Nice pictures. Cool to see all these promotions ^-^

[Art Blade]

Thank you :) And the promotions, hehe indeed. However, it's part of a game that really keeps me busy. I need to level up my crew in order to fight the enemy that too is levelling up all the time. :)

[PZ]

Indeed, one can see you're a serious gamer, Major General Blade  ^-^

[Art Blade]

Not serious at all but enthusiastic, if I get my hands on the right game :-D It is easy to name those few games that got me interested that much. I really loved to play Alpha Protocol which had some similarities, in a way, and this here is much deeper by orders of magnitude. XCOM 2012, EU and particularly EW, is definitely one of the best games if not the best game I've played so far.

There are so many ways to screw it up very early on and for good, here, and at the time there are so many things you can decide when or whether at all to do them. Choices over choices and all have consequences that you will notice, for the better or the worse.

Given you made the right choices, you're almost free to do whatever you want but it is not open world; the game will throw problems at you that you'll have to solve but you will have to solve them your way. There is no "only this way or not at all" but you'll quickly find out what is important.

What is really nice is that I may customise my "soldiers" so much so that there really is an immersion, you develop some kind of "relation" if you want -- at least they're individual enough and you spend so much effort in developing them that it does mean something if one of them dies. You don't want that to happen. So far, it hasn't happened to me except for a test run and it really felt bad.

So, you have immersion and identification and motivation and diversion and a good portion of randomness which may be good or bad. In other words, it is a brilliant concept and no game will be like any other. Too many different factors make every playthrough different.

Most excellent  :) :-X

Now they're all Colonels. What a show-off squad  :-D The veterans have now chalked up 31 Missions and no member of my unit has died. I plan to have those veterans on the very last mission at the end of the game, probably this very crew here.  :)
[smg id=6692 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW crew pic 03"]

Don't they just look great :-()
[smg id=6693 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW crew pic 04"]

Oh, I've never shown you "Base Management" -- when you start out, this is almost empty. The green crosses mean "adjacency bonus" for those facilities they connect. So far, I'd say, this is an at least near perfect build. :)

[smg id=6694 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW base management"]

[PZ]

That's quite the motley crew of characters you have there!

[Art Blade]

hehe yes, one of every of five existing classes and one class twice.  :) I have a support, a heavy, two assaults, one MEC and a sniper. You don't have to do that, though, you may choose whatever you like. For instance, when playing the other game EU, I once played a mission with four assaults and two snipers. It was great :) But here I just go for "combined efforts" as each class has its own unique abilities that, when combined, may present the enemy with an invincible squad. Of course, in the end it all depends on how you play. You can very well screw up with any constellation  :-D

[PZ]

Is this game anything like Dragon's Age?  I played that a long time ago and can't remember the particulars, but I do recall something about developing buddies

[Art Blade]

I'm sorry, I have no idea as I haven't played that game. In a way, your XCOM soldiers are a bit like avatars in a RPG, you can customise them a lot.

With EW, you get a new and very nice additional customisation: a spoken language option for each character.

[smg id=6695 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW customisation"]

During missions, you'll hear your squad members utter all kinds of remarks. They swear if they missed or comment on a hit, respond to commands you issue, noises they hear (of hidden enemies), enemies they see and so on. Now the game has got language files for players in different countries, currently available are English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Polish. Each language has six female and another six male voice actors. It is fun to hear your guys talk in different languages, particularly if the language actually matches the country flag of your guys. For some reason, I have two Russians, one Pole, two French and one Egyptian member on my squad and Ghost, my "covert operative" sniper is Dutch. So I can actually let the two Russians, the two French and the Pole use their "native" language while the Egyptian speaks English and the Dutch speaks German.  :)

[PZ]

Sounds like you can create quite complex personalities  :-X

[Art Blade]

Absolutely. For instance, I am really still sorry about losing my Canadian sniper Lockdown because I couldn't finish my very first attempt at EU -- it was a lost cause -- so I restarted with a fresh game but without him. I miss him because I spent so much time on his development (levelling his aim up with savegame-scumming and so on) and because he was very promising, a great shot, he saved my virtual arse a couple of times during hard missions. He was my very first good sniper.

[smg id=6580 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM skilled sniper"]

That wouldn't have happened with other games easily, that you'd have been emotionally attached to your avatars. Here you see them fight for you, you level them up, they've got nicknames and all that, and you spend many, many hours with those characters.

Look, in my current game, the MEC trooper is quite a personality. She made me laugh more than once because of her own (re)actions. She even finished a mission on her own with me just watching and laughing -- turned out she stirred up the last enemy who in return fired at her and she responded with automatic sensors and fired back -- and killed that last alien, mission success.  You can only control so much, like by telling them to go to a spot you point out but once you've set them to "overwatch" (reaction fire) plus, in her case, she's got responsive sensors that fire at anyone who attacked her, you just can't control what happens next because it's an AI turn (aliens' turn) and that may cause a reaction due to said automated functions.

[smg id=6696 type=preview align=center caption="XCOM EW MEC trooper 04"]

Well, I built her from scratch and that means, I had to have her arms and legs amputated and all that.. transforming an assault soldier into something that can be stuffed into an armour-plated tin can. Then levelling up a MEC takes about twice or three times as long as any other class plus the gear for the MEC is so expensive (uses rare Meld, and money, and research that requires time and other alien materials and so forth) that you're likely to have only one fully upgraded.

Or, my special agent, the sniper Ghost. When I send her on a covert operation with nothing but a pistol, I am always worried. I need to protect her so she can fulfill her mission and I need to get her out safely what is called covert extraction. If you screwed that up, all the efforts would have been in vain. You just don't want that :)

And it is always nice to see when your guys get promoted :)

That is what I'd call very immersive :)

[PZ]

Sounds almost like the simcity of character creation and development

[Art Blade]

most of all it's resources and time management, then it's battle. The combining factors are strategic thinking and tactical decisions.

But it has got great graphics that keep you busy looking  :-D

[PZ]

 :-X  I'm glad you're enjoying the game so much - good to see the enthusiasm!

[Art Blade]

Thank you :)

The game is great because it combines many things that I like.

- Sci-Fi stuff, always great  :-D
- great and fluent graphics, lots of details
- destructible environment. Chuck a grenade anywhere and stuff actually breaks
- lots of weapons, armour and upgrades
- explosions  :-()
- time. You can take your own time.
- unlimited savegames
- lots of choices that actually mean something and that will change the game play
- all decisions will have consequences with usually a permanent effect
- you decide when to play story-progressing missions
- lots of customisations
- even the music is good and changes depending on situations
- great sound effects
- within game limits, total freedom of how to solve problems or missions
- random events and a vast amount of maps prevent boring repetitions
- clever AI, interesting to fight enemies
- you will quickly develop a feeling that you're working with "people" that mean something to you
- your own character (the invisible "Commander") is important, everything depends on you
- injuries are meaningful -- infirmary for several days, can't go on missions
- death means significant loss of time, resources and unique abilities, apart from emotional impact
- all of your soldiers are going to be unique characters
- proper tactical decisions are rewarding and satisfying
- occasional humour and funny situations

There's likely more but so far, it should give you quite an impression  :-D

[PZ]

It certainly does and all except the scifi part is intriguing for me - I just can't get into scifi much like D_B can't get into 3rd person shooters.

I like the dirt, grime, and dust of places like the FC2 setting the best, and historical locations second, like in the AC series

[Art Blade]

Alright :)