XCOM: Chimera Squad (Not Quite Review Corner)

This is a fun one!

In the world of XCOM, an alien invasion in 2016 subjugated Earth under the rule of the Elders and their many unusual minions. However the secretive military counter-insurgency XCOM rallied, the Elders were defeated, and now everyone gets to live happily ever after.

Sorta.

The problem is there are millions of non-humans, human hybrids, clones and other remnants of the bad old days kicking around. Mass slaughter is off the table. Everyone has to learn to live together and forget the past. In the riot-torn starport of City 31, precise geographic location unspecified, that means someone has to keep the peace.

That someone is Chimera Squad. That someone is you.

Chimera Squad is a group of hero-level characters, some human, others not. They all have their unique abilities, personalities, and quirks. Axiom the Muton likes to eat what he catches, and loses his temper very easily. Blueblood the ex-cop has personal ties to City 31. Torque the Viper just wants a chance to tear loose and chew on Canadian bacon. None of it is in-depth; you learn about as much about these characters as you do the bulls of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct or any police procedural.

The characterization's strong, voice acting's good and the game isn't so hung up on its cinematics as to require full motion capture of every least facial twitch. There are radio bits and other snippets to keep you engaged with the city, and while City 31 doesn't have the same gravitas a city of its size in the real world would, it does feel solid and engaging.

Chimera Squad's special ops cops face off against former soldiers of the occupation, weapons smugglers and psychic psychotics, trying to keep a lid on the city's roiling pot of trouble. If things get too hot, the city will collapse and your mission will end.

Mechanically this is the same small scale squad tactical game you enjoyed when it was called XCOM 2. The maps aren't as huge, but you face the same strategic challenges: hide here, go there, run to higher ground for a better shot? Flank, and risk being flanked? Play it safe but miss out on an opportunity? These are the questions you'll have to answer on the battlefield, but be warned: the enemy's intelligent and very dangerous. Get it wrong, and you're cooked.

The big difference is in this game there is no permadeath. If a cop falls, they have to be rescued before they Bleed Out. Otherwise the game ends there; Chimera Squad can't afford to lose a single operative.

At least, that's the obvious big difference. Having played, I now know that the bigger difference by far is how the game treats its special use items.

In previous iterations when you gave your troopers a grenade, a medkit or a similar one-shot item, you knew that to use that item you needed to spend one of your trooper's action points. Each trooper only had two, so it became part of the game's economy. The opportunity cost of using an item meant you didn't have that action point to shoot or move.

That's gone. Using an item costs nothing. It's grenade Christmas, and you are Santa Boom-Boom. Spray medkits everywhere, charge up your troopers with whatever hot alien tech you bought at the Scavenger's Market. You can still move and shoot after flinging your kit around like a frenzied monkey. Throw a bubble grenade to tie down the trooper who otherwise would flank you, move up, and beat his buddy senseless with the butt of your shotgun.

That's the other big battlefield change: you can bring them in alive. I started using the Subdue maneuver early on because it suited my concept of how cops should behave: take them alive whenever possible. Sure, you get Intelligence rewards from the interrogation, but that wasn't why I did it. I figure, I'm playing a cop. Cops arrest people.

Then I noticed something. Subdue never fails. If you can get to the target you have a 100% chance to hit, which in RNG-happy XCOM is the Golden Snitch. Subdue doesn't use ammunition. Subdue can do as much as 5 points of damage under the right circumstances. Some characters like Cherub and Zephyr can do much more than that. Zephyr can crush multiple targets in one action, and Cherub can hit several targets with his shield bash wave. So given the option between taking a shot that might miss and uses ammunition, or Subdue, which never fails and costs nothing, I often pick Subdue. Perps vanish under a wall of beefy cop flesh, while off in the back Torque reads the Miranda warning - or whatever passes for Miranda in City 31.

Which is the game in a nutshell. Chimera Squad seems simple enough, but there's a lot going on under the hood. It allows you to play several different ways, but understanding all the systems feels like juggling frogs. I lost my first Ironman game to Anarchy after creaming the first two opposing factions, because I didn't understand all the ways I could crush Anarchy and keep the city moving. I didn't put Verge first in the Breach because I didn't understand how his Levitation ability helps me. I didn't appreciate Scars until I noticed my guys missing shots and moving slowly because they were covered in Scars.

You'll find yourself falling in love with one character, like Terminal, swearing you can't go out without her. Then you'll see how Zephyr's martial arts are game-winners, or how Cherub's shield block can save a tricky breach. There's enough variety in your heroes that you will want to see how they all perform, and find new ways to use their abilities. There's no reason to pick one squad and stick with that one squad forever and ever Amen.

As a game it's remarkably forgiving, technically as well as mechanically. My NUC's processor is underpowered for this and occasionally smells bunt toast, immediately crashing out. It often coincides with a lot of on-screen activity, like enemy reinforcements arriving on-scene. This is infrequent; it happens maybe once in a four hour session, and sometimes doesn't happen at all. Given my machine's not up to the game's spec, I'm pleased I get this level of functionality. There are one or two graphical glitches, but nothing to write home about. Frankly, I've seen top-end AAA titles with worse graphical issues.

So of course I'm recommending it, particularly in these times of wonder where staying in all day is the new normal. If you're not already mainlining Animal Crossing because you like noodling around with raccoon bankers, then now's the time to save the city with your band of misfit 5-0.

Enjoy!

Not Quite Review Corner: Invisible Inc (Klei)

Welcome to another installment, in which I'm going to talk about Klei Entertainment's stealthy roguelike, Invisible Inc. I just picked this up on Steam yesterday, and have been playing obsessively for the last few hours. I haven't beaten it yet (experienced level), but I am on what seems to be the final mission, and am playing through again with different characters to see if that has significant effect on my playthrough.

The story campaign is set in a William Gibson-esque cyberpunk world, and I'll go so far as to say that, unless you've been devouring cyberpunk for the last few years, many of the game concepts might confuse or irritate you. Corporations rule this dystopian world. Your rag-tag bunch of crooks and thieves has been a thorn in their side for far too long, so the corps decided to band together to take you out. Your organization is shattered, many of its members captured, and you're on the run with what's left of your super-powerful AI, Incognita. Your job is to stay alive, and find somewhere to house your AI before it degrades beyond recovery.

Incognita is one of the major gameplay elements. It's thanks to the AI that you can hack your way through the enemy defenses, and without hacking your team would be dead in the water, since the corp facilities are chock-full of security cameras, laser beams, security drones, combat drones and other, terrifying things. Plus, of course, security guards. So, so many security guards ... Your job, ultimately, is to keep Incognita alive, and the story missions revolve around you finding a new home for her, after the old one was blown up.

You begin play with two surviving agents, a small fund of credits, and not much else. The default agents are Decker, a thug with a handy-dandy invisibility cloak, and Internationale, a clever hacker who can rip systems apart wirelessly. Of the two, Internationale is probably the more useful, since Incognita needs Power to operate, and Internationale can steal that quickly and easily. There are other agents which you can unlock through play, or rescue from detention camps. Some are combat monsters, others stealthy thieves. Though each has a personality of sorts, it barely impinges on gameplay. Apart from individual character's special abilities, like Decker's chance to detect internet Daemons, each character is the same as another, increases abilities in the same way, and uses the same equipment. There are no character classes here. If you want Internationale to become a brawler, a brawler she shall be, and so on.

This is a turn-based stealth roguelike, with STEALTH writ in ten-foot high fiery letters. If stealth games frustrate you, on no account go anywhere near Invisible Inc. In many ways it's the polar opposite of XCom, despite both being turn-based strategy titles, because one of the draws of XCom is that you get to shoot, blow up and otherwise shred the things that anger you, whereas here you need to adapt to your environment, avoiding conflict if at all possible. Dishonored, another stealth title, also allowed the player to choose to blow off steam, and complete the mission, by killing everything in sight, waving a sword like Doug Fairbanks on amphetamines. Here, though, killing or indeed any aggressive action is tacitly forbidden. Each time a guard dies, or wakes up after you've knocked him unconscious, things get much more difficult, as the alarm bells start ringing and the surviving guards chase you down. At alarm level one, things are a little tricky, but at level six you might as well get in your coffin and call the undertaker.

This is a difficult game. I strongly recommend new players start at Beginner, and work your way up. Ordinarily the lowest rung of the difficulty ladder is for those who've never played this kind of game before, but this time, it's for everyone. Particularly since the game's stuffed full of concepts and terminology that aren't as clearly described as perhaps they could be. Again, it's a cyberpunk thing; especially when it comes to the hacking side of the game, you really need to be into the genre to get, say, Daemons, and how they can screw with your day. But it's also because there's a ton of stuff to take in, very little of which is going to be familiar to you.

For example: there's something called a Sound Bug on many of the levels. Presumably it's some kind of defensive mechanism, a type of trap. I have no idea what this thing does. It hasn't affected my game play - or at least, I haven't noticed it affecting my experience - but I know it's there, and I know it does something.  I've been ignoring it, which seems to work so far. I'd still like to know what it is.

Many of the game's concepts are deliberately video-gamish, which can be annoying. Case in point: if you hack some of the consoles on the level, you get the option to buy new programs or tools to help you out. Think about it: you've just hacked, as in gained illicit access, to their systems. You should have complete control, so why are you spending money, your own actual cash, to do stuff? Do Chinese hackers rip apart, I don't know, Amazon, say, just so they can purchase books on Kindle? Or here's another: many of the advanced weapons require ammo packs, one-time-use items, so they can be recharged. I assumed that meant if you wanted to reload during a mission, you had to have an ammo pack. Fine, but if I empty a weapon and then finish the mission, I can reload for free at home base, right? We have bullets stashed away at HQ, surely? No? I have to use the one-use-only item that cost me several hundred credits - again, my own money, because my hacker's a bit fuzzy on the whole stealing thing - to recharge? Damn. There is a story element that explains this - you're flying around on an escape jet, and didn't have a chance to bring supplies - but it still smacks of resource management shoehorned in to make the experience more difficult.

It's not as if you can get stuff easily. There is an in-game merchant, Monst3r, but he rarely has anything to sell, in story mode at least. You can buy things from corp machines, but there's no guarantee that the corp machine will have what you want, and of course you're dodging corp security all the time, so you can't hang around. That one-use-only item can't get replaced easily, so you have to be really, really careful, husbanding your resources.

It is basically Ironman by default, unless you're playing at Beginner level. Ironman, for those not familiar with the term, is a game concept which assumes that you cannot go back to a previous save, and play again. Every choice counts. At Beginner, you have the option of Rewinding, going back in time one turn, which you can do five times. You also have the option to restart the level, which is great when you thoroughly screw the pooch and are facing down a dozen enraged guards. At Experienced, you can no longer restart, nor can you go back to a previous save, and you only have three Rewinds. Thus, while not officially Ironman, Experienced forces you to play with no take-backs, and if the mission goes straight to hell, that's the entire campaign done and dusted, with all your people dead or in custody. You don't have the option to choose who goes on a mission. The game assumes everyone goes, so if you fail and your people are wiped, there's no way to recover. Ouch! I haven't dared try anything above Experienced yet. I think it might make me cry.

Is this a good strategy title? Hell yes. You will sweat over every single decision. When you manage a successful run, sneaking through the facility and stealing what you need to survive, escaping right under the enemy's nose, you'll feel like the hero of a heist movie. The roguelike aspect of it makes it feel a little as if the corp's architects drink a bucket of scotch for breakfast, lunch and dinner - seriously guys, corridors that go nowhere, what the hell - but it does mean that the maps have near infinite variety, which really keeps you on your toes.

Has it the same replayability as XCom? Well, it does have sandbox modes for you to tool around in, after the story mode's done. You could build up a team of hardened crooks and make the corps sweat blood, forever and ever and ever. XCom doesn't offer that, and its lack of new maps does make it feel same-y after a while. Even if a roguelike's maps look as if they were put together by Salvador Dali's cousin Sherman, at least they're different each time.

However there's not a lot of actual variety in the missions. Ultimately you go to a place, do a thing, and then run away. The thing you do can vary from hacking into a system, buying new stuff, capturing enemy personnel for the information in their heads and so on, but the mechanics of it never change significantly. Whenever you do a thing, alarm bells go off, making it that much more difficult to escape. No matter how you handle the capture of a corporate officer, for instance, in hope of stealing his data card, he always, always, always summons a high-level security guard to investigate. No matter how stealthy you have been, the alarm bells always go off, and the level of alarm always increases. It doesn't matter how clever you are, if you're still there when the alarm level reaches six - and it will get there eventually - you're borked. All this can make the game feel as if you're doing the same rote task, time and again, and it's mainly the adrenaline rush of avoiding the security systems that keeps you hooked.

Is it worth the money? It's currently going for $17.99 on Steam, and is also available on Mac and PS4. Not sure of the price tag on the other platforms, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's broadly comparable. At that price, it's a steal. Even if you fall out of love with it eventually, it will consume many hours of your time before that happens.

Do I recommend it? Yes, but with the great big caveat that you have to like stealth games, and must be big into cyberpunk as a setting. It is not a game for hotheads, and if you lose your temper easily, avoid like the plague.

But all that said, if you do love stealth, if you're familiar with cyberpunk as a setting, and if you're looking for a turn-based strategy title to take over where XCom left off, look no further. Klei has you covered.

Enjoy!

Not Quite Review Corner: XCOM Enemy Within

Yes, I write for the Escapist; no, this has nothing to do with the Escapist.

Firaxis' XCOM Enemy Within is conquering the gaming world, and with good reason. It's a fun title, a worthy successor to XCOM Enemy Unknown, and if you're a fan of strategy games it's well worth your time. That said, there's one big problem: bugs.

I'm not talking about the Sectoids, Thin Men and other aliens who've arrived on spaceships to enslave humanity. I'm talking about game breakers; bugs that crash the game, and destroy any chance of completing the level. I've just finished a round where I had to abandon mid-match, because the AI refused to believe I'd won. All the Sectoids had been shot, bar one, who happened to be standing next to a car when it exploded. Except the game didn't recognize the exploded Sectoid, and because it didn't the only other way to finish the match was to abort the mission, giving up all the rewards I'd fought for. It's also crashed to desktop at least four or five times for reasons unknown, and one particular EXALT mission has a nasty habit of not activating once you reach a certain checkpoint. Trouble is, if it doesn't activate then you can't complete, and as this is a story mission, not just some random match, you really don't want to abort. 

All of which will be very frustrating if, like me, you play Ironman, a game variant where every death is permanent and you can't restart from a previous save. At least three Ironman games had to be dropped because of that EXALT mission bug.

Now the bad part's out of the way, let me talk about the good.

XCOM, for those not familiar with the series, takes place in a near future Earth, which has been invaded by aliens. Nobody knows why they're here or how many of them are out there, and it's your job, as Commander of the elite special forces unit XCOM, to sort things out. You have at your disposal the best of the best, who'll research things for you, build things for you, and go out into the wide world and shoot things for you. The heart of the game is that last bit, where you guide your troops across the battlefield, looking for aliens to shoot and special rewards, like Meld, to collect.

Your first few missions are fairly simple, which is good news, as your base needs work and your soldiers are inexperienced numbskulls who can't hit the broad side of a barn. Over time, as you gather more materials, collect Meld to enhance your troops, autopsy the aliens you shoot, and level up your soldiers, you'll put together a crack force of hardened veterans, build a base filled with laboratories, workshops, and other useful gadgets, all in preparation for the endgame where you track down the alien base and destroy it.

You'll find yourself switching from tactical view to battlefield, eying up the best chances and making swift decisions. Do you intervene in India and stop an alien attack, or is it a better idea to wait and heal your troops? Nigeria, the USA and Japan are all screaming for help, and you have a satellite handy. Do you launch it and pacify one of those three, or save it in case of emergency? Russia's asking for materials from the UFO you just shot down, and promises aid to the project if you comply; is it a good idea, or do you need those materials more than Russia does?

As a tactical wargame experience, there's nothing as good as XCOM. When it works, it's the perfect squad-level game, and there's plenty of mission variety. The UFOs you shoot down need to be searched, alien attacks must be stopped before global panic spreads, the Council of Nations who signs the paychecks demands you do something dangerous in Canada, and so on. Enemy AI is extremely sharp, and will often outwit you if you're not careful. Plus there's an extraordinary variety of opposition out there, from human quislings EXALT to the savage Crysalids, Mutons, and psychic Sectoid Commanders. And that's just scratching the surface.

If it wasn't for the bugs ... I keep coming back to that, because the original game - though it had its faults - wasn't nearly as buggy as this. It's particularly aggravating in Ironman, where you can't take back a mistake. It's one thing to be stymied by your own stupidity, something else when the game smacks you in the face, potentially ruining hours of play.

Even with the bugs, it's getting a recommendation from me. Just don't play it on Ironman, at least not yet. Wait until it gets patched.

That's it for this installment! Next time, something for Night's Black Agents.

 PS: Since I wrote this, I've tried playing straight Classic, no Ironman. That seems to work fine. I haven't had a single crashout or experienced any major bugs. I'm beginning to wonder if this is something that only affects Ironman's save-every-turn function. In any case, I'm sure future patches will solve the problem.