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XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
Released On: Aug 29, 2017
88
8.1
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 42 Critic Reviews
88
93% Positive
39 Reviews
39 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 42 Critic Reviews
88
93% Positive
39 Reviews
39 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
An excellent add-on to an excellent turn-based strategy brings so many news it makes it almost a completely new game. [Issue#278]
The Chosen will continue to haunt you until the Hterites are defeated and until the Commander has been recaptured, becoming progressively more dangerous and lethal.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 376 User Ratings
8.1
83% Positive
311 Ratings
311 Ratings
8% Mixed
30 Ratings
30 Ratings
9% Negative
35 Ratings
35 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 376 User Ratings
8.1
83% Positive
311 Ratings
311 Ratings
8% Mixed
30 Ratings
30 Ratings
9% Negative
35 Ratings
35 Ratings
This is what it was supposed to be from the start. A year and a half worth of improvements later, little bites and pieces of new DLC content, finally layered underneath a fun and expansive experience in War of the Chosen, this feels like the XCOM 2 I wanted to have. And, having finally made peace with mission timers has forced me to play a bit more recklessly, which seems like a necessity when everything is on the line. Turn off the mods and experience XCOM 2 in the way that it should've been from the start. Firaxis has made XCOM 2 as fun as XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within, while still bringing a different flair to the series.
Ultimately, XCOM 2: War of the Chosen buries even the most tactically-sound gamer under a mountain of entertaining challenges and adds not only several hours of content to play through, but well-neigh infinite replayability as well – we can’t wait to restart the fight and see how a new batch of soldiers fares against the ADVENT government.
An enormous expansion that adds a lot of interesting new features, but also takes the turn based combat to its limit.
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is a splendid effort that transforms a fun game into an astonishingly deep and interesting tactical and strategical experience. It is THE way to play XCOM 2.
Adding three new factions, heroes, enemies and a few fresh gameplay mechanics makes War of the Chosen feel like a new, even more difficult campaign. However, the story stays the same.
There's nothing quite like needing that one critical shot, and you tune up the alien and the green blood is spraying everywhere. It's a wonderful feeling. I love this game.
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Let me say first, know what you're buying. This expansion works more like a supercharged DLC than a true expansion. Don't get me wrong there is a lot of new content, but none of it extends the original ending of the game and it becomes bloated at various points in the game (more on this later). So lets get to the meat of it. This expansion is all about three new bosses (chosen) and making you hate them.
X-Com has never been much **** with "bosses", so it feels a little out of place, too Hollywood for a game that once was a pretty gritty and realistic strategy game. These over the top, trash talking bosses could be great if used more subtly, but Firaxis shoves them down your throat. They pop up to tell you how weak and doomed you are at any given point. They die, reappear, only to come back stronger. They would be great for a cinematic game like Metal Gear, not in a strategy game. Now lets move onto the ridiculous power of these bosses. They get to move, attack, move in battle. Can summon Advent out of thin air. They automatically hit (defense is irrelevant, they'll hit you through with smoke grenades and Aid bots). So there is the problem, a once hardcore strategy game has thrown out strategy to create drama, wanting you to hate these bosses. In a game like XCom the mystique of a powerful alien should be mystery and subtlety, I think they did it all wrong. Some new developers are on the Firaxis team for sure.
The other main draw if the exp is the three new friendly factions. Reapers, Skirmishers, and Templars. I kind of like what they did with this. Through these new factions you get covert actions which open up some decent strategic options and unique upgrades (I love pistol specialized snipers and getting a flat +1 damage to all of them made for some fun gaming, albeit a tad overpowered :).
The actual classes of these factions are well done, and feel distinct enough from the original classes to have a place. My rating of 7 is mostly due to these factions.
So I have mixed feelings on WOTC. There is a lot in this expansion pack but fitting it in the original core story seems overwhelming. A new player who didn't play X-Com 2 vanilla will be lost in all the new missions the expansion throws at you. The rate of main story mission to side mission is about 1 in 10 in the expansion, where the original is more 1 in 5.
Hopefully Firaxis will tone the bosses down in XCom 3, while keeping these factions. Give us a longer main story with time to better fit in all these new missions and upgrades. Bring back some of the mystery into Xcom. Let us stumble on a big bad boss by turning a dark corner and seeing it for the first time. And always make sure its a strategy first game over theatrics.
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If you haven't played X-Com 2 yet, you owe it to yourself to try the base game + this expansion. There are still quite a few bugs with crashes and camera issues for in-game cutscenes, but overall this is a solid game and a big improvement over the base game.
The dialog/story is still a bit campy/cheesy and the new posters for solider bonds (think Fire Emblem/Disgaea bonds) are ridiculous. A lot of the new customization options for soldiers are funny, but don't fit the tone of the game imho. Some people will love the new options though.
The story doesn't really get much better here. They added some new story missions regarding the new resistance factions and Chosen. The story is still very silly IMHO (bordering on stupid) and imho it loses a bit of tension it had before because of the Chosen being goofy. It's hard to believe the aliens would run the world the way they do. For example, why wouldn't the aliens simply build a ton of SAM missile batteries/anti-air ships/UFOs over the past 20 years to control any resistance? As powerful as they are, it's a bit hard to buy into.
X-com 2's greatest strength is the smoothing of the campaign difficulty and progression. New players will find the game much easier to start than the base game, as the new maps are better designed with less randomization frustrating you. There are still old story missions weaved into the game, and it's a bit jarring to go back to them, for many reasons.
There's new enemies, solider classes, abilities, armor, weapons, buildings, ect. which are welcome additions that consists of the other big chunk of the expansion content. I feel like they added a lot in that regard. The new Chosen enemies are neat, but a bit out of character compared to X-Come lore, as they will taunt you constantly from your base and show up constantly. It's weird to kill something in X-Com many times and not be dead and it's weird tonally for them to talk the way they do.
Overall X-Com 2 War of the Chosen is a great game, provided you can deal with a few bugs, cheesy story, and retreading many old missions. I recommend it. Thanks for reading.
*I did not use any mods while playing the game for this review, however, X-Com has a great mod community and that can enhance you experience greatly, depending on your tastes.*
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PC
(Ironman: 1 Move 1 Save, *prevents save scumming*
(LOS: Line of Sight)
Time spent with the game:
-Logged in 1000+ hours over the span of 2 years
Finally summary of XCOM 2 WOTC:
-At its core wonderful masterpiece, the best turn based strategy game I have ever played.
-Glitched to the nines with 0 fixes.
-Losing is a part of the game, which I am fine with on Legendary difficulty, but there is nothing more frustrating then playing and investing over 20+hours into a Ironman run and losing the game because ****.
Glitches as follows:
-Enemy LOS broken, enemy randomly sees through walls, engage you while in concealment even tho you have not broken line of sight the computer will glitch and say you have been revealed when you have not touched the LOS squares.
-Lancers LOS broken, enemy can attack players without having LOS, 1 shot kills
-Played until the end, almost beat it, over 50+ hours invested, game crashed, Ironman save at crash point, no way to recover, game breaking bug, Developers KNOW and are AWARE of this issue have done nothing
-Mandatory missions, that last over on some maps 2+ hours, game feels like a hard grind that never gives you a break
-Graphics are excellent, Story Line is amazing, lead stars from Star Trek Generations as voice overs, over all the game is superior in every way shape and form, but due to game breaking bugs that make the game unplayable, this game gets a 4.
-Simple patches, to fix the game breaking bugs, is all that would be required. *good enough* mentality no longer is acceptable. We pay BIG money for AAA games, we expect the iron upon the shirt, we expect the full service. Send a message to the gaming companies, hold them to account, let us stop paying $$$ for garbage errors.
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PC
Its always amazing how generous these so called critics are in their praise of these mainstream games. I can but assume they spent a quick half hour on the titles in many instances. XCom War of the Chosen can best be described as a "hot mess". Basically it takes the chaotic, disorganised game play of Xcom 2 and for the most part adds in more adversaries in general and "boss" characters you have to defeat. The absolute lack of balance makes for annoying game play not helped by the incessant cut scenes and prattling interruptions from your second in command and goading skype style calls from the Chosen.
Its aggravating stuff that at times leaves you wondering why you are playing at all. 4/10 from me.
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Summary XCOM 2: War of the Chosen adds extensive new content in the fight against ADVENT when additional resistance factions form in order to eliminate the alien threat on Earth. In response, a new enemy, known as the “Chosen,” emerges with one goal: recapture the Commander. This expansion includes new Hero classes to counter the “Chosen”, new e...
Rated T
for Teen
Platforms:
- PlayStation 4
- PC
- Xbox One
Initial Release Date: Aug 29, 2017
Developer:
- Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Genres: