You can get all of the mods on NexusMods.
Steam makes modding easier but then XCOM2 on Steam costs $60. <— Sorta right.
I just checked and Steam has XCOM2 on sale 90% off right now (and until April 28). So, currently, $6 on Steam. One of the DLC is 75% off.
I know a lot of people gripe about Epic but gotta love competition.
The mod support on Steam is pretty great and I think worth $6. If I had never played it before I would get it for free on Epic, play several hours and then decide. YMMV.
Every time I hear someone say, “Covid’s not that bad - you’ve got a 95% chance of surviving it!” I think to myself, “That’s a person who has never played X-Com.”
Sounds reasonable; I would probably do exactly that if I didn’t have them yet.
I picked up both XCOM and XCOM 2 on 80% off sales on steam shortly after assembling my pc last year, so I’m good to go. Loved the early XCOM games in the 90s.
Unfortunately, my experience so far has been restarting the tutorial mission after taking casualties three different times, and agonizing over which version of XCOM to play: Enemy Unknown or Enemy Within. And if Enemy Unknown, how far into it before I bail and restart with Enemy Within?
I hate that they are the same content with different game mechanics. That’s a real motivation-killer in terms of starting.
The casualties in the tutorial mission are completely scripted. You are supposed to come out of it with only one survivor.
Enemy Within has the same game mechanics as Enemy Unknown. It just has some additional stuff thrown on top of it. Just go and play Enemy Within for the full experience.
Don’t you come out with three survivors? Two XCOM agents and the person they were sent to rescue (Commander). It’s been a while since I did that mission so I may be misremembering.
But yeah, scripted. That one mission always plays out/ends the same. The rest are up to the player.
Definitely worth playing the tutorial to get the basics of playing. Also, gives you some extra storyline.
Or, worse, they’ve played the games that massage the numbers. The simplest is just lying about the numbers. But sometimes they even set it up where the likelihood secretly goes up every time you miss.
Games care more about “feeling right.” Viruses don’t.
That’s XCOM 2. In XCOM:EU (or EW) you start with four rookies and only one comes out alive.
My understanding is that Enemy Unknown is like the traditional XCOM I remember from the '90s: Slowly and methodically advance your team under close overwatch to prevent ambush.
Whereas Enemy Within is all the same maps and mechanics, but now on top of that are a handful of randomly placed power-ups of some kind scattered around the map, on timers. So powerful that it no longer makes sense to ever do an overwatch creep, but now instead rushing in to grab the power-ups before time runs out. Whatever casualties along the way just the cost of doing business.
Do I have that right? Because those two descriptions sound like fundamentally different games to me, especially in the context of XCOM.
Nearly everyone (myself included) will recommend playing “Enemy Within”. It’s just better. It was really well done.
Of course, YMMV…play whatever you like.
Just knowing that those tutorial casualties are scripted helps a lot, actually. I kept changing my tactics (three whole times) but kept getting killed at the same spot. Started to think maybe this isn’t the game for me; maybe I had more patience when video games were still new.
My original thinking was to play Unknown enough to understand the game and feel comfortable, and then restart into Within to play all the way through.
My city skylines days are coming to a close, as my first (and almost certainly only) map is nearing completion. So many choices for the next game to play…
It may be this is not the game for you. That’s totally fine. I’ve played games everyone seems to love and not liked them.
I’ll only add that XCOM: EW is one of those games with hidden depth. At first it seems a little meh. But there is gold under the surface. A lot of depth and wonderful nuance to the game.
Maybe try lowering the difficulty and see if you like it. Definitely do not start on Ironman. That’s for masochists.
It was designed to force people to be more aggressive, because the “overwatch creep” style of play didn’t have a lot of tactical decision making and was pretty rote. Xcom 2 definitely has elements to push aggression/urgency so it’s closer to the design of EW, but IMO that’s a good thing.
well you can always dig up the 90s original versions on GOG
Speaking of GOG, Postal 2 is free for the next 48-ish hours. Link is to store page but you’ll actually claim from the main front page after clicking the “Take me to offer” button
What a weird way to do that. Make the page, then put on there “Go to Give Away” which takes you to a very busy page where you have to hunt for the actual button.
It seems like they’re trying to put in friction to keep people from claiming it. Maybe it’s supposed to confuse a bot, but I don’t think it would since they can just search the page for words.
I agree it’s weird and I don’t know the answer. I doubt it’s an attempt to stymie people because that’s just going to make people mad at your store and, since this is a promo for Postal 4, I’d bet it’s the developers doing the giveaway and eating the cost.
I’d write it down more to GOG just being a little bit janky and unpolished in general.
Xcom 2 manages it in a much more organic way, though, where the things pushing you forward feel like part of the mission. More “Find the transmitter and destroy it before it finishes transmitting,” and less, “pick up the goo barrels for random bonuses before they arbitrarily self destruct.”
We’ve been away a few weeks, and back seeing prime gaming has following games on a prime subscription: Oblivion code for GOG, Plant vs Zombies Battle for Neighborville on Origin, House of 1000 Doors: Family Secrets on something called Legacygames, Galaxy of Pen and Paper, Nanotale - Typing Chronicles, Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge, Guild of Ascension, Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion all on their own amazon app. I already own Monkey Island 2 SE and its a classic if anyone hasn’t played that…
Also Amnesia Rebirth and Riverbond on Epic this week.
lol you have read the fine print , to get postal 2 free you have to agree to get the usually twice-weekly emails when you hit the “go-to giveaway” it reloads the sale page and the link and adds "you agree to receive email from gog and sp zoo at the email address on your gog account to get postal 2 "
It’s a neatly legit phishing attempt