Just finished yesterday, pretty much completely disagree with Mekh, in that I will replay this one before I replay the original because frankly, it’s a lot more fun.
I agree that the on-rails nature and the generally SHORTER scope of the game were somewhat disappointing - the whole “shooting down UFOs” aspect of the game seems almost like a bit of a sideline, since I shot down a grand total of 6 during my entire game.
I guess you are a god of strategy though, sir, because I only felt the game was “easy” during the midgame when I was packing Plasma, but the game wasn’t routinely throwing mutons/berserkers/sectopods at me yet.
Self fulfilling prophecies here, I think, since one of us went in with intent to enjoy, and one with intent to criticise.
It occurs to me that Psionics and “snipers” (aka “The guy in the Skyranger with the Blaster Launcher”) were COMPLETELY and UTTERLY broken in the first game too, so no ground lost there if you find that to be true in the new one.
Really, really wish there’d been a longer, organic “mid game” focused around combatting terror attacks and shooting down UFOs.
Finished as well over the weekend. Have to say the ending was a bit anti-climatic, though that might have been because by the time I got to it my guys were all max level with the best weapons and armor in the game. I rolled through the final temple with nary a problem.
And then I immediately started a new game on Classic level (my first game was Normal level, which I presume is the easy button), which seems much more challenging so far, though you get a much wider variety of opening spots and rewards for your base (I picked Africa for the credit bonus). I can’t remember when was the last time I actually played all the way through a game and then started another game for a replay (probably Shogun 2 was the last one), but I really, really like this game, despite all of the flaws and weird bugs (mostly with movement on multi-level maps, which can be very frustrating).
I see a lot of love in this thread for Double Tap. I went with In the Zone instead, and I don’t regret it at all. ItZ makes kill shots on targets not in cover or flanked not count as an action. With a little planning, my sniper is racking up the kill shots. Drive the enemy from cover with assault soldiers or destroy the cover with explosives. Then leave anything with less than five health hanging for the sniper to finish off with his plasma sniper rifle.
These are dead on. Satellites for cash are critical. The grapple is the best early/mid-game way to get your sniper into position.
Sectopods are tough. My strategy is to retreat when I see them (so they can’t shoot the guy who made contact), then set up as many members as I can on overwatch where the sectopod must come from. I seem to encounter them in locations with minimal access (rooms, bays), so I can set four guys in cover and watch the door. When it comes out (only getting a single shot with the Hammer of Doom), I get 4 reaction shots. Then I get a round of 4 (or more) shots to try and take it out. I don’t think I encountered any before I had Titan armor, which is another point in my favor, since that stuff can take a direct hit and keep going.
Berserkers can be captured, but the benefit is reduced because they don’t have a weapon to drop. I think they’re probably the easiest enemy to stun because they charge when shot, and I lead them from person to person until I’m ready to stun them.
Chrysalids cannot be stunned under any circumstance that I’m aware of.
When you capture an enemy, you get their weapons. I was cash strapped through most of my game, so stunning aliens for their guns was important.
Huh? Smoke grenades provide cover, making it harder to hit your team. If they’re hit, they still take normal damage.
My crack team of Amazing Actors, Dopers, and Scientists was completely wiped out trying to assault the alien base. I made it to the last room, with a single guy, who, even though he only had 2 hits left, was able to single-handedly take out a disc an a muton, only to be killed by one of the little healing drones.
What a disaster. I’m trying to build up another team before trying again, and my new Titan armor is helping me a bit.
[QUOTE=Kinthalis]
Is the game over after the alien base?
[/QUOTE]
Nope. As Miller put it earlier, you have a long, long way to go once you take the base. You will know you are close to the end when…
…you assault the floating temple of doom and start hearing the aliens telling you why they have done all the stuff they have done, and what all of those different alien types were for and how they were all failures.
[QUOTE=HookerChemical]
Sectopods are tough. My strategy is to retreat when I see them (so they can’t shoot the guy who made contact), then set up as many members as I can on overwatch where the sectopod must come from. I seem to encounter them in locations with minimal access (rooms, bays), so I can set four guys in cover and watch the door. When it comes out (only getting a single shot with the Hammer of Doom), I get 4 reaction shots. Then I get a round of 4 (or more) shots to try and take it out. I don’t think I encountered any before I had Titan armor, which is another point in my favor, since that stuff can take a direct hit and keep going.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve found that if I know where one is, I can usually take it out in a single round if my guys are in position and if I concentrate all my firepower on it. The only time I’ve had a real issue with them in my last game was right at the end, when there are two of them…and I got lucky there when the survivor hit me with the artillery shot and then missed with the HoD. I was able to take the survivor easily in the next round.
Seriously? Wow. I’ve played 24 hours of this game and I’m no where near the end? Sweet!
Another question, are there other base buildings other than the Satellite uplink/Nexus, laboratory, power, and engineer workshops? Cause I’ve used about 80% of the top two floors and see no need to continue to expand. Research is going plenty fast, and I haven’t encountered any projects that require any more engineers. It kind of seems pointless to have all that space if there’s nothing worthwhile to build mid-game.
Well, there are several end game structures, like the one you needed to find that hidden alien base. Here is a break down of all the structures in the game though, if you want to look it over. You can also look over all of the various weapons and armor types in the game, if you back track a bit from that link.
Double tap is more reliable, and a lot of the time it’s rare that you have more than two good shots anyway. In The Zone requires you to either flank the target (hard with a sniper overall) or somehow get them out of cover, which means either explosives (always limited) or maybe using Flush, which, frankly, never seems to work out for me, because the enemy always just runs back out of view or runs to another point of cover instead. =/
humorously, I think I went through my entire first playthrough with only like 6 satellites total. x.x And several of them were deployed very late game, because I sortof forgot that I could get more engineers by building a workshop. x.x
This is definitely the tactic I take too.
The berserker charge effect is really scary until you realize that even if they get right up next to you as a result, they don’t actually attack until it’s their turn, so it really just serves to make your subsequent shots on them easier.
Is it possible to stun Cyberdisks? Does the advanced arc thrower research do anything to help with this?
So maybe Satellites weren’t the way to go after all? I admit, I didn’t have all the gear I might’ve liked, but it generally served. I generally had more alien weapons than I knew what to do with, EXCEPT for Plasma Pistols, which basically stopped appearing, so I couldn’t get more.
I think it was a joke, namely “If your guy is healthy enough to survive being hit, the cover will kick in and he won’t, but if he’s got 2hp left, he’s doomed even if he’s in smoke”
And yes, Kinth, there are… well, at least a few other buildings. I don’t see the Foundry in that list, for one. And the Psi Lab. And others, including at least one more “plot building”.
The only stat I really look at is their hit points. If there are other stats like armor class or movement I’m not aware of them in game. Just the little blurb for each when you capture and torture one to death or hack apart it’s squishy corpse…
Maybe Dr. Zed could work on Colonel (I thought he was a Major though) Sweater…possibly with appropriately colored blood and other squishy bits flowing off a table somewhere…
When one of your team targets an alien to shoot, press F1. It brings up a window showing its special abilities, it only works on species you’ve autopsied. I don’t know what the XBox/PS3 buttons are, but it should be whatever you use to bring up the details on your squad members in mission.
Oh my favourite moment so far was my first encounter with a bezerker. 3 of my squad members on overwatch started popping at him when he appeared. And of course after each shot he would take a reaction walk towards my squad. Then he started his movement. He was (more than) steadily approaching this poor support I was levelling up. By the time they were finished he was one square away from said [del]bait[/del] recruit, and had a single hit point remaining.
Fortunately I make a point of always having the lowest ranked squad member carry the arc thrower (I see it as the guys hazing the noob in the team). He definitely earned the nickname ‘Sandman’ after that mission.
Just a quick note to folks who recommended I give the old one another try…I’ve had my head buried in it since my last post. It’s horribly dated and absolutely wonderful. Thanks!
Just finished the game on Normal, and I think I’ll be setting it aside for awhile. I’m not sure exactly why, but I did not really enjoy the game after the first 10 or so hours and actually had to force myself to finish it. The minor annoyances I had (the aliens’ free moves, lack of depth to the strategic map, the very artificial seeming LOS/cover mechanics, etc.) just seemed to build up after a while.
I admit, I didn’t have all the gear I might’ve liked, but it generally served. I generally had more alien weapons than I knew what to do with, EXCEPT for Plasma Pistols, which basically stopped appearing, so I couldn’t get more.