The Exquisite Corps: XCOM: Enemy Within - Part 22

Those weren't rookies being used for fodder, they were "base security".

From a lore perspective, why XCOM equipped them with basic ass peashooters to guard their super secret base is one of the game's great mysteries.

A sad day for Japanese game development, but hats off to Abby & Vinny, that was tough, and you came through.

This was fantastic. All things considered Abby did a really great job. My only suggestion would have been to use the rookies as complete fodder.

A couple thoughts:

First great job dealing with a not exactly fair situation and saving the XCOM base, Abby. That's a very tough mission and it could have been a disaster.

Second, I think Abby and Vinny made fewer mistakes because they weren't fighting against XCOM's very artificial system of introducing aliens in pods as you explore. On a similar note, if they thought hunting down that last Mutton was bad, they would really get a kick out of the original games.

Third, it's pretty amusing to think back to all the hubub involved in the creation of the Abomination and contemplate how much the Exquisite Corpse now relies on Dan's mad creation.

is it just me or is vinny extremely whiny in this episode? for almost 2 straight hours it was just vinny crying and whining

Man, it's times like this I really miss the medic robot in XCOM 2. Congrats on the win.

@jetmet: I kind of understand him, and I don't think it was THAT excessive ..... As far as I know he just heard about the base invasion happening, and not what exactly (e.g. amount of freaking aliens) it entails. Sitting there and watching as xcom throws wave after wave of enemies in your face in maybe the most annoying mission in the game can be quite whine inducing.

The chokepoint right next to aux door was a game saver. Good idea and execution.

This is a tough mission, for sure. I lost half my squad on classic ironman the first time I played through the expansion.

I will say that loled so hard when they didn't know what the red cover meant though. My god.

Great job Abby.

great job abby!

Great abs, Jobby!

I'm glad they're back to saying "Abomination" instead of "Dan," but now they're calling Swery "Freud." Shameful!

edit: At least it won't happen again.

I definitely had the game glitch in my final mission and make it unbeatable, so when they couldn't find that last alien, I was having a very "Not like this...not like THIS" moment.

If you guys make Exquisite Corps shirts, I hope they just say "Can I move and then reload?"

Great episode. If Abby gets Newfoundland too it would be real unfair. The guys play so aggressively that I wonder if SHIVs could benefit them? I know it hoovers up precious xp but they are good for aggressive recon.

Yeah, I know the sound indicator can be misleading at times, and maybe the Muton was just right underneath that little office the entire time and somehow out of vision and just moving one square at a time. But it actually seems like for about 4 or 5 turns that Muton was just teleported off the edge of the map and then some script accidentally/intentionally fixed it and gave the Muton a valid location all of a sudden.

It's actually surprising how glitchy unit position stuff can get in 2012 XCOM. I've had enemy pods discover me on their turn, then when they skitter into cover, I've seen one of the enemies (not the entire squad) just magically end up in cover on the entirely opposite side of my squad from where they encountered me. Like, they see my squad, then somehow end up like 25 squares away. Also I've had a highly ranked sniper get downed while standing on a ramp in an Ironman game, it tells me she's bleeding out and to use a medkit, but her body is completely unselectable because the game seemingly lost track of what tile her body was supposed to be on because it was a ramp, and I had to quit the game and reload the map and thankfully that made her body selectable so I could revive it.

For how successful this game was (at least on PC), you'd think they could've done a better job of fixing bugs post-release, especially the near-universal slowdown bug that happens all the time when Muton Berserkers move.

@bisonhero: What you're describing and what I've experienced for myself is why I'll never play one of these games in Ironman mode. I didn't even have an enemy glitch out of the game, for me it was a door that wouldn't open.

If they can't guarantee my save/game will be perfect, why should I try for a perfect run?

I've been screwed over by the stabilization bug, too. That's one that I really wish would've gotten a fix. You lose a guy and you know it's not even your fault.

Hopefully Alex creates a Yoko Taro recruit in honor of his fallen comrades

I feel really bad for Abby having to go though this legitimately terrible mission. I don't know who thought making this mission behave this way was a good idea but it wasn't and honestly seeing this really makes me happy I skipped enemy unknown.

You did great Abby and Vinny, bravo commanders.