XCOM 2 or The Witness? (user bought XCOM 2)

I can only buy one, both roughly the same price for me, I can't decide. I loved the first XCOM remake, but the Witness really has me intrigued. I know I'll probably love XCOM 2, but does the Witness really have the potential to blow my socks off? Probably a good problem to have, but I'm trying to control my overeager spending.

XCOM 2.

Also what is your situation that those 2 games somehow cost the same price.

@bisonhero: Witness is about $44 in Canada, XCOM2 can be found for $49.

Chocolate or pizza? We don't know you buddy.


also pick XCOM don't be silly.

@tothenines: I know, just the hype about the Witness is strong. Just trying to get a feel from others if it's really special, especially based on the latest podcast ravings. Maybe I'll buy it next month. Trying to rid myself of a bad habit of buying 5 games but only having time to play one or two. Then buying another 4 and having a huge backlog. I guess in that regard XCOM2 will be something I'll for sure play the nights away, forgetting to go to sleep.

I obviously can't speak for XCOM 2, but there's a lot of footage out there, it seems like the previous game, but with a bunch of improvements and a more interesting premise. I can definitely say that The Witness is a great game, with a lot of interesting concepts. But only play it if you want some really intense puzzles. Really, the puzzles don't fuck around.

@beachthunder: I play strategy and tactics games, and like puzzles. Is The Witness simply puzzles for the sake of puzzles with a thin veneer of meta? Sometimes I feel like once or twice a year the GB Crew strays away from their typical venn diagrams, and then over-hypes an experience that's just "Good".

I shouldn't really speak for a game I haven't played but XCom 2, come on.

Darkest Dungeon.

Kidding, kidding (sorta). Personally I'd say XCOM 2 because I have little to no interest in the Witness, but you do you. Both seem like excellent choices. However, it should be noted that XCOM 2 hasn't released yet, I have faith that the product will be excellent, but for all we know it could release buggy and broken as shit, while the Witness is significantly cheaper, and, you know, already out :p

@beaudacious: I think you have a responsibility to take back Earth from the aliens, Commander.

But seriously, they're both awesome. I really don't think a thing like overhype is worth worrying about because if someone really loves something, they just love it. And you will hear about it. You asked if The Witness will blow your socks off. Maybe, but it is a game you could just as easily hate.

It is very, very challenging puzzles that are very well designed. I think the hype comes from the fact that some of them are so abstract that when you do solve them, it's awesome. It's fresh. But do not buy it for story or if you are not already a puzzle game fan.

I don't want to keep rambling, but I'll just say for anyone who doesn't really understand what the game is It's not "just" walk up to a panel and do an iPad game. It's just puzzles, but not just those.

Reviews for XCOM 2 come out Monday so maybe wait till then.

@beaudacious: It is just a bunch of puzzles; there's the tiniest amount of context, but there's no actual narrative. As someone who plays a lot of puzzle games - this is a good one; there are a bunch of misses, but for the most part, the puzzles are on point and very clever. Despite some annoyances, I'd follow suit with Brad's review and say that it's definitely a 5-star game. If you enjoyed Antichamber or The Talos Principle, you should absolutely consider playing this.

Did you happen to watch the XCOM 2 panel at PAX South today?

http://www.twitch.tv/pax2/v/38694034

Boat rides and nice calm walks around a colorful inland while try to solve some pretty simple to wtf hard puzzles can be fun......... But Xcom 2 is the clear winner with the random generated pretty much everything and the mods support day one, you'll be playing it for years and not have the same experience twice most likely plus more Xcom so there's that......

Ok well I bought XCOM2. Thanks for chiming in guys.

XCOM 2, most definitely.

@beaudacious: Good choice. I had little interest in The Witness but after the coverage for it I think it looks interesting. Might be something to get down the track in a lull time or Steam sale

depends on what you prefer. A mind fuck puzzle/exploration game, or whatever xcom 2 is (wikipedia says turn based tactical game, so I'll go with that). Personally I have no interest in strategy/turn based games, and love puzzle/exploration games, so my vote is for the witness.

You should know that the witness isn't a basic puzzle game like it might seem. The amount of rules you have to keep track of and the level of insanity you have to go to to piece things together can be intense, possibly frustrating (I haven't felt frustrated yet), and deeply rewarding (for me, at least). People will probably think I sound like a douche bag, but if you're not willing to throw yourself into the witness 100%, you probably won't like it. It's all or nothing.

Also, from what I can tell (haven't beaten it yet) there isn't a meaningful narrative in the witness, so don't expect much in that department.

To give you some insight into if XCOM is any good (this is directed at rongalaxy), the first one was a GOTY contender on this very website a few years ago. The second one looks great from the preview footage , but wait for the reviews for some real insight.

@halfdane1975: The reviews are out :)

http://www.giantbomb.com/xcom-2/3030-49817/forums/xcom-2-reviews-turns-out-firaxis-has-been-on-overw-1791367/

@halfdane1975: I know people like it. Still doesn't interest me in the slightest.

XCOM 2

Where are you possibly finding XCOM 2 for $49 CAD? its $80 on steam...

@facktion: I suspect there was some kind of Green Man Gaming deal going on where you could buy a Steam key at a discount. Though even for that site, turning $79.99 CDN into $49.99 CDN seems a little hard to believe.

I avoid Green Man Gaming because the way they're offering cheap Steam keys still seems illegitimate as fuck. It's the video game equivalent of buying a bunch of fur coats out of a guy's trunk because they "fell off a truck."

@bisonhero: It wasn't from Green Man Gaming.

But sites like Green Man Gaming aren't the equivalent of "fell off a truck" as you state. Its much simpler, they simply acquire keys from international markets where games are sold at different prices. That's why it's more common on games that only sale one type of key, a Steam Global Key. It's similar to how steam stopped end consumers from buying global keys on the Russian Steam market place themselves when the rubble tanked, and most games for Russia now have a specific Russian key.

In my eyes publishers and retailers now feel cheated in a similar way that Taxi's feel cheated over Uber. To me this is more the equivalent of taking advantage of economic situations in other countries. Like where your Assassin's Creed random Asset team is in china so you don't have to pay North American's. But then when the consumer buys the Chinese key he's being dishonest.

XCOM-2 is;

• £ 34.99 = $50.99 USD = $70.65 CAD
• € 49.99 = $55.26 USD = $76.56 CAD
• $ 59.99 USD = £ 41.17 = € 54.27 = $ 83.12CAD
• In China XCOM-2 is about $29.00 USD
• In New Zealand its $65USD
• In Mexico its $60USD
• In Brazil its $25 USD

American's cross the border to Canada to buy stuff cheaper all the time, but with digital goods you don't need to travel anywhere. But at what point are you cheating the system? If you buy a digital copy form a UK retailer with a global key are you being dishonest and stealing? Or does that only apply when you buy a Chinese Global key? Hell maybe you want to pay more and buy a New Zealand key cause you're weird like that?

When the Canadian dollar was on par with the US our prices never dropped, but now that the CAD has tanked a bit, our prices have gone up. That's because publishers charge the most they think they can get away within each region.

@bisonhero: GreenManGaming now posts the source of their keys (at least when it is official), and this time they confirmed that the key for XCOM 2 came directly from 2K. I don't use their service (or any key reseller for that matter) very often for the reasons you state, but this time it was too hard to pass up such a discount on a legitimately acquired key.

The real equivalent to "fell off the truck" game keys are from G2A, Kinguin, and similar sites where XCOM 2 can be found for around $38 USD, almost 40% off the retail price...and this is before the game even comes out. Who knows where a lot of those keys even come from, though. There are reports all the time of keys from sites like that getting revoked because they were bought with stolen credit cards or some other scheme.

@beaudacious: I mean, the game has differing prices in each region because it is largely seeking parity with what game prices are in that region. I know game publishers aren't exactly digging through the couch cushions looking for nickels and dimes, but those game prices get to where they are in each region for a variety of economic and tariff reasons. Evidently, digital copies of games must skirt all that since you're not physically importing a copy of the game, but it still feels like I'd be taking advantage by buying some key for XCOM 2 that was likely bought from Steam in a country where they have some busted-ass currency with a terrible exchange rate. Can't wait for Steam to support the Zimbabwean dollar so I can buy XCOM 2 for like 50 cents.

@bisonhero: Steam keys from regions with the most devalued currencies like Russia are now locked to that region. It's not like it was a year ago when people could freely buy Russian keys and then activate them on US accounts. For XCOM 2, there are Global keys that work anywhere, and Russian/CIS keys that only work in those countries.

There is still a little bit of wiggle room, but Valve locked down the most egregious examples of this just before the Winter sale in 2014.

@mike: Are they then just buying the keys straight from the publisher at some kind of bulk rate, like I assume graphics card manufacturers also do, and that's how they're shaving so much money off the retail price? It just seems suspicious that all parties involved are fine with this.

@bisonhero: I have no idea

@bisonhero: I don't think all parties involved are fine with it, but there's nothing that can be done to easily stop it.

@bisonhero: I just looked through the Steam package information for XCOM 2, and there are indeed numerous region-locked versions of the game. Any key bought in any "cheap" region cannot be redeemed on accounts in "expensive" regions. However, keys bought in expensive regions (US, UK, Canada, etc) can be redeemed anywhere.

This is pretty common for most big games on Steam since Valve locked down cross-region trading in 2014.

I guess you could also take into account that steam takes a 30% cut on sales, so when 2K sells keys to GMG they cut out Steam. The question would be, does steam still get a cut from Steam keys 2K sells to GMG? I assume so, but It might be smaller, like 5% for bandwidth costs. So then GMG can sell keys at a lower price since they don't have to maintain that 30% Steam cut. They can be satisfied with 5% -10% with the minimal infrastructure costs they have. If you notice most day one sales at GMG don't go farther then 25%. There are situations as well where publishers can sell keys to GMG at lower prices if per-orders are really bad, Anno 2205 comes to mind.

Although Steam is essentially a monopoly in the Digital games market, there is no real alternative on the same scale as Steam. At least the secondary key market gives us a little more choice. I don't think Steam cares though since you're still on their platform either way, and either way you'll end up buying and becoming more invested in their platform.

@mike: I don't know much about G2A, but my assumption is that most of their keys are polish global keys. Game prices in Poland tend to be lower due to published fighting a long culture or piracy with seems to be cooling off a bit.

I am thankfully in a position where I can buy all the games I want, but I just wanted to not that currently I just can not handle influx of absolutely amazing games. Darkest Dungeon, The Witness, probably XCOM 2. If Firewatch, No Man's Sky and Stellaris are any good 2016 shapes up to be one of gamings best years ever. Not even counting the constant stream of Paradox and Elite-DLC.