@matiaz_tapia: @lentfilms: Apparently it is a GarageBand loop that they both used: http://www.vgchartz.com/article/271140/necrosoft-games-interview-gunhouse-oh-deer-vita-amp-the-future/
Vinny and Abby were saying that they messed up by going into the house, but I think it was a great decision. Sure, they got overwhelmed and died, but they took out about 23 zombies. The other 5 people combined took out 10 before they died. If they had had more ammo stockpiled, covered each other during reloads, and the rest of the team had used this same strategy, I think they could have won.
I think Abby did a great job. Both meld containers, no casualties. I think the overall trajectory of this episode was quite positive.
However, at this point in The Exquisite Corps, I feel pretty conflicted about this format and playstyle (spoilers for this episode follow).
I think there are things that seem "obvious", e.g. clear visual cues, that the crew nevertheless miss. So when Abby missed the second Kinetic Strike, part of me shouted, "NO! CLEARLY THE DUMPSTER WAS RED AND THE MUTON WAS NOT RED! WHY DID YOU THINK YOU WOULD HIT THE MUTON???" On the other hand, the reason why this happened was because she was attacking diagonally. The game did say "adjacent cover and enemies", but it's not obvious that "diagonal" does not count as "adjacent". From the moment she moved, it was too late.
A lot of information is implied, and more is available in menus/etc. For example, I think the crew still don't understand the obscure Catching Breath mechanic - because you just get a little text bubble, and the "?" menu explains it. While each individual thing is easy to learn, at any given time there are probably 10 different implied pieces of information - movement ranges, cover, flanking, unavailable actions, explosion radii, fog of war, the "?" menu, etc. - and one might miss some of those cues, if they don't remember them from 3 weeks ago.
So, while the crew could carefully read all the text in the game and learn all of the systems - and in fact I think I'd prefer it - I can, begrudgingly, understand if they choose not to for a game that each person plays for 1 hour every 3 weeks.
Similarly, regarding tactical and strategic decisions - I've played about 150 hours of XCOM on Normal/Classic - regular runs, snipers only, ALL HEAVIES NO MEDKITS, etc. XCOM can be a very intricate game, and if you don't want to make mistakes, there's a lot of information that you need to remember. For example, some of my strategies (spoiler blocked because it's long):
Make satellites 20 days before the end of the month, and launch them at the last minute (otherwise, panic might rise again later that month). Before each abduction, check which continents have the highest panic - abductions raise panic across the continent. Prioritize engineer rewards to rush satellite uplinks. Sell corpses to buy uplinks as fast as possible. Allocate a 2x2 grid for uplinks - 2 uplinks and 2 nexuses is enough capacity to cover the world. Rush carapace armor, lasers, titan armor, plasma - little else matters. Spec snipers for squadsight/massive DPS, get them a good line of sight and never move them. Cheese every fight by revealing a single pod, running out of LOS, overwatching, and waiting for them to get sniped.
Obviously, this is overkill. You can do a decent job with some basic heuristics - always be making satellites/uplinks, don't expose too much fog at once, for fuck's sake don't move your snipers every turn if you want them to actually shoot anything, etc.
But I learned these things over many, many hours of playing and thinking. Hell, I'm sure some people will say my advice isn't the best - I haven't tried every possible strategy. I spent a lot of time looking stuff up, taking notes, reading item descriptions, and just generally thinking about XCOM. In this format, it's very difficult for each player to know what's working. Many of their choices have been made for them by the previous players, or won't be visible. You might want to try a skill on a character, and whoops - they got killed the next episode. And even if they look at the comments, much of the advice is unclear, contradictory, or misleading.
So my expectation is they'll make some very incremental progress (at least they know that "blue shield" = "good" now) - but that's going to be about it. I can't find it in my heart to criticize them because they're having a tough time in this strange format. At the same time, with this format being what it is, I just don't know if I'm enjoying this feature enough to keep watching.
@dudeglove: I suspect it might be a font, since it's very precise (for example, the three d's in "kind and today" all have the exact same descender and ascender height). I don't know what font it is, though.
2. Overwatching before the end of the turn is basically limiting your options needlessly, since it "locks" your characters' moves for that turn. Overwatch shots also have a hefty -20% accuracy penalty.
Overwatching mid-turn can be useful in rare situations - in particular, the aliens try to run into cover as soon as they're spotted. Therefore, if you put several soldiers on overwatch and then uncover a bunch of enemies, they will potentially get free shots before the aliens can get into full cover (which is -40% and hence worse than the overwatch aim penalty), or run into the fog of war (and potentially do some scary special actions next turn while out of range). Opportunist also removes the aim penalty (so an Overwatch shot is better than a shot into any cover).
I do agree that in the situations in this video, I would not have chosen to overwatch mid-turn. I personally am fine with however the Beasts end up playing, though.
I am absolutely shocked at the number of great regular features that have been coming out of Giant Bomb ever since Abby and Ben were hired. And not just videos with a couple people playing, but also stuff with the whole crew engaging and joking around. Steal My Sunshine, FriDota, Murder Island, and now The Exquisite Corps?! THANK YOU BABBY, I'M A LOVER!!!
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