Quick Look: Phantom Doctrine

Hell yeah!

Presentation looks good

I was so hyped for this game, between the mechanics and presentation and style and setting, and to hear how mediocre it's turned out to be between GB, Waypoint, and Polygon, it's just a shame. Maybe they could turn it around through updates? But I don't know how entrenched the flaws are to say if that's possible.

Man, this game seemed really cool. Sucks that it doesn't quite seal the deal. Guess I'll stick with XCOM for now.

"Hi, i'm Alex, i'm clandestine, i'm in the government".

Rocky 4 is not a good movie. Just like every other movie Stalone has written and/or directed.

This reminds me a lot of Covert Action from microprose.

No real Big Hair was disappointing.

@ybbaaabby, Moon Dog was an American Musician and what I would call a Free Spirit. At one time he was known as the Viking of 6th Avenue, NYC. as he would stand there, often motionless, with a Viking Helmut on. I get he was a fixture of the Beat and Jazz era, and invented several musical instruments. He ended up in Germany where a family took care of him till he died. About 6 months ago I listened to some of his compositions, basically a semi appreciated genius

the realism of mind controlled sleeper agents was brought up in this quick look, i'm not sure it ever came to fruition but the CIA sure did try to make it work during the height of the cold war

@alex, @vinny Have you seen Phoenix Point currently Early Access. At its core is xcom with several interesting new mechanics. Instead of a % shot chance system they have a free-aim system where you can first-person decide where your solider will hit. The game's lead designer is Julian Gollop who made the original xcom.

Yeah there definitely some disappointing elements to this game, but the comparison to XCOM is probably not doing this game a lot of favours, it's probably more in line with something like Invisible Inc. I think wait for patches and price drops.

I laughed a bit when Dan asked if this was the "worrying about nukes phase" of the cold war. I think we're still worrying about nukes right now, actually. You'd think Dan would remember the Kenneth Baker telling you about how the threat of nuclear war didn't end with the cold war, that was some of that real shit!

But use the network.

@wolfman5712: didn't he write the first Rocky movie?

Hmmm considering Alex sounded pretty down on this game, what they showed off looked pretty neat? Would've liked to see a bit more of the combat and why he thought it a weak point, but I think I'll keep an eye on this.

Isn't a Moon Dog the flare that you see around a full moon?

this makes me want a game based on Le Samourai or Cercle Rouge or Un Flic with that cold blue smokey vibe. Trenchcoats and cool hats and thin mustaches and brooding frenchmen. About a gang of criminals pulling heists or assassinations and being real moody about it.

Sleeper agents dont actually need to be brainwashed. Usually its refering to an undercover operative who is not actively working.

@wobblysnake: I think a big issue is that there isnt much progression. And how the aiming works, which is kinda dumb imo.

It's kind of nuts how many cool-ass, not-that-obscure movies haven't been adapted into games yet. Definitely a barrel full of premises and settings that are just so good.

@wobblysnake: I can't remember if it was Rob Zacny or Austin on the Waypoint podcast, but they basically said that in other games like X-Com, when you screw up or take damage you know how all the pieces in front of you work and can pinpoint exactly what went wrong. In this though, the combat system and specifically the way that lines of sight and visibility work means that the computer is able to kinda game the system and take the most insane trick shots from across the map. The developers even had to release a blog post explaining how it works in more detail because people were getting frustrated.

@wolfman5712: And Adrien Brody is great. Especially in the most recent season of Peaky Blinders.

If Austin Walker were still on this site, I'm sure this would be up for Most Disappointing this GOTY. And what a concept: Cold-War XCOM??? YES, PLEASE.

I really like the concept of this game a lot, even though I have yet to play Xcom or any of those types of games.

I'd probably lean towards the RAF thing being a reference to the KGB supported Red Army Fraction terrorist group, considering the tutorial mission was set in East Germany and RAF was a German group.

As for the combat, I kinda find it baffling how each of these games try to reinvent a system that was already working well back in 1994. Both XCOM 2012's thing with attack success rolls being on a per-attack basis rather than per projectile and this game's guaranteed hits seem to try to fix a problem that was only created by them trying to treat the genre as a computer adaption of a board game instead of a tactical simulation that's presented in a turn-based manner in order to actually be manageable.

Treating it as a board game with weird rule sets doesn't actually make it easier to grasp, it just adds another convoluted layer between the player and the objective.

This studio's previous game, Hard West also had a bunch of nonsensical combat rules, thankfully they listened to feedback and changed much of the combat design over time, I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens with this game.

@undeadpool: Older with a MUCH better combat/aiming system, but take a look at Silent Storm and MAYBE the sequel Hummer & Sickle (it is "Hammer" but the font choice was really unfortunate)

Same basic premise, but set in WW2 (Cold war for H&S). You are either the Allies (mostly Brits) or Axis (mostly Germans) and you quickly realize there is a third faction (Thor's Hammer?) that has super tech and has infiltrated both sides. Hijinks ensue.

Much finer grain movement (explicit Action Points) and you don't have magic "if you stand here you are protected" cover with everything being based off line of sight and actual trajectories. And the majority of the environment is destructible to the point that a common mid-game strategy is to have your door kickers spot enemies that your snipers can nail by putting a large caliber bullet through the wall.

S2/S3 (Silent Storm/Silent Storm Sentinels) falls apart near endgame due to the addition of mech suits (which is frustrating as mech suits generally make everything better) but is amazing up until then. Never got past the tutorial for H&S because it had some REALLY nasty DRM, even for the era.

S2/S3 is available on GoG and probably Steam. H&S? I dunno.

Which is actually why I am still excited for this. By all accounts PD is a letdown. But it is the first time we have really seen games experiment with the underlying combat system since nu-XCOM came out. And as someone who positively hates nu-XCOM's combat that makes me happy. Because maybe we'll see a return to line of sight (hey, an excuse for the ray tracing cards) and meaningfully different builds.

This is a little too xcom, like wow. I understand that all games are built off of existing concepts and build upon the past, but this is a lot of the same visuals, animations, and representations that xcom invented in the modern game space. Like why is the evac a glowing square? That design made sense in a sci-fi game, but in this game, I'd think it would be more tactile and textured to match the cold war gritty aesthetic.

Played a couple of hours of this but the game doesn't seem overly keen to explain its mechanics beyond the tutorial mission. The world map and investigation board are neat but I feel like I'm stumbling in the dark a lot of the time.

@gundato Silent Storm represent! The destructible environments lead to some amazing moments like blowing up the floor so you can shoot people below you. Love that game.

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