The Exquisite Corps: XCOM: Enemy Within - Part 34

Pew pew.

that was faster than Dan's run.

it's like I'm watching a QL.

Really hope Vinny checks over their researched tech and equipment. They wasted money of plasma cannons on their aircraft last week when I think they've had access to one of the two better weapons for a while now.

Am I correct to say the objective of capturing live specimens Abby and Vinny have got confused about is the objective of the aliens UFO crew?

I think I'm officially done with this series. I can't stand hearing Vinny describe the character's abilities anymore, it's driving me crazy.

@pudge: I was just thinking that I'm sick of hearing him explain how to play the game. I guess it just bugs me so much because I can't even imagine forgetting how to play this game after a scant two weeks.

@dogpostsonly: Yes, all the stuff in the Hyperwave window is intercepted information concerning the aliens.

@dogpostsonly said:

I kinda don't think so. I think they were supposed to capture aliens.

I don't understand why Vinny both comments on how long this series has been taking and stops Abby when she wants to do another mission.

I like this series, I wish there was more than 30 minutes per week!

That's the final straw on this series for you? You do realize having to cycle through 3 people, one at a time per week, with interruptions like E3 and all the other stuff they do in a week, that people are going to forget. If this was Endurance Run style where they played every day, it would certainly be different.

Still enjoying the series here. Keep it rolling, folks.

I mean, the player is always supposed to capture live aliens, but in this case the hyperwave beacon showed what mission the UFO had. I think it's just flavor text in this version of the game though, not sure if it actually affects what kind of enemies you'll encounter in the mission - seems like the UFO class and crew complement numbers below that are better predictors for that.

Also, it's a good thing they keep forgetting what the abilities do, because the description for the electro pulse at that screen is actually incorrect, it says it stuns organic enemies and damages robots, but it actually stuns robots, not organic enemies.

They are certainly at a point where their soldiers are OP and can easily annihilate pods in one turn ( or less). Pushing on a bit would not be the worse idea.

Capturing just gives you research credits, so at this point is not an imperative. Tho capturing an Ethereal or a Muton Elite could help speed things up.

They can upgrade grenades at the foundry already. Bet they haven't looked there in a while.

Things are... HEATING UP~!

Oh boy this is still running eh? Quit watching like 10 episodes ago and read comments to see if they either succeeded or failed entirely. I'll be back for the finale!

I hope that once they finish XCOM 1 they do this series for XCOM 2

@foggen: I think the Hyperwave Relay relates enemy force composition in addition to their objectives, so I think XCOM only needed to blast a bunch of aliens to defend Earth or whatever.

@deks:yeah part of vinny's -- successful! -- hands off approach led them to take a long time to get into the endgame. same happened to me frankly so im not surprised

fwiw i still watch them all because its great content -- dan gets too spicy but is putting in work, abby and alex are just good at the game. particularly for how much experience abby has...

Hey Vinny, I'm pretty sure a bunch of the ship weapons are still crappy. After the Firestorms/Demons were built, you reassigned them to different continents, but I think several of them have the default weapons still.

I will frigging RIOT if they spend another 40 weeks doing this instead of something I'd enjoy watching :-(

I get my X-Com 2 fix on Waypoints Tactical Tuesdays, Austin and Rob are pretty competent (and colourful story tellers), so its an enjoyable watch. After 'enjoying and enduring' this series, I think X-Com 2 would eat GB easts lunch and drive everyone watching to distraction.

But you need to remember, it's not like they play the game for an entire day, where they do a ton of missions, learn the characters, make decisions on what skills to get or not, then take a two week break.

They play for about an hour then stop for 2 weeks. I've come back to games 3-4 days later after playing it for a few hours and forget a lot of basic concepts, cos they never really had time to bed in.

Short one this week.

...That's exactly his point.

I played Witcher 3, stopped for a week and came back and was wondering "Who are ANY of these people, and why's this gray-haired fellow so dour?"

Slightly hyperbolic, but I DID have to restart my entire playthrough. As much as I'm enjoying the series still, I think this was one of those "better on-paper than in-practice" ideas. I'd love to just see them all on while cycling through the driver's seat for XCOM 2, even if 1/4 episodes would be everyone screaming "DAN!!!!"

@undeadpool: I feel their plight, I really do, but I also agree that it's something they have to iron out if they want to do additional games in this format. The last few cycles of episodes have been extremely repetitive, and it seems like we're at a standstill when it comes to progress. To add onto that Vinny saying basically the same handful of things every video, it's exhausting.

I second your idea of having only one person on for each episode. There would be a lot more memorable moments that way as each commander stumbled over what the other three did. Maybe have a running Google Doc of notes for each player, or maybe have the other Beasters watching them play and seeing them react to screwups in real time?

There are ways to make this work, and I hope they're willing to tweak it next time.

don't worry it would be a quick one, they would probably lose all their people in the second mission.

@matiaz_tapia: You can't upgrade the grenades in the Foundry, you can only give yourself an unlimited supply of them once you've already acquired one. And so far they haven't, given that they don't bother capturing any aliens alive.

@pudge: My idea was to have all of them all on every episode, but to have one person with the final say in playing it. Then we don't have to recap the basic rules every time. Or have more of a recap for each commander as the Ken Burns-style letters, while hilarious and awesome, don't seem to actually communicate much.

Or have one rotating person play, and everyone comment on/react after the fact. But that could get very weird and too distant.

yes, it was just flavor text relaying what the aliens were hoping to accomplish during that specific UFO landing (specifically, capturing live human/other earth-based organisms) but vinny and abby mistakenly parsed it as being a mission objective for the player.

@blacklagoon: they dont have an alien holding cell anymore either, so even if they did capture an alien, they wouldn't be able to hold it

Was looking forward to watching today :D

NOOOO VINNY!!! THAT'S THE UFO'S OBJECTIVE!!! To harvest live HUMAN specimen! :) (Its just lore really doesn't matter), one thing to watch out on that screen though is the different enemy types that you are going to be facing in upcoming mission, i think it might also give you the count, or that might only be on XCOM2.

Also dont forget to sell junk in blackmarket, you have some damaged stuff from previous missions that you can sell for $$.

If you keep the first guy alive i think he's a guaranteed psychic.

Every time I hear someone say Grubs, I involuntarily cringe.

The problem is that each commander plays the game for about 30-50 minutes, then fucks off for a full 3 weeks before touching the game again. For example, Abby played the game this episode. 1 week passes, Alex plays his episode. 2 weeks have passed, Dan plays his episode. 3 weeks have passed, Abby finally plays another episode. It's been an engaging series to watch, but I can't blame the staff for being pretty disengaged from the series when they touch the game for less than an hour then don't see it for about 21 days. Vinny is the glue holding it together, but just barely.

Remember how they were terrible at Super Mario Sunshine sometimes, because instead of playing the game like a normal person where you play one section until you get it, they'd have to pass it off constantly and no one player could get into a good flow with the game? This series has been like that, only on a glacial scale where everybody is constantly unfamiliar with anything that is going on, and Vinny only half remembers.

As much as I love watching this game, this series is just structured badly. It's not like they had to go full Endurance Run with it, but instead of lackadaisically finishing this series over the course of a year (you can tell from the last 3-4 episodes that literally all of them can't believe it still isn't done yet), they should've done two episodes a week, or keep it as 1 episode a week but do a minimum of 2 missions per episode. Yes, it would've eaten up more of their production schedule to record and edit twice as much video each week and that would take time away from other features, but at least they would have been done with the feature months ago. I don't think the staff hates this feature, but it sounds like it has become a homework-like obligation for most of them since it's hard for any of them to get invested in the game when they only play it once every 3 weeks.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: with this format and their playstyle they will absolutely get destroyed in XCOM2. They won't last 2-3 months of in-game time. I'm sorry, but all three are still bad at this game, it's just that the "Normal" difficulty is actually pretty easy, and it gets even easier as you progress through the game. XCOM2 is much less forgiving. They'll just quit frustrated and hating it. If anything, I'd at least rather watch Alex and Vinny play XCOM2 together on a regular basis and not in this format, because they both seem to be way more into it than Dan and Abby.

@ames said:

Well, that wouldn't matter when it came to the weapons, as they'd still get the alien grenade if the captured alien had one. But sure, they'd forfeit any other bonuses they might get from it.

I don't really understand why you would do this one, short, generic mission only? It would have been a great warm up mission for the NPC rescue mission, and a chance for Abby to use the new power she just unlocked! Would have been fun.

Oh well, perhaps we will get to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of Exquisite Corps with the series still going!

When this is over I would be curious how many episodes they all expected this to be.

I can't believe this feature is still going. It was pretty evident even after a few episodes how poorly thought out it was. They're lucky they're playing on the stupidly easy normal mode and had incredible luck to boot or they would have lost long ago.

What this feature really needed was people actually interested in the game, aka no Dan and Abbey, and the episodes need to be longer so they actually remember and get a feel for the game.

Imagine how Kerbal Space Program would have turned out if they switched people every week and played 30 minutes at a time.

As an Xcom player watching the GB East fumble and stumble through Xcom does infuriate me.

As a GB fan I like listening to how they react to the aliens and story points.

This series really has me split in the middle about it ;/

Love this series!

This series is a real treat! Big fan of the Xcom games and I love all of you beasters, so keep it up.

I understand the frustration with their playing, but hey, I don't come here for A+ gameplay, I come here for goofs! Forget the haters :)

"Egypt"