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    XCOM 2

    Game » consists of 4 releases. Released Feb 05, 2016

    The aliens have won and the remnants of XCOM must strike to take back the Earth in this sequel to Firaxis' 2012 reboot.

    "Alex Navarro" is the greatest Xcom 2 soldier ever

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    asmo917

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    #1  Edited By asmo917

    Inspired by a combination of Exquisite Corps and some pumping up of War of the Chosen by Austin and Rob Zacny of Waypoint, I hopped back into Xcom 2 this winter. After really liking the early part of the game, I decided to take advantage of some tie off around the holidays and started streaming a new playthrough, where my characters were mostly from a custom pool of games industry people plus my own friends and family. It's been a blast even if I am just streaming for myself and a friend or two who sometimes watch live, sometimes watch the VOD. The takeaway from my last few missions though is relevant to this community, because my Xcom 2 version of Alex "The Wolf" Navarro is a stone cold killer.

    Navarro was one of my first recruits, and he was given the "specialist" specialization. This is akin to Xcom: EU's support class. They have a drone that can heal or aid teammates, and you can spec them to hack or interfere with mechanical enemies. There's also a a new system in Xcom 2 around weapon upgrades, and one type, the repeater, gives a small percentage (5, 10, or 15 based on item quality) for instant kills on a successful shot.

    A few streams ago, I sent out a pretty experienced squad on a "facility sabotage" mission. These are plentiful in Xcom 2, and completing them are vital to keeping the aliens from completing "The Avatar Project," which is game over for the humans/the player. I was told before going into the mission that this base was guarded by a high level alien, meaning I'd be seeing a unique enemy.

    We started in concealment and quickly ambushed the first patrol we came across. This meant we would be exposed making our approach to the facility. We barely had time to regroup, when we got in range of said facility. It was guarded by two heavy (and armored) turrets...and then the Berserker Queen showed up. The Berserker Queen has three armor (meaning all damage done to her is reduced by three until you shred that armor or have Armor Piercing rounds to ignore it) and a health bar that appears to be thirty segments. It's literally three rows of health.

    We had a good tactical position, as we had arranged ourselves with cover between us and the facility's entrance, and the Berserker Queen was coming from that general direction, and a little bit to our left. She showed up, and we received a bit of dialogue between Bradford and Dr Tygan about what a monster she was and what Dr Vahlen could have been thinking when creating her. I steeled myself for a long, brutal fight - I hadn't encountered her in my earlier, unstreamed test game but had fought one of these captains before and knew they were no joke between high health, armor, and abilities I probably hadn't seen yet.

    Except, "Alex Navarro" was in cover, on overwatch, and had his weapon tricked out with one of those repeaters. As soon as she had moved towards us and Dr Tygan and Central started their dialogue, I saw Navarro take a shot, and the screen read, "Executed." He one-shot one of the biggest enemies I'd ever seen.

    Now, Xcom is a game of random occurrences and percentages breaking in your favor or very much not. This was an incredible moment...and it happened AGAIN on his next turn when he "Executed" a heavy turret that had the potential to make our lives very uncomfortable.

    This all happened a week or so ago. Why am I writing about it now? Because it happened AGAIN tonight when he executed a Gatekeeper, a heavily armored enemy who makes every turn it's alive a pain in the ass.

    So while those of us enjoying The Exquisite Corps wait for the return of Commander Navarro, I want to raise a glass to my "Alex 'The Wolf' Navarro," the baddest motherfucker to ever take on the Advent threat.

    I'm going to be real sad when he dies because of a stupid move I made.

    (Thanks for indulging the story - if you're interested in my ongoing streams of the Youtube archives I"m happy to share the info via PM; I don't want to be accused of too much self-promotion for my Twitch empire of like 3 followers and one occasional viewer!)

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    TheManWithNoPlan

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    Personal stories of xcom soldiers being badass is a wonderful thing and I love it. Thanks for sharing. I hear so much good talk around Xcom 2 that I think I need to give it another try. Loved the first game.

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    TheFlamingo352

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    The Exquisite Corps couldn't do better if it tried.

    (How're you liking War of the Chosen? I was higher on XCOM 2 than most people, and Rob and Austin have talked about that expansion like a miracle).

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    asmo917

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    @theflamingo352: I liked Xcom 2 well enough, but I didn't really connect with it because it came out at a time when the pooch in my avatar was a very old, very sick pup and a lot of my time and energy went into emergency and specialist vet trips and taking care of him. Rob and Austin's discussions of War of the Chosen are spot on - it really does make Xcom 2 a very different game. There's a video out there from Eurogamer or PC Gamer or some PC-centric site called something like "117 changes to Xcom 2 in War of the Chosen" and it's not that much hyperbole. I like that it layers systems on systems on systems and adds new factions and hero units to both sides. I think this was in the original, too, but taking time to download a GB character pool and expanding on it with industry people and friends has added a layer of discovery around "who's going to pop up next?!?" that adds something.

    War of the Chosen has made Xcom 2 into something I really love.

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    pweidman

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    WotC was my video game release of the year. It adds so much to an already very good XCOM2. More challenging for sure, but the pacing of the world "events" are much better, and more fairly paced. Could have easily been XCOM3, but the developer shared this awesomeness as an expansion. Thank you FIRAXIS. Time to start my Commander run I guess. :D

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    clagnaught

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    It was always fun to build character stories in XCOM, but I this feeling was stronger in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen.

    In my game, I had some normal looking characters and some who looked like they were fighting the war against the aliens since Enemy Unknown. My version of Alex kind of looked like a punk Thin Man in some ways. I made him a sniper and gave him all of the pistol abilities. This included that one pistol ability where your soldier fires at every enemy he/she sees. So in my game, Alex was this old punk who took out his pistol and shot everybody in the face, as if he's had enough with the aliens and just wants to kill 'em all (or at least make them hurt).

    Playing War of the Chosen makes me wish they based Exquisite Corps on WOTC instead of Enemy Within. I have no context for vanilla XCOM 2, but WOTC is so damn good.

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    asmo917

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    #7  Edited By asmo917

    @clagnaught: I'm pretty sure that pistol ability is named "Face Off." My Alex is a specialist, but I had a priority mission to rescue a pinned down resistance fighter...Sniper Captain Dan Ryckert. I knew he HAD to have that ability. And he does.

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    OurSin_360

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    I really love this game, before my playthrough glitched out ben pack was my top rated soldier. He was also everybody's best friend and had compatibility with damn near every soldier. My latest playthrough dan is my best guy, and is also a combat genius with the highest iq out of everybody nobody likes him though lol.

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    NeverGameOver

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    #9  Edited By NeverGameOver

    I bought WOTC a few days ago and honestly can't endorse it enough.

    Vanilla XCOM 2 was already awesome from a content perspective but it had substantial performance issues. They've mostly ironed those out -- to the point where I've had no issues on the my ironman run-- and added a TON of new features, story content, mechanics, maps, and three new classes in WOTC. It's a bigger and better expansion than Enemy Within, which was quite good itself.

    Also, I know there were a lot of people who were turned off by the turn counters in XCOM 2. There's an option to extend them which makes them a nonissue.

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