Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Been there, done that"

Started out quite well, I'm a sucker for turn-based squad combat with great base management behind.
Didn't play the original X-com, I could smell the oversimplification trend affecting this remake... but it was alright.

Except I'd played Jagged Alliance 2 Wildfire recently... and I started paying attention to the combat system.

The visuals and close-ups were cool, not too distracting as usual.

But looking at the shots, you can see they go to a fixed direction, even though they almost always fire in burst. And that direction can be quite random.
Maybe you blow up the alien's cover? Maybe you blow up your own? There's no friendly fire from either side as well..
And it just *looks* random.

Then we get to cover. Cover is either half-cover or full-cover. Where you're shooting from matters marginally: if the alien is behind a big crate, it doesn't really matter UNTIL you're FULLY flanking him. Didn't really find an option to check line of sight, so it got to be quite random as well which aliens my guys could spot, never mind shoot.

I could go on and on about the oversimplified system, with "reaction shots" being reserved for certain classes, "overwatch" being pretty much useless as their itchy trigger fingers usually makes them try to aim the hardest target.. and then there's no "reaction" left to blast the guy who just ran straight up to you.
I can understand the "two actions" system, where you can only run to one place and then either shoot or run again. It's much simpler, really.
But add to that the ridiculousness of being unable to just shoot at anything that runs at you *in a straight line* and it just becomes too "unrealistic".

Base management also has its flaws, as well, I just skipped laser weapons and went straight to plasma, as the cost difference was at least 10 and regular guns were doing just fine.
In fact, the major advantage I gained from plasma were the +aim bonuses.
As well, my guys developed in a pretty weird way, and the only thing I really cared to give them were +aim boosts.

So, basically, I ignored half of the stuff that was possible to do with the base management. But that's okay, I tend to go frugal.

What I didn't like was how quick saves were so useful. Sometimes abduction (missions where you have to choose one continent to protect) rewards and "victim" continents were so important that it made some sense to just go back to your save and try again.
But where I actually used it was against invading ships. See, if you just quick load a bit behind, they're gonna show up in the same continent. So, if you don't have a good enough interceptor? Just quick load, put your best one in the right spot and watch the aliens burn.
In theory, could've lasted the whole game with one "uber" interceptor.

Anyway, just a sort of technical rant. It was good fun, disappointing "story" and anything attempting to be complex, so gets a 6... and a half.