XCOM: Enemy Within: Impossible Ironman

I tried my first time for this month on playing on the Impossible difficulty.  Sad to say, I was sent laughing off my chair at how hard the transition is from Normal straight to Impossible.  9 Sectoids appeared with a slightly bigger HP and my 4 rookies didn't stand a chance!  Oh man, I'm still laughing at this moment and just wanted to share my first experience on this difficulty.  Oh well, going back to the Normal difficulty first then Classic and when I get the hang of it, I'm going back and doing the Impossible one!

Oh yeah, I got my hands on a Civilization V game and not sure if I should play it or not.  I'll have a week to decide whether or not I'm into playing it but hopefully it would interest me that I'd go do a youtube series of it.  Til then, cherrio!

XCOM: Enemy Within: Best Mission Result Evar!

Recently I have stumbled upon one particular mission that is given to you by the Council.  Some said you need to make sacrifices in order to complete the mission.  Others said it was very hard but not impossible to save all of them but the chances were pretty slim.  Thankfully, I managed to finish the mission with flying colors.  Maybe lady luck was with my side that it appeared very late in the game whereas on my first try, it was given to me when I was still building the MEC and Genetic facilities.

I used my Assault to head the mission, one with mimetic skin and close combat specialist, thinking that I could run and gun my way out of there.  So I proceeded with my heavies covering the rear and my MEC and support following the Assault.  My Sniper got into a position where she could cover my front members but is covered by the heavies.

I killed off three of those zergs first before climbing up the ship with only my assault.  Rushed to the control room.  Next turn initiated the zergs coming out of the whale.  Assault could reach the switch and head back to full cover to conceal herself.  Everyone on overwatch and my assault soon reached my MEC and support.  All three rushed towards the evac area while my heavies and sniper gunned down anything that moved.  Almost had a misclick where it prompted if I want to end the mission and evac my only assault in the area or continue with the mission.  Then the cutscene of pure awesomeness.

Well there you have it.  A mission that I thought wasn't possible to finish in one piece.  I'll try to bring more analysis on the next mission so that I could help out others who are having difficulty with the game.  I haven't tried Impossible level yet so maybe I'll do that after I finish this round.  Til then, cheerio!

XCOM: Enemy Within Newbie

I am not ashamed to tell others if I'm a newbie of a game.  However, I will be when I have been playing the game for a long time (1 month or more).  But for XCOM, I can't say for sure since I've been playing the franchise starting with Apocalypse, went on hiatus when the next one came, and then went back to playing with Enemy Unknown.  I blazed past that and was content on how 2k Games and Firaxis rebooted the franchise.  It was epic.  Until they released an update called Enemy Within, it felt the same way with Enemy Unknown however with more stuff to do and material that I need more than 1 day to figure stuff out.  I don't know if I am doing the right thing but that's games for you, there is no right way and you'll have to figure it out on your own, a trial and error in which is the essence of gaming.

Just a small side rant,  I met someone who plays games and when he can't figure it out, he just rage quits and calls the game "lame." I'm not sure what his problem is in life but I did tell him that he should be more patient with the game if he was to enjoy it.  He just said that games only make him rage and waste money and that he'll never buy any more and would just download pirated games for his own displeasure.  I know it's a bit crazy but I don't know what games he'll be able to enjoy.  Even when I introduced him to Minecraft, he just sat there and looked at me like I was an idiot and told me Minecraft was for kids and the graphics was lame.  Til this day, he's trying to find new games and I doubt he'll enjoy any of them if he continues his way of playing.  Anyone out there know a good game for a short tempered person with high expectations?

Anyways, back to XCOM: Enemy Within.  My friend got the game and hurriedly went to my house so that we could unbox it and install it.  So he was on the driver seat and I was the strategist.  He hasn't played Enemy Unknown but he knew I was good at games.  So here we are, Day 2 of playing the game and here's a few feedback.

The game still has its awesome features.  New mechs, meld, enemies, and I think a better AI.  There were a few times when the game would slow down and the enemy turn would take at least 2 minutes before handing the turn over to us.  Not sure if there'd be a hotfix for that but no worries, we're still chugging thru mission after mission with minimal casualties.  Until we encountered the dreaded fishing village mission.

At first, it was filled with zombies.  Then came the chryssalids in a swarm.  Then later got overwhelmed before we could push the button and it ended up pretty nasty.  I mean, most of our team got killed, turned to zombies, which in turn attacked and killed the remaining team and sad to say, failed our first mission.

We called it a day and will be revisiting the mission with a new campaign.  Yes we are starting over since we don't have a saved game of the campaign and we weren't in Ironman mode.  We are doing Normal on our first game so I guess it's a big lesson for us to reconsider the cautious approach.  Til then, cheerio!

Gaming: X-Com: Enemy Within

I'm a huge fan of X-Com and the first X-Com I played was X-Com Apocalypse.  It brought gaming to another level to my gaming experience at that time and let me tell you, once you played it, you want them to make more and better ones.  But there were some years that went by and the next X-Com games were just not that good.  Until X-Com Enemy Unknown came out and I had a blast again.  Nostalgia.



X-Com Enemy Within is a DLC for Enemy Unknown, which adds more content and spice into the fray.  Personally, I think it was good for them to add defense mission where you need to defend your base against intruders that want to stop your operations of saving the planet from alien invasion.  A new group called EXALT has added a new depth into the game where they want the aliens to come to Earth and be their slaves.  Not sure how anyone would think that way but if aliens are coming to our planet with domination in mind, why would you want to help them?

A new type of resource is introduced called Meld, where you can use it to upgrade your soldiers into mechanical robots to boost your firepower (when I first heard how it was done, I had goosebumps all over my skin.  They literally had to remove a soldiers limbs and augment robotic parts to become stronger)

It may sound scary but I guess if it was for the best way to defend the planet, then why not!  I'd rather be the researcher in the lab than be a soldier that gets their limbs cut off or just be a regular soldier and rank up fast.  Here's a few shots to show how badass these new type of soldier is.

Also can do research to increase a soldier's survivability in battles with improved genetics.

And when you think you got the edge over the aliens, new aliens with their own upgrades can be seen and fight against.

Last but not the least, defense missions will occur randomly throughout your campaign against alien invasions.

Do you think you can save the planet or would you just let the aliens take over?  I got my secret weapon ready to blast these aliens out of our airspace and make those supporters hide from fear with this outfit!

With everything I've seen so far ranging from Let's Play's and Reviews on the internet, I guess I'll be waiting to get my hands on this game as soon as possible!