7th best game of 2019: Phoenix Point

No, you know exactly what!

NO U 56

I’ll go try this game again after they fix it so I don’t get punished for actually playing the missions it provides.

DON’T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE AND SETTLE YOU BOYS DOWN!

On more substantive issues, I am most intrigued by Tom’s comments about making the strategic and tactical gameplay mesh. I agree with his critique of both Total War and XCOM in terms of “whiplash”. His point that allowing the player to choose when to transition from strategic to tactical can help sounds right to me.

One specific example that I’ve recently played a lot of is HBS’ Battletech: you can noodle about the galaxy, upgrading mechs, buying and selling gear, and getting your super-mechs ready, and you choose when to take a mission,and what kind of mission to see what your mechs can do. If you see a mission that requires adjustments to your mechs, you can retool them and advance time until they are ready (if you want to spend the precious resource of time, that is) and then for example do a mission on a desert world with custom extra-cooling-mechs etc.

Once Phoenix Point has a cooked a bit and is available on Steam (I’m too old and lazy to be arsed with these newfangled storefronts) I’m looking forward to it.

I appreciate Tom’s take on this game. It isn’t finished by any stretch of the imagination. But what is there shows that there is a deep and satisfying game already. And I love to read what Tom writes.

Did you play Snapshot’s Chaos Reborn before it was rebooted with a whole mess of randomness? Because that’s how Phoenix Point works.

You got this backwards Tom. The original CR was full of randomness. The added Law mode got rid of most randomness, at the cost of good gameplay.

Hmmm… I blew this game off totally… but maybe it is good? Huh. Looked like a cheap rip-off of … well, other games… . plus epic.

Maybe I shouldn’t use my stereotypic mind in a negative fashion and open up a bit. PLUS --I have a 10 dollar epic gift card…

I don’t know if it’s fair to suggest the guy who invented this kind of game has ripped off games that ripped him off in the first place :)

It’s totally fair. He had the original idea, but that doesn’t mean he knew how to translate that idea into something palatable, simple and interesting. Firaxis xcom took years and years of trial and error to develop.

X-com is palatable, simple, and interesting. Furthermore, do you somehow think X-com was developer in a few months? A year? It took years as well.

What planet are you from.

Huh, I thought the stealth in XCOM 2 was a shit show. Especially on urban maps where god knows where each of the dozens of civilians are hiding who will instantly rat out your presence to the aliens like Donald Sutherland’s Body Snatchers.

Can we talk some more how ill-fitting the guerilla theme was in XCOM 2? You’re flying around in a GIANT BATTLESHIP, you have zero ability to blend in with the local civilian population, and missions are still all “stay behind until ever enemy is dead” instead of hit and run. If they had changed nothing else but some dialog saying you captured an alien battleship and went on the offensive to invade their planet, the theme would suddenly make way more sense.

It was mentioned, months ago. I think Brian’s point is that it doesn’t need to be mentioned every single time someone that doesn’t like it posts in a thread for a game on the store.

If he would have ignored the comment, like everyone else did, it would have never got the traction it did in this thread.

I think mentioning the exclusivity is germane when people are asking “why isn’t this on a GOTY list other than Tom’s?” It’s probably because it’s currently exclusive to storefronts a lot of people are choosing not to use. Go figure.

Now definitely looking forward to its Steam release, though!

I think that’s fair. But it would also be equally fair to take into account what the game or release might be without Epic’s investment. It might not be out at all by now; or it might have been released earlier and jankier, or lacking features. We may have to speculate on the details, but either way it’s certain that the project benefited at least as much as it suffered from Epic’s involvement.

Sure, maybe. But the question wasn’t “has this game net benefited or suffered from Epic’s involvement?”

The good news there is that it may be better baked by the time it makes it to other store fronts anyway. Using Epic as a sort of Fortnite-funded platform for your early access game seems to be a popular choice.

It’s not an Epic exclusive, just not available on Steam. Specifically it’s available on Game Pass for PC, which a lot of people on the forum subscribe to.

I didn’t say it was? But Microsoft’s store isn’t exactly better than Epic’s. In fact, it’s actively worse.

Take your own advice. While you’re there, you might contemplate what it is about people criticizing a storefront that makes you this angry.