Aliens: Fireteam - Left 3 Dead with Xenos

Games
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This is actually the case with DRG too. Had a bunch of friends on Game Pass play it then later another bunch wanted in on Steam. I bought it on both platforms (before I subbed to GP) and they’re both separate eco-systems which is annoying.

On Fireteam: we tried doing a campaign on Extreme with our fresh-out-of-Intense-fully-maxed-out marines and it felt absurdly difficult. I think we managed to do the first level and it was thrilling, screaming-into-the-headset tense stuff. Everything we play these games for! But the second level we never got past a certain corridor no matter what strategy we used. Standard xenos just ate bullets. We came to the conclusion that without certain classes, Extreme was nigh on impossible.

Our original Intense difficulty class combo was demo (me), tech (friend A) and phalanx (friend B). After banging our heads on Extreme we went into horde mode (Intense) to level some other classes up: gunner (me), tech (friend A) and demo (friend B). We once got to wave 20 and could comfortably get to 10. When we went back to the campaign on Extreme we still got our asses kicked, pal. We even brought two demos(!!) at one point (mine maxed out). We couldn’t work out whether it was the tech not bringing the firepower, the gunner and demo not being high level enough, us not being good enough or a combination of the above. It didn’t feel like a ‘git gud’ issue; it felt bonkers, like we were nowhere near powerful enough to tackle that difficulty. And there’s Insane above it!! We wished there were a collection of horde mode maps to play because we loved jumping into that mode but got tired of the one map. To have a whole game’s worth of areas but only one horde mode map seems crazy to me.

We’re all really looking forward to the new DLC though. Hopefully that will give us the levelling leg-up we need.

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I play both on Game Pass and have had no problems finding games lately, though I am not yet playing on the hardest difficulties and that might be the difference.

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Game Pass being it’s own closed silo is idiotic beyond belief.

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think that’s up to each dev/publisher. several games are full cross. seems silly the ones that are not though.

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@tomchick look LOOK!!!

Crossplay on July 26th.

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I’m so ready for more of this. We’re trying to wrap up WWZ on Game Pass before it leaves this Sunday!

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I jumped back into this last night with @mono and @marquac and I have to say: I’m really pleased with the state of this game after being away so long.

The last time I played was several months ago, and I was playing with some friends who had it on Gamepass, so I had to use a separate version that reset all my progress, and that was much more of a bummer than I anticipated. I was thinking I could imagine it’s like an MMO, and I’m rolling up a new character. But being busted back down to level 0 and trying to demonstrate the finer points of the harder difficulty levels was NOT an enjoyable re-entry.

But jumping back in last night? Getting to choose among my characters with their weirdly elaborate Tetris skill grids, getting to work out a synergy between my weapons and abilities, trying to deal with the combination of scripting and random spawns to get to the end of the level with new players, managing ammo and health…it’s all in there, it’s all as smart and gratifying as ever, even when you fail. We eventually remembered to stock up on cheap sentry guns before starting the level and we would have handily made it through the finale…if I hadn’t misremembered the scripting and thought I was being super clever by anticipating the order of operations, only to forget one of them while we all got repeatedly pounced by a warrior xenomorph. That one was totally on me. It was our third failure of the night, but I’m on a mission: to get through every level on the intense difficulty (which introduces friendly fire and acid for blood), at which point my mission will be to get through every level on extreme difficulty.

I’m maxxed out on xp, but now there are prestige classes, so I guess I’m working on those. It looks like they just unlock dopey cosmetic nonsense. There are also a couple of horde missions, but based on the first one they added, I’m not expecting much. There’s also a new campaign, but again, I’m not expecting much, partly because I have no problem replaying the existing missions! And believe it or not, I liked the campaign story and I’m concerned a coda is just gonna mess it up.

The most intriguing new addition is a hardcore mode with permadeath. You have to roll up a brand new character, at level zero with no unlocks, and see how far you can get before he or she dies. I have no idea if this will be awesome or awful, but at some point, I aim to find out.

So consider this a heads up that if you haven’t been into Aliens: Fireteam Elite lately. It might be worth ducking in to take a gander at the new stuff and see if it grabs you like it’s grabbed me.

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Who’da thunk, but it turns out proper equipment makes a difference!

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I’m a bit bummed it’s leaving/left game pass, fired it up again a couple weeks ago and really enjoying it. Was bummed that the new campaign has some performance issues on my console though.

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Huh, so I guess this game wasn’t just another bug hunt?

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I assume Ukrainians just complete the game at level 0, no problem.

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Is this any good as a single player game?

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I would say no.

You can play with bots – suitably rendered as synthetics, or “artificial persons” when Bishop is in the room – but they’re typically dumb. They won’t use any of the game’s tactical tools, and they’re little more than meat shields who will rez you until you run out of lives. Which is fine for getting through the content as a single-player game, and for what it’s worth, I quite liked the story as it unfolded; there are some really cool surprises in here if you haven’t had them spoiled by all the press, reviews, and conversations.

But it’s my opinion that what sets this game apart is the enemy AI and behaviors, which don’t really come into play until you’re trying harder difficulty levels to introduce acid blood, visibility limitations, resource management, and the importance of the different classes (recon, medic, technician especially). Sadly, you’re not going to get any of this if you’re just playing with bots.

However, if anyone here owns Aliens: Fireteam Elite and is interested in trying with human players, please feel free to drop me a PM and I’d be delighted to join you and see if we can get a three-player game going.

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I’m going to have to fire this up, looks great

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tremendous fun in a group, wish my friends hadn’t given up on it so quickly. the skill system is pretty unique and I was looking forward to levelling all the classes.

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Are the DLCs worth it? It looks like they are cosmetic packs, but I’m unclear on this card modifier system. Do the DLCs come with essentially game mode modifiers? Or am I good with only the one expansion pack?

I think I may try this with one friend and an AI. Hopefully it is fun that way.

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I got this as part of Humble Choice. I’ll give it a whirl.

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the dlcs add modes and campaigns and are pretty decent. I was bummed the performance of the outside maps on xbox were pretty bad but otherwise is all pretty solid. I hated playing with AI though so stopped playing when my friends did despite loving the game and especially the way you level up characters/abilities.

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Just played the first mission on the default difficulty with some rando pubs as the default gunner. It was okay. I didn’t realize it’s entirely in third-person. Sort of robs me of the immersion factor and having to “check those corners” since I can naturally see a good amount of corners around my character…I was also surprised by the existence of quick time events, in my co-op shooter?

The tooltip for the Intense difficult says it’s the true intended experience AKA the way the game was meant to be played. I guess because one of the bullet points says it removes the obnoxious yellow highlights around the aliens, which I think was indeed too much and I didn’t like at all. Too intrusive enhanced reality for the sake of helping baby gamers also mucking up the immersion factor.

After we beat the mission I choose to continue to the next one thinking it was like Left 4 Dead, but the other two guys returned to the ship, so I was left with two weird robots with ball caps suddenly as their replacements. I then quit the game.

I want to fire it up again and try Intense instead, but having only a little knowledge and next to no unlocks/levels I guess I might be letting the other players down…?