I am torn between these three TBS games
Xcom: Chimera squad
Gears Tactics
Wasteland 3
They all are in the 80s on metacritic and I have played each about 1/2 an hour and they all seem fun.
So which should I invest the time to actually finish (or at least play for longer until I get distracted).
I remember having a pretty frustrating time with Chimera Squad playing at launch. I ran into many bugs, several of which required me to reload a mission and lose 20-40 minutes of progress multiple times. As far as I'm aware, most of those issues have been ironed out, but I'd look into that first just in case.
As for the game itself, I enjoyed it, but significantly less so than either of the recent mainline XCOM games or their expansions. The breach mechanic was an interesting shift to the formula formula, but I found it grew stale by about the midpoint of the game. I can't recall having similar feelings in the other XCOM games.
Gears Tactics was a great first foray into the tactics genre. I thought they did a good job translating the Gears feel into a different genre. I remember really enjoying how many of the character abilities would gain extra charges or resets through kills, allowing me to take down several more enemies in a turn than I would have been able to otherwise.
My big issue with Gears Tactics was the last third. It's a 3 act structure. The first 2 acts were a blast, with a good degree of difficulty and satisfying character progression. I found Act 3 to be a very large difficulty jump and far longer than it needed to be. I still think it's worth playing, but not necessarily worth finishing. I preferred it to my experience with Chimera Squad overall.
I haven't played Wasteland 3.
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Found Gears a bit gimmicky on kill combos but I get it, and saw that mechanism work well in WH40K Battlesector. I didn't get through Act 1. Something about it didn't mesh well with my tastes. I had that same bounce off with Phoenix Point.
Wasteland 3 is good. Didn't quite finish it, it's not perfect, but does feel like BG3 lite in terms of immersion, gameplay and cohesiveness of the title overall.
Can't speak to Chimera.
I'll offer another TBS squad based choice if it comes on special - Jagged Alliance 3. Surprisingly good for a JA title and closest to a true successor to JA2. Not a game for 100+ hours but digestible in under 30 hours if you're not exploring the entire strategic map.
For the pure tactics gameplay, I actually LOVED Chimera Squad. Played the shit out of that game and even ran through most of a second playthrough, and still intend to go back to that well in the future.
It was initially a bit off-putting with how different it was from the two prior X-COM titles with a smaller and more railroaded scope. However, once I adapted and embraced it for what it was (especially as a much more "play aggressive" style than I am used to) I appreciate how it was a distilled essence of so much of what I loved about those games.
It's one of those games that I think didn't quite accurately convey what it was initially and suffered from the IP giving players the wrong expectations. It was also pretty buggy around launch time -- frustratingly so. It did improve later, but I wouldn't say it was as polished as X-COM 1 & 2.
I also quite loved Gears Tactics, but that one was a little more hit-or-miss at times, and I agree that the 3rd act overstayed its welcome (though I still enjoyed playing through to the end, just could've used a bit of pruning).
And Wasteland 3 I am in the same boat -- started it up for a couple hours a while back and need to get back to it one of these days.
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Chimera Squad - if playing the cops doesn't make you feel icky, it's great. Suffers from the classic XCOM symptom of getting overpowered in the back half of the game.
Gears Tactics: I bounced off it but i think I just find that IP tedious. Mechanically, the game was sound.
Wasteland 3 - the silliest of the group, it attempts to be satire and occasionally succeeds at that, the rest of the time falling into edgelord goofiness. Weakest in terms of tactics combat, strongest in terms of narrative.
TL:DR there no wrong answer in that group!
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In true ADHD fashion I am playing a bit of all three on different nights.
I hope one of them gets it hooks into me.
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Spent my gaming time this weekend with Chimera Squad. I really like the world, the more developed characters and most of the mechanics but I really hate the "Xcom effect" I don't know what else to call it - if I play most games and I have an 85% chance I am pretty confident it will happen but Xcom just doesn't. I know it is a running joke about the franchise so it isn't like I was unprepared but it is also kind of annoying. It also feels like save scumming is kind of needed and expected. I had one mission where my team got decimated, reloaded a save from the 2nd breach point and was able to win with no deaths.
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I found Gears Tactics to be really enjoyable. Of course I played it May 2020, a lot of time to kill. It was refreshingly different from xcom (I’ve never played a gears game before). Wasteland 3 was great also, and that’s coming from someone who bounced hard off of wasteland 2.
Chimera Squad was fun (once the bugs were fixed), it just got long in the tooth, I found that I’d had wished it was over about 2/3 of the way through.
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All of this. I played it a year or more after release on sale and no bugs to speak of. Fantastic fun and I fully intend to go back and try the characters I missed.
What Stele said ^ -mortalgroove
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Now I have added another game to my wishlist!
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With all the amazing titles that dropped this year, why these three?
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TBSes that have been on my to play list. No other great reason
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Go with Chimera Squad. It's a great pseudo-mini-sequel to XCOM2 and had some interesting new gameplay mechanics and roleplaying elements. Also, it's not a major time investment. You can finish it in a little over a week.
You really can't go wrong with any of these, but I will say that Wasteland 3 is more of a full CRPG than a TBS game. I think if you really forced me to pick, I'd agree with Budo; Chimera Squad is a good, solid piece of content with a bunch of fun missions that won't tie up your gaming time forever.
Fair enough. Do you have a GOTY frontrunner for the titles that dropped this year. Itll be interesting to see which game wins it.
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Playing: Black Myth: Wukong & Metro 2033 Redux