XCOM: Chimera Squad

GWJ Conference Call Episode 707

Resident Evil 3 Remake (PS4), Predator: Hunting Grounds (PS4), XCOM: Chimera Squad (PC), MB Bannerlord (PC).

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Amanda, Cory, Glendon, and special guest Aaron Amendola talk about the spaces we play in.

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Comments

00:01:49 Resident Evil 3 Remake
00:10:29 Predator: Hunting Grounds
00:15:19 XCOM: Chimera Squad
00:39:15 Animal Crossing: New Horizons
00:42:07 Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
00:46:46 The Spaces We Play In
01:02:02 Your Emails

I was probably too negative about XCOM: Chimera Squad on the show. 20 hours in at this point and I'm enjoying it, even if it's not perfect.

It is a smaller-scale game than XCOM 2 in almost every way, but that's not a negative. I'm enjoying the breach mechanic more now, it feels like there's enough character variety to reward multiple campaigns, and many of the abilities your squaddies have are a ton of fun.

I do think it's a touch too easy on Normal Ironman, though -- aside from the boss mission for Sacred Coil that took five retries and a blessing from the RNG gods, I haven't had any real problems. Shoulda played on Hard.

Anyway. Tell me how wrong I am here.

Re: The Spaces We Play In

It was interesting how hosts frequently mixed the spaces we play in and the related rituals to prepare for play. They are so intertwined that it's difficult to completely separate them in my mind.

For a long time, the most important part of my space for gaming was for it to be away from everybody. I loved having a secluded gaming space in my bedroom growing up and my own game cave in my room in college. If I'm doing a social game, then it's great to have it in a common area. But a long RPG, any story-driven adventure, or really anything you need to focus on (from hard platforming to grand strategy) needs to be away from social distractions.

These days, the hardest part of gaming is finding "protected" time to be able to 100% focus on gaming. Ever since becoming a parent, that's my #1 responsibility and I very rarely get a real break. My 1st child was a poor sleeper and it felt like there was never a reliable time I would get to myself. Throw a couple more children on the pile, and now it's nigh-impossible to feel like I'm ever really away from everybody, no matter where I set up my gaming space. The baby monitor waits until you're lulled into complacency before it strikes...!

I'm totally with Amanda on being unable to play in public. A lot of it is nerd-shame... but it's also that I easily get too absorbed and will miss real life. I couldn't play while commuting in San Francisco because I'd easily miss my stop, and then god help you to make up that time...

But beyond that, I really hate playing games in "non-ideal" ways. The first time I play games that I'm excited about is incredibly important to me. I've postponed games for literally years to over a decade because I've never felt it was the "right" moment. Either I didn't have the right mood, or I couldn't get enough time away for myself, or I was too stressed out over other things and couldn't dedicate the energy to it. Because of that, it's really hard to convince myself to play when I do have a few non-ideal moments, like playing the switch before bed, or even in handheld mode at all. The "ideal" way to play is on the big screen and soaking up the best graphics and sound in the best spot in my house... I'm aware that non-ideal play would be better than no-play-at-all... Yet it doesn't make it happen! I'm trying though!

Re: Headphones vs Speakers for PC Gaming (per Amanda's revelation)

Yea, I'm on Cory's side of wanting to use my PC speakers whenever possible. I almost never use headphones. I still find them distracting and can easily cause headaches, even after maaaany nights of using them for voice coms on WoW.

Demiurge wrote:

I do think it's a touch too easy on Normal Ironman, though -- aside from the boss mission for Sacred Coil that took five retries and a blessing from the RNG gods, I haven't had any real problems. Shoulda played on Hard.

I think the difficulty may vary real widely depending on who you recruit and just plain how the level is generated. I've beaten XCOM2 on the highest difficulty normally and second-highest ironman, so I'm relatively proficient, and I thought the normal difficulty in the early game was pretty rough, particularly with the Sacred Coil armored units. After that it's pretty okay, but again your squad selection can really make a difference.

Demiurge wrote:

I do think it's a touch too easy on Normal Ironman, though -- aside from the boss mission for Sacred Coil that took five retries and a blessing from the RNG gods, I haven't had any real problems. Shoulda played on Hard.

I'm playing on Hard. Just finished up the quest questline (I picked Progeny), and the difficulty has slackened off significantly since I've unlocked better armor and weapons, and picked up another couple squad members so I can rotate the wounded ones out more easily. I'm breezing through the early missions on the second questline with nary a scratch.

Going in, I assumed that with the hundreds of hours of XCOM I've gotten under my belt, Normal wasn't going to be for me, and so far, I've been proven right.

On the headphones vs speakers note, I almost always go headphones these days, cos my PC headphones cost three times more than my speakers.