Still one of the best multiplayer experiences of my life. AvP2 was a banger. Clan battles were epic. Higher level play and deep combat for all 3 races... classic. I was so mad when AVP film 1 came out, and they didn't just copy paste the story and feel of this game! Complete waste of source material. Instead we get a joke of a film set in Antarctica in present day?! WHY??
Now you can hate me for this, but in my head canon: The Xenos are a bio weapon, because no biosphere would create or survive these things naturally. The Yautja have stolen their tech and adapted it, but never truly costructed any of it. And maybe the engineers is what brings these together.
2:44 and so in response to these issues, they made the graphics in the sequel as high end as currently possible making it near impossible to run on most things.
While starting a sequel from the bad ending is rare among games in general, it isn't unprecedented in X-COM like games. There's this X-COM inspired game called UFO:Aftermath released in 2003 and its sequel UFO:Aftershock also starts from the bad ending of the previous game. I wonder if the makers of X-COM 2 got some inspiration from that.
9:39 The other the line-up song in the base game is, imo, amazing compared to the one in WoTC. I dunno why there isn't (if there is, how?) an option to change the WoTC to the base game line-up track.
One thing I like about XCOM 2 is how scrappy it is. Your operations officer, your lead scientist and chief engineer are literally making educated guesses and coming up with stuff as they go along. Really helps sell the underdog status of XCOM.
The Templars would be so much more interesting if their leader was Zhang from the DLC instead of a random dude. Triad member, international agent and then psionic guerilla leader.
War of the Chosen: 2/3 really great. • The assassin is dangerous due to her mobility, invisibility and stuns. She can be difficult to catch. • The Warlock has powerful psionic abilities, shield himself and create psi-zombies. • The Hunter sits in a corner until you walk up to him and tap him on the shoulder. Similarly: • The Skirmishers are renegade Advent soldiers who are practically Mandalorians, they are walking arsenals. • The Reapers are pseudo-cannibalistic stalkers with marksmen rifles, IEDs, and questionable morals. • The Templars are... there? They have Covenant energy swords I guess?
Got to love that the background plot for XCOM 2 is that the aliens kidnapped you during the base defence mission. And then forced you to play The Long War mod for years on end.
Fun trivia, I managed to get Dragunova to sneak through the sewers alone, and one-shot the advent general, and then stealth the whole way out again. It was extremely satisfying.
I love explosives and flamethrowers in XCOM. It is impressive, I disliked the Heavy in EU, but the Grenadier has more nuance and more utility. Honestly, I think I like all of the classes in XCOM 2, all of them have been the perfect solution at some point.
Ah, I wondered you the narrator for the broken sword trailer was! I saw it on a demo disc (I think) and it blew my tiny mind! Felt like a trailer for a noir detective action movie 🍿
It's a great tragedy that this game didn't succeed. It has some really cool concepts and solid foundations. Unfortunately it took too many notes from what SC2 was at the time.
Fun fact unless you play on the harder skils the game is lying to you about that hit chance. But in your favour. When it says things like 60% it's actually higher. It knows ppl don't understand chance so it lies in your favour.
I think you forgot to mention that the other thing they added in WOTC is the Bond ability system that would give your units a bit of an edge in battle, like extra action and combine strike. Also to add, if you combine use both the Reaper's Claymore and other unit's grenade, you are able to double the damage you have in hand, making it one of the best ambush or Blitzkrieg maneuver to ever perform.
To explain it as best I can. The day changes too much, the year changes to little. When filing stuff, the month and the year are the most important things. Think of it like a library system, where you have an alphabetical system. Only this time there are 12 letters. You put the year last, because grouping by year is a thing, and you need to be able to see it easily. The year is important but it also barely ever changes. So then month is first, so you can easily segment the year into 12 groups. Then you put the day, so you can fine tune your month documents order. Basically, when you're looking at files, the first thing you do, is look at the month. If it's not the number you're looking for, you can immediately stop looking at it. It let's you eliminate 11 of the 12 options right away. Then you can move on to the date, and odds are the year will probably be what you expect it to be.
15:10 The Queen fight is more fun with cheat codes. I would do the infinite ammo cheat and shoot it until it died, which is possible. I would also fight the Queen as a Predator with WRISTBLADES ONLY as I felt the spear gun got too easy; a true Predator should enjoy a challenge...
My favorite AvP game is still Aliens versus Predator: Gold Edition from 1999/2000. I got the initial release and then got Gold later. AvP 2 was a disappointment for me with how slow and plodding it was. I also didn't care about the story. The graphics were also better in my opinion in 1999/2000. Watching your video reminds me that the flashlight graphics are terrible as it's a fake lighting engine with fake shadows. The AvP 2010 was fine too. Multiplayer was fun for a bit although it would often end up as an endless conga line of long kill animations.
Fun fact about the 80's cartoon: It's canon. That is to say, it's canonically an *in-universe* cartoon series produced in the Lyran Commonwealth. The Clan commander that is the main bad guy in it also tried suing them for defamation. The real fun bit of the game is that it's literally a somewhat adapted and rebalanced version of the tabletop game rules.
My personal chronology of the franchise: Predator, 1987 Predator 2, 1990 Alien, 1979 Alien: Isolation (video game), 2014 Aliens, 1986 Alien 3, 1992 (Assembly Cut) Aliens Versus Predator 2 (video game), 2001 (I also love the first game, but don't know where it fits in the timeline). I've read some of the original comics as well, but they were ret-conned when Alien 3 came out. Still, they are an entertaining (alternate) continuation from Aliens. All the other films (including Resurrection) are just non-canonical "what-if" stories, imo. Don't get me started on "Prometheus," "Covenant," or the upcoming "Romulus." 🤮
