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fermun posted:my initial impression is that its harder than the first xenonauts. money's tight, soldiers die real easy, i think easier, tanks are expensive and die really easy. but a base in the middle east seems to be able to keep the soviet union, the EU, and africa pretty happy. xenonauts is a universe where aliens infiltrate governments starting in the 1980s to keep the cold war going and on the brink of nuclear war and xenonauts 2 is continuing that during a crisis period in 2009. i'm actually considering turning the difficulty down to the easiest difficulty level to re-acquaint myself with this sort of game because i can't really tell right now if it's just super hard or if i just super suck. also you can have initial soldiers that just were a bad roll and they are bad. Even harder than XN1? I guess the target market is Xcom grognards but I didn't even get past the first level of XN and would have refunded it if it wasn't too late.
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Jul 18, 2023 18:30
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skooma512 posted:Even harder than XN1? that sounds more like a knowledge issue than a skill issue, like you didnt get how you were supposed to play and were running your guys around way too agressivly something that can be fixed by watching someone else play for a bit it could also just be that you got very unlucky
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Jul 18, 2023 19:03
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xenonauts 2 has some decent tutorials explaining all the mechanics and seems to be easing into the game more gradually (by having the cleaners, plus I think maybe the sectoids are weaker?) i'll still probably get my rear end kicked later judging from the streamers I watched. I am one of those people who thought they were really good at the original xcom due to the difficulty bug, only to find out later this was very much not the case
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Jul 18, 2023 20:36
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hagged alliance 3 isn't quite as cringe as the promo material made it look. the communists seem like a pretty good charicature. not enough infighting yet. but they aren't blatantly evil and you can call them comrade and table for them so that's better than 99% of games with communists in them
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Jul 19, 2023 13:48
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This mf said hagged alliance
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Jul 19, 2023 15:08
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gradenko_2000 posted:This mf said hagged alliance that's how you're supposed to pronounce the j
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Jul 19, 2023 16:03
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In Jagged Alliance 3 there's a dead politician who was gifted a statue from North Korea and he was actually by all accounts a pretty good guy. There's also a bad guy who used to work in North Korea as a military general. Kinda goes to show you that you can't judge someone based solely off their relationship to North Korea.
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Jul 19, 2023 22:45
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Fighting Elegy posted:In Jagged Alliance 3 there's a dead politician who was gifted a statue from North Korea and he was actually by all accounts a pretty good guy. There's also a bad guy who used to work in North Korea as a military general. Kinda goes to show you that you can't judge someone based solely off their relationship to North Korea. would you say the truth is in the middle?
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Jul 19, 2023 22:51
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bedpan posted:would you say the truth is in the middle? I know its fun to dismiss things but I view it as more of a thing where the politician needed allies because the world was against them, so he's not nesscarilly a bad guy even if he allied with North Korea, meanwhile it's known that the general was offered a lot of money to work in North Korea and he seems power hungry so he is a bad guy. I think this is good writing.
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Jul 19, 2023 23:17
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the mix of camp and weird little flashes of characters saying genuine stuff is interesting. if you go around talking to people in port cacao for isntance they'll mention DPRK gifting the (very goofy) statue but with nothing but warm feelings. there's no jab at DPRK in the game I've seen. which is pretty weird considering there's a lot of satirization of satirization in similar instances definitely not the tone i expected. also some of the music that comes up after events is really good. weird game. not really what i thought it was going to be like at all. also you don't even need a mod to lead the glorious revolution in game it looks like
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Jul 19, 2023 23:37
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so like…the game that has the recruitable black mercenary only talk about crack, the recruitable Chinese mercenary talk about a westerners idea of Chinese mysticism, the all-African enemies wearing tribal garb rather than modern warfare garb, etc… also takes a level headed approach to communism and its role in African politics? what the gently caress is this
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Jul 20, 2023 05:02
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fr0id posted:so like…the game that has the recruitable black mercenary only talk about crack, the recruitable Chinese mercenary talk about a westerners idea of Chinese mysticism, the all-African enemies wearing tribal garb rather than modern warfare garb, etc… Nordic democratic socialism
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Jul 20, 2023 05:04
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fr0id posted:so like…the game that has the recruitable black mercenary only talk about crack, the recruitable Chinese mercenary talk about a westerners idea of Chinese mysticism, the all-African enemies wearing tribal garb rather than modern warfare garb, etc… forget it Fr0id, it’s euro games
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Jul 20, 2023 05:05
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fr0id posted:so like…the game that has the recruitable black mercenary only talk about crack, the recruitable Chinese mercenary talk about a westerners idea of Chinese mysticism, the all-African enemies wearing tribal garb rather than modern warfare garb, etc… it's genuinely bizarre. there are plenty of goofass communism quips like "this is the People's mine, not the people's mine" and "I support the glorious revolution, and not just because the maquis told me to say that!" and then a conversation between two people about how they may not live to see communism implemented but their children might. also the communists seem like they don't have any secret evil stuff they do or massacres or anything. they're mostly satirized by having members who misunderstand things. i havent done everything yet so there might still be a communism = evil reveal at some point. for the most part it seems like the mercs are 90% charicature (sometimes worse than the charicature amount in previous games - Ice was uh, not like this in JA1/2 IIRC) and 5/10% something funny when you let your guard down. i have only used ice for like 2 hours and couldn't do any more but im guessing he has plenty. he seems like a cool guy but i swear i can hear a nordic twinge on ever 'sup that makes my skin crawl. i have no idea if his voice actor is american or swedish or what but something is wrong. but so far all the cringeified satire stuff has hit at one point or another though so i'd expect ice's writing has similar payoff somewhere iirc the tropico games by this developer tried to do similar stuff but i don't remember laughing at anything from it. kinda feels like nathan fielder pitched them a game
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Jul 20, 2023 05:26
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If you blow up a bank the people in the town will become more loyal to you.
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Jul 20, 2023 05:40
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Fighting Elegy posted:If you blow up a bank the people in the town will become more loyal to you. 
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Jul 20, 2023 05:47
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Frosted Flake posted:If you happen to be in Canada, the War Museum exhibit on now about war games is fascinating and gets into the games-as-history stuff. You think it's worth a 3ish hours drive both way if I haven't seen the museum since 20+ years ago?
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Jul 20, 2023 06:12
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just go there on a holiday weekend and break in
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Jul 20, 2023 07:26
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fr0id posted:so like…the game that has the recruitable black mercenary only talk about crack, the recruitable Chinese mercenary talk about a westerners idea of Chinese mysticism, the all-African enemies wearing tribal garb rather than modern warfare garb, etc… There's a bunch of recruitable black mercenaries. One of them (Ice) has a line about smoking crack if someone else on the squad misses an easy shot. The South African black guy (Blood) will regularly talk about how colonialist poo poo he encounters in the country is majorly hosed up. Also when you meet the President's daughter for the second time (at the governor's place in Port Cacao) the governor is a pretty great caricature of a liberal trying to rules based order his way out of the armed militia on his front lawn. It culminates in him concluding "that's it, I'm going to have to write a formal complaint" after they fire an RPG at him, taking out half the front of the building. Got a chuckle out of me. Also also, it's made by Bulgarians so it's not crazy that they might have a more nuanced view of Communism given that country's history. Anyway as mentioned, I do feel like they did my man Ice dirty, in previous games he was definitely different, talking about "Bad dudes" and "Putting another sector in the win column". Orange Devil has issued a correction as of 08:49 on Jul 20, 2023 |
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Jul 20, 2023 08:43
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fr0id posted:so like…the game that has the recruitable black mercenary only talk about crack, the recruitable Chinese mercenary talk about a westerners idea of Chinese mysticism, the all-African enemies wearing tribal garb rather than modern warfare garb, etc… I guess if your game pitch is 'we want to do 80s action movie stereotypes [we know they are not true please do not get mad at us]', and you consider the 80s stereotype of 'evil commies who hate freedom' and also add [we know this is not true] you come to a more nuanced position than how communism is usually depicted? If I recall correctly Bulgaria is also one of the ex communist countries most positive about its past, didn't it use to be an electronics manufacturing powerhouse
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Jul 20, 2023 08:47
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Orange Devil posted:
i keep forgetting this. someone said swede and got me confused. also the commies still havent done anything at all evil yet. also the tribal stuff im pretty sure is a plot thing. they're one faction and im pretty sure they're getting dressed up? i dunno. it's definitely not presented as "these are normal looking irregular soldier guys". other factions wear normal army man stuff of some type or another. the legion guys also have lots of dialogue about just being normal dudes before joining the legion (and some are pressganged). looking forward to the explanation for why all their medics wear the same mask though. (there is probably no reason) Cuttlefush has issued a correction as of 12:38 on Jul 20, 2023 |
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Jul 20, 2023 12:23
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these devs are the same people who made tropico 4 and 5 and also surviving mars make of it what you will
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Jul 20, 2023 13:07
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wasn't there one good tropico? i think i tried a couple of them for minutes. sorta vaguely remember people liking one on the problematic turn based tactics game scale im gonna put jagged alliance 3 under xcom 2 and battletech for now. way under. waaaay under. the least problematic turn based tactics game is still obviously into the breach
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Jul 20, 2023 13:28
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I thought the very first Tropico was good. The later ones seemed to be trying a bit too hard writing-wise, and sacrificed something in the console translation.
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Jul 20, 2023 13:35
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Funniest thing to do in like Tropico 3 was building a perfect communist society that is highly developed, then hitting the big 'privatize' button and then making a million dollars while the country collapses
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Jul 20, 2023 16:33
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education is always free in tropico
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Jul 20, 2023 16:36
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They made a good Tropico game and then made it again two more times. The first one is very nostalgic for me and I still listen to its soundtrack, which slaps.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:37
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getting the sense that the tropico games (first 3) are confirmed good
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Jul 20, 2023 16:38
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Caesar 2 is the ultimate game based around people walking to work
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Jul 20, 2023 16:39
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Tropico 3 is probably the sweet spot in terms of taking itself seriously while still being a bit silly. Tropico 4 is a better game than 3 mechanically but also added a shitload of racism that made it unpleasant to play. Tropico 5 and 6 dialled back the racism a bit but it's still pretty present (6 especially leans hard into the Wacky Third World Dictators stuff, stealing monuments etc) Surviving Mars was not a very good game and like 90% of sci-fi management games in the last few years it also sucked off Elon Musk pretty hard
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Jul 20, 2023 16:44
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Bip Roberts posted:Caesar 2 is the ultimate game based around people walking to work Weird way to spell Pharaoh.
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Jul 20, 2023 18:59
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Cuttlefush posted:getting the sense that the tropico games (first 3) are confirmed good Tropico 2 sucked imo cus weirdly it was a game about managing a pirate island in the 1700s or whatever. I remember Tropico 3 being a game about car congestion.
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Jul 20, 2023 19:02
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Tropico 2 is not without its charm but yeah it was the bad Tropico game until the new ones came out, and technically it's still the bad Tropico game. It's fun though, you can probably pick it up for a dollar or two on sale bundled with the first game.
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Jul 20, 2023 19:11
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Orange Devil posted:Tropico 2 sucked imo cus weirdly it was a game about managing a pirate island in the 1700s or whatever. 1700s pirate islands are sick though. i can imagine it sucking but... golden premise. always.
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Jul 20, 2023 19:12
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Cuttlefush posted:wasn't there one good tropico? i think i tried a couple of them for minutes. sorta vaguely remember people liking one I am thrilled at the thought of finding out why XCOM 2 is problematic
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Jul 20, 2023 22:02
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you eat the sentient aliens and keep their heads as trophies in your lounge and try very hard to genocide them based on the some circumstantial evidence and 100% based on the testimony of a guy with a plug in his head who defected and says "it's made of people, just trust me bro" im joking but the vibes are just hosed up. and keeping skull trophies in your lounge of sentient beings even if they are probably genetically designed to be evil is pretty weird. also it makes the aliens both genocidal eugenicists and extremely camp. doesn't work. you can do genocidal and camp (mars attacks) or eugenicist and camp (rocky horror) but all 3 makes it weird. also the aliens then being chill in the next game while your dudes ate them and kept their heads in the lounge... hosed up
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Jul 20, 2023 22:11
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I would absolutely keep sectoid skulls in my lounge even if they weren't trying to genocide my species, I would suplex those little fucks into the eighteenth century. The UFO thread is very clear about this.
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Jul 20, 2023 22:15
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supersnowman posted:You think it's worth a 3ish hours drive both way if I haven't seen the museum since 20+ years ago? Yes
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Jul 20, 2023 22:18
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Cuttlefush posted:you eat the sentient aliens and keep their heads as trophies in your lounge and try very hard to genocide them based on the some circumstantial evidence and 100% based on the testimony of a guy with a plug in his head who defected and says "it's made of people, just trust me bro"
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Jul 20, 2023 22:24
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the xcom 2 sectoids are people. all the aliens are people (except a couple) and the game is like "hell yeah murder them, they're evil. put their skulls in your lounge. the recon sniper guys cook and eat them! freedom!" but not in a tongue and cheek way. game's serious about it all. you even put up trophy heads of the human-genetically-modified people in the lounge even though everyone knows they're humans. the former genetically modified humans are cool with it. and for some reason they talk weird even though they're humansLostconfused posted:It's not testimony, it's first hand experience. You're that guy, you're the guy with the weird chip in your head and you're out to get revenge on the alien creatures that did it to you. the narrator guy with a chip in his head was trained to fight aliens, lost, blacked out for 20 years, and was then told he was the baddy, time to murder all the aliens i mean yeah that is the case. the aliens are totally evil in xcom2 even though they're humans and are fine in the next game because you uh... did the thing. they're so fine they're actually all just normal regular people. and you had their heads mounted in your lounge im fuckin around here. i kinda think they didnt realize what they were doing. or writing. goofs
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Jul 20, 2023 22:30
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