|
This was an awesome LP and I really enjoyed it, thanks so much for doing it. I've not commented before because I didn't know anything about XCOM and didn't think I had anything substantive to contribute, but I wanted to let you know I appreciated it. I'm seriously tempted to give one of these games a go now (or at least next time I get a new PC, there's some doubt as to whether my current one can run this). This game also did a really good job of scratching that "cheesy SF" itch I get every so often. It's really impressive how much characterisation work this game manages to do even when the characters are randomly-generated or goon-submitted, just between the way their abilities develop and the random outcomes and reactions they have on missions. By the end of this run, the A-team have managed to take on a sort of iconic quality that I wouldn't have expected given how this game starts off; anyone who's watched this LP will instantly recognise Shanty Pete, California Mustang and so on. Also, well, congratulations on not dying! That last mission looked legitimately hard even with all the DLC powers you had. I'm not sure what to make of the difficulty curve, so have some vague thoughts: a lot of games have this issue of "inverse difficulty curves" where the hardest part of the game is front-loaded and the accumulation of options and power (and player skill and knowledge) means that things slowly get easier until you reach a tipping point where the rest of the game is a cakewalk. I don't know if this is necessarily a game design issue, because it's very good at creating satisfying moments for the player when it's done well, but it's definitely the sort of thing that becomes more evident on replays (and can remove a lot of that satisfaction in retrospect). The question becomes, is it inevitable to have an inverse difficulty curve in any game with power development, or are there ways to scale difficulty better in order to mitigate or prevent it from happening? (And, if so, would we want to?) In the case of this game, I find myself wondering if they didn't intend the player to develop every aspect of the tech trees as much as happened in this LP; maybe you're supposed to progress the plot earlier and more consistently, and not get so many upgrades? (Although the actual plot missions seemed few and far between, it doesn't seem to me like there'd be much campaign there if you did only those, or even if that would be possible.) We did, for instance, see Gatekeepers showing up before the plot mission that seems intended to introduce them. So it could maybe have been a pacing issue, though that in itself seems like a flaw: it's not the player's fault for taking advantage of options given to them even if that results in later content seeming unimpressive.
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2019 15:34
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 22:28 |
|