

Where Phoenix Point sings is in the fine combat strategies – learning how to take down or hinder your many Lovecraftian-horror foes, or how best to avoid destruction. The base version of the game was difficult enough to begin with, but now if you have all of the new additions toggled on, it can be almost overwhelming, like spinning plates. The sheer amount of content means that the essence of what made the standard game fun is perhaps over-complicated and diluted by it. And I guess this is where this package falls down a tad. What this also means is that there is a handy tutorial which teaches you the basics of the game and allows you to get a feel for the weighty amount of content you are required to get your head around. These introduce new storylines, missions, enemy types, and all that good stuff. But how does it stack up against the original?Ĭontent wise, you get access to all four of the DLC packs released for the game to date. Finally, after two years of bug fixing, tweaks and additions, console players can experience the strategic shooter, with a tonne of extra content included.
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Originally dropping on Epic Games Store for PC, this probably meant that a lot of people missed out first time around. A few years back he led Bulgarian studio Snapshot Games in producing their crowdfunded XCOM homage/successor, Phoenix Point. Only do it when you absolutely have to.Retro game nerds like me will be all too familiar with the work of Julian Gollop, thanks to his legendary strategy titles like Rebelstar, the Chaos series, Laser Squad, and of course the original XCOM. Phoenix Point takes a more realistic approach, as reloading will lose whatever bullets you had remaining in your current magazine.
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In basically every videogame reloading is magic: it always refills your gun to full without losing any bullets, even if you’d only shot once. It took me hours to realise this, now you get to know it right away, you lucky things. But did you know you can adjust the size of that cone? Hold down control and scroll the mousewheel to expand and contract the cone. When you put a unit on overwatch you position a vision cone to establish the zone in which they shoot enemies. Equally, disabling a body part inflicts bleed damage disable multiple body parts to stack bleed damage on tougher foes. Instead, prioritise disabling weapon arms to reduce the threat enemies pose. Headshots aren’t everythingĪ shot to the head in XCOM is a reliable way to end a threat, but the mutated invaders of Phoenix Point are far less predictable. For instance, try popping from cover, shooting an enemy, and then scooting around a corner so they can’t shoot back. Take the opportunity to reassess your options with each step: your turn doesn’t end until you’ve used up all your actions. Phoenix Point's more granular action point system lets you shoot and move, move a little, shoot and move a little again, or even move one square at a time. Get the most from your action pointsĬombat is relatively simple in XCOM: you move a unit, then you can choose to shoot or move again. The Triton autopsy is also useful as it unlocks shotguns, if you want to go down the close-quarters combat route. The Arthron is especially good as it unlocks the grenade launcher, a useful bit of tech that will help ensure that your Heavies can actually hit things. Like XCOM, certain pieces of equipment are locked behind autopsying an alien. Unsurprisingly they won't be fans of this, and the mission to take it can be quite difficult, so think carefully before you go through with it. You can build them for large amounts of resources or steal them from factions by raiding their Haven. Steal aircraftĪircraft are some of the best upgrades you can get: they let you have more squads out in the world at the same time.

Think carefully before initiating one last scan before returning a squad of injured soldiers to base. Early on you’ll be running around scanning every map marker you see-this is good practice, as it’ll let you make contact with factions and find vital resources-but be aware you can be ambushed while you’re scanning.
