Tag: Earthwalker

Metal Wolf Chaos. Watch out America

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Metal Wolf Chaos is a new action mech shooter developed by ‘General Arcade‘ and ‘FromSoftware‘ and published by ‘Devolver Digital Games‘. Metal Wolf Chaos is said to be coming out the 6th of August on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. Is America ready for this one? Guess we’ll have to find out. Let’s take a look.

The world of Metal Wolf Chaos is set in America. Basically what’s going on is that the vice-president Richard Hawk has started and lead a full scale rebellion in an attempt to take over America and guess be in charge. The current president Donald- we mean Michael Wilson must defend America. Since he is president, it’s his job to take America back and he’s doing it by any means necessary. Now this would be so easy and just have to call the police if it weren’t for Richard Hawk having a mechanised army. He commands legions of them. President Michael Wilson will use his own advanced powerful mech, which has loads of firepower and weapons, to battle all across America and save the nation. Simple story and it makes sense. 

So basically a remake and we know the deal with remakes. There isn’t that much to say about them. What we do know and hope is that they get all the required elements of a remake or modernising game. The first things many gamers look for and expect of a game like this is the graphics and visuals. Metal Wolf Chaos has received a visual upgrade but still doesn’t look as great as your average  2019 game. Reminds us more of Duke Nukem 3D in a way but obviously better visuals though. The developers need to step up on graphics. The controls have been improved and that should be instantly noticeable. Also expected will be 4K as that’s what many seem to care about now. 16:9 viewing is supported for modern screens.

We checked out some Metal Wolf Chaos gameplay. If you know the original game then you know what to expect. It’s sort of what we expected though. You literally run around blasting everything. Using powerful weapons, strafing, locking on, dodging and even getting physical with your enemies. Lots of action. The game certainly delivers on the action. Classic players would like the style to because of how it controls and what you are capable of doing. Expect tanks to come after you, aircrafts, missiles, bullets and much more all here to take you down. After all you ain’t getting your country back that early.

Overall, Metal Wolf Chaos seems like a alright game. Honestly hope the graphics improve way more. The action is solid from what we can see so far. Many gamers would jump in just to zoom around and blow stuff up in many different ways with different weapons. The developers ‘General Arcade’ and ‘FromSoftware’ have done an alright job with this game so far but more is needed. We at X35 Earthwalker will just have to wait and see what becomes of this game. Now Metal Wolf Chaos may have action and explosions but nothing more explosive than… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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River City Girls. Saving the boys soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

River City Girls is a new actin brawler game developed by ‘WayForward‘ and ‘Arc System Works‘. River City Girls is said to be coming out the 5th of September 2019 on the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PC. This game is suppose to be a whole lot of butt kicking. Let’s take a look. 

In the world River City Girls, two young ladies called ‘Kyoko and Misako’ where just going about their day when they learnt that their boyfriends got kidnapped. How they got kidnapped was serious business but typical. Basically the both of them were just strolling down the street when a van pulled up next to them and dudes jump put with bats, snatch up the two boyfriends and gave them a real beating. Bruises and all. Honestly they could have prevented that but seemed to caught off guard and slow to react. Also the guys who jumped them looked like police or security. Since they didn’t have a police van it’s safe to say it’s a group that dress up like officials or something like that. 

So what do young ladies like Kyoko and Misako do in City River Girls? They called the police and left it to the law… Just joking, they grab a bat, put on a knuckle duster and head out through the 6 regions of River City kicking all kinds of buttery themselves. Punches, kicks, throws, hurling objects and more. Now when you see the graphics style of the game and the gameplay, some gamers will be reminded of Scott Pilgrim vs the world: The game. They are both arcade style, olden time beat em up games. Very 16-bit looking with the health bar, money and score. This type of style can work very well. Scott pilgrim vs the world: the game certainly pulled it off, so River City Girls can too.

So yes, players must fight there way through. Enemies will show up and try to take you out. Just beat them up and keep it up. Games like this are straight forward and easy to understand and get on with. We are glad to hear that there is strategy to this game in terms of the combat. You can counter attacks which off course means timing is required to pull it off. There are different combos for players to use and master so variety seems to be present here. Off course there are special attacks and we hope they come in good variety too. What is different from Scott Pilgrim vs the world: The game is that there are side quests and the ability to recruit fallen enemies as allies in combat which is definitely awesome but how did the girls do that. Did the fallen foes respect how they got beat up and decided to join? 

Now in terms of music we know that River City Girls have synth-pop soundtracks which happens to feature Chipzel, Megan McDuffee, NateWantsToBattle and Christina Vee. Don’t know any of them. The game also is going for that fun comical kind of style too as there are anime like cutscenes and the intermissions have a manga style to it. From our experience we can tell that the boyfriends will be playable characters which will be an awesome move. Also you can buy items, gear and more in order to boost your characters stats. The first time we played Scott Pilgrim we didn’t know how to boost our stats. It was by accident so we are glad that River City Girls makes that more clear. 

We checked out some River City Girls gameplay and we saw quite a bit. The trailer does a good job. Cheerleaders are enemies, dudes who have Elvis hair, regular dudes in school uniform and the guys who have the same uniform as the guys who kidnapped the boyfriend. Fight in the streets, the arcade, school areas like the sports hall and more. One thing we noticed is that the game does look too easy right now. Scott Pilgrim vs the world: the game eventually got too easy and gamers ruined it by continuously spamming the special move with Scott making even the final boss a joke. So River City Girls needs to make sure the game is a challenge. 

Overall, River City Girls seem like. good game for now but it hasn’t made us want to play it yet. It’s currently interesting, looks fun and seems we do want to know more about this game. We know there are gamers who will find this real cool and that’s good. The developers ‘WayForward’ and ‘Arc System Works’ have done a good job with this game. Now River City Girls may have butt kicking girls but nothing kicks butt more than… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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The Blackout Club. Lighting up soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

The Blackout Club is a new first person co-op horror game developed by ‘Question‘. The BlackOut Club is said to be coming out the 30th of July 2019 on the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. From what we know it’s a co-op horror game and those are the hardest horror games to successfully make. Let’s take a look.

In the world of The Blackout Club. There’s a small modern town where a group of teenagers live. You, the players, are also a teenager. For some reason, every morning you wake up to find yourself covered in scratches or mud. You also have no memory of the night before. No, the isn’t because of alcohol. It gets worse, sometimes you can have no memory or recollection of whole days. They come to the conclusion that this isn’t sleep walking either. There are other teenagers just like you who are experiencing the same things. They group together becoming friends and forming a team or should we say club to figure out and look into what’s going on around here. 

The Blackout Club gets stranger as it doesn’t take long to figure out that right beneath your feet is a whole network of underground tunnels. It gets creepier though. You can at times here music from below. Is is beckoning the youngsters or is someone just having a rave down there. Turn up! We mean let’s be careful. After all when is the last time you lived somewhere that had underground tunnels and music being played? So the youngsters get second thoughts about investigating but last night, your best friend vanished. Also a group of adults wants to get rid of you all. You have to fight back now. If you want to expose them, then you’ll need evidence. So turn your cameras on and start recording. 

So yes, the idea of the game is simple. Work together with friends and others to investigate the tunnels, watch each others backs and gather evidence that proves what’s happening here to the whole world. The best way to do that is to use your cameras and phones to record what you find and any encounters. Do all this while avoiding getting captured and maybe even killed. So it’s all about teamwork here. 

There’s more than just the streets and the tunnels. There’s even the woods nearby, which can work for you or against you. It’s been made clear that the game is multiplayer so 1-4 players co-op is here. It’s also drop in and out style so you can just get reinforcements in easily and leave when you have to. The developers claim The Blackout Club has high replayability. That each mission is procedurally generated. So players can expect different experiences from other players each time. How the levels are generated are affected by your progression and character level. Other factors that are different will be environmental obstacles, enemy patrols and off course loot locations.

Now let’s talk about the enemies. They are a strange lot. We know they are adults. We know they are called The Shape. We know that if you draw too much attention to yourself, they will come after you. Worst of all is that The Shape can only be seen when you close your eyes. Wait what? What kind of adults are these. This is a problem. Players will need to watch out for each other even more. 

We checked out some gameplay and it’s sort of what we thought it would be like. It is quite a detailed world with areas to explore. The graphics could have been better, the sounds are good though. Not sure exactly how the close your eyes mechanic works but we will learn more in the future. You can use weapons like a teaser to get adults of you and even use a crossbow to fire tranquilliser darts too. There’s some levels of strategy to The Blackout Club. Multiple ways to handle different situations. You can also customise your character. Hair styles, new clothing, gestures. Levelling up will also grant access to ability upgrades and new expansion slots. We just have to make this clear. It’s a fact that horror games with multiple players aren’t scary. You have help and company gives confidence. What the Blackout Club is trying to do is a very hard thing. Diamondz L45 didn’t complete Dead Space because she found it scary but when X35 was present and giving advice she made it through levels. She would have zero fear if X35 was playing as well. We literally haven’t seen a co-op horror game that is actually scary at all. 

Overall The Blackout Club just seems like an alright game. Nothing makes us just want to play it and we have seen co-op meant to be scary games before and they never really work out that well at all. We hope to see more information concerning the Blackout Club to hopefully see more good stuff. The developers ‘Question’ have put quite a lot of thought into this game and it does show. Now The Blackout Club may have dangerous adults but those adults are a joke when compared to… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. Fueled indeed

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is one of those games that many people have been waiting for. Even X35 Earthwalker himself was looking forward to the day when the Crash Team Racing remake would come out. It was described as a smashing blast from the past. If you did play Crash Team Racing in the past then you have to give this a try and see fro yourself… but what did we think? This is a nice review. Let’s take a look. 

Now straight from the start, original Crash Team Racing gamers will notice that the starting screen isn’t the same. In Nitro-Fueled, Crash comes up from off screen to grab the trophy while in the original he was always on screen within reach of the trophy but that’s just a bit of trivia for you (impressed yet?). Now straight from the main menu the game practically reveals all the modes and tracks it has to offer. Crash Team Racing Nitor-Fueled has all the original tracks plus the tracks from Crash Nitro Kart which was a smart move. We know for a fact that there will be no Crash Nitro Kart remake as Crash Team Racing was the more popular and succesful. Still was a great game though. Overall Nitro-Fueled has lots of content for players and the menu makes that clear. 

Let’s start with adventure mode which is the main meat of the game. It’s just as we remembered it. Four tracks per area, win a race and get a trophy then you can’t renter until you get the boss key of the area. Once all four tracks have been won, the boss will emerge and challenge you to a race. The animations for the bosses, their introduction is very well done. We were happy with them, especially Ripper Roo. It just showed how crazy he really is. If you are new to the game then you need to do some practicing on the area track and get some skills. You need to get your head checked if you think you can be a beginner and beat Ripper Roo. Then everything else played out just like the original. The remake was faithful to the original and the animations really added some new flavour and personality to the characters. Now let’s quickly talk about the graphics. The graphics are excellent. We remember the old looks of the levels and seeing the new looks were amazing. The best looking track has to be Coco park. They made that place look awesome like we want to visit that place, as long as there’s no racers nearby hurling bombs and homing missiles. By the way, how comes Coco has a whole major awesome park for herself, with statues of herself and more?

Many players like to jump straight into online modes. You know how these kids are these days, they beat Oxide and suddenly think they are fast. You can do online battle or race in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. The main thing is off course racing as that’s what most did with the original. Battle was fun but it’s very different from what you get in the adventure mode. Online matches are also the best way to earn wumpa coins. Average races and modes in adventure mode only offer from 80-20 coins. That’s lame as the items that actually matter cost a minimum of 1500. Winning an online match can get you 300, sometimes more and sometimes less. That’s a big difference. Even coming second can get you 165. The problem is winning though. If you suck, then you won’t make as much. Also online is where the real matches happen. X35 Earthwalker, the one true Earthwalker, the legendary soldier himself has dominated online. There are some players who are here to just have fun. There are some who want to win and rely more on items. There are those who think they are fast and get real salty and send messages when they lose. Lastly there are those who’ve got some speed. We’ve had some serious races but so far, no one better than X35 Earthwalker. So basically online is where the real action is at. It does take a bit too long to find a match and takes longer to actually start the match. 

The Grand Prix content that recently got added to Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled brought in a bunch of new stuff that really reveals where the name nitro fuelled truly comes from. Sort of like a battle pass, players can earn nitro to fit up the meter to unlock rewards like vehicles skins, paint jobs, stickers and even new characters. What we were happy to see is the return of Chick and Stew from Crash Tag Team Racing. They are bringing the reports as never before, except Stew isn’t getting a new funky hat every time the camera comes back to him… what a shame… BRING BACK THE HATS! The gran prix also brings in new tracks never before seen. Whole new race tracks. Now we was going to list this next thing under everything bad about Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled but the Grand Prix saved the game. The Bandicoot girls are back. So happy to see them again. Ami, Megumi, Isabella, Liz and Tawna (Tawna wasn’t in CTR) are all here and ready to race. When we didn’t see them in the original release of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, introducing and applauding the victor of the races we were not happy. We remembered them so clearly and they were a part of the whole thing especially since each girl was assigned to a racing team. A different girl who show depending on the character that wins. Now they are back and geared up. It would have been better if they made it so that either by meeting certain conditions or whatever reason each of the girls who show up one by one challenging the player to a one on one like how Super smash bros Brawl did new unlockable characters. Off course make each of the girls have their own difficult going from easy to extremely hard. Just an idea.    

Now Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is definitely harder than we remember the original being. Definitely watch the above video to see what we mean. The difference between medium and hard difficulty is crazy. When we play medium, the A.I are too easy but when you play hard, the A.I are ridiculous. Remember that the gameplay video above is gameplay of X35 Earthwalker’s first ever races on the game, so was still rusty. Even getting the relics seems to be harder, we could be wrong but that was years ago. Well getting the sapphire and gold isn’t hard… it’s the platinums that all the noobs and beginners can only dream about (don’t get mad guys, just joking) but seriously they seem harder than we remember. Well not all tracks are created equally as some like Tiny arena allow for you to make it in with time to spare while others like N Gins lab has no forgiveness and require near perfect execution of crate smashing. The rematch with Oxide also seems a bit harder than before but once you get in front of him, he’s a complete push over. Fans and critics are divided understandably. Some say that it’s too hrs but that’s mainly coming from those who never played the original before. If you are new, then you really need to practice first. You won’t stand a chance against the real drivers who are online. They will do some bad stuff to you… stuff you can’t even talk about. Seriously we’ve seen players been left far behind the group simply because they are just learning. Online isn’t for learning. Then there are the layers who seem like they’ve been playing the original crash for the last 15 years, training for this remake… off course they say the game isn’t hard. So most the options come from Crash Team Racing history. 

Now let’s talk about what the remake did wrong or was not so good. We noticed that you have less control over your power slides in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. It feels harder to control. We just had to get use to it. We knew the remake wouldn’t be able to fully replicate the exact feeling of the original. The hit detection with walls and surfaces seem worse than in the original. We find ourselves during our first races colliding and being shown down by walls when it looks like we aren’t even touching it. Again this is something annoying but something you have to get use to. Even though they brought them back as race-able characters they still weren’t part of the original release of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled to congratulate the winners. If Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is suppose to be a remake then include everything the original had… simple. They were a part of the game and everyone remembers them. They should have been there. They should have had a cinematic feature where you can rewatch the new cutscenes concerning the bosses as they were great and fun to watch. Beginner characters like Polar, Pura and Liz are discouraged as you get good at the game. Their low speed makes it too hard to compete with excellent racers using high speed characters like Tiny, Dingodile, Ami and Papu Papu. X35 Earthwalker was in an online match and faced a good Papu Papu racer. He was always slightly ahead to due to the difference in character top speed, not skill. In the next race when X35 changed to playing Crash he beat that Papu Papu player without any real problems. The problem is the character speed. The beginner characters are not fast enough. The characters should have no set stats but maybe the vehicles have stats but if they do that, then it’s not an exact remake. So either way beginner characters not valid for good players (that’s why they are called beginner). We don’t see them online (hardly). 

Overall Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is a very good game. Well remade and well designed. Besides the stuff we mentioned there isn’t anything wrong with this game. It’s faithful to the original. The characters and levels look very good. We have the option to switch between the new and old music so you can hear both whenever you pretty much want. The inclusion of the Crash Nitro Kart characters and race tracks was a good move too. We at X35 Earthwalker are overall happy with Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. The developers ‘Beenox‘ have done a very good job with this game. Now Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled may be a good remake but what doesn’t need a remake is… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Some Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled gameplay

Gears of war 4 Campaign. Insane difficulty

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Gears of war 4 decided to continue the campaign tradition by making sure that it isn’t easy to beat. Seriously, Gears of war 4’s campaign is very ridiculously hard. Many have found it too difficult. Some are still stuck near the start because of those stupid DR-1 robots that continuously walk towards you with the overkill. That’s right it’s that hard but a good challenge and certainly not impossible. X35 Earthwalker himself will provide some advice here as well.

The start of the campaign has been considered as one of the hardest parts of the game, especially because of that one level where a ship drops of DR-1’s and shepherds and you have limited space to run and take cover. Now normally this would’t be too much of a problem but since it’s insane difficulty expect to die a lot. Let’s explain just how hard Gears of war 4 campaign is on insane difficulty. One burst of the hammerburst will bring you almost half dead. One shot from the boltok will bring you near full red. The lancer can kill you within 2 seconds. One shot from the sniper rifle kills you. That’s right, it doesn’t matter where it hits you. If that sniper round hits your foot, well you still are dead. Now you can see where the problem is. A normal swarm drone can literally can kill you within one second. So when those DR-1’s with there abundance of health keep advancing towards you, constantly shooting the overkill (which is stronger than the gnasher) and Shepherds sort of staying back and spraying their enforcer smgs at you, all of a sudden the level near the start becomes incredibly difficult.

It gets much worse and frustrating. The enemies in Gears of war 4, specifically those stupid swarm grenadiers, are far more aggressive than the enemies from the other Gears of war games. Some enemies are actually fearless. For example during X35 Earthwalker’s livestream in a certain level on the way to the hive, there was a certain swarm grenadier that always rushes towards X35’s location in attempt to try and unload a shotgun round into his face. Well why doesn’t he just shot it before it comes near? It’s insane difficulty meaning you do much less damage than normal, also enemies are never alone there are three drones nearby who keep shooting at you and don’t forget how quickly an enemy can kill you and it’s worse when there is a swarm sniper in the back watching you closely. It gets even better. With our low amounts of health, the gnasher shotgun (over powered since Gears of war 2) kills you real quick. Also one melee hit from a drone sized enemy instantly kills you. You need to truly rely on cover, aim and timing.

If only we could leave it as that. Well we can’t. Anyone who knows Gears of war know that the humanoid enemies are technically the easy ones to deal with. It’s the not so humanoid ones that really shake things up. Imagine being in cover with your bots and firing at a group of swarm drones. Then all of a sudden a small group of Juvies start rushing towards you. Now it’s horrible. Juvies are the worst on insane difficulty as they only need to slap you twice to kill you. They can dodge your bullets and even mantle kick you which stuns you and pretty much guarantees your death. You may have to wait until your health recovers as you took some damage from being shot. It forces you to make a choice, kill the Juvies quick before they get close while staying in cover, or run away from Juvies and dodge bullets. Both can end in death. Pouncers make things real complex as they force you to take cover, but if any juvies show up then you have to run, but Pouncers fling things at you which do heavy damage.

So as long as you stay alive all will be well. Wrong! Your bots actually matter in this game. They don’t stay alive forever anymore. When that pouncer jumped on Del, X35 thought he would be fine but nope. Del died and back to checkpoint. If your bot is downed and no one saves that bot then they die and back to checkpoint. So keep your bots alive, especially when it comes to Snatchers. One of the best advice we can give any gamers for Gears of War 4 campaign is that you must try and keep a sniper or similar weapon around at all times as much as possible for handle some areas in the game. A sniper, torque bow, embar, boltok really do help out. They do heavy damage per bullet and all capable of head shotting and killing enemies easily. Especially when they are so far away and sticking your head out for more than 2 seconds can be real risky at times. The up side is that your bots have quite a bit of health and can be useful at times so don’t ever feel guilty about letting your bots take some of the heat for you; however please note that enemies will always target you first, even if your allies are nearby. We have seen Juvies run past all the bots just to get at the player and kill them.

Another thing to take into account is knowing when to use heavy weapons like the buzzkill and muncher. Normally those weapons will destroy everything but in insane difficulty those heavy weapons will get you killed. This is because it takes a little bit of time for you to drop back into cover with your heavy weapon and enemies can still hit you during that time. Pick your moments. If it’s a horde of juries then a buzzkill will tear through the whole of them but if it’s standard drones then that might just be a big mistake. 

So let’s summarise some stuff here. Always stick to cover. Use your bots to your advantage. Take snipers and explosive weapon wielding enemies seriously. Always try to keep a sniper type weapon with you. Know when to revive your bots. Never let any enemy come close. Be careful with heavy weapons. Most importantly just have fun, don’t let it get to you. Don’t be one of those foolish people who break their controllers. If you die, which you will (a lot), then laugh at yourself. Follow X35 Earthwalker on Mixer and twitter to know when he will continue his insane difficulty livestream. Whether you are good at campaign or not, it doesn’t matter but what does matter is that you do the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Dragon Bros. Simple dragon fun

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Dragon Bros is a new 2D run & gun adventure game developed by ‘Space Lizard Studio LTD’ and coming out May 31st for the Xbox One and PS4 but already out on PC. This game seem like another one of those fun easy games that you could casually play.

The story is the traditional rescue story. There are four dragons. Four dragons who are teenagers which is totally radical dude. Their mother has been kidnapped and so the boys head out to rescue her. Players will control the Dragon Bros. Your enemy? The Mechaliches. They are an evil robotic society. According to the website, they survived the collapse of a technologically advanced alien civilization. So now the Dragon Bros must run, gun, charge and blast their way through the Mechaliches and get mummy back. Talk about good sons. 

The Mechaliches are robots for sure and as true robots they have many units and functions. That’s right. There are robots that won’t stop shooting at you, others drop bombs, others lob things at you, some fly around, some have a shield in front of them, some fly and shoot, Some just want to punch you, some fly and drop bombs, some are slow but tough, some are sniping you. That’s not all. Some of the enemies are robotic enemies that move, while others are structures like shield generator, huge fan, turret, enemy factory, traps. Stuff like that. The Dragon Bros have their work cut out for them.

The Dragon Bros will get some help though. There are multiple power ups for the brothers to collect and use. The main power ups and are upgrades to your weapons. Super laser, naval cannon, Machine gun and more. There are heath packs as well. The Dragon Bros are rewarded for destroying things. Kids these days. Back in my day we use skip and play tag… anyway, every form of destruction will grant the player scraps which is score. You can use the scraps to unleash your weapons super powers for a few seconds which grants: higher damage, larger splash area, bigger bullets, increased range, bouncy projectiles, secondary effects. Stuff like that.

The best part of Dragon Bros is that it is co-op. 2 Player action. So you can take on and fight the Mechaliches with your family or friends. Save your mum together. The developers have quoted that more levels and updates are coming in the future. So expect more to do.

Overall this game looks simple and fun. We checked out some game play and the whole thing just looks like fun. Old style but futuristic. The developers, ‘Space Lizard Studio LTD’ did a good job. We at X35 Earthwalker look forward to seeing what Dragon Bros does. 

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XCOM 2. Tactical soldier classes

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

XCOM 2 is just an excellent strategy game. There isn’t another like it. We at X35 Earthwalker were a big fan of the first XCOM but XCOM 2 really did improve the game and took it to a higher level. It isn’t perfect though as we have found a few faults with the game but overall it is amazing. We will be talking about the soldier classes and how tactical things can get. There are four classes in XCOM 2. Ranger, sniper, specialist and grenadier. Each one are not to be ignored.

The Ranger is probably the hardest to master and use properly. Many will get excited about the fact that they have swords and will want to slash everything in sight but it’s risky. Slash lets you run up to an enemy and then almost kill them straight up but normally leaves you in the open or run towards another group of aliens which usually results in death. Instead use the sword only when you know it’s safe and when you really need to kill a certain target. Once the Ranger has the phantom ability it will stayed concealed even after the team got exposed. Allowing you to move around the map and level by themselves to complete and objective single handedly or get a perfect flank on the enemy. Shadow step is another powerful ability which allows the Ranger to not trigger any overwatchs or reaction fires. This means your Ranger can move freely and even ignore suppression. Once X35’s Ranger was pinned down by suppression and straight away he made his Ranger leave the area with no consequences. Rangers are the best when it comes to mobility. Use them to complete objective, go solo from the group and kill enemies in close range style.

Snipers is probably the most favourite class amongst XCOM gamers from the first game because they can dish out high damage from far away and attack more than once. In XCOM 2 they are more versatile than before. The pistol can no longer be underestimated. Upgrade your pistols when you can. The sniper gets abilities like lightning hands which allows them to fire the pistol and it won’t cost an action. This means you always get to attack more than once. Shoot with pistol at a near enemy and then snipe that other one that’s far away. Always place your snipers in elevated positions as ‘Death from above’ ability allows you to have another action after killing an enemy who is at a lower elevation. Snipers are no longer weak in closer range combat as the gunslinger abilities for the pistol make them lethal like faceoff which allows your sniper to fire his pistol at every target in range once. The best ability and the thing that makes snipers great is squadsight which means, if your team mates can see it, then your sniper can see it (as long as there is a line of sight).

Grenadiers are lethal in XCOM 2 and probably more lethal than before. Their ability to launch grenades is essential. Use them to damage groups of enemies at once and even destroy enemy cover to expose them for your sniper and other units. The shredder ability makes this class the best at dealing with armoured enemies getting rid of their armour. Suppression will keep those melee enemies, like the stun lance using soldiers, in their place, preventing them from moving or more likely killing them as they attempt to come near. X35’s favourite grenadier ability is holo targeting which means whenever your grenadier takes a shot at an enemy, your whole team gets increased accuracy against that enemy. Chain shot is just for dealing immense damage as it allows you to shoot at an enemy twice as long as the first hit connects. This makes you think about what to do. Normally you will have the grenadiers make the first moves as they really set things up for the other classes. Maybe use the grenadier to blow away a part of a wall or building to reveal enemies for your snipers, or do you fire at a essential target first allowing your team to have better chances of hitting that target or do you have them move up right next to an enemy just to use chain shot for the real damage? The choice is yours.

Specialists are very interesting indeed. They are equipped with gremlin units which provide all their abilities. Firstly a specialist can hack advent security towers to gain certain perks like disorientating all enemies for 2 turns or grant extra intel. Specialists can also interact with objectives like the computers or alarm system from a distance making them essential to get there in time or hack from safety. It gets crazier. They can send the gremlin to increase the defense of themselves or any ally making them harder to hit for the duration of the alien turn. As the specialist is promoted he will gain the ability to Heal allies from anywhere, remove status problems like panic, poison and even stop bleeding out. Then inflict guaranteed damage against any enemy and then the best of all be able to hack mechanical units. X35 loves this. You can hack to disable or even better take control of those advent mecs which he then sends directly towards the enemies to reveal their location and fight to the death. Make sure to hack sentry guns to have them fire at enemies and then overwatch to keep bringing the pain. Specialists can do anything and once used correctly, will make your team officially OP (over powered). Lastly don’t underestimate the ability to deliver 2 points of guaranteed damage as there have been many moments when that has come in handy to finish of a certain enemy.

Off course there are many more abilities for the classes and each is useful in their own way but pick them according to your style. XCOM 2 is very strategic and makes you think for a bit before making any actions. Place your snipers in high places and combined with ‘Death from above’ you have potential double kills lined up. Have your specialists always using their gremlins to buff, heal or even grant soldiers an overwatch as these actions only cost one action, meaning you can still fire afterwards. Hack those mechanical units when you can to get the best possible advantage. Be masterfully strategic with your Rangers. Literally X35 once had his ranger with concealment go alone to the objective and complete it by themselves and got that Ranger back to the rest of the team alive. Rangers are also best at killing on the go thanks to ‘Run & Gun’ and their swords. Be careful though. Grenadiers must use what they have to control the battle field their abilities create new pathways with grenades, pin enemies and lay down the damage if need be. They can even get armour of their own with ‘Blast padding’ meaning you can have them at the front knowing that they are harder to kill.

We are really loving what XCOM 2 have done with the game and will continue to play it. What do you think of the classes in XCOM 2? Maybe you have strategies of your own. Whether you do or not make sure you know… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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