XCOM 2 and The Outer Worlds Added

It’s been a wee while since I’ve done a post in this format. I’d actually been struggling a bit with what I wanted to turn this into and how I wanted to carry it forward into the future. Looking back, the last time was for No Man’s Sky in August. Since then I cleared the deck and added Asheron’s Call but I just sort of… Did.

I still haven’t come to any conclusions. Until very recently this wasn’t really much of an issue. Asheron’s Call was the only thing getting any serious play time (even after I cut back the posting about it). Anything else I was kind of mucking around with a bit to test out on the new display.

And in Asheron’s Call — I made it to level 126. Which is a level of some symbolic relevance. This was the numeric level cap in Asheron’s Call for much of its life. Beyond this point you could actually still earn XP, still raise skills, etc. Level 126 represented the end of the leveling journey though — and running into the madlads who had made it this far in the wilds of full PvP server Darktide was a breathtaking moment.

And now I’m there. All these years later. Slightly over in fact — level 128 now. Still a long road from the end. The Throne of Destiny expansion increased the numeric level cap up to 275.

In any case!

Changes to the Game List

Added

• The Outer Worlds
• XCOM 2: War of the Chosen (Heavily Modded)

Remaining

• Asheron’s Call

Nearly Removed

• None

Removed

• None

Asheron’s Call remains — it isn’t under any threat of being removed just yet. Although having said that, certainly the early mad rush has reduced.

The Outer Worlds

I started off in a bit of an interesting mind-space with this one. I was expecting to have to wait to play it due to the Epic Game Store exclusivity. Then in the 11th hour it was revealed to be slightly… less… exclusive. Not only that, but I was going to as a matter of course get access to it immediately from my Windows Xbox Game Pass subscription.

So I jumped in, super stoked to be even able to. And then… Well, I didn’t not like it. But as is so often the case with titles that get hyped up beyond reasonable expectation — it couldn’t live up to it.

There’s nothing new here. Either mechanically or in story beats — it’s all very, very well trod ground.

As a result when I booted in initially it felt very much just like going through the motions. Other than the undeniable graphical upgrade — I may as well have just been playing an actual Fallout title. And if I was — well then I could be modding the crap out of it too. It was difficult to engage with as a result. But despite all that being true — clearly I still enjoyed it at some level. Last night I put it aside in favour of playing more XCOM 2, but when I came back this morning ‘just for a few screenshots’… Well, 2 hours later and I realised I was still playing it.

If you’re in the mood for some Fallout-in-Space, then The Outer Worlds has you covered. It is very well executed, and seems remarkably bug-free. Which would be impressive for any title of this nature. Add to it that this is Obsidian we’re talking about, a company absolutely infamous for their bugs and well, colour me surprised.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen (Heavily Modded)

XCOM 2 is a dangerous game. Very dangerous. At least with your more strategic turn based games — your Civilisations or your Endless Legends — it’s just an issue of ‘just one more turn’.

With XCOM 2 this becomes ‘just one more mission’, because what sort of maniac would end a play session mid-mission?? (Although you can, you can save anywhere.)

Fast forward just a few utterances of ‘just one more mission’ and you’re liable to see yourself up on the wrong side of 3am. But look — at the very least it’s a long weekend here in New Zealand. So have the extra day to recover some sense of normalcy in sleep schedule.

I started out with a return to Christopher Odd’s Season 5 mod list, then switched over to a Long War of the Chosen setup. Welp. I’ve gone back again. I was running into some issues jumping back cold into the Long War style of play.

Namely: I’m exceptionally rusty and in general not very good. *shakes head sadly* Many a good soldier was lost under my command.

So uh- Yeah. I reverted back to Chris’ setup which is still quite a substantial jump up in difficulty relative to the base campaign, just not… Long War difficult.

Let me tell you — my fun levels have climbed through the roof since stepping back. I’m also running pretty blind as to what exactly is in this pack too, so I’m constantly being surprised by things and running into new enemy types where I’m torn between wanting to see what they do and being afraid to let them live long enough to see what they do. ;)