Our home base in the Avenger spacecraft/base is Mexico. We were joined today by the owner of a fast food chain that has recently gone out of business. He used to have a steady stream of customers, but for some reason business has been slow, dead slow. "Taco" El Paso suspects alien involvement and has lent his incredible moustache, hat and sniper rifle to the cause.
So we get straight to work! Also joining us is a new grenadier, Tari (my wife IRL). In the last game I played she was a medic, so it'll be interesting to see how she fares blowing stuff up! Where's hockey mask guy I hear you ask? I'm pretending not to hear you. The last mission went fine. Just fine. Mostly fine.
Taco is a keen shot! On most missions you get to start off "concealed". The aliens don't know that you're there and you can move around the map without worrying too much. Anything that would break you out of concealment (moving too closely to civilians, enemy troops, kicking down a door, breaking a window etc.) shows up nicely as a red flagged space. The fun part is that you can set up ambushes. Here we had our sniper up on the roof and everybody else lined up near an enemy squad.
You put all but one person on over watch. When in over watch you automatically get a shot at any enemy that moves, normally at an aim disadvantage, but there's no aim penalty when you do it while concealed. So when that last person shoots, the enemies scatter for cover, the movement triggers over watch attacks and if you've got everything set up nicely you can take out an entire squad. It's great fun and the camera goes into slow motion and does over the shoulder zoom shots for each of your attackers in turn. I'll try to do some video at some stage.
This mission was in suburbia, I'm afraid that we may have caused some collateral damage. There was a very nice looking church with stained glass windows. The Sixth Doctor lobbed a few grenades. Less stained glass now. At least, in the window area. A fair bit down on the ground. I think he should stick to lobbing grenades though, 'cos he missed this shot:
Maybe he's got a soft spot for them after all, that inherent Doctor pacifism. Someone with less soft spot is Tari "Amazon". Here she is mowing down an Advent trooper on the next mission we went on. This was a fun little mission where we had to extract a scientist. You can get scientists (that help with research) and engineers which help with constructions etc. Sometimes they're available for hire, but they're really expensive, so I tend to try and choose missions (when given the chance) to liberate them. Sure I may lose some troops, but they're cheaper! Please don't tell them I said that.
At the end of that mission we all did a simultaneous evacuation to our waiting transport. It's fun seeing the drop lines come down, everyone grab hold and then... Zip! Up they all go =) I'm still laughing every time I see the sombrero.
Optimus Prime was one of the leaders of the Council who gave XCOM orders in the previous game. Well, it's not actually Optimus Prime, that would be way cool. It's his voice though. And it's nice to hear that he's back saying "Commander" in a very cool voice. Even when he says he's disappointed it sounds impressive. Anyway, he's the only member of the Council who didn't buddy up with the aliens. Although they promised world peace, free health clinics and good burgers, he's suspected that there's something amiss.
Doc Tygan has done some more probulating in the brain case of an Advent commander. It turns out they have similar chips to the ones that have been embedded in my skull and the Doc has been able to extract more information, though in highly degraded form.
Well, would you look at that. This appears to be some sort of distribution network. I think they may be using some sort of pyramid scheme for their promotional advertising. The people at the bottom get paid just a little, and feed it up the chain. Tupperware, Amway and now Advent. What a nefarious plot! Unfortunately the chain is not fully formed in the snippet we got from the dead trooper. We need more information! All this speaking of chips has made me a bit peckish, though.
On the next mission, Advent have discovered the location of one of the resistance cells and attacks mercilessly! We have to jet in and take the attackers out before they kill any, well, too many civilians! Due to lots of grenades we manage quite well. Oh. Right, yeah, there were a few civilian casualties, but we did our best!
Jane loves a bit of slicing and dicing. Here she is leaping right into the fray! The only problem with her awesome swordage skills is that they leave her out the front of the other troops and so she does tend to spend quite a bit of time in the sick bay afterwards! Still. She's having fun, and at the end of the day, isn't that what it's all about?
Look out! There's an alien that can control your mind right in front of you! All you need to do is shoot in a reasonably straight line and you'll be fine. Whoops. As I've said before, maybe you should stick to grenades!
Here's my Guerella Tactics School. You can train rookies in a specific class (it takes five days), which is a really nice addition. If you're short on, say, sharpshooters because they've, um, moved on, you can train up another. Other troops can be seen working out on the equipment too. You can also buy upgrades, I've already purchased the ability to have a five person squad. You have to have troops of certain rank (as well as spending money) to purchase the unlocks.
Doc Tygan seems to enjoy these autopsies. Maybe a little too much. Anyway, we all have our foibles eh?
Below are pictures taken from the skull implant. Lots of data is coming in of something called the "Avatar" project. All of the locations appeared to be restaurants. It appears as though the aliens are working on some singular, massive project that could spell doom for all of humanity! (D-O-O-M)
Up the top of the screen there is now a doomsday timer. When it's full you lose. So I've heard. All right, maybe I've experienced it before. A couple of times. In any case, I'm sure it won't happen this time! This time we have Team Physics, The Doctors, some of my friends and family... oh, and a guy with a sombrero!
Good old Central has been doing the rounds and making contact with more regions. Here we are in the U S of A. Making contacts lets you get more supplies from the other resistance cells as well as unlocking more missions and letting you travel further around the map. Of course it takes time and Intel to do so.
One of my recent recruits is based on my best mate's wife, Mandy is a sharpshooter. In a previous game her husband was the grenadier that took the last, winning shot of the game! We may see him again in this playthrough. I've made a whole pool of Doctor Who's, real life friends, Team Physics scientists etc. and when you get a new recruit there's a chance that they'll be drawn from this character pool. So it's a little random, which adds to the fun... Who will be playing this time! Who will it be that you rescue? I like this element of the game =)
Next time we'll get right back into some more action and rescue my Dad from Advent!
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