It's 2019. I played this game once before and I enjoyed it quite a lot. But that was many years ago. It's a lot worse this time around. Some of that is just me having played it already, but some of it is the game itself aging.

First and foremost, if you buy this game, TURN PHYSX OFF. It has been the source of every single crash I've experienced with this game. And due to some bug I have to play at 1920x1080 maximum if I want to have a full 60 Hz on my 4K display as anything above that automatically caps the game's refresh rate to 30 Hz. Meanwhile if I play it on my 1920x1080 display NVIDIA DSR upscaled to 4K it still renders at a full 60 Hz...

If you're here only because of the lore and not the story, the only lore it provides is the origin of the XCOM project. Nothing that's relevant in the other XCOM games, even the Ethereals matter, as these seem to be different Ethereals from those in XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

I liked the story, I will admit, but the delivery method was a bad choice. Most of the plot advances through dialogue, and almost all dialogue is delivered via selectable responses (usually you can listen to all of them). In many instances, the same or nearly identical dialogue is used for multiple selections in different conversations, or even as different options for the same conversation. And worse than that, no matter the situation of the conversation, the camera angle is always the same and the character stance is always the same "two people indifferently staring at each other." So it really looks half-baked. This game would have seriously benefited from traditional animated cutscenes where the dialogue was imparted clearly, concisely, one time only, and with something that makes the characters look like they actually have some semblance of emotions.

The controls for this game are also sub-par IMO, as several inputs that should really be separate (i.e. sprinting, going into cover, and jumping over barriers) are all bound to the same key as a single binding, even on mouse and keyboard. Because it's all the same button I've killed myself many times by doing the wrong action. Also, sprinting kind of sucks because the character always sprints forward the way the avatar is facing, not the way the camera is facing. That's also killed me many times.

[h1]Possibly Worth A Buy for Only the Rabid XCOM (Lore) Fan[/h1] It's 2019. I played this game once before and I enjoyed it quite a lot. But that was many years ago. It's a lot worse this time around. Some of that is just me having played it already, but some of it is the game itself aging. First and foremost, if you buy this game, TURN PHYSX [b]OFF[/b]. It has been the source of every single crash I've experienced with this game. And due to some bug I have to play at 1920x1080 maximum if I want to have a full 60 Hz on my 4K display as anything above that automatically caps the game's refresh rate to 30 Hz. Meanwhile if I play it on my 1920x1080 display NVIDIA DSR upscaled to 4K it still renders at a full 60 Hz... If you're here only because of the lore and not the story, the only lore it provides is the origin of the XCOM project. Nothing that's relevant in the other XCOM games, even the [spoiler]Ethereals[/spoiler] matter, as these seem to be different [spoiler]Ethereals[/spoiler] from those in XCOM: Enemy Unknown. I liked the story, I will admit, but the delivery method was a bad choice. Most of the plot advances through dialogue, and almost all dialogue is delivered via selectable responses (usually you can listen to all of them). In many instances, the same or nearly identical dialogue is used for multiple selections in different conversations, or even as different options for the same conversation. And worse than that, no matter the situation of the conversation, the camera angle is always the same and the character stance is always the same "two people indifferently staring at each other." So it really looks half-baked. This game would have seriously benefited from traditional animated cutscenes where the dialogue was imparted clearly, concisely, one time only, and with something that makes the characters look like they actually have some semblance of emotions. The controls for this game are also sub-par IMO, as several inputs that should really be separate (i.e. sprinting, going into cover, and jumping over barriers) are all bound to the same key [i]as a single binding[/i], even on mouse and keyboard. Because it's all the same button I've killed myself many times by doing the wrong action. Also, sprinting kind of sucks because the character always sprints forward the way the avatar is facing, not the way the camera is facing. That's also killed me many times.