#xcom memes

[frogblast-the-ventcore]

Art by @IIITHEMANIII on Twitter (spicy version under the cut)

[korbensoi]

Well, autism be damned, my boys can throw grenades!

[ellikiins]

An inside joke for myself.

Some brief lore:

I did say Diane Whittaker was based off my childhood Sonic OC (Maria), who went through so many dramatic rewrites since her inception in 2004 (I was 9 and loved SA2). In playing XCOM (2012) for the first few times, I created my idea of who the Commander was. As a woman, the Commander should be a woman, too. Stepping in this role, I noticed her personality taking after Maria (both military girlies, obvs). Thus her physical appearance was inspired by an adult Maria Robotnik, her uniform based off my OC's uniform at the time.

I couldn't invent someone new for Fallout 4, so I stole Diane for it. An alternative universe where a Diane grew up to a happy, healthy young woman because she had no family heartbreak and trauma in her youth... to then find it in her adulthood instead as result of the Great War. Oops.

Shh, ignore my childhood Sonic phase and her love for Maria Robotnik, because this could go back even deeper...

Sorry if confusing, just keeping it a brief info dump to share my inner thoughts with the outside world.

I think if I were to update Maria again, she'd be a light yellow, but I wanted to keep her "lore accurate" lmao

[geiraan]

[pluralsword]

something something combine the Matrix with the XCOM 2 Skirmishers for a trans allegory something something. On the other hand it can play out like this IRL (definitely not saying that realizing 1's orientation shakes off the suffering of transphobia on it's own but it can help)

Lesbian Blast version. Shoutout 2 the still vibrant & awesome modding community, the gal w/ the sniper rifle here was put together from moddable assets 2 depict Aimee, a sniper mercenary from a totally different game (Dirty Bomb). not saying she is or isn't lesbiab , lighting was just perfect.

Oh by the way the reason we chose Artemis for this is because the Ancient Greek word that gets mistranslated as virgin (due to what the modern meaning of the word is) simply means not having had sex with men. So... what exactly do we think a gal who hung out with nude ladies who were fellow hunters and had furs was doing you know

[asunder-aim]

@areindeerlime that one sniper in my first xcom playthrough

can't remember his surname... solovyov?

i miss everyone

[lysander171-blog]

what I wanted: xcom

what I got: x.com

[frogblast-the-ventcore]

Art by @IIITHEMANIII on Twitter (spicy version under the cut)

[cerastes]

Today is Day 9 Of Me Playing Girls' Frontline 2.

Like any other gacha, the start is braindead because they need even the most non-sentient of creatures to be able to clear. This is nothing new, but it really stuck out like a sore thumb in this particular case because this game heavily uses the XCOM formula as its inspiration. For the uninitiated, the original 1994 X-COM: UFO Defense starts incredibly brutal and only gets harder as you advance. The 2012 reboot, XCOM: Enemy Unknown starts reasonably brutal and scales pretty harshly and always demanding you really, really are learning what your tools can do and what the game mechanics are as you basically fight an asymmetrical Civilization III game against an opponent that 1) outguns you most of the way and 2) fights you with the hatefulness one only reserves for someone that has fucked one's wife. GFL2 starts you off against enemies that require absolutely no tactical acumen whatsoever, that do not use cover, and that deal pitiful amounts of damage even if you yourself don't use cover. This lasts a little too long for comfort but again it's industry standard. Once you get to parts of the game that require sentience, it's fun to see how they've gone about the flow of combat: You're basically pitting your characters with their own special conditions, specialties and passives against many enemies that initially are simple as hell (they just move and shoot) but steadily become more complex and nuanced (enemies that target an area for bombardment at the end of their turn, enemies that can counter in specific circumstance, enemies that trap your enemies with overwatch fire, reaction intereceptions, AoE, etc). The system definitely has potential. I've yet to truly find anything actually challenging that wasn't me fighting enemies 10-20 levels higher than my units, but the fundamentals of cover and risk-reward are there even on-level; if you get shot at completely exposed, you are going to take hefty damage (unless you are rocking a Suomi shield).

The biggest departure from XCOM proper is that there is no accuracy: All attacks will always hit, unless certain abilities outright deny the damage -- like certain enemy Medics that can use the Anesthesia skill to negate one instance of damage -- and the game really favors a more aggressive style for both the player and the enemy through the Stability System: All units have a Stability counter, which decreases by certain amounts depending on the attack received. Once it's depleted, units can only benefit from the most bare and basic defensive effects of cover, which are not very good. Stability Break also may have additional special effects on certain enemies, chiefly bosses, resulting in extra damage taken, reduced attack power, changing forms, losing certain active or passive skills, etc. As a huge fan of systems like this, I Enjoy.

The game is gorgeous looking: The environments are highly detailed, the character models are incredibly well made, the guns are lovingly sculpted. I know the overarching meme is that it's got the best anime girl feet in the industry -- and it's true, they put more love into rendering and modelling these girls' feet, stockings and socks that I've seen parents put into raising their children -- but the model quality is truly overarching, they spared no effort in any obvious area, it's a really gorgeous looking game. The sound design and the music are all fine and have not wowed me in any special way, really, but visually, good lord, the game truly does go hard. Another thing the game does really well is video cutscenes, the action and choreography of actually very decently lengthy cutscenes they show pretty often go very hard, with good explosions, good gunplay, fluid and good looking motions, etc. The animation direction in GFL2 is really, really good, something I wasn't expecting given they've not really delved on this area particularly in previous games. They probably hired a really good studio for this-slash-got themselves some very talented and skilled personnel for it.

The game economy is Post-Mihoyo style: There's a set cast of Max Rarity characters, called Elites in the game's nomenclature, that inhabit a Standard Banner with absolutely fucking horrendous rates. 0.6% chance of rolling anything Max Rarity, 0.3% of an Elite Doll, 0.3% of an Elite Weapon. Besides this, there's the Limited Banners, which is every banner ever, meaning post-launch Elites are all Limited with a Limited Signature Weapon. In other words, shit sucks. The only saving grace is that the game, in thankfully true XCOM fashion, is much less about having Strong Individual Units, and much more about having a team with good synergy, and there's plenty of great non-Elites you'll have plenty of copies of. Gameplaywise, you won't get shafted by not having the Newest Woman With A Broken Kit, which is good. Signature Weapons so far from what I've seen are very nice to have but no functionality is tied to them and no character feels incomplete without their Signature Weapon or without multiples dupes, which is really good practice and a deal breaker for me if it's present. About the only stupidly broken character I can think off right this second is definitely Suomi, who supports so incredibly well that she lets you Not Play XCOM. She's seriously and hilariously busted and futureproofed.

The writing is pretty damn stiff. This is nothing new with Sunborn. The thing with Sunborn is that when it hits highs, they are VERY high, but the trip to those highs is clunky and stiff, with an overabundance of nothingburger technobabble and tacticool filler dialogue that, were this a megahit the way One Piece is, would definitely inspire a dogged group of fans to make a website that tells you exactly where to read and where to skip to avoid all the meaningless filler. Even if you like some tacticool, it's just SO much of it that serves no purpose. The characters are... Unfortunately, not super fun. Our old friend Oats, ahem, Groza (OTs-14) is there, and she's fun, but the rest of the characters have not done a good job to endear me to them: Colphne I'm pretty ok with, Nemesis and Krolik really have exhausted the fucks I can give for them by this point (I'm in Chapter 4). This is particularly painful in the case of Nemesis for me, a character whose design I really, really love and who I was looking forward to a lot. Nemesis' whole thing is that she literally cannot speak normally and has to communicate entirely in cryptic theater kid ramblings, and Krolik conversely only exists as the only person that can somehow accurately decipher what the fuck it is she's saying. This is charming for all of three cutscenes before it becomes very old and basically filler: Nemesis says "The embers of starlight long forgotten by statues lingers in the fingertips of the deaf" and Krolik replies with "Hah!? Who are you calling a coward?! I'll beat you up!" because Nemesis shittalks Krolik a lot, and that's the crux of both of their personalities. I know they are building Nemesis for something else but good lord it's torturous and stale. There's a Super Powered Child that I don't care about and she's the main plot device. Mayling is funny and endearing, and I like her. We meet characters from Ye Olde GFL 1 days and so far it's been pretty nice every time: Suomi, Lenna (UMP9), Kalina, Leva (UMP45), always a good time hanging with them. I particularly enjoy how divorced Commander and Kalina are. Oh, the Commander (your character) is an actual character, fully voiced and all, I like that a lot, and I like them. You can choose a male or female Commander, with fully 3D rendered distinct non-obscured, non-masked models and that's pretty damn cool. Still, can't help but miss the bangers that were ST AR-15, RO635, DEFY, and others from GFL1.

There's plenty of stuff to do without using Stamina, especially event stuff, but I fear that once you run out of it, you enter that weird limbo of "logging in, autoclearing the RNG drops mode, logging out". I'm not there yet but I dread reaching it. I know they just launched the game here (1 year old in CN) but, I guess I've been immensely spoiled by Arknights' several replayable game modes, this game, being XCOM in nature, would ROCK a roguelite mode or some sort of replayable game mode so much.

Overall, it's been a pretty nice time, as someone who dropped but nonetheless greatly enjoyed GFL, it's great seeing the Old Friends better than ever. My friend Suomi and my friend Tololo (CHILE MENTIONED 🇨🇱🇨🇱🇨🇱) are there for me and I'm glad to hang out with them again. I wish my friend Sabrina would also join me sooner than later :'). Color me surprised that so far, the gameplay seems both fun and has potential, but we'll see how it goes from here. Overall: Good first impression.

Say something nice about my friend Tololo

[asunder-aim]

It's not "Awww, you're sweet" ❤️, it's "Fucking rookies can't hit for shit... Fine."

The phenomenon

[themorrignasystem]

This is amazing

@derania THE XCOM meme of all time

-Æther

[redlikelove]

every time someone reposts The One XCOM Meme Image That Has Been Posted So Much The JPEG Crust Is Killing It I am owed five (5) USD

[geiraan]

ehrme ehm

[thirteen-jades]

gamer meme

1,3,6,13

1: Games you’re currently playing?

Disgaea 4 and Elden Ring with the polycule are the main ones.

3: Do you like to get 100% achievements?

100%'d Dark Souls 1. That's the only game I've ever done it in.

6: Last game you finished?

Oh dear. I'd have to think a bit about that, lately I seem to keep getting distracted. Probably Mechanicus?

13: A series you’ve enjoyed since your early days of gaming and still enjoy to this day whether it still has games coming out or is one you return to?

Hmm... I'm not sure if any such series exists! I really liked Starcraft as a kid but I'm not so big on RTS anymore. XCOM might be the closest I can think of, I liked the original when I played as a teenager and the recent releases have been good too.

[spark-circuit]

ace agents in their field with a combined 5% hit rate and 10HP

@spark-circuit sent me some photos of when she made Daniel and Miranda in XCOM and I legit have no memory of the former posing with a sly smile I need to punt him off a cliff for that

[frogblast-the-ventcore]