Read my review of XCOM: Chimera Squad in The Guardian

It’s been an ambition of mine to write something for The Guardian for a long time now, and I finally fulfilled it this week. Hopefully it won’t be a one-off!

My review of XCOM: Chimera Squad has just been published, and I’ve had a lot of fun playing it this week. It’s definitely a spin-off rather than a main entry in the series, but it’s still around 30 hours long, and it has some fun ideas. I liked the way it introduces a permanent roster of characters with very different abilities, and playing as the aliens was highly enjoyable – Torque’s tongue grab is particularly fun to use.

But all this comes with the loss of permadeath, and it felt like there should be some stronger characterization to compensate for this. It’s great to hear the characters make quips between battles, but some deeper background and missions related to each of them would have helped to flesh out the world a bit more. Still, the fact that it made me interested enough in the characters to want to hear more of their stories is a success in itself. Check out the full review through the link below:

XCOM: Chimera Squad review – human-alien hybrids lay down the law


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2 responses to “Read my review of XCOM: Chimera Squad in The Guardian”

  1. Othercide review: grimdark goth-girl grind-a-rama – A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME Avatar

    […] talk about the meat of the game – the turn-based combat. Like XCOM: Chimera Squad, you have a timeline running along the bottom of the screen, showing the order in which each enemy […]

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  2. Indi-Plays Avatar

    I liked the way you compared the XCOM series to the Marvel films/TV series, I found it very apt.

    However I did not enjoy the lack of perma-death. I thought that as well as the simplifying of battles and base building make the game feel like a “Baby’s first XCOM”. I also found the characters personalities to be very samey. I would have expected a bit more of a culture shock given the mixture of aliens, hybrids & humans.

    If you want to know what else I thought I have just posted my own review of the game which I’ll link below.

    XCOM: Chimera Squad (PC)

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