XCOM: Chimera Squad

The X-COM gaming series is one of the "veterans" in the turn-based strategy market. And she was fondly remembered by gamers who acquired their first personal computer sometime in the early 1990s. In the first games of the series, the mechanic of "first contact" with insidious aliens was very realistically reproduced.

The player's task in the first X-Com games was to develop a strategy for protecting the Earth from an alien threat. Moreover, the aliens themselves were not some one group with a certain ideology. Several races of aliens could unite in alliances against humanity or conflict with each other.

This had to be taken into account when developing defense tactics. And also - to conduct a lot of scientific research, because the aliens are superior to humans technologically and in terms of weapons. Therefore, you shoot down a flying saucer, send the UFO into analysis, take out a couple of new microcircuits from it and make a scientific breakthrough. Alien - for autopsy, find out his anatomy and based on this, collect weapons.

But in the 21st century, even such a mechanic seems hopelessly outdated. Therefore, in the mid-2010s, the X-Com series was relaunched, radically changing the genre. At first, it turned into a tactical shooter, but then, met with disapproval from the players, it returned to the mechanics of turn-based tactics or real-time strategy. And both of these genres are beautifully combined in the latest game in the series for the early 2020s - XCOM: Chimera Squad.

Aliens of all races, unite!

Almost all games in the X-Com series are linked by a single global storyline. It is not particularly possible to keep track of him, because there are a lot of projects, and they have been released since 1994. Therefore, in a nutshell. Despite all the efforts of the XCOM organization, it was not possible to finally defend the Earth, but it was still possible to show the aliens "Kuzkin's mother". Therefore, the aliens decided not to enslave humanity, but to peacefully coexist with it.

The so-called City-31 is being created on Earth - an experimental city in which they plan to test the possibility of peaceful coexistence of aliens with humans. But there is a feeling that neither humanity nor aliens are interested in this. Since a special XCOM unit, the Chimera Squad, is being dispatched to police in City 31.

Squad "Chimera", in turn, consists of thugs and adventurers of various races. The very leadership of XCOM is trying to close their eyes simply to the fact of its existence. Therefore, Chimera has practically zero funding, and their base is an abandoned railway depot.

Upon arrival of the Chimera in City-31, a rampant crime begins in the city. Actually, she was there even before the visit of XCOM representatives, but behaved a little quieter and calmer. The trigger for the outbreak of a war between the gangs of City-31 was the assassination of the city's mayor, and she was a hybrid. And now the Chimera detachment will have to take in their hands, paws and other interesting limbs the most technologically advanced guns from among the budget and decommissioned, and put things in order in the experimental settlement.

Strategy and tactics in XCOM: Chimera Squad

Like previous games in the series from developer Firaxis, XCOM: Chimera Squad combines turn-based tactics and real-time strategy. The genre is determined by the choice of the gameplay model. For example, Geoscape is a real-time strategy game, and Battlescape is a turn-based tactics.

And the most interesting thing is the tactical mode. The fact is that the Chimera squad consists of 11 heroes, each of which has its own skills, characteristics and capabilities. For example:

Terminal is a medic. She has an endless supply of first-aid kits, and a drone with medications can fly anywhere on the map;
Verge is a sectoid. Able to control the psyche of enemies and make them aggressive towards each other;
Puff is a "tank". Perfectly dodges various attacks, quite generously floods the area with poisonous spits, knows how to move allies or enemies around the map.

In total, as mentioned above, there are 11 heroes. But you won't be able to assemble a "dream team" from them. The fact is that during fights, they receive scars that reduce their characteristics. It is easy to recover from this - it is enough to sit at the base for a couple of days. Therefore, you need to constantly "juggle" heroes.