Title: XCOM (is a franchise, but each is standalone and I'm specifically requesting Chimera Squad)
Media/Length: Video game, takes 20-26 hours to complete, or about 4 hours to consume enough youtube material. You can find the game on Steam, and I'd wait for the next sale to get a better discount. (While the XCOM games typically are available on Windows, Mac, or Linux, alas CS is currently Windows-only.)
What is it? XCOM Chimera Squad is a turn-based tactical action/strategy game by the same guys who brought you Civilization (and XCOM generally is a lot like Civilisation except military sci-fi, and also in addition to the resource planning, it has missions where you shoot people). In Chimera Squad, you have a team of 11 agents, 4 of whom you can bring on any mission. Your goal on any of those missions is stuff like escorting a hostage out, rescuing civilians, capturing flags, etc. Between missions, you have to manage resources to be able to quell unrest in different parts of the city.
What's it about? If you're not familiar with XCOM as a franchise, here's the story so far from the main games: you play as the Commander of an international paramilitary organisation (that's XCOM), originally set up by a council of nations to combat an alien invasion. The aliens win, though, and they set up their own occupying organisation on Earth called ADVENT. There's a lot of capturing, autopsying and genetic experimentation on both sides: ADVENT has its own strange science projects for their own murky reasons which you discover as you play, while XCOM is mostly looking for answers and how to make better weapons and not be the underdog all the time. After 20 years of occupation and alien rule, ADVENT is finally overthrown in the events of XCOM 2. The upper caste of the aliens who made up ADVENT leave the planet, but they leave behind all their alien grunt soldiers. A tentative peace has been struck to get humans and remaining aliens (and the hybrids that ADVENT created, who aren't human or alien) to work together.
This is where Chimera Squad comes in, and it takes place 5 years into this tentative peace, trying to enforce that peace. It's up to you as the player to figure out how effective that enforcement really is! When not saving the city in an alien/human/hybrid SWAT team, or choosing where to expend resources, your team snarks playfully at each other in the background.
Why I love it: - I'm a huge fan of turn-based tactical strategy :D - the worldbuilding is great but has a lot of potential that's constantly going under-explored - the characters in Chimera Squad are charming and super fun - unlike in previous XCOMs, you can't customise them, they come pre-made; and while they've done a good job making a diverse and fun cast for CS (nice voices, some clever writing), there is still so, so, so much more potential to fleshing out these characters, and it'd only be a step above Original Works type fic at this point. - it's cheap but replayable (you can only collect 8 of the 11 agents and playing with different ones means different strategies), so there's value for your money; it's also relatively short - it's (arguably) not as difficult* as regular ordinary XCOM, because you get a free first turn, and there's not as much stuff to customise, so it's an easy gateway to the franchise (or indeed to other turn-based strategy games, such as Shadowrun (the computer game version, that is)) - it has that Great XCOM Feel of having a 97% probable hit and missing and ruining the absolute rest of the mission and getting everyone killed! - it doesn't take very long before you find the cool guns and unlock the cool skills and become massively overpowered and then No One Can Stop You. It's very good for working out aggression.
*unless you pick the super hard ironman-type setting that doesn't let you save so you can't refresh the game over and over to try that shot you missed again. ...which I would never do, of course.
What I'll request Worldbuilding, and found-family teambuilding shenanigans. My favourite character is Verge, and I nominated a few others I was fond of, but I really love them all, and there's a whole bunch of cool character archetypes for those who don't like the 'I grew empathy so I heel-face turned and found myself a redemption arc'. For example, Terminal is a cheerful/wisecracking/sarcastic medic who hides pain and a difficult past that she conceals-doesn't-feel; Godmother is an older srs bsns resistance veteran who Can't Stop Fighting and Doesn't Like Trusting, and Torque (the sexy snake lady) fought for the opposite side throughout the entire war - only her connections with Col. Kelly seem to have gotten her out of detention - and she's still generally kinda prickly.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests? Yes! There's a campaign movie here - it's not long, though it feels a little more disjointed as it removes all of the fun things the squad says to one another as they're standing around the map table, or in missions, or while you're planning your resources, but youtubeprovides for those, too and you can get a sense of in-mission dynamics and the agents' special skills just from watching that or other playthroughs. All character intros can be found here, if that helps entice you.
no subject
Media/Length: Video game, takes 20-26 hours to complete, or about 4 hours to consume enough youtube material. You can find the game on Steam, and I'd wait for the next sale to get a better discount. (While the XCOM games typically are available on Windows, Mac, or Linux, alas CS is currently Windows-only.)
What is it?
XCOM Chimera Squad is a turn-based tactical action/strategy game by the same guys who brought you Civilization (and XCOM generally is a lot like Civilisation except military sci-fi, and also in addition to the resource planning, it has missions where you shoot people). In Chimera Squad, you have a team of 11 agents, 4 of whom you can bring on any mission. Your goal on any of those missions is stuff like escorting a hostage out, rescuing civilians, capturing flags, etc. Between missions, you have to manage resources to be able to quell unrest in different parts of the city.
What's it about?
If you're not familiar with XCOM as a franchise, here's the story so far from the main games: you play as the Commander of an international paramilitary organisation (that's XCOM), originally set up by a council of nations to combat an alien invasion. The aliens win, though, and they set up their own occupying organisation on Earth called ADVENT. There's a lot of capturing, autopsying and genetic experimentation on both sides: ADVENT has its own strange science projects for their own murky reasons which you discover as you play, while XCOM is mostly looking for answers and how to make better weapons and not be the underdog all the time. After 20 years of occupation and alien rule, ADVENT is finally overthrown in the events of XCOM 2. The upper caste of the aliens who made up ADVENT leave the planet, but they leave behind all their alien grunt soldiers. A tentative peace has been struck to get humans and remaining aliens (and the hybrids that ADVENT created, who aren't human or alien) to work together.
This is where Chimera Squad comes in, and it takes place 5 years into this tentative peace, trying to enforce that peace. It's up to you as the player to figure out how effective that enforcement really is! When not saving the city in an alien/human/hybrid SWAT team, or choosing where to expend resources, your team snarks playfully at each other in the background.
Why I love it:
- I'm a huge fan of turn-based tactical strategy :D
- the worldbuilding is great but has a lot of potential that's constantly going under-explored
- the characters in Chimera Squad are charming and super fun - unlike in previous XCOMs, you can't customise them, they come pre-made; and while they've done a good job making a diverse and fun cast for CS (nice voices, some clever writing), there is still so, so, so much more potential to fleshing out these characters, and it'd only be a step above Original Works type fic at this point.
- it's cheap but replayable (you can only collect 8 of the 11 agents and playing with different ones means different strategies), so there's value for your money; it's also relatively short
- it's (arguably) not as difficult* as regular ordinary XCOM, because you get a free first turn, and there's not as much stuff to customise, so it's an easy gateway to the franchise (or indeed to other turn-based strategy games, such as Shadowrun (the computer game version, that is))
- it has that Great XCOM Feel of having a 97% probable hit and missing and ruining the absolute rest of the mission and getting everyone killed!
- it doesn't take very long before you find the cool guns and unlock the cool skills and become massively overpowered and then No One Can Stop You. It's very good for working out aggression.
*unless you pick the super hard ironman-type setting that doesn't let you save so you can't refresh the game over and over to try that shot you missed again. ...which I would never do, of course.
What I'll request
Worldbuilding, and found-family teambuilding shenanigans. My favourite character is Verge, and I nominated a few others I was fond of, but I really love them all, and there's a whole bunch of cool character archetypes for those who don't like the 'I grew empathy so I heel-face turned and found myself a redemption arc'. For example, Terminal is a cheerful/wisecracking/sarcastic medic who hides pain and a difficult past that she conceals-doesn't-feel; Godmother is an older srs bsns resistance veteran who Can't Stop Fighting and Doesn't Like Trusting, and Torque (the sexy snake lady) fought for the opposite side throughout the entire war - only her connections with Col. Kelly seem to have gotten her out of detention - and she's still generally kinda prickly.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests?
Yes! There's a campaign movie here - it's not long, though it feels a little more disjointed as it removes all of the fun things the squad says to one another as they're standing around the map table, or in missions, or while you're planning your resources, but youtube provides for those, too and you can get a sense of in-mission dynamics and the agents' special skills just from watching that or other playthroughs. All character intros can be found here, if that helps entice you.