The Shrine

Besides having the worst name since Elemental: War of Magic, this game looks pretty amazing to me. I've been following it with vague interest until recently when the previews started making it sound more like a more tactical Mass Effect. They've released some gameplay footage of various missions since then and it basically looks like a more strategy-focused Mass Effect game. The players seem to be spending just about as much time ordering their squad to perform various functions as opposed to actually shooting things themselves. The powers look pretty cool, too. I saw someone using the 'lift' power which would usually immobilize someone in the air as a temporary stun on mini-bosses and the like which definitely seemed real Mass Effect-y. One of the cooler powers I saw was ordering a sniper squad member to use alien technology to headshot someone through cover.

Any way the game looks pretty cool and they've actually admitted to going to the XCOM Enemy Unknown team and asking them for some of their art so the games could tie together more easily. Between the (mostly) glowing approval from previews and the solid looking gameplay footage I felt like it was worth taking the pre-order leap. Unfortunately they had to skimp on the game multiplayer-wise, as in there isn't even any coop.

I thought this was just an expo for Enemy Unknown, it's a whole new game?

Yeah, Steam has some videos on it. It looks pretty cool so far.

It was in development limbo for a long time. Hell, it may have been in development longer than XCOM EU. It was originally going to be a first person shooter and then something like 12-24 months ago they backed up and made it a third person squad tactical shooter.

They share the universe/setting and this happens before XCOM EU. I'd expect a fair amount of parallels since the development team definitely communicated with the EU team.

The game is decent. Combat flows nicely and is difficult enough on the default difficulty that I'm not feeling the need to make things harder for myself. The powers are fun and your tutorial squad has a ton of them so you get thrown into the deep-end combat wise and told to just start fucking shit up. Some review broke the embargo and made me nervous because it said some terrible things, but apparently the same reviewer gave The Witcher 2 like a 2/10 or something so clearly his opinion is invalid or his tastes are so wildly different from mine that he should be ignored. Game is a pretty solid 6.5 to 7/10. I was most worried about the controls being shit because of cross development with consoles (and the gameplay footage had that thing where console buttons were in place for "Press A for this action"), but for the most part they're decent. Some of them are awkward, but it's passable in practice so no real complaints.

Squad control works well but I was hoping it would slow time just a little more than it does, if not stop it outright. At this point it's difficult to order your squad around the battlefield because the starting hitpoints are so low. There is something fun in bunkering down your squad and telling them to keep the enemies attention while you circle around from cover to cover to a flanking position.. with a shotgun. Like XCOM EU you get a massive flanking bonus and you just tear shit up.

Something seems off with the resolution or something.. The screen never feels right. I feel like the graphics go back and forth from from dated to amazing and I can't place my finger on why. They could have definitely been better though for the PC release. My PC loads levels quicker than I can read the text in the loading screens.

Voice acting is decent even though the main character is standard MY VOICE IS GRAVELLY AND I HAVE A DARK PAST guy. Story seems cool so far.

One of the lamer things is that there are no female recruits for your squad (because it's the 60s... but some how there's no racism and black people are just all over the place and accepted as equals), but one of the main characters who arguably seems more bad ass than even the main character is a woman. Is this supposed to even things out? I would have preferred the ability to have female recruits. XCOM makes this deal about how we need to come together as an entire species to combat an alien threat but training females isn't a thing? The only other women I've encountered in the game have been desk jockeys and intellectuals. Lame.

This game could have really profited from another quarter in development. It's fun though.