This generation has been underwhelming

[u/Asleep-Sprinkles-760]

I bought a Series X at launch, and can’t think of a single game that has impressed me this gen. I’m a big Halo fan, and Halo Infinite felt like a letdown. I’m a Forza fan, and Forza Motorsport felt like a massive disappointment. I was exited for Starfield, but was underwhelmed after playing it.

It just feels like we’ve had no heavy hitters this gen, even 3rd party AAA games have been average at best. I guess the only hope I have left is with Gears 6, but aside from that, Microsoft needs to get their act together and start releasing some new games. It feels like games are taking way too long to make these days, we used to get bangers every year in the 360 gen. Even the Xbox One had more compelling games than what we have now

[u/Louie_Cousy-onXBOX]

Xcom 2 is top tier. Xcom 3 release is the only game that’s on the same level of excitement GTA6 is for me. Hope they go deeper into the base system and let us personalize our ship/base/quarters. It’d be much sadder when a troop dies after you just visited them in their barracks room, followed by some poor recruit moving into that room hoping they don’t see the same fate under my command.

[u/tonyedit → u/Louie_Cousy-onXBOX]

We all dream of X-Com 3. They'd have their work cut out for them after War of the Chosen, but the foundation of the game is AAA+++++. There's a post almost daily about the possibility over on r/xcom

[u/Mr_Mees_Moldy_Minge → u/Louie_Cousy-onXBOX]

There is some reasonable concern one could have, after the middling to bad spin off they launched a while back.

[u/SpritesOfDoom → u/Louie_Cousy-onXBOX]

Original 1994 X-COM is way better than modern remakes. It was both much simpler to understand, for example to do research, you needed scientists and a lab. Scientists needed salary and a place to live. You had to build a living quarters for your employees.

Yet it had much more depth, because you could organically specialize your bases. For example if one of your bases was R&D focused without military, there was almost no chance that aliens would attack it. They would not search for a base in a region when their ships aren't attacked. So you didn't need a hangar or defense facilities in base, leaving more space for labs and similar facilities.

You could intercept every alien activity. For example they sent huge ships for terror missions. If you were able to stop them, there was no terror, but these ships were too tough in early game you most likely didn't had radar coverage.

Tactical combat was different and worse in some ways, but it also had no typical RNG. Each bullet had a chance to be fired with some error from desired trajectory. If you aimed up to 3 tiles, it was irrelevant. Firing at half of the map, only 95%+ shots had a slight chance of hitting the target.

There was a friendly fire and you could use weapons to destroy walls, door etc. making your own entry way into the UFOs for example.

X-COM remakes simplified a lot of things, but in the same time they introduced weird mechanics that weren't as natural as in the original.

X-COM remakes felt more like a board game, than a economy-tactics strategy the original was.

X-COM remake and X-COM 2 are still good games, but original games were something truly special. People were playing them many years after they were released.

[u/Louie_Cousy-onXBOX → u/SpritesOfDoom]

I see what you’re saying but Xcom 2 with WOTC is probably the best top down strategy game, or game in general, of all time.