MENACE

Assolutamente fantastico ed assai coinvolgente

:)

A fun tactical shooter that emphasizes tactics and reaction to the unknown. While not exactly like XCOM I find it more than scratches the same itch I had for a tactical shooter while also having an interesting story to back up the gameplay. I particularly enjoy the vehicles, or Hardware, in the MENACE world. I enjoy having my two squaddies of grunts scouting around while I have two vehicles destroying almost anything in their line of fire. I only have 32 hours but I did reach the current end point of the story. I can confidently say that I thoroughly enjoyed my 32 hours of gameplay even if some of it was somewhat stressful, it was engaging. I hope to see more aliens and especially more ground units similar to the pirate boarding crews(Unless I happened to miss them, I'm not counting the walkers with jetpacks since that's hardware) In summary, a pretty dang good turn based tactical shooter in a sci fi setting.

A big thumbs up from me. I really enjoy ranking up my different Squad Leaders and using them together to perform different roles (Scouting, Anti-Armour etc). I've had a great time with it. The feeling of progression from getting better and better guns, tanks, and heavy support weapons is satisfying. Quite a wide variety of mission types, and most are rather particular to which of the enemy factions I'm facing. Weather effects on accuracy and spotting. It's a very fun time for me! The one negative is that most missions have an OPTIONAL objective to complete the mission within X amount of turns. I'm at the point where I simply ignore that one now as it is usually unattainable. I stress that they are OPTIONAL objectives. However, considering that promotion points for the Squad leaders are earned by completing both primary and optional objectives, it hampers progression a little bit.

Really loving this game so far, but I have a few concerns. I know these will probably be addressed later in Early Access and the full release, but here are the main things that have jumped out at me so far. Weird Difficulty Progression My starting operation was against the Pirates, who deployed Boarding Commandos and mounted units. I had absolutely no way to effectively deal with them until the third mission when my Pilot finally got a +damage perk and the machine gun started penetrating armor. This was followed by an absolutely miserable anti-alien operation in an urban environment; the only reason I survived was due to flamethrowers. Even then, the mandatory third mission tasking me with eliminating Nests was awful. Strangely, the third operation — and most missions since — have been incredibly easy. I would have never reached them if I hadn't grinded through that downright sadistic opening. I'm playing on Challenging and it feels alright now, so maybe that's just the RNG shenanigans, but I can easily see people dropping the game if they get screwed like this. Vehicle Imbalance You start with the Light Troop Carrier, and so far, it is the best weapon platform in the game I've seen. It’s sturdy, transports units, and has slots for both Light and Medium weaponry. Because of this, I basically have no reason to switch to a Light Walker or a Pirate Truck. Sure, they have their niches, but the LTC just takes it away on consistency. As a suggestion, Light Walkers could be better specced into the anti-Alien missions by letting them equip two Light weapons. Either a Flamethrower and an Machine Gun or even dual synced Machine guns would make for a welcome firepower increase over the LTC. Jeeps... I don't really know, unless you are doing the hit-and-run tactics, they just aren't worth it. Sure, you can bring two Medium weapon platforms to the battlefield at the cost of one, but they can barely withstand small arms fire and fold immediately when another Medium weapon shows up. And then you are down a battlefield unit, a vehicle, and possibly a pilot. Good for challenge runs, I guess? Stalled Progression & RNG I’ve been playing for 8 hours. Early on, I upgraded my carbines to proper rifles, got my Specialist squads a machine gun, a flamethrower, an RPG, and sniper rifles, bought better armor, and salvaged a laser for my LTC. However, I just spent three hours without a single gear upgrade (aside from two new squadmates and a base upgrade). I am currently duking it out with the Rogue Army but cannot find decent upgrades anywhere, even though I know they exist from checking the wiki. I’m sitting on 600 supplies and will soon have to just start rolling for Black Market refreshes because there’s nothing new dropping while the enemy threat level keeps growing. Tying the market this heavily to RNG is a punishing mechanic. Final Thoughts Everything else is pretty stellar. The graphics, the music, the tone, and the characters are great. I really dig Zama and the unhinged warlord energy he brings, but Hayflick is also a worthy contender to XCOM's Bradford (we need to get her a sweater at some point). This game feels like XCOM, Jagged Alliance, and BattleTech had a beautiful baby, and I can't wait to see what else is in store!

THIS IS THE XCOM I'VE DREAMED FOR

Absolutely incredible military fantasy in the form of squad-based turn strategy set in the near-future of outskirts of civilised space. And the tempo Overhype Studios is releasing the updates is incredible! Highly recommend!