izigame.me

I would like to start out with I think this game is incredible overall and definitely in my personal top ten video games.
Firstly something that I have to say is to the detriment of this game. In my honest opinion the very end left much to be desired. It felt hollow and frustrating to me. While the story is maybe not the best written ever it was an extremely solid and enjoyable aliens plot. I was quite happy and invested in different characters and where they were going to take this. However it did leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I definitely have a personal bias towards how attached I got to my Marines. Huh, funny that. So I will say my feelings are colored by that statement.
With all of this being said, I personally feel this game is a masterclass in gamers making games for gamers. As well as nerds making games for nerds. Everything sounded right. Everything felt right. The design choices felt intentional, well thought out, and smooth. I definitely had a much better and more accurate feeling of commanding a team of highly motivated, highly trained, actually cohesive individuals. Yes in game there are traits that could make that statement questionable. But they feel like professionals. They feel right. You assign a guy to hack and with no further keystrokes the right guy based on squad composition and stats runs off. The controls to manipulate the order system feels smooth and quick. I also personal love that there's no hard tactical pause but instead a frighteningly quick slow motion. The maintenance of your Marines and everything else feels realistic enough to be engaging without being too real. Everything feels purposeful, thoughtful, and calculated.
I said calculated intentionally because I did not believe a game could give me such a level of anxiety and stress while still having fun. I am not trying to speak less on anyone for anything. To clarify I don't have fun when things are stressful. I don't enjoy horror games. They don't really get me going. I usually just get frustrated. However I understand how and why others do enjoy these things. This game however. How they utilize sound design, map layout, the motion tracker (that is the coolest part of the whole game fight me), and NPC kinetics. The enemies felt intelligent and difficult for the right reasons for each type of enemy. My anxiety and stress were through the roof playing this game and it felt great. I loved every moment of this game overall. It was always fun and engaging and thought provoking. And I just played it on normal. I have played many varying strategy games and can do the whole difficulty thing but man my games list is long. I gotta get through them.
For such a niche idea of a game with all of its varying elements it is excellently executed. It is faithful to the franchise. It is well polished and well crafted. Is everything perfect and jolly good? Of course not. There is always room to improve. But they do not have the resources of a AAA studio. And this is noticeably impressive regardless of this fact.
I'm not a die-hard fan, but I am a deep fan of the franchise and it holds special nostalgia for me. So please take this into consideration for two reasons. I am harsher when things are bad and too lax when things are good. Compared to normal I mean. So I may have missed or overlooked some things. I am also not a writer so sadly I have no recommendations or designs for the ending that would be helpful. I can sadly only bring criticism there.