Xenonauts 2 Review (Induslkj)
As an avid purchaser of many many Early Access games I can say that this Early Access release is showing promise. However, the naysayers in the comments are correct when they parrot, like a late show pundit being screamed at through their earpiece to state the obvious, the fact that this is an Early Access Title.
Currently, this is basically just an updated version of Xenonauts 1 with a stronger engine, 3D maps, and improved performance and QoL enhancements....which means you still get more original content at a cheaper price than what came with the Kerbal Space Program 2 Early Access launch.
But it's still a hard sell to people who already played Xenonauts 1, since there isn't much difference at this time. Then again, the "early access" part at the top and the detailed roadmap the devs have provided along with the fact that the publisher is Hooded Horse, which is basically the indie version of Paradox Interactive (with a better game engine than Paradox's Clausewitz engine), means that early adopters really have little to worry about, but...........
if you're worried, like with anything, buy it on sale
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I'm updating this review to note the common refrain in the reviews here about how the accuracy of the enemies seems to be grossly imbalanced. Since I read that ahead of time before playing the first few hours, I decided to keep some records on the data over a few missions.
Average enemy rounds fired at my squad members per mission: 73
Average hits on my squad members by the enemy: 69 (hehe)
That is an astonishing 94% hit rate/accuracy rate by the enemy in this game.
My average rounds fired at the enemy (not including grenades/explosives) 57
My average rounds impacted on the enemy: 25
That's a more "reasonable" 43% (assuming the general rule that 50% is a "good" medium).
Granted, there are additional variables like range and what not that probably skew these numbers one way or the other for a few percentage points (but not 50 percentage points), but there were a number of missions where the AI hit my squad member with a pistol from at least half the map away, and this happened consistently.
Now, I understand the lore idea that the enemy has better tech, better weapon compensation, better targeting computers, #whatever, and I'm all for that. But there has to be an acknowledgement here that when a game is THIS imbalanced regarding AI accuracy it transcends any story/world crafting the developers are attempting to do.
Additionally, the cover system here appears to be a mere suggestion as there didn't appear to be any negative aim penalty added to the AI's aiming when my team was behind cover.
Taking the above into account as well as the numerous others who have noted the same, I can only come to the conclusion that some intern added a multiplier to the AI aiming to troll the developers before their internship was up.
I should reiterate here that I don't really have a problem with the AI being this accurate, AS LONG AS my alleged tier 1 operators are similarly skilled, or there is some clever way about approaching the tactical engagements that helps to negate it/deal with it (like cover that works); but, as it stands now, the AI is playing like it's on a flat open board with maximum range and the hitboxes on my squad are the size of the chinook my team drops in on.