Animal Crossing wasn't on this list already??

----------------------------

'Cause honestly that's my real life now - I only got to see fireworks because they were digital, and I've only been able to lie on a beach in avatar form.

It's so bad I now watch YouTube celebrity island tours - and I am so jealous of Danny Trejo's muscle beach and taco stand it's not funny.

You know those videos that you have to watch in free games where they advertise something you're totally not interested in? Well, I was bored one day in March and decided I'd download Bitlofe. I don't know why I did it. Maybe I was bored of the vacuous abyss that is conversation with horny men online or maybe my curiosity has been piqued long before and the newfound silence let me really ponder the idea. So, I doenload this game. I will pause to say that I am NOT a gamer. It's not that I don't have the smarts and skill to figure it out. I just typically don't have the energy or stamina or desire to keep up with it. So, my games of choice typically are simulation games. I like pressing buttons, seeing the results, and clapping like a retarded seal. Therefore, Bitlife has everything I want.

Here is the part where I turn into a commercial and say, "it's great, I love it, blah blah blah." To be fair. I dropped a whole Lincoln (5 dollars, if you're not American or are rich) on this damn game and I am milking it for every fricking penny. So, the basic set up is that you are born (angel music) and you have a button where you age up. As you age up, you can do more stuff. You get vaccinated in a lot of cases, go to school, make friends, etc. But, there's also options. You can read booka to gain smarts, you can meditate and diet and shit to have better health (or worse because choices). You can get plastic surgery to look better and go to movies to gain happiness. Those are your four pillars, by the way, happiness, health, smarts, and looks. Then, you can make life choices too. You can emigrate to another country, go to the doctor, buy a pet (or 23), fuck random people, commit crimes ranging from being a delinquent to murder to traim robbery, make a will, vacation, etc. The whole time you're living, the board has a running log of everything you do. As you age, it will tell you some random news (wars, your sibling getting married, something abour your relationships, etc.) and may prompt you to choose on a random event (your kid asking you to pay their tuition, co-worker coming onto you, you finding a random purse, some jackass cutting you off while driving, etc.) or update you on your life (you're sick, your mom remarried, your dad died, etc.), then log shit you decide to do in that year. When you die, if you have the full game, I don't know how to explain why I like it so much, so I guess I'll give an example.

Today when I played, I was a 14-year-old whose mother died in jail after killing his asshole father that cheated on her (I do get invested, Im not gonna lie). He slept around because I was bored and on my lunch break. So, from the age of 16 to 23, he had 24 kids. You can hook up with people (10 at a time) and have dates and also donate sperm so yeah, had a busy lunch break (drum sound). He also has syphilis, chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhea, Hepatitis B, and HIV. Once I get HIV, I stop curing the other shit bevause what's the use? He didn't work and died at 31 from complications with HIV. He had 30 kids at the time of his death, all under the age of 15. Because I have the full game, I chose to be one of his kids, who carried on his legacy. So, I started as a 9-year-old girl who was raised by a single mom and had 30 hald siblings. Despite my obvious lack of care and standards, she rose from the gutter, got a law degree, got married, had six very cute kids (they're cartoons but still...), and got to live out her glory days alongside her husband and surrounded by her loving family. Once she died, I picked a kid and so the cycle continues. My longest generation is 3,000 years (though I tend to fuck around and die around the 2500 mark) and my oldest person was 110.

I think I like simulation games because I don't have to think, but they make me want to. Why is it easier to be terrible than to be good? How can a gopher bite kill you? (The game will tell you if you got rabies or if something mauled/ate you.) What number is a good number of victims to stop on? I think all of those questions every day, sometimes multiple times a day. I really like BitLife because I get the same thrill from pressing a button that I would from denying someone a dick pic or fucking with a stranger, and unlike human contact, it never gets boring and I love it. Though, I'd love it even more if they took heed to me pole jocking and cut me a fucking check for advertising their game. -_- I'm clearly broke if $5, is a lot for a phone game.

Diversis Viribus.

XCOM: Chimera Squad is a new spin-off title in the XCOM series, which many of you already know is one of my favorite video game franchises. Taking place five years after the events of XCOM 2, Earth has been liberated and now finds its population trying to live at peace with their new inhabitants, the aliens and the ADVENT human-alien hybrids. Set in City 31, you take command of Chimera Squad, an elite police task force consisting of humans, aliens, and hybrids, as you try to keep the peace while battling against different criminal factions and solve a murder investigation linking them together.

This game came as a suprise to me. I wasn’t expecting any new XCOM games any time soon, and as a huge fan of the franchise I’m not gonna complain. While this game has classic elements of XCOM it still feels very different. For starters one of the biggest changes is removing the recruiting and customization of your members of Chimera Squad. Instead your unit consists of established characters. That’s not so bad but part of the fun in the XCOM series was when you could customize your soldiers any way you wanted.

On the other hand, what the game does give you give you is a whole squad of unique soldiers—a mixture of humans, aliens, and hybrids—all complete with their own set of weapons and abilities to help you in battle. You have a medic who can use a drone to heal other squadmates; a hybrid agent who uses a shield to block enemy attacks; and a viper agent who can use her tongue to pull enemies toward her and constrict them. I actually like this part of the game because it gets me thinking about who do I want on my squad before I enter a mission. And like in previous XCOM games, as your agents level up you can unlock new abilities that can either aid your squad or do some serious damage to your enemy.

I also do like these characters too. Their backstories are pretty interesting, some relenting to stuff that happened in XCOM 2 and its expansion War of the Chosen. They're all very well voice acted too. If I had to pick my favorite squad member it would have to be the viper agent (which is probably every fans' favorite character) mainly because I like her voice, her design, her attitude, and she has the best abilities of all the other squadmates. I also like some of the dialogue exchanges they have in and out of story. Sure the dialogue comes off as cheesy but that's part of the entertainment. It reminds me of an old cheesy cop show or Police Academy.

This one is probably the best example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvhizD9ojrc&ab_channel=Javelin%27sStudio

Unlike previous XCOM games where your squad takes a turn in moving and firing, the game introduces a new mechanic where each individual unit on both sides take a individual turns. For example, you can take an action by moving one soldier to a different position and shoot at an enemy. After that the enemy then takes similar actions. Both sides will keep rotating different units until all units are eliminated. It’s definitely a new twist for the XCOM series and a welcome one. Although I still favor for having your whole squad move and make their actions and then the opposition makes their move. But it helps keep you on your toes and makes you plan everything out. I also like how the start of each mission there's a new game mechanic called 'Breach mode' where you can bust through a door or window, ultimately surprising enemy units and getting free shots off them. The more enemies successfully you kill it'll help your squad gain an advantage in the long run. I hope this is a mechanic that returns for XCOM 3, if that is something Firaxis is still making.

The story is a little interesting but it’s mainly helped with the world building this game has. As I previously mentioned this game takes place after humanity wins back planet Earth and how they must coexist with the stranded aliens that are on this planet. And it’s not even the aliens fault. We learn they too were under mind control from the alien masterminds, the Elders. So it’s interesting to see how they try to live in harmony and it’s neat exploring this new dynamic in the game. And the fact that we can play as alien units makes me hope when XCOM 3 comes out we’ll get the opportunity to do so again and even customize them.

One thing I don't like is how this game likes some sort of time cycle. In the previous entries you would normally have a world map where you can scan the planet and as you scan there would be a passage of time. In this game it doesn't have that, which kinda makes sense since you're located in a single city, but the passage of time feels very slow. In your base you can assign your agents to help craft upgradable items or train them to unlock extra abilities, but the time passage operates either once you've completed a mission or completed some activity and a day would pass. If feels like the projects take forever. I also miss the ability to build your base of operations ant farm style like in the previous games.

Also, it wouldn't be XCOM without some big time bugs/glitches and boy did I come across my share. A couple of them are hilarious like when I killed an enemy unit their body goes flying across the map. A couple others were confusing like some times when enemy units, or even your own squadmates, look like they are floating above the ground. And then there was the one game breaking glitch that annoyed me where all the gear for one of my agents completely disappeared.

While this game really doesn't hold a candle to its more successful predecessors this was still a pretty fun game to play. It's definitely no XCOM 3 and I don't think the developers were going for something like that. It's a fun spin-off title that any XCOM fans would enjoy. It's available on Steam right now for $20 and I can say it would be money well spent.

Positives:

-Story and world building

-Some of the new game mechanics

-Chimera Squad and their abilities

-Breach mode

-Plenty of fun

Negatives:

-Bugs and glitches

-Lack of a world map/time cycle/base building

-No customization for units

Final Grade: B-

I've been wanting to talk about this game for a while now and it took forever to put it to words. Now it's here, have you played this game? What were your thoughts? Played any of the other XCOM games? Please be kind, leave a like and comment, and check out my other reviews here on Prose!

#harrysituationreviews #gaming #videogame #opinion #XCOM #tactics #strategy #scifi #aliens

I have an ever growing list of games in my backlog since the quarantine. I played through The Last of Us Part II and throughly enjoyed the journey and its themes. I am currently working on Final Fantasy VII Remake. I have not finished the game yet, but I am having a blast with it, and I can't wait to see Vincent in a future installment. I usually play Final Fantasy XV Comrades before playing VII Remake. One of the fun things to do with Comrades is see if anyone is actually still online playing it (every once in a while I find someone). I have started playing VR, and my favorites for that include Astro Bot, Operation Warcade, Resident Evil 7 and Rez Infinite. Resident Evil 7 is mindblowing in VR and has renewed my interest in the franchise (feeling like you are actually in the nightmare is awesome). I finally finished Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and I mostly enjoyed it (some of the best gameplay in the series), but I was let down by the ending (it could have used so much more after years of storyline in the franchise, and glaring plot points were left unresolved). Silent Hill 4: The Room was recommended as a game to play in these pandemic times, so I happily brought that game out of retirement. Once I finish Final Fantasy VII Remake I am going to devote a lot of time to Persona 5 Royal. I played through the original Persona 5 and it became one of my favorite games of all time, and I am looking forward to enjoying the new additions in Royal. I hope all of you are enjoying some great games too!

In terms of video games, quarantine has actually been very eventful, since my brother was finally able to convince our parents into getting a PS4.

Since I wasn't much of a gamer outside of Minecraft and Animal Crossing, he made the first decisions on what games to buy: Overwatch and Ghost of Tsushima. With my involvement in online classes and outside projects until about two weeks ago, I didn't have much time to play anyway.

It was recently when I chose a starter game, based on the show I had been rewatching: My Hero One's Justice 2. Since my younger sibling doesn't watch much anime and has seen questionable cosplays from the MHA fandom, he was initially unsure of whether he wanted to play with me. However, this didn't last: he told me that the graphics on the game were actually quite good, and he liked the character designs and their customizations. Unfortunately, it's been hard to explain to him, someone who's never seen the anime or manga, why Mineta is a horrible favorite, or why I get sad whenever he mains certain characters...

Now I've been doing more research on what games to get next, but all roads have led me back to my other interests. My top choice is the Danganronpa Trilogy (yes, the school killing game with the wacky poses and disturbing fanbase). I can't explain it- something about this franchise's colorful characters and dark, dystopian themes (and crude humor) have kept me hooked on it since I saw the anime adaptation of the first game. Other than that, I've been wanting to get Bendy and the Ink Machine, or maybe the Attack On Titan games. (Note: If anyone's played any of these, you can comment to sway my decision or give me other suggestions.)

Honestly, I've been playing a lot of Minecraft. Like a lot. I have about 54 copies of one world which I play in. You know, in case it gets corrupted. I've also been grinding Apex Legends and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare. COD more than Apex, but still both. Um, yeah. That's it. I have three games I play.

Played a lot of 'The Witcher - Wild Hunt' at the start of quarantine. That was fun. Then I went on an unplanned hiatus from it all. 'Assassin's Creed Odyssey' didn't quite take hold but I'm thinking of getting back to it after I'm done with 'The Outer Worlds'. 'Ori and the will of the wisps' also looks great. If only I could convince my brother to let me play it.