Let's Play X-COM Enforcer Mission 14

I really like this mission! It's a little bit annoying about overuse of minor cinematics... but there's actually a button for skipping through those! (Default: G) I've mostly been avoiding using it in this run-through so you can have the Full Enforcer Experience™, but you don't actually have to put up with these cinematics when playing yourself. Anyway, the mission itself is a relatively comprehensible and navigable environment with decent-and-not-aggravating secret-hiding that just looks nice all things considered. And the game is finally starting to get kind of challenging!

The Anubis-looking bosses at the end (Excuse me, the 'cyberbeasts') are a bit interesting, since some digging around online indicates that there was supposed to be an X-COM game called 'Alliance', which ended up canceled, salvaged, and then canceled again, with some of the work put into it being recycled for Enforcer. That's probably why we've got some random Anubis-looking aliens, as the Alliance game was doing stuff with 'Egyptian culture was shaped by aliens'. (This puts a bit of a damper on my theory that the developers weren't that familiar with X-COM to start, maybe?)

It's too bad their gameplay is a bit boring. Basically just circle-strafe them endlessly while trying to scoop up relevant weaponry and upgrades and avoid stuff like Flamethrowers. Not complicated. They're probably the first boss you might actually die to, just because they do decent damage individually and there's three of them and it's the first time the game has demanded you do more than hold the fire button while looking in the general direction of enemies (Worst Mission Of The Game aside), but they're not exactly nuanced.

... though this particular run didn't end up showing them off at all, because the Fusion Rifle is really, really lethal. Due to dumb stuff, I actually lost a half hour or so of footage, starting from my original run of this mission, so this is a new run generously gotten up to speed by my brother. He apparently made way more Data Points than I did, as it happens... so things are a bit out of sync. The remaining videos will be off this new run... assuming nothing else dumb happens... anyway. Anyway, in the original run of this mission I ended up circle-strafing them for like four minutes and it kind of works out that the footage you're getting is the one where I kill them in like maybe ten seconds.

We also get to see the Vibroblade XL in this mission. It's a weird weapon that's amazingly good and amazingly awful. It does a lot of damage very quickly, can catch multiple enemies at once, and with upgrades can even bounce enemy shots back so you can fearlessly charge into the fray and all, buuuut it's a melee weapon and it's not lethal enough to be particularly safe to take up against the really tough enemies. It's not like it stunlocks them or something. This isn't Doom here. It's great for charging into a group of fragile ranged enemies and scooping up Data Points as you blender them, but it's actually fairly terrible against most melee enemies and is really a bad idea against bosses. They can often even shoot right through the Vibroblade XL after it's upgraded to block shots! While it's nowhere near as awful as the Flamethrower, it's one weapon you might want to skip over just because it can be really problematic to have dumped into your hands. I like it enough to put up with that risk... on this difficulty, at least... but you might not.

See you next mission.

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