I even prefer the turn timers to the camping meta of the first game. Item and weapon system is much more polished, giving you more ways to play. The map issue with EW became a problem after few playthroughs, at least in X2 you don't know the exact layout and alien placement. The strategic layer is more interesting, not just spinning the earth around but having to make choices on what you are doing with your time. The enemies have more defining abilities, strengths and weaknesses that make even the weaker ones unique to deal with (except for the advent troopers). Otherwise I believe X2 does better or at least as good as EW. X2 has also become a bit bloated with the expansions, for example having 9 classes as opposed to the 5 (6 if you count shiv, but essentially they always were just a fubar-backup to me) makes it so that I can't use all as much as I want, although it gives more tactical choise. In EW the end game, the biggest weakness of both games also didn't feel as boring as in X2 (except for the final mission(s), which are a huge improvement in the sequel), but that might also be just due to me not playing EW as much as X2. That is to be expected by the setting, though, as the enemy is no longer unknown. The firs one really nailed the atmosphere better, it was really a horror game compared to the action-ish, and after WOTC even a silly (not that I don't like it), feel of X2. I think X2 is better overall, but then again, I haven't played EW in years and never played EU more than a couple of hours. I would love to see see a game on the new engine with a large number of handcrafted maps, the expanded arsenal of XCOM 2 but with prolonged tactical battles like the first game. There's no denying that XCOM 2 however provides a much more polished experience, with slicker gameplay and cleaner (sight lines, cover, flanking, etc) maps, not to mention a whole load of quality of life improvements such as grenade damage indicators, LOS preview, etc. The missions also felt much longer, with much more emphasis placed on survivability and containing the enemy threat rather than in XCOM 2 where for a large number of aliens, it just has to die (or be cheesed with frost grenade, etc) right now. I also prefer the approach to tactical combat, focusing around engagements that would last multiple turns against a large number of enemies, who often operated in groups and would have specific synergies (mind merge, blood call, etc). Whilst many of the maps had their issues, I still find them vastly more compelling than the generic ones churned out by the procedural generation in XCOM 2 that makes it end up feeling like there's only about 10 maps. Battling an unknown, alien enemy in almost perpetually dark night maps. Particularly without the expansion the tone of the first game was spot on. It just got so much right that I feel was lost in the sequel, the map designs, the aesthetic, and the atmosphere created. (but of course, modding options for XCOM 2 is a perfectly reasonable reason to prefer it). Now we are at the point where all the content for both games has been released, which of the two modern XCOM titles do you prefer, and why? This is primarily considering the games as finished by Firaxis, not taking into consideration any mods such as Long War.
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