Recent reviews by Quixotic Cloud Games

New unit, new enemies, and new tileset! Definitely the best DLC yet. Each DLC also includes lots of bug fixes, and most importantly for Team Dragonpunk, lots of new code/hooks for Modders. The only way for the modding community to make new content is for DLC to do well, so Firaxis keeps making more.

I'm the lead for Team Dragonpunk, the second largest XCOM 2 mod group. Many people say this DLC could be a mod, so lets analyze this theory. Could it be a mod from a coding perspective? Yes, all missions could be with enough time and developers. That's the ENTIRE point of the architecture! OK, so what would it take for us or LWS to make a mod as large as this DLC? There is a new tileset (2-3 artists), new character art and new weapons (1-2 artists), LOTS of code fixes (1-2 coders), new game mechanics (1 Sr coder with a Q/A team for game balance testing). So min of 5-8 profesional game developers working 40+ hours per week for 3 months. Add a reasonable return (not even counting Steam and Publisher costs) and we're looking at $300,000 to $400,000 MIN to make this. Given that Team Dragonpunk has already spent $30,000 and are just now releasing our first mod, that sounds about right. So unless a whole lot more people start donating to mod developers (which they won't), no, it's not possible for modders to make this (not within about 2 years time anyway). Lastly, I wish people who say this would realize that they're only HURTING the mod community. We've seen with many other games that Publishers will stop modding support if it hurts DLC sales. Currently, Firaxis has been AMAZINGLY supportive of modders and are very active on the forums. The only way for us to keep making free mods, is if this game becomes a smash hit.

As far as my actual subjective review: While I wouldn't have made many of the same art design choices (given XCOM's strict military aesthetic), and would have hoped for better organization in rolling out the DLC, I do think it's worth $10. Barely, but yes. I'm actually going to play this again with the Predator Armor Mod, because the old-time design of the weapons and the trophy wall remind me of the early Predator movies lol.

I just bought the deluxe edition because I want to support anyone doing Shadowrun development. I think the others address the game mechanic issues and the game being a year late. My major problem however, is the ending. I litterally had to try it 40 times and then I just quite. Endings should be hard and death may happen (like Dark Souls Two.. and I died a few times in Shadowrun Returns: DMS), but in the kickstarter video this company claimed they had experience in making video games. If so, you should tailor the level of difficulty (when there are no med packs) and know a little bit about game theory. This game is fundamentally flawed. Why would you advertise a full 3D game (kudos on the art btw), and then lock the screen as if its 2D isomophic. I thought you were working with the Shadowrun Returns team? I wanted this game to work sooo much, but now I'm going back to hoping someone makes a GTA V Shadowrun mod this summer. You can't advertise open, persistent, player driven worlds when you can't even make an ending enjoyable for the average gamer (and actually I consider myself a hardcore gamer, so I'm not sure how many people actually beat the ending).