gryphon
I'm amused that they've named the currency in the second game "Supplies". Given some of things you spend them for, it seems a bit incongruous. Gives me the image of Lily down there somehow managing to build medi-kits and flashbang grenades out of boxes of MREs and socks.

mephron
[joke about inedibility of MREs redacted]

gryphon
Automatically crosses with the resource scarcities of Fallout 4 in my head, so that I picture Bradford rummaging through the boxes at one of those "supply drop" scan points and going, "All right, a three-pack of duct tape!"

And then Lily and half the squaddies crowd around like "Oh, rock on, score, you the man, Central."

gryphon
I have to admit, much as I have reservations about XCOM 2's premise, it does make a lot of things make meta-sense.

I do command the organization much as a man recovering from a severe head injury probably would.

:)

bzarcher
hehe

Yeah, something to that.

gryphon
"What have we here? An officer! Looks like someone wants to be skulljacked."

bzarcher
"Don't worry, this won't hurt! Except for the part where it really, really hurts."

gryphon
"Dies könnte ein wenig verletzt!"

"Frankly, pal," said San conversationally to the corpse, "if you didn't want your skull broken into with an invasive cyber-intrusion device, you should have made sure your brain wasn't the easiest point of entry into the ADVENT intranet."

bzarcher
Jon: "Could you PLEASE stop doing that?"

San: "No."

gryphon
(random image of someone having to be configured for that kind of work in UF and Laura volunteering.)

LAURA: I can do that.

SKEPTICAL TECHNICIAN: How are you going to provide a conductive pathway into the dude's actual brain?

LAURA (expressionless): <snikt>

SKEPTICAL TECHNICIAN: ... Good answer.

bzarcher
heheh

gryphon
Wheatley, did you just blow concealment and hurt yourself trying to skulljack a dude? That's so... Wheatley.

gryphon
I like how it will let you skulljack a non-officer, it just doesn't do anything useful. no subject, no message - hope that's ok

bzarcher
Skullmine will at least produce Intel and sometimes facility leads

gryphon
I will admit, it at least elicited one of the best-chosen of the sounds in the Wheatley voice pack:

"... OK, so how much pain are we talking YYEEEAAAAAGGGHHHH"

gryphon
I love it when Sectoids panic my troopers, and my troopers' response is to shoot them.

You can almost see the alien player going "faaaack, why the hell am I playing Ironman."

bzarcher
"That did not work!!"

gryphon
heh, "Burning Convoy"

XCOM 2 map item or limited-edition Japanese Transformer?

bzarcher
Yes!

gryphon
... OK, I have to admit, that outcome was very Croftian.

This mission's ride-back-to-base screen could, by rights, have read,

DEALT MOST DAMAGE
Cpt. Caroline "GLaDOS" Johnson
MADE MOST ATTACKS
Lt. Steve "Wheatley" Merchant
MOST UNDER FIRE
Mag. San "Version 3" Ayanami
MOVED FURTHEST
Cpt. Zaeed "The Cleaner" Massani
BLEW SELF UP
Cpt. Derek "DJ" Croft

In DJ's defense, it did not occur to me that firing the Shredder Gun from a cover position behind a car would cause the car to explode. That would seem to me to be a slight liability in the weapon's design that should, perhaps, be brought to the attention of the Proving Ground.

Still, blowing himself up in the process of completely annihilating a Muton's face (because the SG blast also set off the car he was hiding behind) is a very DJ sort of outcome, so the judges will accept it. It was, at least, easier on the team than Wheatley's uncanny ability to be Wheatley, e.g., constantly busting concealment by stepping in places that the game did not warn me would do so. :)

Also, holy shit, powerful psionics are powerful. "OK guys, line up so I can kill you all at once with Null Lance. Thanks, b'bye!"

bzarcher
:)

gryphon
I think it's unfair that they ding you for "squad member wounded" if an enemy you mind-controlled gets shot. What was I supposed to do, evac him with us? The ride-back-to-base screen would've been amusing, but... :)

(picturing a Muton doing the cheerful thigh-slapping "well gosh that went OK!" mission-accomplished animation)

bzarcher
Heh

gryphon
[ Advent Shieldbearer has DEFECTED ]

bzarcher
That'd be kinda great.

"Oh, Sparky? Don't mind him, he decided he liked it better on this side of the fence. Damn if we can get him to speak English, though."

gryphon
(squad breaks concealment) "Zutok! Mors balakan!" "Yeah, you said it, buddy. We're zutok'd, all right."

gryphon
"Given how much hassle Shen gives Dr. Tygan, I can only imagine how she reacted to this dude."
"Actually, it's fine. They're even kind of buds. He lets her play with his gadgets."
"... Cannot un-see mental image."
"I mean his equipment. I mean oh goddammit."

Actually, given all the sniping, I am half-convinced that when no one is looking, Lily and Tygan are meeting up in the dark, untraveled corners of the Avenger for furtive but furious makeout sessions.

bzarcher
Ew. ew. ew. ew.

Entirely possible.

But ew.

gryphon
Sorry. Here is a picture of Hibiki with a pot on her head, blazing away with a Bren gun for no readily evident reason.

http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/2301173

bzarcher
:) Apology accepted.

gryphon
Also, I'd just like to note that the GLaDOS voice pack works really well for a sniper. That coldly aloof death-from-above thing meshes pretty much perfectly.

bzarcher
Does she like to passive-aggressively imply the Muton has put on weight before she shoots him?

gryphon
(She's a god damn rock star, too. Her crowning achievement so far was acing both of the suddenly arrived Sectoids from a highway overpass a block away from the convenience store where the data thingy was located. Overwatched one, which triggered Death from Above, pistoled the other one. "You, subject name here, must be the pride of, subject hometown here." :)

bzarcher
Oh, nice.

gryphon
DJ's all "I've got eyes on an ADVENT - never mind."

bzarcher
"Misato, is there an editorial bent in calling this Operation SENSELESS HERO?"

"Probably not?"

gryphon
converting 3:8, got to the scene where the SEELE goons grab DJ and Asuka prep. to Ichi ordering their execution

having had them in my XCOM 2 squad for so long now, I automatically hear the "overwatch!" sound and see the little flag above Ranger Langley's head

[ ! BLADESTORM ]

melee range? bad call, brutha

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

"Also, holy shit, powerful psionics are powerful. "OK guys, line up so I can kill you all at once with Null Lance. Thanks, b'bye!"

bzarch"

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"

In which Gryph manages to predict the Skirmisher faction. =]

Also, it kinda makes sense that a datajack-gone-wrong would result in the Skirmishers being, y'know, a thing. Given how ritualised a lot of the leader's dialogue is, I think it's telling that their melee weapon looks like a skulljack, deploys like a skulljack, and is even called a Ripjack.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

I just kinda wish they'd done more with the Skirmishers. Like, you can unlock the ability to use a souped-up GREMLIN that's basically a tiny Cyberdisc or smth.