Page 67 - PC Gamer - UK (February 2020)
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RE VIE W
Phoenix Point
But the tactical battles only lag post-apocalyptic raiders. They also
through pure repetition, not out of a STAY CLASSY get upgrades as their faction
lack of interesting toys to play with. researches new stuff.
There are six classes, each with The core and specialist classes that can be
unique abilities and equipment. Each SIRENS’ CALL
soldier also has three stats: Strength recruited to the project A real highlight are the minibosses,
for HP and inventory, Speed for Sirens, who are both heavily
movement, and Willpower for armoured and can mind-control. I
morale. Stats and powers are simple, loved every time one appeared,
but spending points to advance is rife throwing the tactical situation into
with hard decisions. Conversely, new chaos as I both managed existing
weapons and equipment are often enemies and mitigated the new
measured tradeoffs rather than threat. The boss fights against the
obvious upgrades. huge Scylla fall flat though. They
These tradeoffs play into the should be tactically interesting, as
strategy you develop around your AS SAULT MARKSMAN HE AV Y they boast all kinds of powers, but are
Effective at range,
The workhorse
The name
forces. Phoenix Point’s tactical combat kill-scoring soldier. deadly to weak describes both actually just about pouring every
is about simulated bullets, hundreds Every team needs targets, and great their armour and bullet you have into one large thing.
of hit points, hit locations, at least two. Later, at neutralising weapons. Very Undercutting all the cool design is
overlapping fields of fire, and careful they can swap enemies by slow, but can the combat AI. It’s competent at best,
movement. A solid strategy going into inventory items at tactically removing reposition with a but at least once a fight downright
no action cost.
their limbs.
sweet jetpack.
the fight will always prove better broken. It fails at simple, vital tasks
than tactics turn-by-turn… mostly. like setting up effective overwatch
The balance isn’t entirely there. fire – sometimes directly away from
Willpower is spent to use abilities, a you or into a wall. I once saw a
frustrating impetus to not use your fishman spend its whole turn running
cool tricks lest your team collapse full tilt to the top of a three-story
into a spiral of panicking soldiers. building. The fishman then
Unless, of course, you can find a way immediately used its precious Will
to spend all your willpower that points to activate the dash ability,
leaves your enemies dead. Focus-fire leaping off the side of the building
strategies based around doing BERSERK ER INFILTR ATOR TECHNICIAN and landing two spaces from where it
massive damage quickly can Disciples of Anu Synedrion New Jericho’s started… now out of cover. Phoenix
specialists can
field the only melee
specialist is a
dominate, as can abusing action-free specialist. Unlike stealth around. support character Point also hangs during enemy turns,
movement to zoom around. that other game, Disruptive flankers limited only by the sometimes for as much as a minute,
Those few abuses aside, your they’re on your with poison and action economy. before deciding what to do next.
soldiers’ precious action points are a side. Hits like a stun powers, but Can deploy very Twice during my play it hung and
resource spent in miserly increments. freight train. very fragile. deadly turrets. then never resumed.
The semi-realistic ballistic physics Those two moments aside,
model each shot rather than binary Phoenix Point isn’t broken, just buggy.
hit or miss attack rolls. You can soldiers on auto-aim shooting into I never encountered anything
automate shooting or take direct adjacent stair rails, and crabmen game-ruining, or that wasn’t fixed
control and aim it yourself. It seems huddling behind trash cans. with a reloaded save. It never
like a gimmick, but in play it really Speaking of aquatic horrors, outright crashed on me, nor did it
won me over. There’s no feeling quite Phoenix Point’s population of beasties have visual glitches. It loaded quickly
like shooting off an enemy’s arm so is quite good – though limited. In lieu enough from an SSD, but slowly from
they drop their shotgun. of varied enemies, the Pandoravirus an HDD. I did have problems with
Physics extends to the world too. instead cooks up a wide panoply of soldier abilities working only
It’s all modelled with new weapons. As the sometimes, with a character refusing
various kinds of campaign continues to do anything for a turn.
hardness. A wall of Thesemi- enemies get tougher Despite shortcomings, Phoenix
corrugated metal won’t realistic and gain new abilities. Point won me over. It’s a bit of a
protect you for long, ballistic physics Arthron crabmen start mess, but it’s a mess filled with clever
but a concrete nearly unarmored but ideas and idiosyncratic gameplay you
blockhouse is a fortress. model each gain thick shells, won’t find anywhere else. Put XCOM:
Cover is destructible, shot grenade launchers, and Apocalypse and XCOM: Enemy
and since you can poison spit. Triton Unknown into a blender and you get
free-aim your soldiers’ fishmen are four- Phoenix Point. But someone’s put a
weapons I found heavy cannons and armed: two for carrying human cup of roaches in there too.
machine guns very useful at times. weapons, two for jellyfish tentacles or
That said, there’s no elaborate bloodsucking maws. Supposedly VE R D I C T
environmental destruction going on. these upgrades and evolutions are Although it is
Terrain pieces break apart, PhysX procedural, based on how you fight strategically delicious,
about for a moment, then vanish. You the enemy, but if so it wasn’t obvious. Phoenix Point’s biggest 77
will see object hitboxes that don’t There are also human opponents problem is the lackluster
quite line up with the models, from the three factions and some technical execution.
FEBRUARY 2020 67
