Little Grey Men AND ZOOT SUITS?!

"Stop talking with your mouth full, Frank."

Okay, that may be a little bit of false advertising.  Xcom Enemy Within doesn't actually have Zoot Suits, but frankly I don't see why the head of an organisation like EXALT couldn't look like Dick Tracy.  Amirite?

Sadly, that wasn't the case.

I've been playing Xcom: Enemy Within for the past week and it's been a revitalising experience, not to mention fucking hectic.

I began play again on Normal mode, because the dampness of my shorts indicated my sheer intimidation of the concept of difficulty, and just so I could get a feel for the game again since I have a plan for Classic Mode.

But I dove right in with both tutorials On because although I specifically turned them off, I wasn't paying attention and simply dove in without reading the prompt saying "This is your first time playing since we don't recognise your saves from you owning the previous game. You really should play these Tutorials. Press A to continue with the Tutorials." (Note, I play it on my Xbox 360)

I ran through and ended up with my Argentinean Heavy, as is the Norm, and learnt about Meld the way they wanted you to, by putting one close and the other on the opposite side of the map.  Fair enough, kill a few Sectoids and move on.

Things were pretty usual to start, until I finally did the Meld Recombination Research.  It gave me a good little boost and set me up nicely to get a MEC Trooper within the first month.  So I did.

I found myself a soldier, an Australian Male Heavy who I renamed to my own (along with the callsign "Nepotism") and suited him up.  Even gave him a helmet that came as close to looking like Robocop as possible since he had the voice, but sadly I couldn't quite get the Silver paint job.  So I made him more Tactical and went with Black.

After that, I just went fuggin nuts.  I had quickly gotten myself a Railgun as well, and laughed at the definitive sound of "Fuuuuuck YOU" every time it was fired at everything that moved within line of sight.  Then the Jump Jet boots, and the Kinetic Strike Module (Giant Fuck Off Robot Claws, for the uninitiated), and the Grenade Launcher that I wish had that "thoomp" sound I enjoyed so much while watching Scotty play run rampant in Battlefield 4.

Had I the resources, I would turn all of them into MEC Troopers.  But I stuck with my team of Six with each different class, and my very own ED-209, the Alloy SHIV. (Sadly, I can't rename him from Goliath-1)
I can't really talk about the Gene Mods.  I was having FAR TOO MUCH FUN with my RoboTroop to care, though I did deck out one of my Snipers with some beneficial ones.  Like the Mimetic Skin, which allowed him to run around with an effective Cloak on him because he used every bit of that short stack of warehouse pallets to his advantage and made sure nobody could see him as he ran ring about every EXALT Terrorist he could see.

That was fun, actually.  EXALT, random terrorists who just work at the bank during the day, then get an SMS, find their scarf to mask their identity and come take us on.  Which is funny since I still had my MEC Trooper standing atop a building and telling them what he thinks of their iddy biddy organisation. (Would have a link to a montage of a MEC Trooper using a Railgun over and over again, but I can't find one and I can't record one cos Xbox360 Y'see)

So with my Robotic God Amongst His Merry Band of Men, the games balance had tipped a bit.  Which is fair enough.  If I can throw two shots into one of their new enemies which is supposed to be a similar counter, then there's a power struggle going on.

You are illegally parked on private property.
You have 20 seconds to move your Skyranger.

Then I encountered the Sectopod again.  I started shooting him and missing him, fair enough, but suddenly I was dealing a significantly less amount of damage.  Against a 30 HP enemy, that's important.  What happened was they added a damage reduction of 50%.  Yeah, you feel that when you expect to be able to drop it in one turn when ALL your troops hit it with ranged weapons. (Mind, he wasn't feeling well, but that's not the point here)

That's balance for you, though.  Having something you actually have to put effort into just so you can kick arse while you're taking names.

Now, I haven't finished Normal yet.  I'm just waiting to see what other shenanigans the game throws at me while I go ahead and finish off research projects and throw someone into the Gollop Chamber.  But crikey it's fun.

Just a word to the Wise?  Go fuggin nuts with your MEC Soldiers.  They're fuggin hilarious.  And be sure to name an American Male "Alex Murphy".  You know.  Just because: