Tom's Hardware Steam Giveaway - XCOM 2

[Jsimenhoff]

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  ■ These giveaways now span 2 full weeks instead of 1. This means there's more time for you to enter!
  ■ There are now two ways to enter to win! Each person can only win once.
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    1. Enter the raffle via the gleam widget. All we ask for there is a name and a contact email. There will only ever be 1 copy of the game up for grabs with this method.
    
    2. Take part in the discussion in this thread! A discussion prompt will be provided each time. Just answer the prompt to be eligible to win! Eligible participants will be randomly selected to receive a copy of the game.

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Welcome to another exciting Tom's Hardware Steam giveaway! We have three copies of XCOM 2 up for grabs this time. The award winning tactical strategy game by Firaxis is back. I remember at launch this highly anticipated sequel was plagued by bugs, but I'm happy to report that is no longer the case. I just finished the campaign myself, and loved it. Deep tactics, light RPG character growth, and base building elements make for a truly rewarding game. I highly recommend it.

And now, for the discussion prompt:

Of all the XCOM enemies across every game in the series, which was the most frightening, and why?

The Steam Giveaway will run until 12 p.m. EDT on Friday, February 24th. The game will be awarded to the winners as a Steam gift. A Steam account is required to receive the prize and play the game.

 

[MillyKnives]

Chrysalid, hands down.
Can turn your best soldiers into alien monsters, who then turn into ANOTHER CHRYSALID when you gun the ex-soldier down.

 

[RomeoReject]

Berserker Queen. Most enemies are difficult, but manageable. She, on the other hand, can wipe out a powerful squad in a couple turns, and will almost assuredly cause you to fail a mission if she shows up.

 

[matthew_nicho2]

Agreed, It has to be the Chryssalid.

Step 1 - clear the fog and meet 3 Chryssalids
Step 2 - get surrounded by said Chryssalids
Step 3 - get beaten up and killed
Step 4 - become zombie
Step 5 - become Chryssalid
Step 6 - goto step 2

Infinite death!

 

[Ravenwingsts]

Most frightening, well maybe not but the Chrysalid were the ones I did not want to run into. Being very protective of my team I really HATED the idea of them being turned into the enemy.

 

[Aeacus]

Since the only XCOM series game that i have played is X-COM: Terror from the Deep and that too over 20 years ago, i hardly remember anything about the game. If i remember correctly then the most frightening enemy for me was either Lobster Man or Tasoth. Why? Because those two gave me very hard time to take them out.

 

[Kuaneos]

I think Chryssalid as well, because of their speed and their ability to transform both soldiers and civilians into zombies and then into other Chryssalids.

 

[Geef]

The Cyberdisk was what first came to mind because I remember playing the original XCOM UFO Defense and those things were hard to kill and sometimes the ships would have several of them. That enemy was a big reason I had several people armed with rocket launchers for every mission. In the newer XCOM Enemy Within they are still very tough and usually stick together. They are scary enough that when I'm not playing Ironman mode, I ALWAYS save the game when I come in contact with one.

 

[Rauschebart]

I never played any XCOM games but in videos these Snakes look dangerous

 

[Capz]

As for me, the most frightening enemy was the Calcinite from X-COM: Terror From The Deep (1995), because this creature looks like real man in a diving suit, but it isn't a human. This fact scared me when i was a kid

 

[ultraglorious]

Chryssalid!

 

[chimera201]

The first encounter with Cyberdisc was really frightening. It just looked not so threatening in its closed disc form and was far away but had huge amount of hitpoints. It had a humming sound and closed in at each turn doing nothing. When it just reached the square to next of one my soldiers it transitioned into spider like assault mode. Holy f**k now my soldiers are dead.

 

[tshinhar]

Chryssalid

 

[norune]

Of all the XCOM enemies across every game in the series, which was the most frightening, and why?

If the question also involves the older games from 1994 and later I'd personally say the Tasoth from Terror of the Deep, basically wery quick and allways managed to catch me on the defensive. If I lost a mission it would be due to them ( even though they are not particularly hard once you get the hang of it), perhaps bad karma or luck, but I really hated those.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

I hate anytime a Cyberdisk shows up.

 

[airade]

In the original XCOM I found two enemies I disliked the most: Chryssalids and Ethererals. Chryssalids were always a shoot first ask questions later enemy. Ethereals were a huge pain when I encountered them early on and my squad was not fully vetted in the Psy Lab. I would always keep my squad full of soldiers with a high Psy strength so they could better resist their eventual mind attacks. That greatly minimized casualties and saved many missions.

 

[duckandchicken]

never play X-COM before may be this time

 

[Classact2002]

I haven't played any of the xcom games before, but have "2" on my steam wishlist after reading reviews. A win in this contest would be sweeeeet!

 

[Ristonius]

The Chryssalid & Brainsucker(xcom3) . They never ceised to be frightening, no matter how good I got. They add a powerful sense of apprehension to any mission since you don't know how many there are and where. Behind the next corner one might be lurking, ready to turn your squad into zombies.

 

[genrldisaray]

Chryssalids. It always seemed like no matter how far away they were they could reach you in a single movement, and attacking them always seemed to leave them at 1 hp. Later in the game they became trivial to deal with, but when they first appeared they were a nightmare.

 

[ioanpaulpirau]

Since the only XCOM series game that i have played is X-COM: Terror from the Deep and that too over 20 years ago, i hardly remember anything about the game. If i remember correctly then the most frightening enemy for me was either Lobster Man or Tasoth. Why? Because those two gave me very hard time to take them out.

Terror from the deep was awesome.. as it was basically a reskin of the fist game "UFO - Enemy Unknown" but much tougher. I managed to beat easily "UFO - Enemy Unknown" on superhuman but "Terror from the deep" was a different story.. especially the ship terror missions (that were 2 level deep) were particularily difficult. Lobster man's were not so terrific.. as they were tough to kill but .. that was not an issue once you managed to get sonic weapons researched.. Also a strategy that always worked against lobster man was to use a heavy thermic lance in hand to hand combat.. it always killed them in 1 shot. Tassoths were a different topic.. every unit, including the soldier was a psionic fighter also, while having at the same time a very tough life statistics (high HP and armour).

The most awfull alien in Terror from the deep and actually all XCOM series was the tentaculat.. just like the crissalyd.. but a flyer with higher stats. In addition it often acompanied the Tasoth (or the lobsterman, but the lobster man was not that hard to beat though.. much like the muton just with a bit more armour) .. this was a horrific combo.. a Tassoth would panic away some of your soldiers and they would be converted by the tentaculat into more tentaculats .. horrible stuff .. I always picked off the tentaculats first when encountering them regardless of other aliens present in my sights.

 

[Tat]

I would probably say the Brainsucker, due to the way it works and it was the first monster to kill one of my guys in X-Com Apocalypse, my all time favourite X-Com game, due to the freedom and size of the game. One of the first open world sandbox strategy and tactical games and one I keep going back to.
Otherwise the popper, since it's so damn effective at destroying everything.

 

[voodoobunny]

Having not played any of the X-Com games myself, and having only watched others play the originals maaaaaany years ago, this is a hard question to answer. Based on everyone else's answers though, the Chrysalids seem pretty scary. Converting your soldiers into your enemies sounds pretty evil.

As an aside: what's the minimum age restriction on the new X-Com games? How long will it be before my under-10's are old enough to play it without permanent psychological trauma?

 

[ITFT]

I played mine ages ago, so don't remember much really, But the new version seems to be fun and this Avatar looks interesting on the video.

 

[xAlias]

Chryssalid always. I hate the fact that all your tactics and strategy goes out of the window if one of your elite troops gets killed and to whats worse comes back as an enemy against your own team..