@F7ovrdrv
I’ve been waiting for XCOM to arrive on Switch for a while now, whether it be a remaster of Enemy Within or XCOM 2. When 2K announced that the XCOM 2 Collection was on its way, I was very excited.. and then I played it. I’ll rip the band-aid off quickly here: this is not a good port. It’s not WWE 2K18-level bad; but clearly 2K only cares about ports with the letters NBA in their name…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7v5LKd2Iig
Since the game is a straight port, check out my review of the Xbox One version if you haven’t yet played it. But let’s discuss why this port sucks. All the hits are here! Flickering, textures taking forever to load, horrible slow down.. My God. While on the Avenger, as you navigate different menus/areas of the ship, the transitions slow down to a crawl for a few seconds. It might not sound like a big deal, but if you’re an XCOM fan, you know you spend a lot of time in these menus in between battles.
And the UI? Holy shit, they just straight up didn’t even try. Thank God the Switch has that zoom-in feature (click the home icon twice) or some things would literally require a magnifying glass. Thankfully, once the levels load and you’re in the middle of battles, things run relatively smooth (RNGesus still hates you, though), and the XCOM gameplay will surprisingly keep you coming back for more.
If you love strategy, I can’t not recommend XCOM 2. But bring along some patience. Sure, a huge patch could probably fix the issues, but c’mon, 2K doesn’t give a shit unless it’s NBA. I have two routes: Be forgiving because I love the series or be more critical. I think it’s best to go with the latter. 2.5/5 Bibles.
-Felipe Crespo
@mochaloca85
I’ve never been a fan of shooters, but the way the Borderlands franchise blended elements of both RPG and FPS (along with its characters and humor) grabbed me. So when given the opportunity to review the Switch port of the Borderlands Legendary Collection, of course I jumped at the chance.
Let’s start with the great. All three games (Borderlands, Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel) still hold up extremely well. The games run smoothly on the Switch and they look fantastic, the latter due to its cel-shaded art. Gameplay-wise, gyroscopic aiming was kind of wonky, so I mostly stuck with auto-aim. The pro controller was a bit more comfortable for me than playing in handheld mode, but if you have larger hands, it probably won’t be an issue for you.
Now for the not-as-great: handheld mode. It’s not bad – in fact, it’s light years ahead of the Vita’s version of Borderlands 2, which was so littered with technical issues that it was barely playable. I was pumped to play the games on the go…until I tried to play the games on the go. It was difficult to see all my enemies on the smaller screen and I wound up dying quicker than I did when playing in docked mode.
Coupled with the issues I had with the gyroscopic aiming and the joy-cons feeling uncomfortable, I just didn’t like playing it in handheld mode. Overall, it’s still very good but not great, mostly for not liking handheld as much as I wanted to. It’s Borderlands – if you liked it then, you’ll like it now. 3.75/5 Bibles.
-Destiny Edwards