Phantom Doctrine

 I sort of figured I'd just be playing some casual Long Dark runs while waiting for the Assassin's Creed Valhalla release, but I noticed a Steam sale of Phantom Doctrine marked down to $6. That game had never really made my must-play list or even attracted much attention, but that price is a really low level of buy-in for some Cold War tactical spy stuff, so I figured I'd try it out.

It's definitely been worth it so far. I mean, that's not saying a whole lot, but it's a reasonably good game, at least. Both the strategic and tactical layers are fairly interesting. I like that most tactical missions can be completed without guns ever coming out. If doing a strategic recon mission first, you can hit the tactical map with one agent in disguise (plus another 1-5 not disguised, depending on the scenario) and that can make most missions extremely easy with some patience.

Not that everything is awesome about the game. Maps are largely recycled, so other than shuffling of objective points and such they become repetitive. And while perhaps the story-based dossier analyses might make sense, the non-story ones look like randomized word-salad as you connect codenames for players, people, and organizations. You go through a couple chapters of being able to extract with an enemy agent then automatically interrogate and dispose of them to unlocking a base option that adds some more options and can give better intel, but suddenly requires you to pay for the privilege - that feels like a step back, especially if you pursue the upgrade while money is tight.

I'm only in chapter 3 of a first playthrough. I don't know how much the CIA story may vary from the KGB one and a subsequent playthrough is supposed to unveil some more information about the story, I believe. So there's plenty of opportunity left for me to be wowed or utterly disappointed by the game, but I feel like I've already got my money's worth out of it and it's an easy thing for me to play "on the side" as it's pausable on the strategic layer and entirely turn-based tactically.

I've seen some reason to hesitate about diving into Valhalla, but I suspect I'll still probably pick it up to start playing sooner rather than later. And Cyberpunk 2077 still looms on the ever-shifting horizon.

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