X-Com: Enemy Within

So, catching up on all my old games I've been meaning to play but haven't, I got around to this one.

While the X-Com franchise may not be the first title that comes to mind for 'superwomen in video games', the potential is actually part of the game's story and system. While the same basic story from Enemy Unknown is used, a new resource has been added: a techno-organic substance called Meld. You collect Meld by retrieving canisters from the mission maps; canisters that are on a timer for you to find and get to them so the dilemma is go for the canisters before the timers expire (you don't see how many turns each canister has until they're within visual range), or try to outmaneuver the aliens that can kill a squad member with 1 or 2 shots. When you clear each mission, any Meld canisters still on timers get collected automatically.

Meld is used in 2 ways: adding genetic enhancements to operatives or full on cybernetic conversion of operatives. Adding genetic enhancements is mostly passive benefits (bonuses to hit, regeneration, and so forth), but there is a genetic modification that allows operatives to jump to to tops of buildings, rather than having to climb up there, so a nice active superwoman power there. The cybernetic enhancement is a full on Robocop body swap that lets the operative pilot an oversized mech suit with massive guns and melee damage.

With my playthrough, I went with an all female team; it takes some extra money because you have to do a lot more recruiting since the gender of new recruits is random. But, it is possible to have a full 6-(wo)man squad with genetic or cybernetic modifications depending on your preference. Personally, I wasn't a fan of the cybernetic enhancements since they used up a huge amount of Meld creating and upgrading the mech suits, the bigger guns were less accurate and had less ammo, and you lose all training for the operative when you convert them and they now become the 'MEC Trooper' specialty, but YMMV.

Whichever route you choose, you get a nice cutscene movie of the operative either emerging from the genetic modification tank or waking up with their new cybernetic body and having an arm directly attached.

On a side note, the one MEC Trooper I did create was an American operative with the randomly generated name Diane Wagner. I found the chance too hilarious to pass up, although I did resist the urge to switch the first name to 'Lindsey'

Stacking Gen and Psi makes the game much smoother. You have your Psi trooper already. now add in my preferred modification package: +2 HP regen/turn, +5 Aim after a miss, +2 turns to bleed out, reveal all nearby (within 3 squares) cloaked enemies. That's for Assault and Heavy operatives. For Support, I replace the extra bleedout time with an Aim boost to all allies within 3-4 squares upon a successful kill of an alien. For Sniper, I replace the Aim bonus after a miss with a straight-up additional 10 Aim bonus for having higher elevation and swap out the cloaked detection for being invisible and untargetable to enemies from when you start moving until you end up shooting however many turns later.

Combined with Titan armor, Plasma weapons, full skill lines and full Foundry research for infantry, you just mow through just about everything in your way. Playing on the Hard difficult is much more feasable in the endgame, but it's still a bitch trying to get up to the endgame.