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Phantom Doctrine

Plattform: PC Veröffentlicht: 14.08.2018

39,99€

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Preis Update 15.09.23

Das rundenbasierte Strategiespiel Phantom Doctrine ist ein Spionagethriller, der auf dem Höhepunkt des Kalten Krieges stattfindet. Dem Spieler offenbart sich die geheimnisvolle Welt der Geheimdienstoperationen und Spionageabwehr – eine Welt voller Verschwörungen und Paranoia, in der mit verschiedensten Einflüssen gespielt und die raffinierten Ränkespiele klassischer Spionagefilme eingefangen und gekonnt in Szene gesetzt werden.

Als Anführer einer Geheimorganisation, die nur unter dem Namen „Kabale“ bekannt ist, obliegt es dem Spieler, einer den gesamten Globus umspannenden Verschwörung Einhalt zu gebieten, für die ganze Nationen gegeneinander ausgespielt werden sollen. Führe verdeckte Einsätze durch, untersuche streng geheime Akten und verhöre feindliche Agenten, um ein perfides Machtspiel aufzudecken. Ein Rennen gegen die Zeit beginnt – wird es dir gelingen, die Welt vor einem undenkbaren Schicksal zu bewahren?

Features:

Einzelspielerkampagne mit Tiefgang: Der Einzelspielerkampagnenmodus wartet mit mehr als 40 Stunden Spielspaß und einer facettenreichen, fesselnden Geschichte auf, die durch zahlreiche zeitgeschichtliche Ereignisse und Charaktere bereichert wird und den wahren Schrecken des Kalten Krieges aus einer einzigartigen Perspektive zum Leben erweckt.
Bahnbrechende, rundenbasierte Kämpfe: Passe dich dank einer noch nie dagewesenen Flexibilität an Manövern und Aktionen an jede Situation an, darunter variable Feuerschutzmodi und die offensive Stürmen-Fähigkeit.
Erweitertes Schlachtfeld: Positioniere deine Agenten überall auf der Welt, um in der Hitze des Gefechts Verstärkung anfordern zu können. Doch auch deine Widersacher können ihre Unterstützer einschalten – vom bis an die Zähne bewaffneten Waffenexperten bis hin zur Luftunterstützung. Komm also bloß nie nur mit einem Messer bewaffnet zu einer Schießerei!
Wissen ist Macht: Verbessere deine Erfolgschancen, indem du Missionsschauplätze von Undercoveragenten infiltrieren lässt. Sei den feindlichen Agenten stets einen Schritt voraus, denn auch sie werden dir hinterhältige Fallen stellen.
Im Schutz der Schatten – ausgeprägte Schleichmechanik: Auf Geheimoperationen können Schalldämpfer und die technologischen Fortschritte des Kalten Krieges genutzt werden, um Gegner zu täuschen oder geräuschlos auszuschalten.
Volle Kontrolle über die Spionageabwehr: Rekrutiere Agenten aus den Rängen des KGBs, der CIA und der kriminellen Unterwelt oder mache dir sogar die einzigartigen Talente von Probanden geheimer Regierungsexperimente zunutze. Weltweit können Waffen, Ressourcen und Kontakte für deine Sache gewonnen und aus der Ferne eingesetzt werden. Doch falls es die Situation erforderlich macht, werden dir alle Mittel zur Verfügung stehen, um selbst ins Geschehen einzugreifen.
Innovative Pinnwand: Ganz klassisch werden auf einer Pinnwand mit Schnüren Fälle, Orte und Personen miteinander in Beziehung gebracht und näher untersucht, um neue Missionen, Ressourcen und Technologien aufzudecken. In Phantom Doctrine stellen Nachforschungen und Geheimdienstberichte einen aktiven und essenziellen Teil deiner Bemühungen dar.
Technologien ohne Skrupel: Neue Fähigkeiten können entweder dem Feind entwendet oder selbst erforscht werden, um sie dann ohne Erbarmen zu deinem Vorteil einzusetzen. Von Gehirnwäsche über Verhöre und Trainingseinrichtungen bis hin zu chemischen Aufputschmitteln gibt es viele so experimentelle wie moralisch hochgradig fragwürdige Mittel und Wege zur Informationsbeschaffung.
Umfassende Charaktererstellung: Bei der Erstellung der Tarnidentitäten deiner Agenten hast du freie Hand: Ändere ihr Aussehen, fälsche Unterlagen und bilde sie in neuen Kampftechniken aus, bevor du sie zurück ins Einsatzgebiet schickst.
Von Hand gestaltete, detaillierte Level: Eine Kombination aus weitreichenden, von Hand gestalteten Schauplätzen und einem detailverliebten, cleveren Design sorgen für beeindruckende Grafikpracht und viel Abwechslung. Bereise in den vom Kalten Krieg geprägten 1980er Jahren beide Seiten des Eisernen Vorhangs.
Modulkampagne mit hohem Wiederspielwert: Dank einem breiten Spektrum an Spielmechaniken gleicht kein Spieldurchlauf dem anderen. Zufällig generierte Charakternamen und Hintergrundgeschichten, per Algorithmus angepasste Karten und randomisierte geheimdienstliche Informationen sorgen für ein wahrlich einzigartiges Spielerlebnis.
Ein Spionagethriller aus zwei Perspektiven: Spiele als ehemaliger KGB-Spionageabwehragent oder als abtrünniger CIA-Killerkommandosoldat. Beide nähern sich der Wahrheit auf ihre eigene Weise an, um sich einer globalen Verschwörung entgegenzustellen. Schließe die Kampagne ab, um für den erweiterten Modus einen zusätzlichen Protagonisten freizuschalten.
Maßgeschneiderte Missionen: Ob nun die Infiltrierung eines gut bewachten Regierungskomplexes, um einen hochrangigen Gegenspieler auszuschalten, oder ein Frontalangriff auf das gegnerische Hauptquartier – angesichts einer Fülle an optionalen Zielen, zusätzlicher Beute und versteckter Informationen liegt es ganz an dir, wie komplex sich jede Mission gestalten wird. Doch Vorsicht: Jede Entscheidung hat ihre Konsequenzen.

Minimum
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Setzt 64-Bit-Prozessor und -Betriebssystem voraus
CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 / AMD Phenom II X4 965 or equivalent
GFX: GeForce GTX 550 Ti / Intel HD 620 / Radeon HD 5770
RAM: 6 GB RAM
Software: Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10
HD: 35 GB verfügbarer Speicherplatz
DX: Version 11
MISC: Online connection required for Multiplayer
LANG: Englisch

Setzt 64-Bit-Prozessor und -Betriebssystem voraus
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K / AMD FX-8320 or equivalent
GFX: GeForce GTX 960 / Radeon R9 290X
RAM: 16 GB RAM
Software: Windows 10
HD: 35 GB verfügbarer Speicherplatz
DX: Version 11
MISC: Online connection required for Multiplayer
LANG: Englisch

Deutsch (8)
Englisch (89)

319 Produkte im Account

18 Reviews

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3830 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 17.03.21 11:34

Es ist bemerkenswert und einzigartig. Ich war sehr überrascht, daß es so eine schöne Mischung aus Elementen von X-Com, Jagged Alliance 2 und dem Charme der Zeit des kalten Krieges geben konnte. Das Gameplay ist aufgrund der verschiedenen Aufgaben recht abwechslungsreich und die Hintergrundgeschichten nicht ohne. Freue mich schon auf den nächsten Spieldurchgang mit dem freigespielten Modus.

337 Produkte im Account

157 Reviews

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388 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.12.20 09:40

Dieses Game hat leider so viel Potential verschwendet, sodass sich bei mir einfach keine Spannung aufbauen konnte. Leider wiederholt sich alles immer wieder. Eine Mission ist wie die andere nur die Maps unterschiedlich. Forschung spielt kaum eine Rolle und das vorankommen durch die Hauptstory mehr willkürlich als planbar. Für mich nach 6 Std. Playtime Spielabbruch und auch leider kein Refund mehr möglich, weil ich dem Game wirklich als XCOM-Fan eine Chance geben wollte - Schade.

505 Produkte im Account

162 Reviews

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4661 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.04.20 09:36

Ein rundenbasiertes Taktikspiel angesiedelt in der Spionage der 80‘er. Auf den ersten Blick erkennt man unheimlich viele Ähnlichkeiten zu den XCOM-Spielen, man entwickelt eine Basis und schickt kleine Gruppen seiner Agenten zu Missionen.
Langfristig erlebt man eine andere Spielerfahrung, in der Basis läuft man eigentlich nur dem Geld hinterher. Da reicht das Geld fälschen nicht aus, auch in der Werkstatt für zusätzliche Ausrüstung geht es nur um zusätzliche Einnahmen. Man produziert pausenlos Dinge für den Verkauf, richtig nervig ist es, das man nach jeder einzelnen produzierten Attrappe wieder neu einen Auftrag zuweisen muss.
Dies hat auch Auswirkungen auf die Missionen, Schleichen ist einfach so viel kostengünstiger. Denn offene Feuergefechte führen zu erhöhtem Fahndungsdruck (neue Identitäten müssen bezahlt werden) und verbrauchen Granaten und Verbandspakete. Ich bin durchaus ein Fan von Schleichspielen, aber auf Dauer entwickelt man seine Routine und spult die Missionen nur noch herunter. Da fehlt es den Missionen an hinzukommenden Neuerungen.

In einem Diskussionsbeitrag habe ich ein paar Anfängerinfos zusammengefasst:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/559100/discussions/0/2259061617888214456/

Fazit
Ein leicht gehobener Daumen. Am Anfang macht es richtig Spass, aber in der viel zu sehr gedehnten Kampagne wird es immer weniger. Allen interessierten empfehle ich auf eine günstige Sales-Aktion zu warten.

Weitere Empfehlungen:
http://store.steampowered.com/curator/8896126-Gametests-and-Videos

266 Produkte im Account

11 Reviews

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14297 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.04.20 08:35

Ein sehr schönes rundenbasiertes Strategiespiel - manchmal etwas zu leicht und leider wie so oft eine etwas zu kurze Kampagne. Ich würde mir mehr Missionen wünschen und mehr Entscheidungspunkte, an welchen sich die Kampagne in verschiedene Richtungen entwickelt.

63 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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19338 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.04.20 06:30

Die Geschichte oder anders, das Spiel findet zum Ende des kalten Krieges statt womit sich jüngere Spieler eher langweilen werden aber Leute im Alter 35+ können sich wieder zurück in die Zeit versetzen.
Wenn man die Spielmechanik verstanden, dann ist das Spiel recht spannend und bietet ein kleines Taktik Vergnügen mit ein wenig Action und Agentenkrimi.
Man kann das Spiel als CIA, KGB und Mossad durchspielen. Die Level bleiben, nur die Story und Charakter ändern sich.
Das Spiel ist nicht für Action- Fanatiker

156 Produkte im Account

3 Reviews

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3242 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.03.20 17:06

Tolles Spiel, rundenbasierte Strategie sehr ähnlich zu XCOM.
Schönes Ambiente und nette Agenten-Gimmicks...

386 Produkte im Account

7 Reviews

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1541 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.01.20 12:26

. Mein erster Eindruck war trotz des Interessanten Settings sehr negativ. Ich hatte am Anfang mit jede Menge Bugs zu kämpfen. Einfrieren wären des Ladebildschirms oder das nicht abschließen einer Mission sind nur zwei Beispiele davon. Mittlerweile scheinen aber die Bugs durch Paches behoben zu sein, so das eine richtige Bewertung möglich ist.

Die größte Stärke des Spiels liegt in der spannend Story, die während des Kalten Krieges spielt. Die Geschichte wird in kurzen aber hübschen Zwischensequenzen, Gesprächen und vor allem als Textform erzählt. Mit dabei ist ein guter Soundtrack. Wie in XCOM bauen wir während des Spiels unsere Basis. Für Missionen rüsten wir unsere Agenten mit der passenden Ausrüstung aus. Dabei können wir unsere Agenten nicht nur mit Waffen und Verbandskästen aus, sondern wir können mittels Tarnungen die generische Basis vorab infiltrieren. Auch die die Erweiterung der Basis erleichtert uns spätere Missionen. Zum Beispiel können wir in der Basis später Gefangene Agenten mittels Gehirnwäsche umdrehen und uns so in späteren Missionen einen Vorteil erzielen. Eine weitere Stärke ist das Eigenleben unserer Agenten. So können zum Beispiel unsere Agenten umgedreht werden oder erleiden Depressionen.
In den Missionen versuchen wir dann mit unseren Agenten unentdeckt unsere Missionsziele zu erreichen. Dabei gilt es Gefangene zu befreien, Geheimdokumente zu stehlen oder Bomben zu legen/entschärfen. Bei einem Alarm bleibt uns nur noch der Angriff oder Flucht. Dabei liegen die Stärken des Spiels mehr auf das Schleichen als auf den Kampf. Die Kämpfe sind mit unendlichen Gegnerwellen gespickt und machen durch die Unübersichtlichkeit nur wenig spaß. Informationen über die Reichweite oder Genauigkeit von Waffen sind nur schwer ersichtlich. Auch ist nicht immer klar warum ein Gegner einen eigenen Agenden treffen kann und wann nicht. Die Karten der Missionen sind Zufall generiert, aber ähnlich wie bei XCOM wiederholen sich die Missionsstrucktur stark.

Phantom Doctrine ist sicher nicht den Vollpreis wert. Auch ist es durch die frustrierenden Kämpfe kein Spiel was mit XCOM mithalten kann. Spieler müssen sich auf häufiges neu laden und eine Menge Frust einstellen. Wer damit klar kommt erlebt eine spannende Agentengeschichte mit Kalter Krieg Atmosphäre der 80er Jahren.

216 Produkte im Account

9 Reviews

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12562 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.11.19 06:32

Nach 96 h jetzt auf Einfach durchgespielt, wobei ich mir ordentlich Zeit gelassen habe. Macht einfach Spaß seine Basis mit dem selbstgedruckten Geld zu erweitern, sich an der Pinnwand zu beschäftigen, Ausrüstung herzustellen, Agenten zu trainieren und die Aufträge zu erfüllen.
Das Spiel bietet mir jetzt an die Geschichte nochmal erweitert zu erleben oder als Nazijäger zu agieren. Also an Inhalt scheint es nicht zu fehlen, da kann sich manch anderes Produkt eine Scheibe von abschneiden.

Graphisch Solide, technisch sind mir keine Bugs untergekommen, das UI ist durchaus intuitiv.
Wer gerne im geheimen operiert, ist hier gut aufgehoben. Für Heißdüsen die nur viel ballern wollen ist es definitiv nichts.

156 Produkte im Account

13 Reviews

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7648 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.04.22 17:19

This game is stylish, original, captivating, and very rewarding to play. I have completed the story two times now, and I'm considering to play this again soon. This has some replay value, although the missions do get repetitive eventually.

192 Produkte im Account

458 Reviews

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189 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.04.22 15:30

A deeply complex cluster of systems to explore. Its turn-based tactics set in the cold war days where you manage a fringe intelligence service spy games
sending you team on missions to get top secret documents and trying not to get killed
A base/resource management, so you can take your time and plan ahead,

If you have played X-Com or a similar game then you will like this

232 Produkte im Account

38 Reviews

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3238 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.04.22 12:34

Giving this a very tentative thumbs up and here is why. The only way to play this game in full stealth, complete all main and optional objectives, as well as using non lethal force to extract enemy agents from maps is to play on Easy mode. This is because of how the Takedown ability works. On Easy mode it works as long as you have enough Awareness and a at least one fire point, which is pretty much automatic, even when Awareness is depleted when using skills, ending turns refills it. Takedown is a non lethal action that allows you to knock out enemy agents. You can then pick them up and carry them with you to the extraction point and interrogate them at base. The problem is on Normal and Hard mode if you have less HP than the target (enemy agents almost always have more HP than your characters) you can't use Takedown even when you have the Awareness and the fire point available! So now your only option is to kill the agent. That's cool, but you want to do it stealthily? Well guess what. Your only option is to use a high powered, silenced weapon and if that weapon is not powerful enough to kill the agent with one shot, even when using the Headshot skill you are forced to fight it out with the entire map. This is not good for a game that is supposed to have a stealth, espionage type of theme.

As someone else mentioned in a review. This game is meant to be played using stealth, but on difficulty modes most ppl play you don't always have stealth options if you want to complete every objective. This game really had a ton of potential. The espionage and cold war them is really cool. Base management is simple, yet the base facilities definitely have that secret cell feel to give the player a nice spy game experience. The devs just messed up by thinking taking away certain stealth options in the difficulties players would use the most would make the game more challenging. Nah, it only made the game frustrating not due to difficulty, but due to lack of options.

449 Produkte im Account

92 Reviews

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4823 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.03.22 21:09

Although the mandatory missions to keep the conspiracy (aka the Beholder Initiative) under control get a little monotonous and tedious after a while, the overall game is still a solid and recommendable turn based tactics, which kept me going until the credits. Maybe I will even go for another run.

368 Produkte im Account

59 Reviews

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245 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.03.22 20:09

Good Stuff:-
- The Intel Board is a pretty interesting idea
- Managing agents on the map is pretty good

Bad Stuff:-
- The core gameplay can be pretty boring

There's certain aspects of this game I liked but the core gameplay is pretty boring. It doesn't really feel like your a spy and it's pretty slow and repetitive. The aim of being a spy I feel is to get in quietly and get out, this game doesn't make that fun to do though. Basically the start of a map is moving and hitting end turn over and over, which can get pretty boring. Till you eventually make a mistake and everything goes hot, then things get interesting but starting out pretty lopsided against you. So I guess it's trying to force that not to happen but it's the only interesting thing to do. If you could move quicker while things are quiet that might be an incentive to keep things that way. Maybe if you had abilities for each of the different modes, that might help. Like having special abilities for infiltration vs combat mode. Either way what it currently is can be pretty boring. I don't think most people would enjoy it. To end on a good note. I did like the base management aspect, especially the Intel conspiracy map thing was pretty cool.

44 Produkte im Account

7 Reviews

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3628 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.03.22 14:22

Not recommend If you want go bang bang or at least handle enemy agents first.
Smooth graphic, fair content and lot of stealth play.

267 Produkte im Account

56 Reviews

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2304 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.02.22 15:18

More relaxed and consistent than XCOM, but kinda overdrawn and too long. Piecing intel clues together is fun at first but very soon repetitive and the key words are not actually related to what is going on. Not looking forward to the sequel, but overall I don't think it hurts to give this one a reserved thumbs up, as the series may be somewhat underrated or overlooked, and I genuinely enjoyed majority of the time I played.

212 Produkte im Account

14 Reviews

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6041 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.02.22 09:27

XCOM With Spies

It feels like a disservice to describe the game purely by its relationship to another, but if you like XCOM you'll like this. Equal parts turn-based squad stealth tactics and base/resource management, you have to take your time and plan ahead, especially in Iron Man mode where one wrong step can completely hose a mission before it starts. Know when to abort, be as efficient as possible, and watch out for sleeper agents!

3537 Produkte im Account

36 Reviews

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2123 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.02.22 18:41

Could use some depth but quite good for its price

213 Produkte im Account

22 Reviews

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154 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.11.21 20:08

You're asking yourself if you should purchase this while it's on sale.

Yes, purchase it while it's on sale. There's an idea in here, wrapped up in a conundrum of janky gameplay. The question is whether or not you are curious or patient enough to figure it out.

275 Produkte im Account

161 Reviews

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3083 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.11.21 17:27

This has been one of the best games that has passed through my screen recently. It catches the early '80's cold war spying quite well. There is a lot to do besides the many missions, like training agents, improving agents with chemical enhancements, building up the base, interrogating enemy agents, forging money, and most importantly to analyze captured messages to move the story along. The main story is quite good, too. Actual events of the time are intertwined like Korean Airlines 007 being shot down over Sakhalin Island and the Grenada invasion, events I lived through. There were a few bugs, but nothing game threatening. There is replayability. 85/100

236 Produkte im Account

33 Reviews

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1055 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.11.21 17:40

I really like the idea - Cold War, spies, tactical action etc. But it's implemented not in the best way. It's boring and after some while you're doing the same thing again and again you just get less and less interested. I want more dynamic in the story.

679 Produkte im Account

28 Reviews

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7740 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.11.21 06:23

As a fan of turned-based tactical games I liked this one, great time with it ; underrated.
But sadly the community is not big enough to make mods...some reasons for that:
- Firaxis X-Com 2, hé
- a bad launch which gave to the game a very bad reputation, from what I can see.

156 Produkte im Account

24 Reviews

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250 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.09.21 11:05

need an offline skirmish mode, music good but repeats, some accents poor

1318 Produkte im Account

13 Reviews

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904 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.09.21 00:57

I mean, it's basically like X-Com but with spies, and I want to say that it's a bit better, because you can sneak around the enemies instead of, for example, them getting a free turn when they're discovered. Also some pretty cool overworld elements and RPG mechanics. Solid game.

300 Produkte im Account

30 Reviews

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1968 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.09.21 12:51

A very addictive rough diamond. Not as flashy or elegant as X-Com 2, but when you want a James Bond or Archer (or any spy series) vibe, played out with the mechanics of X-Com, this is the beast.

140 Produkte im Account

57 Reviews

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1908 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.09.21 06:46

Mixed feelings. Similar to XCOM 2, but where XCOM fails at stealth (by starting to inform the enemies of your location after 2nd turn), this one intends you to spend most of your time in stealth. Liked it at first a lot. Here are the things that made me drop it eventually:
1. The game tries to force into stealth the first part of the mission and tries to force you into action after fulfilling the objective. Usually, the levels are set up in such a way that you barely lack the physical strength to subdue the target silently and for some reason 2 people cannot do it simultaneously without somehow immediately alerting the whole map to your exact location. The game really tries to limit the way you go through missions.
2. The missions become SO repetitive after a while. Even the procedurally generated maps start becoming repetitive.
3. The puzzle tasks seem interesting at first, but then you see they really mean nothing. No actual sense of discovery.
4. When your agent is discovered and attacked, if you kill the enemy agent, I'm not sure it even counts in the overall count of enemy agents. Maybe I haven't played enough, but it seemed to me like the amount of enemy agents hunting you at any given time is really unlimited and removing them does not have a noticeable effect on the game flow

517 Produkte im Account

21 Reviews

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856 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.09.21 20:39

This was a really good game for the price. At 39.99 that is a bit steep for what you get, but at 3.99 the game is positively a steal.

515 Produkte im Account

19 Reviews

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2891 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.09.21 19:30

The game is interesting at the beginning. There are a lot of elements to learn and investigate. About mid-way through the game becomes quite boring though.

For intance, all the investigations are a filler without any thinking involved. They do not even contain any interesting story elements. It a matching mini-game without any real purpose.

The missions also become repetitive and at the end you just wish that the game ends soon.

A little disappointing. This game had a lot going for it but the design is simply not compelling enough.

This game would deserve a neutral review. In order to end on more positive note, the mission where you need to stealthily kidnap the local mafia boss (or whoever it was) was pretty good!

52 Produkte im Account

5 Reviews

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12655 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.09.21 02:41

stealth, spies, mindcontrol, it's like james bond meets XCOM.

346 Produkte im Account

11 Reviews

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6349 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.09.21 00:25

It's a little rough around the edges, but overall this is a pretty cool game! X-Com is the obvious comparison, though it's much less combat focused (unless you want it to be).

You can customize your spies into a variety of flexible roles and capabilities. Each character feels unique.

A lot of the fun in the game is the tension of avoiding getting caught, then getting caught anyway and making a mad scramble to achieve the mission objectives or running away to live another day.

Parts of the game that need improvement are the document analytics and MK Ultra (intelligence gathering and dealing with captured enemy spies respectively). The Analytics get repetitive and increasingly uninteresting. The ability to interrogate/brainwash/turn enemy spies is cool but it's not really interesting because you just push some buttons and pay some money to do it.

Looking forward to a sequel.

263 Produkte im Account

13 Reviews

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2045 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.08.21 03:48

its a good game, dont come in here expecting XCOM, its more of a turn based stealth game with some management mechanics.

its quite unique in a way that its focused on stealth, sure theres some things that makes the game slow, the missions get a bit repetitive sometimes, but considering its from a dev that you and i never heard of, and the fact that not a lot of others have done a concept like this before, the result turned out pretty good i look forward to more of this, hopefully with better polish and improving on its formula.

anyways yeah its pretty good, you get to command a team of international spies and make them work together to do covert missions in a turn based manner, gets repetitive, but quite a novel idea.

252 Produkte im Account

8 Reviews

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14772 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.08.21 02:32

So, to preface; a significant portion, perhaps about 60 odd hours, is due to the fact that I left the game running while I was doing homework, working, writing papers, you get the gist. That means that over the course of 180ish hours between September 2018 until now I have fully completed one playthrough and gotten significantly deep into another.

There is a lot to say about this game but I'll try to keep it concise.

Pros:

The setting is absolutely DOPE. Seriously, a banger. The music, the strategic and tactical maps, the uniforms (including the fact that every countries police force has unique voice lines and uniforms), all of it just feels AWESOME.

It's easy to get attached to your soldiers. This might be a niche interest but in tactical rpgs like this, the best part for me is watching my operatives grow and specialize. This game has so many portraits and customization options, some of which are hit or miss, that make it easy to style and design all of your operatives. I still remember the codenames of a few favorites.

The storyline is THICCCCCCCCCCC. This is a LONG damn game and it takes TIME. You won't be able to sit down and just blitz through the story on a rainy weekend. The story itself is quite serviceable and it's made better by the solid voice acting and setting.

The stealth is, to me, cool. VERY easy to game once you figure it out unless on higher difficulties but nevertheless, it's nice to play a primarily stealth XCOM-style game.

That being said, the combat is great. I love the weapon and equipment options, especially that there are so many different kinds of weapons and gadgets available. Going in loud is a viable option, especially when you're prepared.

The breach function. Oh my god. If the tactical rpg world takes anything from Phantom Doctrine, if nothing else, take the more grounded/realistic graphics and TAKE THE BREACHING SYSTEM. THERE IS NOTHING COOLER. EVER. PERIOD. Breaching a room and shooting the baddies inside is seriously one of the most memorable strategy game experiences I have ever had. God, it's just such an impeccable idea.

Cons:

The story is SO long. I mean... damn. What a grind. The only game with a comparable storyline length I've played is Fire Emblem: Three Houses which, to be fair, had a very good story and I was fully immersed in it. But this game just goes on and on and on, and sometimes the wait to push the plot along is just too much.

This is made worse by the lack of mission variety. This gets better as the game goes on but near the end I was slapping my agents in heavy body armor and sending them in on operations like they're leaving the bank in the movie Heat - guns fully blazing.

The game is also noted to be difficult at times, and I concur. However, I didn't find the learning curve to be too steep - especially once you start to... crack the case. Haha. See what I did there? Little spy joke. Laugh. Are you laughing? Laugh. Laugh. Laugh. LAUGH.

The price point is just too high. It's indicative of the obvious quality of the game from a graphical and developmental standpoint but it's something one ought to purchase on sale if possible.

Lastly, the stealth system. Look, guy, I know I said it's cool and to be fair - it is. It's awesome. But it's so.,.... so.... SO easy to game. Again, to some this isn't a con! But you're able to see where enemies and civilians will move before they do and you can adjust accordingly. Enemy agents are scary but not devastatingly so.

To me, this game feels like a spy film that's an hour too long. But it has a ton of content and it's out of its development phase so no updates will break the game.

7.5 - 8 / 10

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34 Reviews

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7241 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 29.07.21 23:42

Most of the negative reviews seem to be because people wanted something as good, or better than, X-COM, and that they feel the game is repetitive. While both are fair points to some extent, I'll try to break it down a bit.

I do enjoy the X-COM games more, but feel it's unfair to say this game isn't worth getting because it's arguably not quite as good.. with that mentality you would only have 1 game franchise from each genre, which doesn't make sense. It'll inevitably be compared as it follows the same formula:

-small-ish, semi-randomly generated, grid-based tactical combat mission maps.
-Base upgrading, with a world-strategy map where events ping and you respond to them.
-Roster of agents, gear you can find/craft, body engineering to improve attributes, etc etc.

Probably the main point of contention is how potentially repetitive the missions can be. Depending how much of a completionist you are, like me you might spend alot of time clearing out all the enemies in Infiltration mode (stealth), and finding all the items and intel. You could end up doing this alot, but tbh you don't have to, it'll all come in time and you'll have ample. Also, don't worry if you lose agents in a mission, there are plenty of replacements, their level is relative to your storyline progress, and they're not expensive.

The game starts hard and generally gets easier once you get more movement points, and especially more Fire Points (actions per turn). With 2 Fire Points on your disguised characters, Infiltration mode becomes trivial. Depending on the difficulty, and whether you're playing Ironman Mode or not, doing missions in Combat mode should prove more interesting. The game brings in a constant set of enemy reinforcements every few turns, which will become overwhelming to a small, poorly equipped team. I think the design idea is that when Combat mode happens, you may have messed up or been ambushed, and they're trying to pressure you to escape the map. Personally I would have enjoyed more dedicated combat missions.

Is it worth the pricetag? Well I got it quite cheap on sale but can only ever afford them on sale anyway. If you have the spending power, sure you can go for full price and support the devs, your call. I think it's a good game overall with a nice storyline, and replayability as different agencies. If you don't have much patience, maybe skip it. If you're like me and have a toddler and can only play and hour or two here and there, it's quite nice to sit down and relax to. That's also why I have 120 hrs, maybe a third of that I was afk.

Overall one of the stronger offerings in this genre, but it's not for everyone. It has some flaws, but it also does alot of things right, and I'm glad I bought it.

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2501 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.07.21 02:00

I like the story and the style of the game.

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90 Reviews

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3171 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.07.21 22:09

A very good spy game with some cool features. You can run all kinds of wet ops.

I suggest to start with the Western campaign on easy before the KGB campaign, because it has easier starting missions and you can learn the unique gameplay.

On higher difficulties, don´t get attached to your assets, as things can go south quickly. A failed mission won´t jeopardize your organisation in the long run. Just accept the casualties instead of loading old saves or you might end up save-scumming.

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445 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.06.21 17:09

*Classified*

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24 Reviews

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245 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.06.21 04:41

BUYER BEWARE: AS-IS PURCHASE.
That's right. You're paying new price (and a pretty hefty one at that) for a game that's not supported. The devs split from the game company after one major patch, and nobody is supporting this game.

If I were critiquing the game purely as a game, I would give a solid thumbs-up. It's not a bad game in my book. But I'm writing this as one of those unfortunate people for whom the game just crashes. All. The. Time. Save constantly, because it could crash at any moment. If you don't mind a gamble, my suggestion is to wishlist the game and buy it when it's on sale for, say, 90% off. Because when it runs, it's a good game. Just happens that it's an as-is product priced as if it were fully supported.

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384 Reviews

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3703 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.06.21 11:45

“Do me a favour, will you? Throw that down the toilet.”
~James Bond, Spectre

Like many others, I grew up with spy fiction. Ian Fleming, John le Carré, Robert Ludlum... those were the names. There was something very special about that kind of stories. The world of spies was full of deep mysteries, deadly enemies, beautiful women and, of course, cool lines and tuxedos. Naturally, all that was irresistible for a young kid. And when such things started to appear in video games? Boy, oh, boy... If you're old enough to remember 90s, then you should totally remember Sid Meier. The creator of legendary Civilization. Aside from Civ, he created things like the very best buccaneer simulator in history (Pirates!) and famous Railroad Tycoon, but what matters to us today is his game called Covert Action. Which was the first spy simulator I've ever played. Man, it felt awesome! Being able to become part of what I've read about? It was simply amazing. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, we never had enough games of that kind. I mean, it's not like those didn't exist at all (for example, there was that gorgeous thing called SpyCraft), but somehow, most of the spy games were... well, you know how it is. No matter how old you are, you've still played at least one James Bond game. A lot of those were pretty cool, some were even heavily influential for video game history (like GoldenEye 007 for N64), but... those were just that. The good games. While the actual feeling of being a spy? It wasn't really there. And that's why I was really excited about Phantom Doctrine. I mean... An XCOM clone? About spies? Sounds perfect, right?

Back in 2012, Firaxis Games (who, ironically, also worked on the new Civilization games) achieved something great. Not only they brought legendary X-COM series back to life, they've made it very exciting for both old geezers who played the original, and new generation who didn't even hear about such games before. Firaxis' formula was so good and worked so nice with all sorts of controllers (PC? Consoles? Phones? The game felt great on all of them) that it was impossible not to love it. Naturally, everybody started to copy it. And that's exactly what CreativeForge Games did. They took Firaxis' XCOM. And put some spies on top of it. The end. Like I said, though, it's not like it was a bad idea. Quite the opposite, it was awesome. More XCOM is always welcomed by me, while the spy motif? It's just a perfect fit. I mean, the XCOM series was about secret agency too, so... yeah. A perfect fit. Unfortunately... let's just say that CreativeForge aren't nearly as talented as Firaxis Games. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

On paper, Phantom Doctrine is a pretty cool game. I mean, sure, it's 100% clone, but at the same time, it comes with heck of a lot of fresh ideas that give you that certain spy feeling I've mentioned above. You'll need to find and analyze the documents to make some connections, you'll need to change your agents' identities (Qui êtes-vous, Monsieur Sorge?), you'll need to relocate your headquarters to avoid being exposed, you'll be able to brainwash, interrogate and even execute the traitors... In other words, it's a spy game all right. All the key elements of spy fiction are here. The problem is... the actual gameplay is a mess. Phantom Doctrine is a game that proves that it is possible to break a perfect formula and turn it into a bloody chore.

See, there are two huge problems about this game. First – tactical missions suck. Simple like that. The actual maps are dull and don't provide enough variety, while the goals... most of the time it'll be the same exact thing. You plant the bombs, you disarm the bombs (there's literally no difference between planting bombs and disarming them – all you need to do is to find the bomb and interact with it) and you kill people. For the entire game. On tiny little maps that all feel exactly the same. Like... what were they thinking?! Sure, it's a bit more complicated than that. Just because using the guns isn't always a good idea. Phantom Doctrine includes a pretty interesting mechanics that allows you to do... you know. The spy thing. A certain equipment will make the enemies to see your agents as an obvious threat (you can't just put a battle armor on your guys and pretend that they're just passing by), but you may also avoid getting into battles and do things quietly. Again, it's a pretty cool stuff on paper, but in reality, the entire magic disappears in, like, second mission. And after that? It's just a chore. Even though the developers did include the fast movement option, the game still feels painfully slow. In XCOM there was always an adrenaline. Even though it was a turn-based game, you always felt a certain pressure. Here? You'll just want everybody to move faster. Seriously, I just can't play this game without a speedhack. I just can't take it without increasing the speed 3x times. It's that bad.

And guess what? The strategy part isn't fun either and suffers from the same exact problem. A lot of XCOM clones offer us the speed up option. Heck, even the original 1994 game had it. But not this one. It's either pause or real-time here. Which sucks, since most of the time you'll just sit on your butt, watching the progress bars. You send your agents to a certain country and then you're watching the progress bar. Repeat until forever. Like... seriously? Sure, I can see that CreativeForge tried to fix things by adding so-called danger meter. Long story short, enemies will always look for your headquarters. And your goal is to prevent them from finding it. You fail – you need to relocate. Quickly. And relocation costs money. Out of money? Well, game over, man! Game over! In other words, there's a certain pressure that keeps you occupied on global map, but honestly, sending agents to various countries again and again with no end? It's just boring. Manually analyzing the documents to progress the story? It's even worse since the bloody mini-game gets old right away (thankfully, you'll be able to skip it at the late stages of the game). And aside from that? There's pretty much nothing here. In other words – it's painfully slow and boring game with close to no variety.

But even that isn't the end of our torture. Not only this game comes with three different campaigns (CIA, KGB and Mossad), it wants you to beat all of them twice. In order to see the real endings. I mean... it's a game... in which you sit on your butt... and watch paint dry. For hours. And you need to do that twice. To get the real ending... because the developers are a-holes. Remember Ghosts'n Goblins? Something is telling me that Sir Arthur from there was involved in Phantom Doctrine's development. Here's a hint, guys – check the Steam forums before starting with this game for an easy way to hack a certain file and unlock so-called “extended mode” from the start to avoid re-playing the game. Because re-playing this game for a short (and dumb) extra mission? It isn't something you'll want to do. Like... ever.

Phantom Doctrine is one of those games that never grew into their full potential. The motif here is great, some ideas here are brilliant, but somehow, it ends up being painfully slow, boring and extremely repetitive. All the time you'll know exactly what will happen next. The same exact thing that happened not so long ago. And after that? It'll happen again. Way too boring. Way too slow. Way too repetitive. Dixi.

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8 Reviews

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20050 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.06.21 15:32

This game is really good, it exceeds all of my expectation.

Before buying this, I was pretty skeptic because I was never into turn-based games and also never tried one. I had my bar about low-medium, and I was right about my first hour into it. I barely know how anything works, and they gave all the how-to's in one damn 10 minutes scene but somehow I got through it and decided to keep playing. I fell in love when I discovered the game wasn't just straight line campaign, but sort of like open world concept where you can do stuff you want first and the rest for later. Especially when you are in the Cabal HQ, you can organize the the team, read dossier, read investigative files, etc. This is the ultimate freaking detective game for me, which they never said on the game description. You can even hire agents, tell them to bugger-off or go scout an area or maybe tail a crime-lord. Even the story got intriguing pretty quick.

Cons about this game is that I can see that it could be pretty complicated especially if you never play an RPG games. There's just too much to do, which can be fun but can also be frustrating. Also the settings, and user interface is quite beautiful and clean but they are also quite bad here's why. In some certain interface, you can't press ESC button and on settings menu there's not even a back button and ESC doesn't work, so you need to press on Save and apply which horrifies me. OHH almost forgot, game doesn't save itself unless you saved it manually. I lost my first play through cuz I was tired and decided to just alt f4 :/

As said, overall it exceeds my initial expectations. Keep in mind that this game felt really worth it to me because I got this on a really good deal. Love you Gaben, more quality games discount pls.

117 Produkte im Account

26 Reviews

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112 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.06.21 17:23

Like getting shot through walls? Like enemies being invisible until they fire a one hit KO to your main character? Then This game is for you.

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23 Reviews

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240 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.06.21 14:02

This game was a diamond in the rough. But I gave up hoping they would fix this. So now it's just rough.

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6 Reviews

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14009 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.06.21 09:41

For fans of Spy novels, films, games, for fans of XCom style turn-based strategy and tactic games.
Ein Spiel bestens geeignet für Fans von rundenbasierten Strategie- und Taktik-Spielen a la XCom, und Fans von Agenten-Filmen,-Romanen und -Spielen.

176 Produkte im Account

14 Reviews

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610 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.05.21 17:35

TL;DR:
6/10 - Fairly solid combat and strategic layer mechanics are let down by a limited roster of maps, somewhat clunky UI, and a lack of attention to detail in a few glaring places.

Phantom Doctrine is, in essence, every Cold War spy thriller novel ever written. There’s the KGB, and the CIA, and the NSA, and half a dozen other organizations with nondescript but vaguely ominous names.

In an interesting change of pace for the genre, the player is a single, physical character rather a faceless, voiceless deity. You fill the shoes of a national spy from one of three agencies, each with their own unique callsign, handler, and introductory mission. There are also some other differences in the early game, but beyond some point the campaigns essentially follow the same track. The story is a little trite at times, but it’s serviceable enough.

You’re tasked with founding The Cabal, a covert effort to combat the nefarious Beholder Initiative in its efforts across the globe. As the leader of this cell, your character can go out on missions, work on projects back at HQ, and otherwise do everything any other member of your roster can do. However, whereas every other agent under your command is ultimately disposable, you are not—if you bite the big one on a blown operation, it’s game over.

From the strategic layer, you will position your agents in cities across the globe, allowing them to swiftly investigate rumors of enemy activity, contact informants to gather intelligence, and otherwise further your cause. It feels quite authentic to the era of covert activity, though it plays a bit like an advanced version of whack-a-mole. Agents can also be stationed at Cabal’s safehouse to heal injuries, build equipment, generate funds by counterfeiting cash, or analyzing intelligence gathered in the field, but most of these options feel rather impotent and tend to slow the pace of the strategic gameplay down.

Fittingly, managing intelligence is the key task of your spy agency. Documents turned over by informers or recovered by your agents during missions contain code words that need to be connected with other evidence to form actionable intelligence, such as the location of enemy safehouses and the identities of enemy agents, amongst other things. In an appropriately themed menu, these items are pinned on a corkboard and connected with lengths of string, and by the time you’ve sorted through the dozen documents needed for some cases, you’ll have a veritable wall of string and redacted documents sure to make even the most dedicated conspiracy theorist green with envy.

However, it’s here that the game suffers from a glaring dearth of content; these documents—which you’ll likely be spending a great deal of time going through—have a breathtakingly short list of code words. Often, I’ve had separate cases during the course of a fairly short span of a single campaign that used the same code words to refer to completely different people or places. Granted, even a single campaign is likely to encounter dozens or even hundreds of code words or names drawn from that list, but it cheapens the experience.

The next content pothole you’ll hit early and frequently is the limited roster of maps. While games like XCOM 2 use a map of connected, prefabricated cells to create semi-random maps, Phantom Doctrine has only fixed, static maps. While the maps are well-made with good attention to detail, the game’s use of randomizing enemy and objective placement simply isn’t enough to keep them fresh and interesting, and I certainly grew tired of them.

And, ultimately, I found that I grew tired of Phantom Doctrine as a whole. The above dearth of maps and codenames wore me down to the point that I didn’t feel like I was accomplishing much, and the story and characters failed to hold my interest. There are a lot of neat concepts sprinkled throughout, but they’re buried in mediocrity. In the end, I just sort of... put the game down and haven’t felt the urge to pick it back up.

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1167 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.05.21 16:38

Not as good as Chimera Squad. It's average, nothing groundbreaking.

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16 Reviews

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3688 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.05.21 06:22

Good game but not cup of tea for everyone.

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81 Reviews

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7106 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.05.21 05:35

This game simply has no respect for your time.

From unskippable animations for common actions, pointless word hunts on the notice board, the plodding pace of story progression, and missions that are mindless and tedious I am having to force myself to sit down and play this game to completion.

I know I should have expected this after Hard West, but I'm disappointed nonetheless.

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54 Reviews

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357 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.03.21 18:22

I was sold on the idea of running spy networks across the globe as either the CIA or KGB. Sending field agents for surveillance and infiltration, ordering analysts to decipher classified documents, forging new identities and so forth. There's a lot to say about its features and I can admit that it has a lot of good ideas but after a while, the game just falls short of my expectations.

If you take everything good about X-COM and translate that into a cold war espionage setting, what could possibly go wrong. Apparently everything from the story to gameplay I found bland and repetitive to the point that I dozed off. The combat for the most part feels less challenging. The danger level doesn't feel as daunting as the doomsday timer in X-com. One thing I liked though was the appearance customization that gives individuality to each agent but I soon realized that they were just the same cardboard cutouts with different portraits. None of the agents are particularly useful even after gaining new perks and it makes no difference who you assign jobs to. The lack of payoff for character progression reduces the game's replay value.

It presents itself to be a cat and mouse game on the global stage but at no point in time did I ever feel decision making in covert activities to matter all that much. Acting on actionable intel alone doesn't make up for much of its counterintelligence gameplay. Besides its unintuitive mechanics, there are too many illogical oversights. Just to name a few. Breaking through windows, next to a guard, while in disguise doesn't blow the agent's cover. Agents from different races don't sound like they're supposed to. Soviet pilots speak the American accent and a USMC soldier, the british accent. Freelancer who's ethnically chinese doesn't have the chinese language ability and MOSSAD who can't speak Arabic? With foreign language voice actors, I thought that the game would at least get that right but no. Devs should add a language training program and agents who are posted abroad should be able to learn the local lingo. Just goes to show how unpolished this game is. It did not offer me a shred of satisfaction whatsoever.

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5 Reviews

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10860 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.03.21 17:14

Normally I think game reviews should start off with a simple statement about whether or not the game is good/fun/interesting/etc. - a lot of people don’t like to read.

However, Phantom Doctrine is a game for people who do like to read, and even then it’s not quite that simple. This is a complicated game to review, but it made such a strong impression on me I really need to articulate my thoughts on it - for me if not for people browsing Steam who might be on the fence.

It’s an isometric tactical game made in the Unreal Engine so the Steam algorithm doesn’t hesitate to throw it out as a recommendation to anybody who plays the Firaxis Xcom games, but this plays more like a turn-based version of PSX-era stealth games like the Splinter Cells or the early Metal Gear Solids.

Phantom Doctrine successfully gamifies espionage and stakeouts - in many cases (especially on higher difficulty settings) you will have good options to move about half your team around, while the others need to stay put because conditions aren’t yet favorable to do anything other than stay out of sight.

Once I got the hang of this, I found a lot to love in the tactical mode, which is where players will spend the vast majority of their time. But as much as I enjoyed sneaking around karate-chopping peoples’ necks and the tension of hitting the ‘next turn’ button, hoping I remembered that one guard’s patrol pattern from two rooms back, the real way Phantom Doctrine pulled me in was in one of its zero action modes - document analysis!

One of your main in-game rewards is ‘classified documents;’ you’ll find these as loot in tactical levels, but also on the world map moving your agents around or from interrogating enemy agents. During downtime between missions you can then read these documents looking for codenames, arranging them on a corkboard and matching up these keywords to discover the enemy codename for a city or a secret project.

This was honestly one of my favorite parts of the game, because it succeeds in perfectly setting what a lot of games set in the past miss - tone.

I grew up in the last years of the M.A.D. M.A.D. M.A.D. M.A.D. World with family who had security clearances, so to me reading about the “real reason” the Mir Space Station was planned, or how CIA assets in Hollywood hid disclosure of operations in plain sight and shaped public opinion on geopolitics through film and television is an experience that many players may not share. But thanks to the strong writing I don’t think you had to live through it to feel like you were there while you play.

This game isn’t for everyone - it requires patience and attention to detail. And like any game inspired by XCom, it has a very steep learning curve. But if you have the right personality for it (and are interested in the Cold War), there is a lot of fun and fascinating content to enjoy!

Thanks CreativeForge, this was a fantastic experience!

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3 Reviews

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1206 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.03.21 04:59

C.I.A. Simulator. 8/10

Save Scum: Frequently during early learning stages, lessens out once you get better at infiltration.

It took me a while to get in this game but after a few missions I can say I like the game. I'm not sure If X-Com Chimera Squad influenced this game or vice versa, but As a fan of X-com I can say this game does a great job. I play my games on the hardest difficulty (unless it's just a bullet sponge difficulty) and this game on hard is balanced and tactical. I didn't however like how some of the cooler options aren't available from the start and you essentially miss out on 100% mission completions early on, but this adds to the depth of the game.

You don't really get more each level, you do more each level and as you unlock upgrades you get closer to being able to 100% a mission. You have collectibles on most missions (like MELD canisters from X-Com, but instead you can get intel, weapons, weapon mods, or leads on new agents to recruit or targets to assassinate) and an agent that works against you once you start taking out guards and they fail to report. They go into paranoid mode and begin searching for your agents and destroying intel meaning that you have to be very stealthy (with the help of disguises) to get them before they're destroyed.

I'm just starting out at the time of this review but after completing the X-Com series and similar titles across multiple accounts I say give it a try. The game's story is pretty good and once you get to linking intel to reveal a conspiracy you'll be hooked. Combat is great and mission variations are plentiful. I really feel like i'm playing a secret agent in the cold war.

BTW, [strike] MK Ultra IS included. [/strike] Yup. Brainwashed agents. Go, buy now. If on sale, even better.

108 Produkte im Account

13 Reviews

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2103 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.03.21 19:13

Good ideas, but the game is disappointing, at least for me.

It looks like a tactical squad team game such as the old XCOM. It provides many such features, such as base management, team management and so on. In that regard, it is pretty good. Missions bring clues and hard to find equipment. You have to unravel a web of plots and that's a rather well done part of the game.

However, the game sorely lacks on the tactical level.
- most of your team mates are unable to use a silencer on their pistol! Too complicated for them
- discretion just fails to exist : a shame for a spy game! You have no way to sneak around. You can be hidden behind a corner, but opponents never fail to spot you should you be in their sight range. You cannot get past a window without being spotted if you're unlucky enough that somebody is looking through it. More troublesome, if you're in a restricted area, even simple passerby (in the street) will raise the alarm should they spot you (through a window).
- unaware opponents are very good at escaping your carefully aimed shots. Don't count on your sniper.
- each character tactical turn is divided in two actions and you cannot move square by square. This is a real problem because more often than once this will cause the character to be spotted when a carefull move would have let you avoid the problem ; this of course is aggraved by the infalibility of the opponents when spotting.
- If you fail to kill an opponent in one shot (using a silent weapon or neutralization), the whole area is on alert, even though no opponent is close, or the action is in a closed space. Even if the opponent is finished silently by a second teammate within the same turn. This doesn't help.

I would not care that the fight erupts in plain sight, but the game always sends reinforcements within a few turns (where do they come from ?) and having a plain fight will really not help you : you don't have enough people to allow for more than the occasionnal wound.

It is sad, since you'll be more than two third of the game in tactical mode!

I still recommedn the game for its good ideas. But it definitively has to do better on the squad combat side before I'll play again. I'm disappointed.

262 Produkte im Account

12 Reviews

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2895 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.01.21 13:23

The obvious comparison for this game is Xcom, and Phantom Doctrine really feels like it at times. The major difference in combat (besides the lack of sci-fi elements) is the fact that being detected by or engaging the enemy (besides stealth killing on with no witnesses) means all enemies on the map are instantly alerted. In a way, this is more realistic. On the other hand it can be super frustrating when an enemy spots your unit in half cover on turn 2. It's a notch below Xcom in several other aspects though. There's no real base management besides assigning soldiers to training or making money, etc, you just upgrade your base when you have money and poof. Also where as Xcom 2 allowed you to see the rooms you built, Phatom Doctrine doesn't.

TLDR- Enjoyable 1980's themed Xcom. It's fun. I bought it on the winter sale and it was well worth it.

184 Produkte im Account

20 Reviews

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1066 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.01.21 21:04

Sadly a very disappointing game.
The stealth mechanics are terrible and there is not an ounce of progression.
The tutorial mission hyped me, featuring a sleeper agent you recruit via a phrase - this never happened again during my playtime.
Disguises are not thought through, there are missions which will automatically break stealth for no reason, there are no interesting stealth gadgets, and getting spotted instantly alerts every single enemy to the locations of ALL of your agents.
Repetition in those kinds of games can be nice, XCom has a lot of repetition aswell, but it also has character classes with interesting skills, items, etc, and even when the stealth in XCom2 is rudimentary it's still far better than in this game.

i really wanted to like this game, but it is boring and repetitive after a short time. i kept playing bc i was hoping for something to happen, but it doesnt. Didnt care enough about the story to finish it.

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4011 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.12.20 16:08

A nice strategy game. A pleasant throwback to the original XCOM from the 90's.

But not perfect. There are a lot of holes in the game that kill immersion somewhat. Agents teleporting immediately to tactical missions is one. Tactical missions are very easy to win with stealth once you learn the game. But even with its quirks, I enjoyed my first playthrough, but have no desire to start another one.

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13 Reviews

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5217 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.12.20 11:09

I like this game. It has intereseting story and it is fun to expand the headquarters and follow your agents on tactical missions. Graphics are completely okay and can be compared to ufo enemy unknown and similar titles.

The tactical mode has some shortcomings, for example I feel that it should be possible to zoom out the camera further. The search for highlighted items is a bit tedious.

Non-story Missions tend to be a bit repetetive, but depending on how your mood is you can speed things up a bit. Infiltration (a stealthy approach) is an important part of the tactical missions, since the enemies usually get reinforcements.

Between the tactical missions the player has to manage his/her agents and engineer them, craft items, send them on side missions, resolve events, work on intel missions and other activities.

I can recommend this game.

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19 Reviews

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16834 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.12.20 20:11

Actor + Disguise = OP
Sniper + Sure Shot = 0P
Headshot Pistol + Adjacent Tile = OP
Just finished on hard one-shooting every enemy, fun!
Maybe it's slow at the beginning, but once you fully body mod your agents, you can complete a map in 3 - 4 turns with all loot and files. You can complete almost every mission infiltration style.
The only thing I don’t quite like is that some missions you will get auto-combat in 3 turns, this sometimes happen to enemy recon, but you can try to interrupt without needing to deploy you agents.

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10 Reviews

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8817 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.12.20 12:58

TL,DR

This game deserves some praise, since in my opinion is a wee little gem for all of those looking to scratch that turn-based tactics itch, while at the same time looking for a change of scenery from the whole aliens bonanza (hi XCOM) and any other strictly-come-fighting, war-related stuff. Phantom Doctrine has been for me a breath of fresh air in the genre, and although no perfection will be found here, you'll more than likely get your rts ocd fix - and a fair amount of fun too, if you learn how to play the game without wasting too much time.

7.5 out of 10

THE GOOD

You can tell much love went into the making of Phantom Doctrine - and a nostalgic one in particular. Phantom Doctrine offers a very immersive and credible setting, and a quite mature and adult one in that, enhanced by the beautifully rendered and detailed scenarios (where I wish we could have seen more of the hand-painted illustations which you can find for instance in character portaraits, or loading screens) with a plot that - while a tad confusing - still accomplishes to offer something I've rarely been able to find in recent games: an open invite for you to use your own imagination. The main story runs around some major Cold War conspiracy set in the year 1983, and for all of us born in that decade (or earlier, of course) even just mentioning Gorbachev triggers a whirlwind of memories and fuzzy TV news images. The game doesn't dig too deep into facts, people or places, but the mere fact they get mentioned, and many names get thrown around, appears to be enough to fabricate a 'believable fantasy' for those old enough to remember. The narrative might result unsatisfiying for some, since it's not fully articulated, but personally I find the formula to be quite fascinating, and very much reminds me of those Usborne Publisher books for kids from the 90s and their Graham Round illustrations, where a lot was happening but not much got said. The game just accomplishes this by throwing around bits and pieces of references to real life historical events, but never intends to elaborate: it remains a solid turn-based-tactics divertissement, where it feels like playing chess in an international espionage setting à la John Le Carrè (RIP). The fun part is that you don't have to complete your missions necessarily by killing everyone and their dog, but stealth is a valid option. In addition to that, you won't find any irritating 'chance-based', nerve-wrecking 'shooting percentage' (hi again, XCOM), because thankfully all hit/fire mechanics are regulated by skills and armour (presence or lack thereof), plus 'awareness' - which is something that took me a while to fully understand , hence..

THE BAD

Oh, manuals. I admit I never read them before playing a game, nor should anyone I guess. A truly fun game doesn't need much textual explanation. Thus said, if you wish to save time and skip the painful experience of losing your agents on the go, get hours of accurately planned stealth get busted because some detail regarding game mechanics got overlooked (due to lack of explanation during the somewhat skinny tutorial) or always being in a state of alert due to way too frequent 'enemy events' on the map or constant lack of resources.. Well, do yourself a favor and read the manual. Failing to understand some core mechanics, tho, will lead to an unnecessary repeating of many already seen missions (and maps), and you'll easily end up frustrated. Otherwise, it was still fun to dive into my first playthrough as a totally unaware, illiterate boor and yet managing to scramble my first win on Easy (as a bonus, it unlocks an 'extended' story mode, where you'll promise yourself to be wiser this time around, and a third agent background as well - which makes for replayability).
Developing your headquarters infrastructure or buying new 'tactical mission support' devices didn't seem to make a difference in my personal experience, and that's another aspect I wish were better developed and/or explained.
Also, there's a great skim on the 'detective' part, where I was naively expecting to draw conclusions on my own and run 3rd grade interrogations, and I was instead greeted by a messy 3rd grader board where all that was required from me was doing the monkey job of connecting 'same words'. A bit disappointing in that regard, but as long as you remember you're playing a strategy game and not Sherlock Holmes, everything's cool again.

All things considered, I really enjoyed my time with Phantom Doctrine, and I was pleased to find out that the devs are the same authors of Hard West (which I found entertaining as well, although maybe more present in terms of story but less refined in mechanics and gameplay in general), and I'm now looking forward to both Phantom Doctrine II and the apparently wordy I Saw the Night.

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3406 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.11.20 19:58

Cold War theme + Espionage + Turn Based = Phantom Doctrine

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16 Reviews

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2072 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.11.20 08:53

I'm disappointed that I have to recommend people to skip this game as it has a lot of potential.

The strategic layer of this game is quite fun, recruit and train agents, place them around the map performing various tasks from hunting down enemy agents to infiltrating enemy cells. Discover clues to piece together a puzzle unlocking more information on the enemy, new weapons, items and enhancements.

Unfortunately the tactical layer of this game is really boring and unbalanced. It's both easy and quite dull. Its very long winded where you will spend most of the missions moving one or two agents around looking for loot or clues. As soon as you unlock silenced weapons and have a couple of agents with disguises the game is just a cakewalk where you will complete every mission without being seen.

That sounds great until you realise not being seen means there's never any combat making all that time upgrading your ops and weapons pointless invalidating most of the fun in the strategic layer.

I could go on but most of the positive things I can talk about are massively outweighed by the many hours of dull missions you are forced to play through. A real shame because while the game has a lot of excellent concepts and ideas, the implementation o the core game-play loop is really lacking.

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11998 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.11.20 14:21

Great game! A new take on turn-based, X-com style strategy games with it's own original style of game play and ideas. Enjoyed the story, plot twists and detective elements to the game as well as the character management and action parts. Highly recommended.

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3 Reviews

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524 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 11.11.20 18:32

Great theme and idea, but the gameplay is not that good. Repetitive, very slow and with non-intuitive controls during operations. I had to reload TONS of times due to agents choosing weirdest paths to get from one point to another or performing a different action. Pity :/

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13 Reviews

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5053 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.11.20 04:51

Inspired by X-Com yet having its own identity which is a big plus. It's very complicated the first few hours but then everything becomes so clear and less stressful the more you go on.

Pros :
- quite fun once you get past early game
- tactics and variety
- squad management is interesting

Cons :
- lackluster combat
- punished for not choosing stealth on most missions
- end content drags
- uninteresting story and characters

My rating : 7.5/10

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43 Reviews

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5709 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.11.20 18:15

7/10

Amazing gameplay, basically a fresh take on XCOM. What kills it is the performance issues. This game runs SO SLOW, it's crazy.

I'm playing on a gaming computer w/ i7-7600, 32GB DDR4-3200, GTX 1080, and NVME drive and you'd think it was mid-range at best.

Still worth getting though if you're into the concept, I just really hope they improve this for the next game.

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4924 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.11.20 12:25

I have not finished the game yet due to my perfectionist nature however I think I have played enough to be able to give a valid opinion from the perspective of someone who has never played an XCOM style turn based game before.

The things I liked about the game:

-The character creation is extremely fun to play around with, the ability to change the apearence and background of all your agents make you attached to your characters and it fleshes them out quite a bit. For me that worked quite a bit in contrast with the character creation system in Darkest Dungeon in which your characters don't really matter and there is little customization options thus you can very easily loose track of them
-The base management is fun and quite easy to navigate if you get the hold of it (perhaps the UI could use some work but other than that it is pretty good).
-Navigating yourself around maps feels good. Exploration is fun due to the top notch level design even if not very rewarding due to the lack of collectibles.
-Combat is extremely fun and satisfying. Guns have great sound effects and the RNG are not on your face (unlike games like XCOM from what I have heard and Darkest Dungeon)
-As I pointed out before the level design is amazing. The buildings you break into look like actual places inhabited by people and not just game arenas.

Some things I did not like:

-The way the AI is constructed is pretty broken and it can lead to some funny situations. The NPCs apparently lack the sense of hearing since they can't hear glass braking and they also lack peripheral vision since you can literally stand next to them and they will not be able to see you. I am not the type of person that demands absolute realism from games but in this case it is pretty comedic.
-To built on my previous point, the stealth is just.. well.. not good. Even if a civilians see you it alerts the entire map and every single enemy automatically knows your location and reinforcements are called. Idk how does that work but I assume it was a measure taken to balance the absolutely braindead NPCs that I discussed on my previous point. I feel like if there is gonna be a Phantom Doctrine 2 the entire stealth should be reworked from the ground up.
-The combat is indeed fun and satisfying however there are some elements I don't like. Perhaps it is a staple in that genre of games but the fact that you can run to someone and stick a gun on someone's face and kill them in 1 shot is immersion breaking (this is something also many NPCs tend to do). I am not sure how this could be fixed but it was something that rubbed me the wrong way

Conclusion: It is a fun if not quite flawed game. I think it is not worth 40 euros but if you can get it during sale I couldn't recommend it more.

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31 Reviews

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4187 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.10.20 03:56

All achievements unlocked. Heard Phantom Doctrine 2 is on its way. Here's some advice for the devs.
1. Why can't we arrange the tac teams and support measures after we saw the map and mission? It really means nothing when you send a stealth infiltatrion team then find out it's a combat mission.
2. Anything related to agents status and development should be repolished. Backgrounds and trainings are cool, but some of the skills are useless and it's hard to get what we want. Combat is not bad but BREACH / TAKEDOWN / maybe silenced sniper just do all the work. Body-engineering is important but it's hard to understand.
3. As a matter of fact, there's just too much tiny knowledge and tips player need to learn in this game, which makes new player confused, not knowing how to proceed properly. Better lay it out straight.
Keep up the good work!

冷战谍报题材战旗游戏。冲着这个题材是必玩的。
游戏有点类似XCOM，但不同于XCOM谜一样的命中率设定，“意识值”这一角色�-
�性即用来释放技能，又决定能否躲闪子弹。使得战斗更加可控，减少了不必-
要的随机性。-<

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2 Reviews

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8 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.09.20 22:30

Well made, worthy purchase. Definitely recommend.

XCOM style turn-based play. Keep in mind focus is espionage and sabotage meaning //covert, clandestine// not combat. Great for casual gaming or for longer play.

Follows a post WWII and Cold War story line with adequate conspiracy theory folded in. Interesting and credible . Gamer functions as lead / handler for covert operations in many cities across the globe. Includes assigning mission teams and equipment for intelligence operations, personnel extraction, assassination, even for in extremis scenarios.

Weakest link is analysis - pre and post mission. Not possible to determine what method/personnel/equipment is best despite reconnaissance on the objective. Disappointed that collected and analyzed intelligence did not guide future operations. Fair enough, the story line does simulate this.

Don't hesitate to add this one.

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15893 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.09.20 02:30

I`ll give the game 4/5. It has an interesting Cold War scenario and a different tactical system that adds to the x-com original. I also like the training abilities and weapon modifications. Poor point is that the game ends when the combats get more interesting. But in the end, i played more the X-com itself.

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9 Reviews

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2051 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.09.20 06:34

don't buy this. This game is interesting for only first few hours. Afterward, the game get super repetitive fast.

265 Produkte im Account

5 Reviews

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365 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.09.20 10:51

Great ideas - disastrous execution.

The settings is intriguing and the game is full of fascinating concepts like the chemical body mods, but actual gameplay... fucking sucks. The difficulty curve is a joke, being impossibly difficult early on, then fun for a little bit with a certain upgrade before you unlock another one that makes every challenge trivial.

And the RNG is just a dumpster fire. Playing Ironman is impossible, save-scumming is mandatory. For example, one out of 8 randomly selected mission types for the missions that aren't part of the main plot brings down heavy troops and air strikes on your stealthy infiltrators a few turns after the mission starts no matter what you do. Not because of risks you took, not because of bad planning - entirely by a roll of the dice. That kind of arbitrary 'fuck you' really doesn't make for a good time.

2/10 Great potential gone entirely to waste. In an ideal world, the concepts behind it would get salvaged into a proper game.

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3770 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.09.20 09:03

There is a story, but I couldn't tell you what it was. Levels are very same-y. Getting the actor perk completely breaks the game.

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12 Reviews

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2519 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.08.20 04:29

A really fun X-COM style game in a fun time period of the Cold War Era! This game has tight gameplay and a fun story! Even the puzzles of connecting the dots and finding the secret code word brings you into the spy-game world.

For madmen who likes XCOM style games and spy vs spy kinda feel then this is your game!

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24 Reviews

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6257 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.08.20 14:25

This game nails the atmosphere of 80's spy-vs-spy novels. You got your cheesy codenames, conspiricies, a corkboard to connect leads and all sorts of agents from different intelligence agencies.
A lot of people compare the game to XCOM but I think this is only true for the strategy part and some visual presentations. The tactical missions are a lot more like Klei's Invisible Inc. You start in stealth mode and try to keep it that way as long as possible. If your cover gets blown waves of enemies make your mission harder and harder. The combat mechanics are quite different to XCOM too and a lot less based on luck. Normal mode is quite easy so if you want a challenge better start on hard straight away.

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3 Reviews

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5102 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 10.08.20 19:59

Nice game concept and detailed environment but after a while the maps become repetitive with only the main story missions maps being indervidual. Combat is a bit too difficult and when it's so easy to stay stealthy and a avoid combat all together it becomes very boring after playing the same mission types all the time. Story line was a bit too far fetched for my taste and I would have preferred it too be grounded in the reality of politics of the time period setting rather then a James Bond world domination conspiracy. The investigation board was interesting to begin with but yet again the repetitive key words and letters got boring. To improve the gameplay there should be more verity in maps and randomisation for example it would have been a nice change to do a mission in the daytime and not always on a rainy night. More agent customisation would have helped and more non lethal options like tranquilliser darts the actually work. Making enemy agents not super human would also have helped with combat and not make it somthing to avoid all the time! Altogether I liked the concept of the game but came away disappointed and couldn't wait to finish the game.

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20 Reviews

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8138 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.08.20 11:56

I've finished 2 playthroughs. Needless to say, I really like this game. It does stealth in a tactical shooter correctly, keeping it fresh and fun, unlike the other game which claimed to have invented it.
I honestly cannot recommend Phantom Doctrine enough if you like the tactical shooter genre. I'm not gonna list positives. The game is worth it.

There are some annoyances, however. I want to list them for the developers so hopefully they will be addressed in Phantom Doctrine 2.
1) Your agents are not nearly deadly enough in Infiltration mode. I'm sorry, but any Headshot or Takedown should be an automatic kill regardless of HP of your agent or the enemy, and regardless of your weapon's damage. Before the alarm is raised, these 2 actions should rule.
2) The enemy agents get buffed with Body Engineering compounds faster then you discover the compounds, which means that unless playing on Easy difficulty, you can never Takedown over 1/2 the enemy agents. The player absolutely needs to discover the compounds faster, or else Takedown should not be a strict pass/fail based upon HP differential.
3) Even in Easy difficulty, enemy agents always dodge or take a graze if they have any Awareness. (Even regular enemies seem to dodge or graze more often than the player's agents.)
4) Enemy agents seem to always do full damage. Combine 3 and 4 and enemy agents are superhuman. Dodge/graze chances should be more even between player/enemy and should be determined by opposing physical stats of the shooter/target.
5) When hiding behind full cover, both player agents and enemies should not be visible unless the opponent is to the side. Opponents at a shallow angle should have no hope of seeing a trained professional hiding behind full cover. I'd even go so far as to say the angle at which hiding agents get seen should differ by enemy type where civilian, mook, agent get increasingly better discovery angles.

Combat is extremely deadly, which is fine if dodge/graze chances were implemented evenly. As is, the game is unfairly deadly unless the player spams the save/load cycle. Infiltration needs to be done perfectly to avoid the save/load cycle and there's simply not enough information to be able to pull off perfect Infiltration without a fair bit of luck. If the alarm is raised early there is absolutely no hope of completing the mission objectives.

I fully realize if everything I suggested gets implemented that the game gets a lot easier. I have 2 suggestions to balance things out.
1) no save inside of a mission
2) change enemy sight distance to:
civilian: 4
mook: 8
agent: 10 or 12

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64 Reviews

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1301 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.07.20 20:49

I wonder what goes through the heads of the guards in this game?

-------------------------------------------------------------
Oh boy new job, boss says to walk in circles around this room with the other guard, but I'm only suppose to look at the other guard once every 5 minutes...
Crash!
Was that a window i just heard breaking? Meh not my job to investigate...
Dang I left my glasses at home again, sucks being so near sighted. I hope that blob 10 feet from me isn't a bad guy...
Oh it's just a construction worker, maybe they're here to fix that broken window...
Crash!
Oh look another construction worker just jumped trough the window instead of using the door, that's so silly.
BUMP!
That sounded like a body hit the floor, maybe I should turn around and check? Naw too soon
Time to check on the other guard! Hun he's not there just those two construction worker again.
Hum these two construction workers have really gotten into my personal space.
I sure am happy with this new job... WACK... why construction workers, i thought we were friends.
BLACKOUT!
-------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway very cool concept, just no challenge at all. and you basically do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over....

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21 Reviews

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4348 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.07.20 18:44

The game is interesting at first. However, as you go along it starts to get very repetitive and boring. There aren't that many different maps so you come across the same map pretty fast. The gameplay is nice but you can't really afford to go gun blazing or risk getting everyone killed. Most of the time you just stealth your way using the same tactic over and over again.

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5430 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.07.20 00:50

Be sure to invest enough time in order to appreciate game. I gave up and came back. Tried to make it xcom and lost initial appreciation.

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176 Reviews

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126 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 17.07.20 04:31

A game that borrows a lot from the XCOM series and wears those influences on it's sleeves, but doesn't actually do any of those things right.

There was a LOT of potential to be had here because i personally always enjoy more games that follow a Cold War setting.
But unfortunately the setting is the only thing i actually enjoyed about this game as the gameplay manages to feel floaty and clunky (Yes, a Turn-Based Strategy game feeling floaty).
Cover works in inconsistent ways where i was shot from specific angles several times that i positioned myself against with a visible combat bonus, but then end up dying in a single shot from full HP for some baffling reasons.
The game follows a simple setup just like X-COM where you start as Concealed on the Battlescape Maps and get to outright infiltrate areas, something that was oversimplified in XCOM and i find it a welcome addition here.
However the downside of this appears to be is the following: Once you are spotted, you face endless reinforcements until you extract.
This takes away any sort of choice the player has and forces them down one path that may not be for them.

Why would you create a XCOM inspired squad-based shooter when the entire important part. the COMBAT that defined the XCOM series back then and now, is entirely decentivized by locking it by archaic game design like infinitely respawning enemies...

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8 Reviews

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354 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.06.20 16:32

XCOM knockoff that is more emphasised on stealth with boring repetitive gameplay and bad voice acting. Enemy turns take too damn long as well.

Cold War and espionage themes are cool but the rest is just mediocre at best.

119 Produkte im Account

10 Reviews

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366 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.06.20 11:57

Apart from some UI inconsistencies the game runs very nicely. Atmosphere and setting is rather fresh. The whole espionage/intelligence elements, including gathering and analysis of clues, is fun and supports the settings. Not far enough to comment on story yet. Voice acting is the only weak point.

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14103 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.05.20 13:55

I love this game. Having read other reviews, I saw a lot of people who were really displeased with the combat because while it runs on XCom-style mechanics doesn't function quite as well. I think this misses the point. The key to enjoying this game is embracing the espionage aspects. Inside the tactical portion of the game, trying to hit the maps like you're playing rainbow six siege will lead to disappointment. But two agents in disguise, carefully avoiding enemy agents (until you can creep up behind them and end them with a headshot from a silenced pistol) brings joy. Timing is everything. Dropping an enemy may raise the alarm, but if you were patient enough to wait for him to move two steps to his right you could execute the takedown safely. One of my favorite tactics was to have two disguised agents moving in pairs, with at least one silenced pistol. One agent drops opposition, the other scoops the body up and hides it. Successfully cleared several boards this way. A variation on this theme was to use the silenced sniper rifle support option with the agent to pick up the corpses.

It takes awhile, but once the MKULTRA facility and some of the other mission options (trail enemy agent, Stakeout), are open to you, the fun really begins. That's when I really got a chance to embrace all the espionage opportunities, like planting locator beacons in captured agents and interrogating damn near everybody (both enemies and my own people.) As in the true spy game, some times you have to incur a little risk (like letting an enemy cell stay open longer even though your danger rating (the risk that the opposition finds your hideout) is increasing, in order to acquire vital intelligence.

The mechanics for betrayal are great and necessary to really enjoy the espionage motif. The first time an agent of mine turned on me, I admit I got a little paranoid! (like I said interrogations for everybody!) But it makes it worth while. And deploying my own turned enemy agent with an appropriately timed control phrase at just the right time was a triumph.

Some people have complained that the analysis mini game is a bit repetitive, which is true. I enjoyed it anyway so I never used agents to auto-complete these for me, but that is an option. Getting the Signals Intelligence (COMMS) station open early is helpful, because you get guaranteed intelligence delivery on a semi-regular schedule. It took me awhile to realize I wasn't spending enough time on tactical missions collecting the available intel. Once you have puzzles pieces coming in though, the analysis part is way more fun and not a drag.

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1301 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.05.20 19:16

a GREAT turn based tactical game, quite simular to XCom.
Pacing of combat works quite well, giving you all the time to prepare and execute a mission stealthily. But at an reduced exp reward. But gives you a sense of urgency once you are discovered due to the enemy reinforcements.
Many of the stages are quite challanging, even when you're not on the highest difficulty. And it is encouraged to explore whole maps even when discovered with the items and files that can be found over the map.

End rating, 8/10
AI doesn't seem fair at moments, but generally quite intelligent.
But besides that it's pretty great game if you're into the genre!

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26 Reviews

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984 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.04.20 00:48

I went into this wanting to like it, but found that most of its ideas fell flat on execution. There are few real 'espionage' elements, which means it doesn't capture the theme and feel of running a spy agency, and the story is pretty forgettable.

The tactical combat is interesting, in that they deliberately removed any element of randomness. I love this idea, as most of my worst times in XCOM, which Phantom Doctrine so closely resembles, were due to a bad string of RNG and not due to any specific choice or action I did. I adore the idea of success or failure being solely linked to your own strategy, but... the long average weapon range, high damage, and high movement of most agents means that there aren't a lot of reliable tactical choices to make. The AI will happily focus fire a single agent on their turn, and since you have no RNG and a finite amount of focus to reduce damage, you cannot easily prevent or mitigate these kinds of situations; it's just not really built that way. It makes the combat experience feel very shallow and poorly conceived.

People in other reviews have said that the key is not to get into shootouts, instead focusing on staying incognito. This is true, and I believe was the intent, but the stealth is very barebones. You don't have many tools to assist you in infiltrating an area or building, even with the nice idea of having spotters or snipers set up at the map edges. Even XCOM had a handful of movement options, yet there are seemingly none in PD. No way to scale buildings, no way to quietly get where you're supposed to be other than just walking there. In addition, due to enemy layouts being procedurally generated, there are rarely any unique, deliberately-placed terrain features to make use of. In fact, there always seems to be a route generated for you that goes past all the security and leads to your objectives, and instead of letting you play around in a stealth sandbox and make your own route, it feels like your best option is usually to find this route and follow it.

The world map and base building elements feel very half-baked as well, with few meaningful choices to be made and even time rarely being a factor due to being able to summon your agents into battles no matter how far away they are. The entire game feels like a mess of incomplete and unrealised ideas, which is unfortunate, as I thought the premise was unique. I hate giving a thumbs down on a game like this since it doesn't feel deliberately poorly made or anything. It just doesn't quite live up to its potential, nor does it execute its concepts well enough to be an enjoyable game otherwise.

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563 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.04.20 21:06

How did I not already leave a review? This game is fun. It's a bit different from what you'd expect if you're coming from XCOM, but it's really good. Naturally, if you don't like XCOM that much, you won't like this that much either.

What I most appreciate about this game is how everyone you acquire (all your agents) gets to pitch in one way or another. I really feel more games should go by this design more. Instead of having only one team of your best units to field at a time, everyone can be useful in their own way, whether it be actually fighting in the field, staking out some places, or even just being some pencil pusher.

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523 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.04.20 17:53

I very much enjoyed the game, but the underlying factor that makes it a waste of time is that once you are spotted, you are assaulted with endless waves of enemies. Any situation you are placed in becomes horde mode with limited supplies and an inability to build up so you can be successful. This breaks all immersion, makes game play repetitive and boring, and simply does not allow you to play the game. One instance of being spotted and you either have to make a break for everything and either you know where everything is, and hopefully you do not get wrecked by an enemy agent, or you just end up losing the mission and your agents, your cash, and your base.

Overall just became a lack of fun and non-interesting. I don't want to spend time memorizing maps and spending painstaking hours trying to not get spotted only for the horde of enemy agent waves to come after me once I shoot a gun or get spotted. There could be any number of things to enhance this as well. Are you far enough away so you are not heard? There could be a check to see if anyone next to you actually hears you. You could receive 3 silencers at the start of the game by default. How exactly are spies infiltrating enemy locations without sound suppressors for their weapons? Enemy waves could be randomized from 1-5 instead of endless. Perhaps you can in fact fight them off, finish the mission and escape with your lives. But no. Instead the devs are stuck within this idea that fictional game and reality should somehow be intertwined. We play games for fun. In real life, not everyone even knows what a gunshot sounds like. In this game, any noise or being spotted instantly alerts everyone on the map.... how is that even realistic? Ever made a call for an alarm and had dozens of people instantly aware and coming after you? No.... that's not how it works either.

Anyways, if you want a hardcore stealth game that is heavily afflicted by a broken system that removes all semblance of true challenge, pick up Phantom Doctrine. There is a mod that is supposed to help limit or eliminate enemy waves, but it may or may not work for you.

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1566 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.04.20 12:12

A well-meaning but ultimately poorly thought out XCOM-like.

I love the idea of the Cold War spy theme, it's well presented, and the strategic layer feels a lot better than Firaxis' rather oversimplified one in XCOM.

But the game falls apart during actual missions. Taking even half way optimal choices makes the game so completely trivial that each mission simply becomes an exercise in absolute tedium. That's right, your reward for playing well is boredom.

I wouldn't normally negatively review for what is essentially a balance issue, but here it really ruins my enjoyment. I got 26 hours in and found that I'm doing nothing more than going through the motions in missions, trying to get myself through them as though they were chores, so that I could get back to the enjoyable part of the game. When a game does that, it's time to stop playing it.

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674 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.04.20 12:20

This game's combat mechanics are so good, it's what XCOM 1 & 2 should have been. I can't overstate how good the turn-based system is compared to other games in its class. However, most missions can be completed without ever getting into combat, so you rarely get to actually engage in all out fighting. If you enjoyed XCOM, you will absolutely enjoy this game/ The game does suffer from slight repetitive issues in that each mission can relatively be completed with the same stealth tactics each time and the story takes a long time to progress, but overall it's a very solid game for the price.

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1560 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.03.20 13:19

decent turn based so far . not brilliant like Mutant Year Zero, or Xcom, but good.

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2262 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.03.20 23:20

Dont get me wrong its a great game, very fun and entertaining. But it loves to crash when attacking enemies and breaching rooms, Completly unmoded unmodified game and files verified constantly. Its very annoying

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1267 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.03.20 15:22

Really tried to get into this game. It has a lot going for it as an XCOM alternative, and I was really excited to see the differences between this game and XCOM. Unfortunately, the game just gets repetitive and I can't muster the willpower to keep slogging through the campaign. I can echo what a lot of other reviews say in that the beginning is amazing, but seeing the same maps and having to collect items/upgrades/intel on the map manually is going to get old quick.

There's definitely some interesting gameplay mechanics at work here, and I know there's more to get unlocked as the campaign progresses (sleeper agents, drug boosting, etc.) but I think it speaks volume that the repetitiveness has driven out all desire for me to push through and see that stuff. If this game gets a sequel, I hope they take a page from XCOM2 and get randomized maps. Additionally, making the items a simple mission reward instead of having to go around and manually collect it would go a long way to alleviating the repetitiveness as well.

Also, the call in recon ability just doesn't work. So that's a cool gameplay mechanic that doesn't function at all.

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682 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.03.20 22:58

It's not bad. Not bad at all. I found it a bit boring around the five/six hour mark though. I'm giving it a thumbs down just because Steam doesn't have an 'it's okay' option.
As many others have said - comparisons to XCOM aren't really warranted. It's a turn based strategy game, but the similarities mostly end there. PD requires a lot more patience and planning, it's a slower and more methodical game with an overwhelming emphasis on stealth and subterfuge in the mission section, combined with quick decision making and people management in the global tactical layer.
It's a good mix, but the game lets itself down a little when it ramps up the pace in the early-mid game. You can find yourself doing slow paced mission, after slow paced mission after slow paced mission and eventually it starts to drag a bit.
Story wise, I honestly couldn't tell you what on earth is going on or why. And that's coming from a guy with a degree in Creative Writer and Literature - large, complex stories don't trouble me, and I tried to keep up, but ultimately just didn't find it interesting enough to pay too much attention to.
I think this is probably a game that I'll go back to on and off, and will eventually finish, but I can't see myself giving it a second play through. There are three factions you can play as with slightly different story arcs, so if you do enjoy the game, you'll get a lot of replay-ability out of it.

I absolutely understand why people like Phantom Doctrine, and I definitely wouldn't discourage anyone from trying it out. I'm fortunate that a friend had a spare download key for the game going, so I didn't pay for it; I would've been disappointed if I'd paid full price for the game I think. If you can get it on sale for under £20 then give it a shot - you'll either enjoy it or get a good ten hours of game play out of it before you give up.

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2736 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.03.20 04:20

This game has so much potential and yet the more I play it the more frustrating it is. Badies shoot through floors (and everything else), Areas that I cant use overwatch into I regularly get shot from. Seriously there is no greater reason to save scum if you cant rely on the mechanics. Places I put my agents that I thought would be safe are not. There is a huge focus on fighting with the agent development, and yet there are few missions (clearly defined) that requires fighting and it is generally discouraged - even though its the best part of the game. As soon as fighting begins, the game stamps it out though air strikes and reinforcements.

I really think they need to re-think the balance of the game before I give it a thumbs up. Even after over 100 hours of play time.

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1195 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.03.20 03:45

Ehhhhhhhhhh. Other reviews more or less cover it. Phantom Doctrine isn't horrid, but it's lacking substance, solidity. The gameplay loop seems too obvious and empty. The infinite enemy reinforcements makes breaking stealth extremely punishing. Maybe it works well for more hardcore players of XCOM like games. For me it feels like I might as well've lost and reload.

I can't say I've felt like I've learned or uncovered anything storywise either. I'm not actually putting together any conspiracies, just dragging lines between bits of paper with keywords written on them. Waiting for time to pass and dealing with repeating world events. At the moment the story seems to be trying to suggest brainwashing is some special thing to uncover - but the game literally gives you an example of a sleeper agent in the tutorial and you can uncover said sleeper agents amongst your own employees. So it's like.. a giant empty plot to uncover the concept of gravity as if you've never encountered it and a big bad that you've also been told that exists from the very start.

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955 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.03.20 09:43

it's a decent game, but it causes extreme anger... yeah i'm too pissed off to play for awhile. but is it good yes it's good.

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5950 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.02.20 16:17

This game is like XCOM but with spies, set in the cold war, and you can play as either CIA or KGB. So if you liked XCOM you will probably like this game, because it has a lot of similarities: the strategic overworld where you choose which missions to take, customize your characters, build your base, etc. and the missions where you command a small number of people who can get injured or even die permanently.

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4886 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.02.20 19:03

Interesting espionage game, with strategic and tactical layer. Somewhat similar to XCOM, but more with stealth in mind.

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5626 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.01.20 15:38

It's pretty OK I guess. If you're familiar with X-Com / Xenonauts you might find a lot of similarities in the basic setup. This game, however, is heavily focused on stealth. You can complete the game and only fire shots when the game forces you into combat (due to scripted events). Spies are expendable, so don't get too attached.

All in all, very enjoyable experience. I spent over 90 hours with this game so I totally got my money's worth.

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1385 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.01.20 05:40

If you like spy stuff you like this game. maybe throw some x-com in there. Rare to see game try new things now and days so it fun to learn.

TIP: Not all doors close on their own so make sure you close them or you will get shot in the back.

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3710 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.11.19 15:15

I found this game right after watching The Americans (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149175/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0), which I really enjoyed. Since I also like TBS games, Phantom Doctrine seemed like the perfect game to extend the experience of the series a bit. Unfortunately, my expectations were only partially fulfilled.
As most people have already said, Phantom Doctrine is basically XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but with spies. I'd say the main story is quite interesting and also the gameplay is good. What I didn't like is that stealth played a relatively small role for a spy game. Instead, a lot of emphasis was put on different weapons. Perhaps the game would have been more stylish if the player had only been equipped with a pistol and flashlight. But no, in this game, with all your weapons, you look more like a SWAT team member than a spy.
Other features, such as working with documents, became boring after just a few hours because they had no effect on the main story. And when we talk about the main story, it progressed at such a slow pace and the missions were so similar that it seemed as if the whole game consisted of the same mission. I also find it negative that after the first playthrough, the main story is not quite over. After that you have to play the whole game one more time to reach the real end. At first it seemed even acceptable, because you can see how is to play with different agencies, but then it became clear that after the first chapter the whole game was the same. Yes, the mission locations and other details on the map changed, but in terms of story, everything was exactly the same as before. It was also silly that all agencies had the same voice actors. In-game dialogues and texts were also strangely written at times.
On the positive side, I would say that overall the game works well. Phantom Doctrine creates an authentic atmosphere appropriate to the era. Historical events have been interestingly mixed into the story. The background music works well. It's also good that KGB conversations are in Russian, not in English with weird accent or otherwise.
In conclusion, I praise the artistic side of the game and the smooth gameplay, but didn't like the slowness of the story, the similarity of the missions and also stealth (it was either too easy or lacking at all). Unfortunately, only a small part of what seems like a big game is relevant from start to finish. But I give it a positive rating because playing it at least once is interesting, especially for those who like Cold War related material.

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Rating auf Steam Größtenteils positiv

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Release:14.08.2018 Genre: Action-Rollenspiel Entwickler: CreativeForge Games Vertrieb: Good Shepherd Entertainment Engine:keine Infos Kopierschutz:keine Infos Franchise:keine Infos

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