I just got this game and its way more fun then some of reviews said. It definitely has a decent challenge to it. I like that you can't rely on a map but have to use line of sight to find targets.

I will save the full story for later, to finish it I need some second opinions. While the game got some bad reviews its metacritic rating is 73. Both in NA and EU, so the patch really did not make the difference.

My current hypothesis is that the game was barey advertised. Try to remember, and please post your answers to the following questions;

• Where did you first hear about Codename S.T.E.A.M.? Was it on Nintendo's youtube, social media, gaming news websites, or somewhere offline?

• What was your very first impression when you saw bits of gameplay?

• What made you decide to buy the game, and was that way before launch?

• Did the demo/first levels make you want to play the rest of the game?

• Nowadays, do you still like the overall aesthetics and tone of the game?

• Nowadays, do you think Intelligent Systems should make another game with the same core mechanics?

About the last two questions, I'm not trying to get your hopes up, but I would like to find out if Codename S.T.E.A.M. is still worth recommending in 2018.

Of course we are all biased on this sub, so I will be posting this on other subs as well, but with less details to keep it snappy.

To anyone interested - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4AS8RrUv5HtWkq0inmU5rus6yoGZnop

Note: this is copied from my old post on gamefaq

Ok, so that clam is a little bold, considering that many players consider it the WORST ability. The ability to push objects and enemies sounds bad when you could just shoot them instead of risking over watch. For some reason, the ability exist on two important characters, the main character, Henry, and the premium character, Ike. When we first learned about this, we were scratching our heads wondering the question, Why? Now, after playing the game for, what, 155 hours, do I see why the ability exists. We will now look into this ability more deeply than ever before, and prove that Intelligent systems wasn't just joking with us, and that push has real strategic value.

First, let us look at the description:

Push: Move crates or enemies.

From this, we would assume that the ability ONLY lets you move crates or enemies. The ability might be useful for having portable cover, but that's not necessarily efficient. Also, pushing enemies is very unpopular, due to the game mechanic of over watch, which is a risk that is not worth taking when you could just shot the enemies. Therefore, the ability went with pour reception.

HOWEVER...

We need to look at what the ability doesn't mention, as this unmentioned feature can change our whole outlook on this ability. After numerous tests, I have found that the ability can also push your own allies. Now, what does this hidden feature mean? It means that you can move more offensive allies forward while still having enough steam to deal some damage. With correct aiming of push, a unit can go up to 4 space forward per push, so on a good run, you could push an ally up to 12-16 spaces forward while the target ally has full steam, giving them the ability to do some damage up close.

For example, remember Marth? He's the unit who relies on melee combat, but only recharges 6 steam a turn. Most of us who use him use him as an over watch tank, but if you haven't been skimming the text, you should already have the idea. Ike, or Henry if you don't have Ike, can push Marth closer to the enemy, allowing him to deal serious melee damage to enemies he would originally never be able to harm. For example, on online multiplayer, I see many Fox players that could normally get a free kill off of Marth do to range differences. However, when there is an opening, I can push Marth close to the Fox, absorb any over watch hits, and then vanquish the Fox with ease. I can also get other tank units, such as John, Lion, and 13, to where they need to be in the field. Any close range unit such as Tom, Dorothy, Marth, and Ike, can use this to save steam and deal enough to wipe out almost any unit. Fox can be used as a risky queen in this regard and pretty much destroy any single enemy with head shots, and while Tin man can do the same thing, but enemies can quickly find your location by the big blue numbers, not to mention his weapon demands you to have at least 3 steam to use it. Push can be used as long as you have one steam left, it doesn't compromise your location, and if the pushed unit is killed, you have a chance to counter with Henry or Ike, since they will be close to the enemy.

Overall, I think my readers will see that push is not a useless ability, and that it is in fact very useful when used right. This usage does run the risk of getting into an enemy ambush or losing both the pushed and the pusher, but the positives greatly outweigh the negatives. I hope that when you play this game again, you will rethink the ability push, because it could be the key to success!

Please make a follow up to this game! More literature characters, more books, dare to do characters from anglosaxxon literature as well as today's literature! We'll buy it, right? The next massive IP?

If you're interested and willing to moderate and grow this community, please go to r/redditrequest, where you can submit a request to take over the community. Be sure to read through the faq for r/redditrequest before submitting.

Posting this to share info about various game mechanics that are not obvious or the game doesn't provide detailed information about. I will be updating it with more info if new things are found.

There may be some errors, because I'm inferring some of this stuff from gameplay footage, so please feel free to correct me.

Overwatch

• The chance to stun enemies is increased during overwatch attacks. By how much, I don't know, but it's very noticeable with Henry's Eagle Rifle.

• Weapons can have different costs when firing in overwatch mode. Notably, Punch Gun costs 3 (up from 1 in player phase) and Fox Rifle costs 3 (down from 4 in player phase).

Stun System

• Stun does not carry between turns. As soon as a turn ends, all characters become unstunned.

• Healing effects cure stun.

• When a character is stunned (be you or the enemy), all following damage hits do double damage. When receiving damage, a stunned unit can randomly lose it's stun status.

• Weapons have different chances to apply stun. Most seem to have a very low chance (that is increased by overwatch), while others can have a 100% rate.

Damage and Critical Damage System

• Critical hits (shots targeting an unit's weak point) do double damage. This will stack with the bonus from stun hits, meaning that, if you hit a stunned alien in it's weak point, you will do 4x damage.

• Your units actually have 2 weak points. The first one is the back of your boiler, where the light is emitted from. This works just like an alien's weak point. The second one is actually the head of your units (yes, headshots are a thing). But the damage multiplier for headshots is "just" 1,2x (20%), not 2x. This is specially true in multiplayer, where you will want to avoid getting flanked.

• The Steam Crossbow (and possibly other weapons) states that it does bonus damage on critical hits. It actually doubles the critical damage multiplier, meaning you do 4x damage when hitting weak points and 2,4x when doing headshots.

• The damage preview in the UI (flashing HP bars) does not predict these calculations, either for damage bonus or reduction. It only considers the weapon's flat base damage, so it can be very, very misleading.

• All damage modifiers seem to stack with each other, so the calculations can get pretty crazy. These include abilities, boilers, weapons, critical and stun hits, etc. At each step of the calculations, the values are rounded down, so there may be small discrepancies.

• You can test all of the above by simply shooting your all units. Amusingly, they will complain in different ways. And no Henry, I'm not doing KP duty.

Character abilities & info

John

• John has a hidden damage reduction ability. You must have noticed that he is actually a cyborg of sorts. The left half of his body is all mechanical. Well, hits in that area have their damage reduced by 33%. Seriously, the game actually takes into account if John is hit in his human or metal area.

Lion

• Lion's "Courageous" ability gives all of your team members a 20% defense boost.

Queequeg

• Queequeg's "Warrior's Spirit" ability gives all of your team members a 20% offense boost.

• Queequeg's Penguin Launcher does not have a defined range. The UI states "?", which seems to imply that the penguins actually have an "infinite" walking range and will explode only when coming in contact with an obstacle or enemy.

The Fox

• The Fox Rifle, besides being cheaper to use on overwatch, apparently has the same critical bonus from the Steam Crossbow.

Randolph Carter

• His main weapon, Unspeakable Lure, works differently in multiplayer. It will fire a random fake powerup, that when picked up, will explode for about 100 damage.

• His "Arcane Lore" ability seems to increase the critical bonus from 2x to 3x. It does not affect the bonus damage from stun and I have no idea if it affects headshots (it should, but there's no footage).

I got it down to 8 seconds can it get lower